I Dated a Retired Hero by Viola Grace

With every date more boring than the last, Litha quits the BDC. Why did everyone else get the thrill of romance, and she just got to hear about it?

Litha is stuck with a patron who likes to tell her about his dates with other women, and she is stuck with endless picnics and horseback rides. They aren’t even fast enough to be interesting. Quitting used to be beyond her imagination, but now, it is all she thinks about. After her last disappointing date, she puts in her immediate resignation and settles in to think about her future. Working surrounded by happy couples for the rest of her existence isn’t something she is willing to do, so working from home will have to be her thing.
A call from another government sets her on a mission to absorb some radiation as it is what she is best at. Standing in a field and pulling in power from a decade-old bomb suits her mood. The Uraddans had been insensitive, or perhaps they had enjoyed the thought of contamination, but when she cleared the site, she headed home, only to be called back to open the old casing in the middle of the space.
She didn’t expect it to be difficult, but she didn’t expect it to be occupied with the loveliest man she had ever met. He clings to her like she is the last safe place on earth, and when she stares into his starry eyes, she feels that she just might be.