Grant said, “According to Ronnie, you hated all of us.” #MilitarySuspense #ContemporaryRomance #kellysjustice #SouthPacific #Vanuatu
Kelly’s Justice. I lived in Vanuatu, South Pacific, for 9 years and loved setting my book there.
Blurb: Kelly normally needs no help solving international security problems, but when someone from her past damages her reputation and threatens her life, she needs assistance. Joining forces with her old friend from the Australian army, now an expert on South Pacific politics, they destroy an island drug cartel and rescue kidnapped teenagers. https://books2read.com/SuziLoveKellysJustice
Excerpt
Grant stared at Kelly, disbelief written all over his face. “I can’t believe it’s really you. I tried to find you when I came back from Afghanistan, but it was if you disappeared off the face of the earth.” He winced. “To be honest, I wasn’t sure you’d want to see me. According to Ronnie, you hated all of us. Blamed us all for your problems with the higher ups.”
“What?” She groaned. “Damn! I might have known Ronnie would blame everyone but himself.”
“We all had our suspicions,” Grant said with a sigh. “But when your Lieutenant tells you something, you’re expected to believe it. No questions asked. Especially when that Lieutenant warned us that the brass had been so disgusted with your behavior, they’d spoken of taking legal action. We were ordered to have no interaction with you while they debated legal action, despite none of us believing those trumped up charges. We knew you’d never steal from the army and given how much you loathed drugs, we also knew you’d never get into bed with traffickers.”
“I tried to give my side of the story about all of that, but no one believed me. And despite the army being unable to produce enough legitimate evidence to instigate legal proceedings against me, they decided to force me out. Sweep it all under the carpet.”
Kelly looked her old friend in the eyes. “Did you believe I cheated on Ronnie? And with a commanding officer?”
“No! Hell no! I never believed that rubbish.” He met her eyes, his gaze open and honest, willing her to accept his words as the truth. “We had that conversation, remember? You and I agreed to ignore whatever attraction we felt between us, despite how much I wanted to do exactly the opposite. You’ve no idea how many times I wanted to drag you as far away from that bastard as possible. Get you completely out of that situation.”
She nodded. “But there was no point stirring Ronnie up. Everyone suspected that Ronnie was doing something illegal, so if I’d publicly split from him at that stage, I would have been involved. Our time with the army was coming to an end anyway and I’d already planned on getting away from him.”
She remembered very well that neither of them would take that step towards each other when she was already supposedly in a relationship with Ronnie. And Grant was far too honorable to ever come between two people who, to the outside world, appeared to be a perfect couple. In public, Ronnie claimed her as his girlfriend. In private, she saw very little of him, which was why she had suspected that he was doing more than simply cheating on her.
