OUT TODAY!! Hyden and the Gardener (MM) by Cara Adams The Millionaire's Grandsons book 4

OUT TODAY!! Hyden and the Gardener (MM) by Cara Adams
The Millionaire's Grandsons book 4

Blurb: Hyden Carmichael wants to start his own company but will his idea work? He’s planned to leave his grandfather’s company for months but it’s a huge step to take. And will he ever find his very own Mr. Right like his brother and cousins have done?
Oakley Munro isn’t sure he can trust this man in a smart business suit. His idea is radically different yet his house is almost empty both of furniture and people. It sounds like something illegal to Oakley and he isn’t going to risk his own business and integrity on something outside the law. He’s a gardener but he’s not planting drugs. Not even for Mr. Sexy in the Business Suit.
Hyden decides the only way to explain everything properly is to take everyone up to the cabin in the mountains. Maybe then Oakley will trust him. Maybe then they’ll get to know each other a whole lot better as well.

Buy link: http://www.bookstrand.com/book/hyden-and-the-gardener

STORY EXCERPT

Mr. Business Suit had dirty-blond hair, and light blue eyes, which were giving Oakley a thorough check over. Oakley didn’t mind. Plenty of people wanted to be sure they could trust the gardener before they contracted him to rip up their garden and landscape it, or even before they hired him to weed their garden. Not that this man had a garden, just a large field overgrown with grass and weeds and the white goat inside it. Unless there was a garden around the back of the house. Maybe he had one there, although most people preferred something more attractive at the front of the house. Still, it was none of his business. Oakley maintained his silence.
“I did a Google search on you and your business, Mr. Munro.”
If that was supposed to surprise him, it didn’t. Oakley conducted Internet searches on people before he began any expensive work himself. He liked to ensure he was going to get paid, not stiffed for his work and expenses.
“You’ve done some very innovative work that I really liked.”
“Thank you.”
“I’m about to radically expand my company in a new direction, and I need someone who can be both innovative and efficient. There’s a firm but guaranteed budget for this project, and you’d need to sign a confidentiality clause until it’s completed and I’m ready to go public with it. Are you interested?”
“There’s no problem about the confidentiality clause. I’d need to see the outlines for the project and the budget before I could comment on the rest. I can be as innovative as you wish, but the size of the budget has a major effect on the timeline and the consumables used.”
“What do you mean?”
“It costs money to hire bulldozers and ditch-witches. A man with a shovel is cheaper, but it takes longer to dig the hole.”
Business Suit grinned. “I take your point. We won’t need a bulldozer. The work will be inside.”
Oakley stepped back shaking his head. “No, no, sorry, not interested. I don’t do drug crops, thank you all the same.”
He turned to go as the man said, “Fuck. You shoot straight from the hip don’t you?”
Other people had said that before, but he wasn’t the one who’d sworn.
“It’s not a drug crop for fuck’s sake. It’s a house inside a glass house.”
Oakley swung back. “A house inside a glass house? In that case why do you need a gardener?”
“You’d better come inside. This might take a while.”
Oakley followed the man up onto a broad stoop and down a long hallway. He glanced inside all the rooms as they passed each doorway, and it didn’t make him feel any better. Most rooms were empty or almost empty. It sure looked like the perfect setup for a drug house to him. As soon as they reached a sunny kitchen at the back of the house, he said firmly, “I don’t do drugs. I mean that. Right now I don’t know your name, and I promise I’ll just leave because I know absolutely nothing about you or your plans. But I’m telling you straight, I’m not getting involved in anything to do with illegal plants.”
“For fuck’s sake you’re starting to sound like my grandfather. Which part of ‘there’s no drugs, nothing illegal’ are you not listening to? Some people in Sweden have encased their summerhouse in a glass house and turned it into a year-round, livable, sustainable home. Sweden, you might know, is a hell of a lot colder in winter than Ohio.”
“The idea is intriguing. Is that what you want to do?”
“I don’t think there’s enough of a market for it. But I do think there’s a market for a small two-room house, encased in a glass house and surrounded by growing things. Fruit, vegetables, flowers, herbs, whatever you think will work. There are plenty of rich people always looking for the new best thing to add to their huge estates. They don’t want to give up their private jet and their luxury lifestyle but they do care about conservation and sustainable living. This is the perfect thing for them. They can help the environment and enjoy the benefits of conservation and still be unique, special. I plan for each house and the glass house to be one-of-a-kind, built to the wishes of the new owner. Of course I’ll need at least one already built to use as a sales pitch, but after that, the buyers will choose their own designs.”
Oakley dropped onto a stool at the kitchen counter and pulled his sketchbook out of his back pocket, along with a lead pencil. “How big is this going to be? Where do you want the garden?”
“I want the garden to flow around the house. Vines or creepers over the porch railing, that kind of thing.”
Oakley nodded. “Ceramic pots of flowers or herbs by the door, maybe a passion fruit vine or jasmine if the owner doesn’t have allergies. I get it.” He sketched a simple rectangle for the house and then drew a garden flowing around all four sides of it, with some big trees against one wall of the greenhouse.
“Those trees will be on the correct side to provide summer shade but let in light over winter,” he explained.
Oakley labeled various garden plots and added in a box for vegetables. By now Business Suit was leaning over his shoulder going “Um, uh-huh” in his ear. Oakley rather liked the hint of manly scent coming from him and his warm breath tickling Oakley’s ear, and his senses. It was hot. In fact, Business Suit himself was hot and sexy, too.

Buy link: http://www.bookstrand.com/book/hyden-and-the-gardener