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Well, a voice in her said.Not always.

“I don’t have a problem,” Jonas said, and he actually sounded... stiff. “It’s not unreasonable to prefer that the past stay in the past.”

Bethan did not gape at him, because she had control of herself. Barely. “Could you refresh my recollection as to when, exactly, I ever so much as breathed a word of the past to anyone?”

That dark gaze almost made her shiver. “I don’t like knowing that you could.”

Bethan looked past him, back down the beach toward the gym and the lodge beyond, as if the cavalry might ride in to save her from this. But no one else seemed to be around. Because the fact that she’d stayed to work out by herself was completely unremarkable, and it would never occur to her teammates to save her from it.

She jerked her attention back to Jonas because, as usual, she would have to save herself.

“I joined Alaska Force a year and a half ago,” she said,fighting to keep her temper out of her voice, but not entirely sure she’d managed it.Oh well.

He looked like a carving of himself. “I know when you joined, Bethan.”

Shewould notreact to the way he said her name. She pushed on. “Since then, I’ve watched other people come into Alaska Force. So I can compare and contrast the way that you react to new hires. And I can assure you that if anyone has indicated that you and I have any kind of a past, Jonas, it’s you. Because you don’t treat me like anybody else, and you never have.”

Bethan waited for him to reply. He didn’t. Because he might as well have been one of the cold trees, and she knew all too well that he’d convinced everyone around him that how little he chose to speak was some kind of special ops virtue.

When all it really meant, in her view, was that every time he opened his mouth his words were treated like pronouncements from on high.

“Then again, maybe it’s not the past that’s the issue here,” she said after a moment, and for once, did absolutely nothing to curtail the expression on her face. “Maybe you’re just one more boring, run-of-the-mill sexist jerk who had no problem with me when I was in a subordinate, noncombat position, but can’t cope now that we’re on equal footing. You wouldn’t be the first.”

“This is what I’m talking about,” Jonas growled, and he threw his sandbag on the ground, next to hers. It thudded against the rocky beach loudly.

And it took Bethan a moment to realize that the thing buzzing around inside of her was a very particular kind of high-octane anticipation. A hit of pure adrenaline, like when she was on a mission and things were about to go down.

It took her another moment to realize that she was prettysure she’d just seen Jonas Crow display his temper. Imagine that.

“I don’t like the reference.” His voice was that same cold growl, his dark gaze stark. “I don’t need anyone on this planet knowing what happened on any of the missions I’ve been on. I don’t talk about them, Bethan. And here you are, referencing one of the worst ones.”

“No one is here. No one is listening to what I reference or don’t reference.”

“I’m here.”

“Both Templeton and Isaac have been on missions with you, and I don’t see you maintaining boundaries and border walls to keep them at a distance.”

“That’s different.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Why, I wonder? What do both of them have that I don’t? Oh, right. Penises.”

Something flared in his gaze, and that muscle in his jaw flexed, but he only stared back at her. “If you want to believe that I have an issue with women, go ahead.”

One of the most maddening things about Jonas was that Bethan did not, in fact, think he was one of those who couldn’t handle female soldiers. She was intimately acquainted with the type. She knew overbearing males inside and out, and no one in Alaska Force had that particular stench around them.

Especially not Jonas Crow. She had no idea why he wanted her to think otherwise.

“Catch me up here,” she said after a moment, folding her arms over her chest and resenting him. For... everything, including this interruption to her workout, because she could feel the cold again, biting at her in every place she’d sweated. “You’re on a voluntary sandbag carry with me because... what? You thought you’d throw in a show of friendship to prove we don’t need mediation?”

“I don’t put on shows.”

“Good, because rule number one of a performance is to make sure there’s an audience,” she shot back at him. “Maybe you can tell me why you sought me out, in private and off mission, for the first time since I came to Alaska, to deliberately be obnoxious. What’s your endgame? Do you think that if you freeze me out long enough, or whatever it is you’re doing, I’ll leave?”

He studied her, and she doubted that she was the only one who felt that kick between them. It had always been there. She suspected it always would. But if he was going to act like he didn’t feel it, she was, too.

“The window for peak physical performance at this level is small,” Jonas said.

“Thank you for that non-answer,” Bethan replied. “You’ve had over a year to get used to my presence here. You clearly haven’t. That sounds like a you problem, not a me problem.”