dignitaries and other bigwigs. We were in charge of this one guy once who didn’t listen to a damn thing we said. It wasn’t until he found himself on the wrong side of a picket line, and got caught in a tear gas attack and was almost trampled to death, that he decided to do what we told him.”
“Lefty,” Walker warned.
Gillian was fascinated. Walker didn’t talk about what he and his team did, but she knew he wasn’t an ordinary soldier. She put her hand on Walker’s knee and squeezed.
“The last thing I want is to end up a sad story on the evening news. While the investigators told me they thought the risk was minimal, they couldn’t reassure me that I wasn’t in any danger. So, I’m keeping a low profile and going about my business…cautiously.”
“Good,” Lefty said, nodding. “If you’re ever uncomfortable for any reason, get yourself out of the situation, even if you think it makes you look rude. You’d rather be alive than be hurt or killed because you were trying to be polite.”
“Has that happened to you before? I mean, to someone you were trying to keep safe?” Gillian asked.
She saw some extreme emotion in Lefty’s eyes before he blanked them.
“Sort of,” he said with a shrug. “She was an assistant to the bigwig I mentioned earlier. She did everything in her power to get her employer to listen to us, but of course when he didn’t, this person was caught up in the danger right along with him. It sucked to realize she understood she was putting her life in danger, but couldn’t do anything about it because she had to do what her employer wanted or end up without a job.”
“That does suck,” Gillian agreed. “Did she quit after that? Find someone else to be an aide to?”
“No,” Lefty said flatly. “Not as far as I know.”
Gillian wasn’t sure what to say to that. It sounded as if Lefty was emotionally tied to this assistant, whoever she was, and she was a bit sad for both the woman and Lefty.
“Anyway,” Grover said, obviously trying to lighten the mood, “I’ve got it on good authority that if you want to try out the obstacle course after the competition, you’re welcome to.”
“Ha. Seriously?” Gillian asked. “That’s not happening. Although if you guys want to, be my guest. I mean, you’re obviously all in shape, I wouldn’t mind ogling if you wanted to strip down to your shorts and have a go.”
Walker growled next to her, and Gillian couldn’t do anything but laugh.
“The only ogling you’re gonna do is of me, woman,” he said into her ear as his friends all chuckled around them.
A man’s voice sounded over a loudspeaker just then, saving Gillian from having to respond to her jealous boyfriend.
“Welcome to another fun-filled day at the races! First up will be our seven-to-ten age group. If heat one could line up behind the starting line, we’ll get started soon!”
Gillian eagerly watched as six children, both boys and girls, lined up at the far left side of the field in front of them.
“Man, I can’t believe how nervous I am for them,” Gillian said with a small laugh. “I don’t even know them and my palms are sweaty.”
Walker grabbed hold of one of her hands and stroked it. “Not sweaty at all,” he declared with a grin.
Gillian rolled her eyes and focused on the field.
Within minutes, the first heat of competitors was off.
Gillian watched in awe as the children raced toward a set of tires. They had to run through them with one foot in the middle of each and get through the entire row without tripping. Then they ran toward low-hanging ropes and fell to their bellies and crawled under them. The next obstacle was a series of stumps at different heights. They had to jump from one to the next, and if they fell off, they had to go back and start from the beginning.
There was obstacle after obstacle, and it seemed with each one, the course got more and more difficult.
By the time the kids got to the end, they had to climb up a rope about fifteen feet to a platform, where they then went hand over hand from one ring to the next, across to a second platform. There, they had to jump up and grab a handhold, using their upper-body strength to pull themselves up and over an eight-foot wall. To get down, they traversed a spider web of