“No! That would have been terrible.” She tried to imagine how the Sisters would have reacted had she done that. “I had to know the hymns and all the prayers in Latin.”
“That’s just memorization. We memorize shit, too.”
“We ate in silence whatever they put on our plates—usually rice and beans or rice and boiled frozen veggies. I learned never to hope for anything better.”
“We get stuck eating shitty rations, too, sometimes for weeks on end.”
“But, again, it’s not for the rest of your life. No, Mr. SEAL. The nuns have you beat there.”
“Okay, I’ll give you that one, too.”
“Being a Sister means surrendering your ego completely—and that’s something no SEAL or spec ops guy haseverdone.”
“Hey, are you saying we’re egotistical?” His lips curved in a smile that made his face almost unbearably handsome.
She shrugged, fighting to stay serious. “If the combat boot fits…”
He wrestled her down into the pillows, overpowering her in the most delicious way, then silenced her squeals with a deep, slow kiss.
God, he knew how to kiss.
He stretched out beside her. “Okay, I’ll grant you that nuns seem pretty tough. But you forgot something.”
“What?”
“No sex—not even getting yourself off.”
Of course, he would think of that.
“Believe it or not, I was too tired even to think of it.” She had to laugh at his expression of disbelief. “I’m serious.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever been that tired.”
“Not even during Hell Week?”
“Not even then. I kept thinking how, after I got through it, I could go home to my girl and get laid.”
“You have a girl?” She tried to keep her reaction neutral, grateful at least that he hadn’t saidwife.
“I did then. I don’t now.” There was a hardness to his jaw that told her this was a sore subject for him.
She couldn’t help but feel relieved. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it. I’m not into long-term relationships anyway.” He pushed whatever he was feeling aside. “How long did it take you to adapt?”
“At first, I thought the seclusion and silence were going to drive me crazy. But by the time I joined the cloister, I’d come to appreciate the stillness. I’d begun to feel the peace that Sister Monica mentioned. I think that’s where nuns and religious sisters get their strength. The hardest part by far was when Sister Monica cut my hair.”
“She cut your hair?”
Gabriela ran her fingers through her tangled strands. “See how uneven it is? She took a pair of scissors off her desk, had me kneel on the floor, and cut it short just like they would if I were truly joining the novitiate. It’s part of giving up your ego and vanity. I had to fight hard not to cry.”
He reached over, ran his fingers through it. “You have beautiful hair.”
She told Dylan about meeting dear Reverend Mother Beatrice, the Mother Superior at the cloister in Peru. “She treated me like a beloved Sister and gave me a real-world experience of living in a cloister before I left for the Mission of Our Lady of Coromoto. I adore her. I wouldn’t want anything to happen to her or the other Sisters because of me.”
“She became part of your cover?”
“Yes, she did. I learned so much from her.”