A Touch of Summer (2 page)

Consequences. She liked the sound of those. The ones following her escapade in London had been spectacular, to say the least. This could so work. She pressed her thighs together and was conscious of another narrow-eyed glance. 'What?' She shrugged. 'I’ll behave.'

Badly
.

She was willing to bet that Flynn’s boss would be there. If Niall Moore thought for one moment that they were sleeping together, Flynn would be off the case and she would be back in London where she belonged. Her father was three thousand miles away and wouldn’t be able to do a thing about it. Either way it was a win-win situation. Operation
Defeat the bodyguard
was back on.

TWO

The music soothed her and as the Scottish countryside sped by, Summer’s eyes drifted closed. She roused when Flynn tapped her shoulder. She blinked and looked around her. They were parked on the end of a stone jetty, facing a blue-grey expanse of sea. On the horizon, she caught a glimpse of green. 'Where are we?'

'Almost there,' Flynn said as he opened the door, letting a blast of cool salty air into the jeep.

A flash of movement on the water caught her eye. A dark dinghy raced towards them and pulled up at the jetty. Two men with tightly cropped hair and dressed in camouflage gear secured the boat then climbed the iron ladder onto the pier.

'Sir?' One of them addressed Flynn. 'Captain Fletcher sends his compliments, sir.'

'How is the old bastard?' Flynn asked. He opened the back of the jeep and pulled out the bags.

Both men grinned. 'Still a bastard, sir,' the taller one told him.

Summer opened the door and slid out of the jeep. She shivered and hoped that Flynn had brought a spare sweater; otherwise she was going to freeze. It might be summer, but obviously no one had told Scotland.

'Gentlemen,' Flynn nodded in her direction. 'Ms O’Sullivan is a civilian. She’ll be joining us on this exercise as an observer.'

'Very good, sir.' Both men nodded politely to her. One let his glance stray to her chest, where her nipples had formed two hard peaks in the cold air.

Flynn frowned and peeled off his sweater. He thrust it at her. 'You might need this. Come on. Let’s get moving.'

Summer stared at the small inflatable. 'Are you kidding me? I don’t travel in anything smaller than a cruise ship.' This would be cold and wet and far too close to the water.

All three men looked as if she had sprouted horns. She didn’t like the expression on Flynn’s face. He moved towards her and she braced herself. If he tried carrying her on, she would kick and scream and make a scene he would not forget.

Instead he stopped and said, 'Well, if you are too scared, we can make other arrangements.'

'I am not scared.' Damn him, she knew he had just played her, but she was not going to back down in front on the two soldiers. She told herself she didn’t care what Flynn thought, and forced herself to clamber into the shifting boat. It was even more unsteady than she had expected.

The trip across the bay was mercifully short. There was no protection in the small open boat, but none of the men seemed to mind being lashed with salt spray. As the boat swung into a rocky harbour, it began to rain softly. The soldiers jumped into the shallow water and pulled the dinghy up the slipway. One offered her his hand.

'I’ve got her,' Flynn said, with a slight edge to his voice before tossing her backpack to the soldier. He lifted her easily out of the boat. 'I can see that I’m going to have my hands full,' he told her, depositing her at the top of the rough slipway.

They followed the others as they climbed the path upwards and along the cliff top at a brisk pace. Flynn shortened his stride to allow her to keep up with him.

'Do you come here often?' The words were out of her mouth before she realized how corny they sounded.

Flynn laughed. 'Depends on whether I’m working or not.'

By working she presumed that he meant protecting her or even something more dangerous. She didn’t know a lot about Flynn, but the other soldiers had called him sir. As they crossed the grassy cliffs she noticed a couple of ruined buildings. Further away, there were more; a dozen wrecked houses close to each other. 'Do people live here?'

'Not for fifty years or so,' he told her. 'The last of the families left in the nineteen sixties. We’ll be staying in what’s left of the village.'

Small tents had been set up at regular intervals along the ruined street and near what was left of the church was a larger tent with a group of men dressed in military gear milling around it. Summer caught the scent of food and her stomach rumbled loudly.

'Looks like we arrived in time for dinner,' Flynn said.

Their arrival attracted several interested glances. She recognized one of the men. She had met him when they stopped at York on the way to the highlands a week ago. The tall blond giant was Flynn’s boss, Niall Moore, and the drop-dead gorgeous man standing beside him must be his teammate, Andy McTavish.

'I meant what I said about consequences, Summer,' Flynn said under his breath.

She smiled at him, but said nothing. Let him sweat.

A boyish figure moved away from the crowd and headed towards them. Flynn was punched soundly in the arm. 'Flynn Grant. You bastard. Why haven’t you called me?'

Despite the crew cut, the pixie-faced soldier was most definitely a woman. The stark, cropped hairstyle only served to draw attention to her large dark eyes. Laughing, Flynn blocked her next blow. 'Summer, I’d like you to meet Sergeant Tara Reilly of the Irish Rangers.'

'Reilly, this is Summer O’Sullivan.'

Reilly’s eyes raked her from head to foot making Summer all too conscious of her denim shorts and chipped pink nail polish. 'You brought a civilian out here?' Reilly said.

'She’s here as an observer,' Flynn said.

Observer? She’d do more than observe, Summer decided.

'Look after her, will you?' he said to Reilly, as if Summer were a stray dog.

Reilly saluted. 'Yes sir.' But her eyes were kind when held out her hand to Summer. 'Is that all you have with you? You must be frozen. Come on, I have some spare kit in my tent.'

Summer abandoned Flynn without a word and followed Reilly to her tent. He could go to hell. Dragging her out here and fobbing her off on someone else.

Reilly's tent was tiny. The whole thing would fit into her wardrobe back in London. And it held two sleeping bags. Surely it wasn’t meant for two people?

Reilly searched her kit bag and produced a one-piece camouflage jumpsuit similar to the one she was wearing. 'Here, pull this on.'

With difficulty, Summer shrugged out of her boots and sweater and pulled the suit on over her shorts and t-shirt before pulling up the zip. It caught at the bust, and Reilly laughed. 'They’re not designed for women. Wait ‘til you try going to the latrine in one. You may want to lose the shorts, otherwise you’ll be there all night.'

Summer lay back on the sleeping bag and wriggled out of the suit again. 'Why don’t they have suits for women?'

Reilly’s eyes filled with a quiet pride. 'Because I’m the first woman in the Wing. One of the first female operators in the world.'

'You’re kidding me. I thought that the army didn’t—'

'The SAS had a few non-combatants, and the SEALs have none.' Reilly grinned. 'I think that’s why Moore wanted me here this weekend. He has a bet on with Fletcher that the Wing will win. Having a woman on the team will really rub their noses in it.'

Summer zipped the suit up again and pulled on her boots. She couldn’t imagine any woman wanting to go into battle. 'What did you have to do to join the wing?'

'The failure rate is really high – about 92%. PT is the worst bit. They start you off with a ten-click run. You have to do that in forty-five minutes. Then you have a cross-country speed march with a thirty-pound CEFO & weapon. After that you swim 400m pushing a raft.'

'Every day, they work you from 0700 to around 2200, and after that you have to study and look after your kit. The best bit was the twenty-six miles trek in full gear over the mountains. The terrain was so bad that we were only managing one click an hour.'

'I nearly gave up then, but Captain Flynn kept roaring at me to move my arse, and I didn’t want to let him down. He got me through to the next stage.' Reilly didn’t bother to hide the admiration in her voice.

Summer didn’t understand half of what she had just said, but it sounded like torture. 'Flynn was your boss?'

'My CO,' Reilly said.

Summer couldn’t imagine doing any of that. What would drive a woman, especially one like Reilly, who was pretty under the bad haircut and lack of make-up, to do something like that? She felt a pang of shame for the way she had been drifting around London, shopping and partying, then dismissed it. Reilly had picked it. It wasn’t Summer’s idea of fun.

The fly screen opened. 'Is this a ladies-only slumber party, or can anyone join in?'

'Feck off, McTavish,' Reilly said as she threw a mucky boot at him

He caught it deftly before turning his attention to Summer. 'Flynn sent me. May I have the honour of escorting you to dinner?'

Summer got to her knees and clambered out of the tent. Only when she stood up did she realise that the suit was a little tight. More than a little. Reilly’s boyish figure wasn’t as well-endowed as hers. Summer had what her grandmother described as the 'O’Sullivan arse' and no amount of workouts in the gym could get rid of it. Summer tugged her zipper up higher, but the zip stuck stubbornly at her boobs—she felt like Armed Forces Barbie. It would take too long to change again so she would just have to brazen it out.

Flynn glared at the men escorting the two women. How had he managed to forget that when Summer O’Sullivan was around, men swarmed like bees around a honey pot? It didn’t matter what she wore. She had that effect. And he, the brain-dead moron, had made his job twice as difficult by bringing her to an island full of men with so much testosterone overload they could power the Tour de France.

It hadn’t escaped his notice that Niall and Andy were crowding over her as if they had a patent on stupidity.

Still, at least Reilly would keep an eye on her, and –bizarre thought— might even act as a chaperone. He trusted her to keep Summer safe.

Flynn headed for the clearing where fires had already been lit and the smell of steak was perfuming the air. He couldn’t wait to see the rest of the lads and catch up with them. He ran a mental tally of who was in action now and who might be competing. This was the Wing’s year, he was sure of it.

'Grant.' Fletcher greeted him with a grunt, but cleared a space beside him for Flynn to sit down when he had collected his food. 'Made up your mind if you are Scots or Irish yet? You know you’d be an asset to our boys if you made the right choice.'

Keeping one eye on Summer, who was now seated between Niall and Andy, Flynn loaded up his plate with two large steaks, three baked potatoes and a spear of broccoli. He knew from experience that once the games began, cooked meals would be a luxury. 'Nobbling the competition already?' he asked. 'Don’t worry. We’ll be gentle with you.'

Fletcher snorted. 'That’ll be a first. Just giving you the chance to save face when we wipe the floor with you.'

Flynn laughed and grabbed a beer. Fletcher looked more like a London businessman than the seasoned warrior he was, but it was a stupid man who took his blond GQ looks at face value. 'Well, that’s first and second place sorted. Are we beating the yanks into third place this year?'

A navy SEAL sitting nearby raised one eyebrow. 'In your dreams, dude.'

'Exactly,' said a voice Flynn hadn’t heard for five years, and had hoped never to hear again. 'You may as well go home now. I promise not to tell anyone.'

Flynn turned around slowly, giving himself a moment to blank his face before he met the eyes of Col J. Darren Hall. He was tall and broad-shouldered, with a natural air of command and cold laser-blue eyes.

'You’re still with the SEALs?' he asked.
How had the bastard not had a Dishonourable Discharge yet?

'Of course not.' Hall sniffed, ignoring the derisory scowl from the other American. 'I’m with Blackstone now. They’re the best, and I’m the best of the best.'

'Dream on,' Flynn said. Beside him, Fletcher looked from one to the other, picking up the tension between the two men.

Col Hall set down his plate full of food and a beer. Then he turned back to Flynn and stared at Summer who was flirting outrageously with Andy. 

Damn it.  Why had he asked the biggest womaniser in the Wing to look after her? He should have asked Reilly.

'So how is your little bitch now?'

For a moment, he thought Hall was talking about Summer, and the urge to throttle the bastard nearly overwhelmed him. But Hall had turned to Fletcher. 'Have you seen what the Irish boys have been reduced to? They’ve got their very own pet poodle along this year, and think she can beat the boys.'

Reilly. Hall was talking about Reilly. Flynn pulled in a breath. 'Our ‘pet poodle’ as you call her, will piss all over your mangy mutts.'