Chapter 10

Gabe’s guiltat prolonging lunch and adding a coffee stop was far outweighed by her pleasure at getting to spend more time with the enchanting Lori. She liked her confidence and sass, and Gabe would have to be a cold-blooded zombie to be immune to her physical charms, but mostly, she was simply enjoying Lori’s company too much to let it end.

And she’d loved the way Lori had blushed when Gabe held the door open for her. Lori was obviously an accomplished and capable woman, but her reaction also indicated that she wasn’t entirely against the occasional old-fashioned gesture. Which was a relief because Gabe wasn’t sure she’d be able to rein it in. It didn’t matter that she wasn’t making an outright play for Lori’s attentions beyond friendship; it was just the way she behaved around feminine women. But she’d had her fair share of lectures from women who didn’t like it, so she should’ve checked first. She’d misinterpreted Lori’s body language before. Maybe she blushed when she was irritated too. “Is it okay that I opened the door for you?” she asked before she made more of a fool of herself by pulling out Lori’s chair.

“It was. I can open my own doors and I don’t expect it, of course, but I do like it. I’d consider myself a feminist, but I don’t think that precludes me from enjoying little things like that.”

Gabe hurried around her to a table and pulled out a chair. “Then this would be one of those ‘little things’ too?”

Lori smoothed her skirt under her legs and sat down. “Most certainly.”

Gabe grinned and took the chair opposite her. “My buddy Lightning hates when I do it. It’s not like I think any less of a woman’s strength, mental or physical.” She shrugged. “It’s just the way I am.”

“Well, I like the way you are.”

Lori retrieved her tablet from her purse again and set it down on the table, making it clear she was ready to get down to the business they’d met to discuss. Gabe tried not to take it personally. Given the size of the Sanctuary and everything that was involved in running it, she probably had to be strict about her time. She could relate. Her time in the Army had been regimented down to the last second, and she’d been struggling to get out of those habits—until today, when she would’ve been ecstatic to have no plans so she could spend the rest of the weekend talking to Lori. It reminded her of the ridiculous rom-com movie Solo had forced her to watch where the two main characters stayed up all night chatting about anything and everything under the sun…and falling in love. Solo seemed far too invested in getting Gabe to settle down, like she needed her to couple up so they could go on double dates or some shit like that.

“Does your old-fashioned behavior extend to ordering us coffee?” Lori asked.

“Yes, miss.”

“Then I’d love a double-shot latte with two sweeteners, please.”

Gabe offered an informal salute as she stood and headed to the short line.

While she waited behind a short man whose dandruff situation made her take a step back, Gabe glanced at Lori. She had her back to her, so she wouldn’t be able to see Gabe admiring her from afar, which seemed like the way it was destined to stay. When Lori had talked about her outfit, Gabe had wanted to tell her how amazing she looked in that silk shirt and skirt combo. Soft and sexy was Gabe’s catnip. But instead, she’d acted goofy with a damn napkin. She shouldn’t be giving herself a hard time for keeping her charm in check. She had to if she was going to make this friendship thing work. She’d already decided that she’d rather be Lori’s friend than be nothing at all, and the last few hours had only reinforced that.

The barista took their order, and Gabe walked back to their table, where Lori had spread out some old-looking papers. “What are those?”

“This is the original vehicle title for the person who bought it new.” Lori pushed the vintage sheet toward Gabe. “All the paperwork was in one of the glove compartments.”

She picked it up gently, careful not to rip it, and noted the date of sale. “Wow, this piece of paper is nearly ninety years old. That’s amazing. Miss Marie Zimmerman?” Gabe smiled widely. “That’s got to be pretty rare in itself, right?”

“How so?”

“In the thirties? Women had only just gotten the vote a decade earlier,” Gabe said. “It’s hard to believe many unmarried women in the Great Depression had the kind of money and independence to buy a car like that.”

Lori tapped the section where the owner’s home address was typed out. “Isn’t Gramercy Park one of New York’s most famous neighborhoods? I think some of my family’s most prolific donors live there. She was probably just a socialite or the daughter of a rich aristocrat.” She wafted her hand. “But that doesn’t matter. I own it now, and we’re supposed to be talking about what you want to do with it.”

Gabe frowned, not quite believing Lori’s disinterest. “Of course it matters.” And it also gave them more to talk about before they got to the nitty gritty of the restoration project. Because after they’d addressed that, Gabe knew Lori would be gone. She pulled out her cell, navigated to Google to type Marie Zimmerman New York 1930s and then hit search. “Ha, bingo. ‘During the difficult economic times of the 1930s, Zimmermann was forced to limit her production of many luxury goods.’”

“So she was rich, whoopee. I’ll see if the family is still monied and try to get them to help bankroll the project.”

They were briefly interrupted by the barista bringing their drinks, giving Gabe time to scroll down some more of the search results. “Hey, she was an artist. A metalsmith, actually… She’s pretty famous.” She glanced up at Lori, who looked less than impressed at Gabe’s distraction. “This is valuable research,” she said and placed her phone sideways between them so Lori could see the screen too. “It could mean that the car will be worth more at auction if people want a piece of her history.”

Lori leaned in. “Really?”

Gabe smiled. That got her attention. “Really.”

Lori tapped the heading The Marie Zimmerman Center for the Arts. “She had her own art center. That is impressive.”

The page opened, and a large black and white portrait of Marie Zimmerman caught Gabe’s attention. “She looks quite masculine. Was short hair a thing for women in the thirties?”

Lori shrugged yet still managed to make it look elegant. “I have no idea, but you’re right.” She expanded the screen to increase the text size. “‘A nationally acclaimed metal crafts artist with a half-dozen employees, coverage in national arts magazines, and exhibitions from coast to coast.’ I’m starting to like this woman.”

Lori was close enough for Gabe to smell—No. She stopped herself. How cliché to breathe in the scent of Lori’s perfume…but damn, it was almost impossible to stop herself.

“What else can you find out?”

Gabe smiled at Lori’s new enthusiasm for their impromptu dive into the woman’s history. She went back to the original search page and scrolled down. “Can’t beat Wikipedia,” she said and hit the headline. A sepia portrait of Marie showed her with short hair again. It didn’t take long for Gabe to find more evidence that she might be family. “‘Calling herself “a craftsman” rather than an artist—’” she read out loud. “She’s got to be gay.”

Lori scrolled down the page until she got to the section marked, Later Life. “Huh, you’re right: ‘Zimmermann was an avid fisher and hunter and lived for over forty years with her life partner Ruth Allen, a former actress and screenwriter.’”

Gabe winked. “My gaydar is never wrong. Let’s look up Ruth Allen.”

Lori hit the home button on Gabe’s phone then turned it screen down. “You’re incorrigible.”

“I thought you said you weren’t in a rush to leave.”

“And I wasn’t, but the clock keeps on ticking…” She gestured wildly toward Gabe. “It’s like I’m with a time-swallowing black hole.”

“Wow, I don’t think I’ve ever been called a giant empty space before,” Gabe said. “But isn’t that a good thing? Don’t they say time flies when you’re having fun? Are you having fun? I’m having fun.” She was having more fun than she could ever remember having outside a bedroom, but she’d been warned about the cheesy lines, so she didn’t add that.

Lori laughed, shook her head, and blew out a long breath. “I am having fun, actually.”

“Ugh, that word. Actually. Someone should ban it.”

“Why? What’s wrong with it?”

“It’s like saying, I’m having fun, which I really wasn’t expecting. In fact, I thought it was going to be a total bore, and I wouldn’t be able to get away fast enough. But actually, you’ve turned out to be quite interesting. And against all odds, I’m actually enjoying myself.”

“I don’t even know how to respond to that actually,” Lori said and laughed. “It’s just an innocent little word. What’s it ever done to you?”

“Plenty.” Gabe crossed her arms and leaned back in her chair. “It’s a bit of a bully actually.” She picked up her cup and took a sip.

Lori held up her hands. “Stop! I’m enjoying this, of course I am, but I do need to get back to the Sanctuary soon, and I have to talk to my mom about our plans so she can activate our attorney.”

Gabe chuckled at the strange phrasing before its meaning began to sink in. “‘Activate our attorney?’ Is he a robot?”

“Sorry, that’s what my mom always says.” Lori picked up a spoon and over-stirred her latte. “This is why I was eager to talk about the project you’re proposing.”

So Lori had clearly picked up on Gabe’s discomfort, despite her joke. That had to mean she was expecting that reaction. “You like your alliteration,” she said. “It’s not so much of a proposal as a friendly offer, Lori.”

Lori picked up her Apple pen again and drew a rudimentary car in the top corner of her notes. “I get that, I really do. Can I explain where we’re coming from?”

“We?” Gabe asked then wished she hadn’t. “You and the car are in on this together?”

Lori gave a small smile. “The Sanctuary isn’t just me, Gabe. It’s my baby, and I took it on when no one else would?—”

“I’d like to hear that story.”

“You would?”

Gabe nodded. She wanted to make it clear that whatever was happening here, it didn’t affect their budding friendship.

Lori tapped her watch. “But not today.”

“Not today, because I’m a time-swallowing black hole,” she said and winked.

Lori turned her stylus over and over in her hand. “I don’t know if you’re still joking with me, or if you’re genuinely upset.”

“I’m not upset. I just don’t know where you’re going with this, but as long as you explain it to me, I’m sure it will be fine.” Hopefully…

Lori visibly relaxed, and her smile seemed less anxious this time.

“That’s wonderful. Okay, so the Sanctuary is part of the larger non-profit my family runs, Safe Haven. I can’t make any large unilateral decisions without running them past the board. And though I totally acknowledge that your offer was made off the cuff, I can’t just accept it and move forward without certain safeguards in place.”

“You need safeguards because you think I might steal your car?” Gabe asked, not sure herself whether she was joking or not. She was beginning to struggle not to take all of this personally.

“We need safeguards. Think of it as a memorandum of understanding, one that works both ways. Like I can’t take advantage of your extremely good nature and ask you to do more than you’ve already offered to do.”

Gabe nodded and continued to sip her coffee, allowing Lori the space to continue.

She frowned and put her pen down. “I don’t like when you’re quiet. It’s disconcerting.”

“It’s okay. I’m beginning to get it. Everyone involved needs to understand what’s expected of them and what isn’t, right?”

“Exactly.” Lori grabbed her pen again.

Whatever she wrote was in capitals, but it was upside down so Gabe couldn’t read it.

“You said you’d be happy to provide the labor for the project and that I could get donations from our followers for the parts and the paints and such, and I’d like you to have all the tools that are in the building too.”

“Yeah,” Gabe said when it became obvious Lori was waiting for her to agree.

“So we put things like that into the agreement, and then I can’t say that you promised to pay for a new engine if I didn’t manage to get it some other way.”

“Okay.” Gabe picked at a callus on her palm for a moment, then stopped herself, realizing it was a gross thing to do in public. “But if it was up to you, we would just go ahead, and you’d be happy with a handshake agreement?”

Lori’s silence was more of an answer than her words could’ve been.

“You don’t trust my word?” Gabe asked, trying to maintain her calm.

“I don’t know your word, Gabe. Or you. Not really.” Lori sighed deeply. “And I’ve been badly burned by a handsome butch before.”

Lori blinked rapidly and looked as though she’d said something she shouldn’t have…or didn’t want to. She was tarring Gabe with the same brush then. Jigsaw pieces of their previous conversations turned and twisted before beginning to form bits of a more solid picture. When Lori had first let Gabe see the car, it had been clear there was a story behind it. With that and the handsome butch comment, it made sense that it could be the ex-wife muddying the waters. “You think I’m a handsome butch?” she asked and wiggled her eyebrows.

Lori pressed her palm to her forehead. “I’ve got whiplash from you switching from serious to joker and back again.”

“I know, I’m sorry.” She shrugged. “It’s just the way I deal with things like this. And I’m trying not to be offended when this all started with a genuine offer to do something charitable for your rescue center.” Gabe held up a finger when Lori opened her mouth to speak. “But I understand what you’re talking about with your family’s company…and I’m also starting to get what’s going on in the background with your ex.” Gabe registered the slight panic in Lori’s eyes. She reached across the table but stopped short of taking Lori’s hand. “Look, I don’t want to pry, but if we are going to be friends, I need you to know that you can trust me.”

Lori stared at Gabe for a long moment before she clicked her iPad into standby and pushed it aside. Gabe could see the hesitation behind Lori’s cool expression, and she had to quell the instinct to find this ex-wife and hammer her into the ground, because whatever she’d done to Lori, she was having trouble shaking it off.

“I do want us to be friends, Gabe. And I know that you can only earn my trust by me sharing a vulnerability with you and seeing what happens, seeing if you keep me safe. But that’s harder for me to do…after what happened.”

Gabe nodded, wishing that she hadn’t stuck her finger in Lori’s emotional wound and wiggled it around. “It’s okay. You don’t have to tell me any?—”

“No, I do,” Lori said. “My therapist says that I do, and I’m trying hard to take her advice.”

Her smile was soft, betraying a weakness that Gabe regretted exposing. “Therapists don’t always have all the answers.” The therapy she got after the insider attack had done nothing but encourage her to have PTSD, which she really didn’t have.

“Still. I want to.” Lori took a long drink of her coffee. “If I’d known the conversation was going to go down this path, I might’ve suggested a bar instead.”

Gabe thumbed over her shoulder. “We passed an Irish bar on the way here if you want to relocate.”

Lori waved her hand. “No, no. I have to drive home in,” she checked her watch, “less than an hour. I should do this without the aid of alcohol anyway. But I need to ease into it and give you the whole backstory, if that’s okay.”

“If you’re sure,” Gabe said.

Lori placed her hand over Gabe’s briefly. “I’m sure. My family received a phone call from a lawyer nearly eight years ago about the Sanctuary. Except it wasn’t called that. It was just a farm owned by an old guy who’d died. He had no relatives, and he didn’t leave a will. But over the years, he’d collected a whole host of animals, some that were okay to own and some that he shouldn’t have had. No one knew what to do with the place. The state was set to take the assets, and they were planning to euthanize or sell all the animals.”

“That’s harsh. What kind of animals did the old geezer have?”

“Cows, chickens, and horses—all fine if a little neglected. But also a pair of mountain lions, three snow leopards, and five bears.”

Gabe shook her head. “That’s unbelievable. What the hell was he doing with all of those? And where did he get them?”

“No one had any idea,” Lori said. “Apparently, he was a virtual recluse and never allowed visitors.” She smiled. “Thanks for asking questions. It’s making it easier.”

“It’d be hard not to. Do you have any photos or video?”

“I do, but I’ll have to show you another time because it’s all on my laptop at home.”

“Awesome.”

“Anyway, the lawyer reached out to us because we’ve done extensive work both here and outside the US, often handling exotic animals and endangered species. Mom and I had just done a piece with National Geographic, and the lawyer had read it.”

Gabe whistled. “Wow, that’s something. When Toni told me about you, I had no idea how impressive you were.”

Lori shrugged and blushed slightly. “I wouldn’t say that.”

“You don’t have to. I’ll bet there are plenty of other people who’ll say it for you.”

“Anyway, I came over from New York to check it out, and I fell in love with the place. I’d just read a piece by Madison Ford in Time magazineabout how many service horses and dogs were still being euthanized even after Robby’s Law nearly two decades before, and that gave me the idea to start a whole new place, using the infrastructure already available.”

“This is sounding like a great story so far,” Gabe said. “But it has me rooting for a happy ending I already know doesn’t exist.”

Lori tapped her finger on the table. “That’s not strictly true. We’ve rescued nearly two hundred animals since we opened, including Max.”

The mention of her canine colleague made Gabe smile. “Good point. And I get to see him tomorrow. That’s still okay, right?”

“Of course it is,” Lori said. “He’s looking forward to it.”

“Me too.” And not only to see Max but also to spend more time with Lori if Gabe could convince her to walk with them again. “So you were saying that you had an awesome idea.”

“Right. So I put together a proposal, which the board promptly approved, and we bought the whole property, including everything in it?—”

“Like the rust bucket? Or did that come later?”

“Including the rust bucket, yes.” Lori sighed. “And the lawyer made sure everything went through as smoothly as possible.”

“The lawyer who contacted you originally, not your family robot lawyer?”

“Yes. That lawyer.”

Gabe sensed that this was where it got dark and complicated, though the sadness in Lori’s eyes was a pretty obvious clue too.

“There was an instant attraction for both of us,” Lori said. “And when we started spending so much time together working through the legalities and red tape for us to secure the property and handle all the animals etcetera, that exploded…” She stopped to empty her cup.

“Another latte?” Gabe headed to the counter after Lori nodded slowly, though she looked lost in her thoughts. There was only a small line, but it gave Gabe time to digest the story so far, and it explained a lot. Lori presented as a logical, thoughtful woman who liked to take her time to process every opportunity and decision, but she was also someone who seemed spontaneous and open, given her decision to take on the Sanctuary the way she had. Or at least that’s who she’d been before this lawyer person. Whatever happened had caused Lori to shut down and withdraw—and made it hard for her to trust again.

When she returned to the table with the latte, Lori was dabbing her eyes with a tissue.

“Hey,” Gabe said softly. “You don’t have to keep talking about this.” She tapped Lori’s tablet. “I could tell you all about what I’m going to need to get the restoration project moving.” Of course, that wasn’t what Gabe really wanted. Now that Lori had cracked the door slightly, Gabe wanted to wedge her foot in and ease it open wider. She had the patience to do it slowly, sure, but she wanted the rest of this story too.

“It’s okay.” Lori tucked the tissue into her purse. “I suppose I’m not as far along in the process as I should be.”

Gabe shook her head. “I don’t think anyone can put a timeline on these things. It’s different for everyone, isn’t it?”

Lori smiled. Well, she looked like she tried to smile, but her grief was clearly having none of it.

“Have you had your heart broken too?” she asked.

Gabe rubbed the back of her neck and glanced away briefly. “Not in the way you might think.”

Lori frowned. “What do you mean?”

Gabe squeezed her neck harder. This definitely wasn’t the path she’d wanted this conversation to go down. Her own vulnerabilities weren’t up for discussion here. “Family,” she said. “It’s complicated. A long story for another time.” With any luck, that time would never come.

Lori arched her eyebrow. “You know I’m going to remember that. If this friendship is going to work, the trust has to go both ways.”

“I get it.”

“So is it fair to say you’re the one who breaks other people’s hearts then?”

“Nope, that would not be fair,” Gabe said. “I’ve never had any serious relationships where hearts have gotten involved on either side. When I was on base, I was too caught up in the seriousness of my job to even think about love. And…” she paused, trying to decide how to put it in a way that wouldn’t make her sound bad or that Lori would find distasteful, “the little time I had between postings, I spent traveling and didn’t stay in one place for long.” It was the nicest way she could think of describing multiple one-night stands in over thirty states.

“You didn’t go home?”

“I didn’t have one.” She shrugged. “Like I said, it’s complicated.”

Lori glanced at her watch. “Time-swallowing?—”

“Black hole, yep. We should talk about the car then,” Gabe said.

“No, not yet. First, I’ll quickly finish my sorry tale. We spent a huge amount of time together, fell in love, and got married as soon as I moved into the house here. Things were good for a while. She discovered the rust bucket in one of the old barns, moved it into the building you saw it in, and blew a huge amount of money on tools and such. But there it stayed for five years waiting for her to restore it.”

“But she never did.” Surely that couldn’t be the root of the problem. People made plans then life got in the way all the time.

“Not exactly. Two years ago, she suddenly found her passion for it and began spending a lot of her nights and weekends in the ‘cave,’ as she called it. One night, I decided to check in on her and see how it was going. But it seems that she was working on a different kind of project, one on two legs instead of four wheels. All the time she’d said she was working on the car, she was actually working on another woman.” Lori took a deep breath then blew it out slowly, as if preparing herself to say the words. “I walked in to find her chin deep between her paralegal’s legs on the hood of that rust bucket.”

Lori’s body sagged, like telling the story had used up all her strength and she had none left to sit upright. Gabe experienced a similar effect but for a very different reason. That bombshell left her wishing she hadn’t encouraged Lori to open her heart and share her vulnerabilities at all. Because that nugget of information slammed the door shut on the potential to them ever becoming anything other than friends. And even a friendship could be on wobbly ground if Lori found out about Gabe’s indiscretion with the sergeant major’s wife.

God damn it. She sighed deeply and knocked back the dregs of her first coffee, planning to wash it down with something harder as soon as she was alone again.

“Gabe?”

Lori’s soft voice pulled her from her self-pity. “I’m so sorry that happened to you,” Gabe said, the platitude falling from her lips easily. If Lori knew what she was holding back, she’d think Gabe was being insincere. And even though she wasn’t, Gabe knew she represented everything Lori was running from, everything she’d suffered with the ex-wife. Even if Lori did learn to trust again, Gabe was certain that trust wouldn’t extend to her.

“I’ve got a feeling that she cheated on me multiple times, probably with different people, but I suppose it doesn’t matter. Once a cheater, always a cheater; isn’t that what they say? And worse yet, the paralegal knew me. She’d even been to some of our fund-raising events for the Sanctuary. It takes a certain kind of person to smile and play nice with the person you’re cuckolding.”

Could a woman cuckhold another woman? “That’s terrible. I can’t imagine how painful that must’ve been.” But Gabe had been the other woman too. She’d shaken hands with the husband. Saluted him. Played nice. Then she’d still bedded his wife. It hadn’t been her finest moment, and she certainly wasn’t proud of it. Even though the sergeant major was a gold-star misogynistic, homophobic asshole. Which was why Cynthia had chosen Gabe, of course: maximum damage. It wasn’t a story that she could ever share with Lori. She was way too damaged to hear Gabe’s excuses and justifications. Even though she did have a damn good reason for her actions, it wasn’t one she expected anyone else to understand.

That realization sank into her consciousness with the weight of a thirty-ton truck. She couldn’t outrun her past, and she couldn’t keep it from affecting her future. If only she’d had the strength to resist the temptation, though it had been more than that.

She looked up at Lori, even more beautiful and now even more out of reach, and remembered a passage from the Bible: He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, He will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.

Gabe didn’t want a way out, but how the hell was she supposed to endure this temptation?