Munro Operation Flower Petal (Military Men, #6)

1. Auflage 2021
ISBN: 978-0-9951395-6-5
Verlag: Shelley Munro
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 280 Seiten

Reihe: Military Men

He falls for her...literally.
Since her husband's murder, Ada Buckingham's life has comprised one calamity after another, and the hits keep coming, yet each day, she picks herself up and begins again.

Military man Matt Townsend, AKA Frog, expects a challenging assignment when he agrees to train soldiers in tough country terrain. The rules: stay away from the old lady's flowers and notify her of days or nights with flash-bang.

Easy, right?

On arrival via parachute, he plummets into the lady's flowers. The sexy spitfire who confronts him isn't the maiden aunt-type he imagined, but man, she intrigues and entices him, and he's eager to learn more.

Matt is quick to insert himself into her life, and his mission evolves once he learns something is hinky and dangerous in the world of Ada. While he fell arse over teakettle, Ada is slower to believe or trust, but Matt is confident in his charm and brings his A-game. Now all he needs to do is keep her safe.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Munro, Shelley

Leseproben

3 – Spitfire Alert

Ada heard the plane fly overhead and stopped work to walk outside. She glimpsed the cat before she lifted her gaze to search for the aircraft. Men or women leaped out, one after the other without hesitation. She shuddered. No way would she ever jump from a plane, even if there was a parachute attached to her back.

Her phone rang, and after a glance at the screen, she answered. “Hi, Sherry.”

“Oh, Ada,” her neighbor said. “Are you all right? The grapevine says you had trouble at your place last night. Everyone was talking about it today.”

“Huh, that didn’t take long,” Ada said, thinking the mailman had a big mouth. “I’m fine. Someone spray-painted the side of my shed. I took pics and sent them to the local cop. He’s been out to take photos too.”

“You didn’t hear anything?” Sherry asked, concern in her voice.

“Not a thing.” Ada’s skin crawled at the idea of people creeping around her property. The cop had suggested she get a dog, and she was seriously considering this recommendation.

“I’m so sorry. Bart and I had friends over for a barbecue. It was a lovely evening we sat outside until late. Sound travels at night, so I’m certain we would’ve noticed anything untoward.”

“It’s not your fault. I’ve reported the vandalism, and that’s all I can do at this stage. Although it’s frustrating. I don’t know why they’re victimizing me. I keep to myself and never cause trouble.”

Sherry cleared her throat, and everything inside Ada went cold.

No, please don’t mention what I think you’re going to say.

“Do you think this is something to do with Greg’s murder?”

“No,” Ada said in a sharp voice. She was tired of the gossip and the innuendos and the well-meaning people who kept telling her she needed to move on. After all, it had been three years. Greg wouldn’t want her to be unhappy.

“I’m sorry,” Sherry said in a small voice. “You have so much trouble at your place.”

“Not really,” Ada corrected. “The cop I spoke with thinks my problem is teenagers acting stupid. He’s more worried about the thefts in the district. Did you hear? George Carole’s prize yearling bulls have vanished, and the cop told me Meredith and Paul Jones had a quad bike spirited away last night.”

“There was talk at the farmers’ market today,” Sherry said.

Ada turned when someone shouted. “I’ve gotta go, Sherry. Thanks for calling.” She cut Sherry off mid-sentence and started running. “Hey! Hey, you! Don’t land in my flowers. Don’t!” she screeched.

But it was too late.

The parachutist landed in her pink delphiniums.

Ada marched over to a second man who had missed the flowers and was packing his parachute.

“Your boss assured me you’d stay away from my flowers,” she snapped. “You have the entire run of the hill section. The only place I stated was out of bounds were my flower fields.”

“I know.” The man pulled a face. “I’m sorry. A gust of wind caught us. We tried to miss your flowers. Frog, especially.”

Ada glared at the hapless man who was trying to stand and crushing more of her delphiniums. “Stop moving,” she snapped. “You’re making things worse.”

The man froze before turning to gaze at her. “I’m so sorry,” he said in a pleasant baritone. “The wind ripped over the ridge and dragged us off course. The rest of my team landed in the jump zone.”

“Do you realize the damage you’ve caused?” Ada suddenly felt off-balance.

The man not only had a sexy voice, but he was gorgeous. Tall with broad shoulders. Short, but not too short brown hair. Bright blue eyes. Facial hair that skimmed his chin and framed his mouth…

Muttering under her breath, she ripped her gaze off him and focused on the damage he’d inflicted on her poor flowers. The man and his parachute had flattened dozens of stems. If she worked quickly, she could harvest the blooms before the plants died. Because one glance told her there was no fixing this catastrophe.

“I’m sorry,” the man said. “I’ll do anything I can to fix the damage.”

“It’s too late,” Ada snapped, incensed over again. Was it too much to ask one thing?

One. Thing.

The man studied the flowers and frowned. “I truly am sorry.”

Ada glared at him, her mind busily working on a way to get him out of her flowers without inflicting more damage.

Matt tried to stop staring at the irate woman glowering at him as if he’d committed murder. He hated upsetting anyone, but this truly hadn’t been his fault. She was lucky Hemi hadn’t landed in her flower patch too.

“Frog, what next?” Hemi asked. “Can you pick up your chute and hand it to us, so it doesn’t crush any more of the lady’s flowers?”

“Ada Buckingham,” the woman snapped.

Matt felt his eyes widen. This was Ada Buckingham? He’d pictured a little old lady. This woman looked younger than him. Perhaps late twenties to his early thirties. She wore her long black hair tied in a ponytail, and it gleamed with health. Her eyes were a light blue or gray. He couldn’t tell from where he stood. Her black brows were determined slashes above her eyes while she had a smattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose. His gaze wandered over her stubborn chin to her chest and upper torso, encased in a T-shirt with the words Hot Babe emblazoned on the front.

The fabric lovingly hugged her shape, and it was a busty one. Matt hissed out a sigh. She was beautiful and just his type. Not that she’d give him a second chance now that he’d crushed her flowers.

“Frog. Also known as Matt Townsend.” Matt raised his chute a bit at a time, wincing when the flowers didn’t spring back to their former position. He inhaled and didn’t get a floral perfume at all. “Why don’t these plants smell like flowers?”

“Delphiniums don’t have a scent. I grow them for their petals.”

“Oh,” he said, none the wiser from her explanation.

“What do you do with the petals?” Hemi asked, saving Matt from asking.

“I dry them and sell them as confetti.” Ada eyed his chute as he gathered it into his hands.

“I’ll come closer to take the chute weight,” Hemi said.

Matt grimaced, studying the surrounding ground. Hell, he’d done a job on these blooms.

“Wait,” Ada demanded. “Let me pick the flowers before you trample them.” She scooted in front of Hemi and bent over, rapidly picking the flower heads rather than the stems. She used her jumper as a container, making several trips before she’d retrieved most of the blooms between Matt and where she and Hemi stood.

Matt caught Hemi studying Ada’s backside and winged his soldier a warning glare. Hemi grinned and shifted closer to Ada. He whipped off his T-shirt to reveal a muscular and tattooed chest. From what Matt saw, she didn’t even blink when Hemi told her he’d hold the flowers in his shirt while she picked.

That she was still angry, he had no doubt. Her stiff shoulders and low mutters told him of her fury. Once again, he wondered how he could fix this. When he came up blank, he asked her.

“What can I do to make this right?”

She straightened and met his gaze. He steeled himself against the punch of heat that struck him. It still packed a wallop.

Typically, he never had problems pulling a bird when he wanted one.

This woman looked as if she might tell him to piss off. Now wasn’t the right time to ask her out for a drink or dinner.

“I’m short of workers,” she said finally. “The people I’d organized to come next weekend are picking elsewhere instead.”

Hell, her day sounded as if it had been as crappy as his.

An idea came to him. “How many do you need?”

“As many as I can get,” she replied. “But at least twenty to thirty. That means I’ll get the entire area picked in one day, or enough that I can finish the rest on my own. I intend to pick tomorrow since the weather forecast is better than today.”

Matt nodded in acknowledgment. “Will those flowers still make decent confetti?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Good, my men and I will help you pick for a couple of hours each day this week, and I think I can rustle up a few people for the weekend. Not the number you want, but it will be a start. It might be enough if we pick flowers for you during the week.”

She glanced at Hemi, who was staring at Frog open-mouthed. Ada straightened. “What time will you be here?”

“We need to conduct the exercises we’ve planned for the soldiers, but we should finish by four if we start early. That way, we can pick from four until six. On the nights where we have exercises, we’ll pick before we start.”

“Ah, boss,” Hemi said.

Matt shot him a stern gaze, and Hemi thankfully shut up. “We’ll discuss it back at camp. Ada, can I move now? My legs are turning numb.”

She scanned the flowers in front of him, plucked more blossoms before nodding. “Yes.”

Matt placed his feet with care as he made his way toward where Hemi and Ada waited. Hemi accepted his parachute and walked to a clear space where he efficiently rolled it up.

Matt’s radio buzzed. “Yeah,” he said, not taking his gaze off Ada. The woman was natural and sexy with no artifice about her.

“Where are you?”

“Gust of wind took us. It’s going to take Hemi and me awhile to hike up to the campsite.”

A chuckle came, and Matt knew he and Hemi were in for a world of teasing once they arrived at camp.

“We’ll expect the...