Chapter 14

“Seemsto me that sex just complicates things unnecessarily.” Gabe searched the pile of tools Lori had donated and selected a shiny half-inch, open-end wrench for the bolts connecting the right side of the hood to the chassis. “Me and Shay have?—”

“Whoa, hold up.” RB patted the wing of the Brewster. “What’s with Shay? Are you embracing the civilian life so much that you’ve discarded our hard-earned nicknames?”

“It’s my preference.” Shay waved Gabe away and sprayed WD-40 onto the rusted hinge bolts that weren’t budging without chemical assistance. “I don’t want to have to keep explaining my Army name to everyone I meet; it’s like I have to come out as a scarred woman as well as a gay woman. I met a couple of people at the Sanctuary who used my given name, and it made me remember that I really like it.”

Solo grumbled then repeated Shay’s words in an annoying mimicky way. “You can all forget it if you think I’m okay with losing my Army name. Only my wife uses my real name, and she mostly shortens it to Han?—”

“Unless you’re in trouble,” Gabe said, remembering Janie curbing Solo’s nonsense with a curt use of her full name.

Solo rolled her eyes. “Yeah, but only then. Just because you’ve both made friends with a load of civilians doesn’t mean I have to suffer.”

Gabe frowned at Solo’s reaction, and Shay raised her eyebrows as if she’d expected the outburst. Maybe Shay had been right about Solo feeling left out when Gabe had taken Shay to pick up the Brewster. If this was her way of expressing her feelings, she had a lot of growing up to do to raise her triplets.

“Anyway, I was saying that me and Shay have a great friendship, and that’s due to not complicating it with sex, right?” Gabe directed her question at Shay, who nodded. “I can do the same with Lori: build a great friendship and not have sex. I can get all the sex I need from the women I meet in bars.”

RB jutted her chin and grinned. “Just like last night.”

Gabe shrugged and returned the grin. She wasn’t about to admit that her one-night stand had been less than mind-blowing. She would’ve described it as functional, at best. The woman had been more than satisfied if her very vocal encouragements and blasphemy were anything to go by, but it hadn’t had its usual effect on Gabe. There’d been no Zen moment of relaxation and peace after the woman had fallen asleep, exhausted in her arms, and she couldn’t get out of there fast enough.

“Ah, Cracker Jack, you have no idea what you’re talking about. I’m sorry to contradict you but there’s nothing better than having sex with your best friend, with the person who knows everything about you. That level of honesty and connection… It’s sublime. I mean, not everyone is as lucky as me. Plenty of people don’t class their partner, or their wife, or whatever as their best friend. And they like spending time apart. It works for them. But the strongest, happiest relationships are the ones like me and Janie, where you get to share every part of you. I had no idea what I was missing until I met Janie, and she made me the luckiest woman alive when she agreed to marry me.”

Woodchuck shook her head. “What the hell happened to you, Solo? Gabe was the one in the bomb attack, not you. You’re like a whole ’nother person now. Like someone cracked you upside the head, disturbed all your neurons and whatnot, and turned you into someone else.”

Solo shrugged. “That’s what love is. A wake-up call. I’m not someone else; love just made me the person I was always supposed to be.”

Gabe couldn’t help but be slightly impressed at Solo’s sudden show of emotional maturity in contrast to her earlier behavior, but Shay gagged loudly.

“That’s great for you, Solo, but Gabe and I’ll never have sex. Ever.”

Solo waved her away. “I’m not talking about you; I’m talking about Lori, the friend Gabe does want to have sex with.”

Gabe leaned under the hood and worked at one of the hinge bolts Shay had treated. “I think you’re missing the point, buddy. Lori doesn’t want to have sex with me, so I’ve made peace with that, and I’m accepting what she is offering. Which is friendship.” The bolt didn’t move so she popped back up and nodded for Shay to spray some more lubricant.

Solo shook her head. “So you’ve given up already?”

Gabe shared a look with Shay and clenched her jaw slightly. If she hadn’t been okay with the nickname, her second option had been Bulldog because when she locked onto something, she wouldn’t let go. Usually, Gabe could handle Solo’s persistence, encouraged it even, but today her irritation prickled under her skin. “It’s not about giving up. It’s about respecting Lori’s decision that she’s not interested in me romantically. It’s called taking no for an answer, Solo.”

“She’ll probably change her mind the more she gets to know you,” Solo said. “Will you let her have a second chance when she does?”

“There’s been no first chance.” Gabe twirled the ratchet in her hand, inwardly cursing the rusted bolts and wishing she could just get on with the job and be done with this conversation. “And she won’t change her mind.” She didn’t know that for sure, but it really didn’t matter if Lori did address her trust issues over the coming months as their friendship developed. Because if she ever found out about Gabe’s past with the Nelsons, she would never trust Gabe. And that she was sure of. Lori had said it herself: once a cheater, always a cheater. Gabe assumed that meant cheating from every angle, but she wasn’t about to ask.

“I bet she will,” Solo said. “Then it’ll be her bad luck, and she’ll be kicking herself.”

Gabe caught Shay’s eye, and Shay shook her head slightly.

“I could do with coffee,” Shay said. “Anyone else needing caffeine?”

RB made a show of checking her watch. “It’s two p.m. on a Saturday afternoon. Isn’t it beer time?”

“Coffee sounds great,” Gabe said, grateful for Shay’s artful interception before she blew a gasket at Solo. She still didn’t know why she was so irritated today though. Maybe it was the combination of too much alcohol, too little sleep, and mediocre sex that had ramped up her rage level. Shay had shown her the meditation she did every morning and suggested Gabe join her. Gabe had declined but figured she might well accept the invitation tomorrow morning before she headed out to see Max and Lori, who didn’t need a rage monster showing up at her place.

“Solo, can you grab an order from Bonnie’s just down the street?” Shay picked up her phone and tapped away on an app. “What does everyone want?” She looked at RB. “They’ve got a liquor license if you want beer.”

While Shay ordered, Gabe dipped back under the hood to attack the hinge bolts for some peace. The one she was working shifted a quarter turn, so she persisted with a slow and steady hand. “Hey, Woodchuck, RB, can you come over and take the weight? The bolts are coming off.”

“Sure thing, boss,” Woodchuck said and got into position on the opposite side.

RB slid into the driver’s side and reached through the hole where they’d already removed the delaminated windshield to help take the strain.

“I’ll be back in five,” Solo said.

“No rush,” Shay said.

Gabe chuckled quietly at her masterful redirection of Solo’s energies and continued to tug away with the wrench. After getting six of the bolts free, sweat began to seep into her eyes so she stood and pulled up her tank to wipe it away.

“You might want to put those away. We’ve got visitors,” Shay said.

Gabe dropped her top to cover her stomach and looked up to see Lori with an attractive friend beside her, both of them wide-eyed and immaculately dressed. And did Lori just bite her bottom lip? She couldn’t quite see because she hadn’t managed to wipe away all the sweat. She looked around for the giant roll of paper towels and ripped some off to finish the job.

Shay wiggled her eyebrows and smiled, making it clear she shared Gabe’s opinion on the friend.

Lori smiled brightly. “Hi, Gabe.”

“Hey, Lori, how are you?” Gabe glanced at the wall clock made from a truck tire. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize the time, or I would’ve cleaned up.” She pulled a ReadyClean wipe from the tub next to the paper towel and rubbed at the grease all over her hands.

Shay did jazz hands to show off her black latex gloves. “I keep telling you to use these.”

“I don’t have pretty nails to protect.” Gabe tossed the wipe into the trash and rubbed her hands on her jeans, but it was no use. She was in a mess only a hot bath and a damn good scrub could deal with, and that was just the way she liked it.

“This is my best friend, Rosie,” Lori said.

“It’s great to meet you, but I don’t expect you to shake hands.” Gabe saw the look of horror on Rosie’s face at that possibility and tried not to laugh. “And this is my best friend, Shay.” She gestured to Woodchuck and RB, still wrangling the hood, and introduced them. “Could you just give me a second to get these last few bolts out so we can take the hood off?”

Lori nodded. “Of course. Do you mind if I film you doing that?”

“Sure, no problem.”

After Lori had told her about the response to her TikTok comment, Gabe was happy to come on board with any and all coverage of their restoration project. That enthusiasm had only increased when she and Shay had pulled back the tarp on the Brewster back at Lori’s Sanctuary, and it became immediately clear that they were going to need all the financial help they could get to strip down and rebuild the car Shay had dubbed Cruella.

She waited for the few seconds it took Lori to retrieve her phone from her bag and set up a fancy gadgety little tripod. When she went back to work with the final few bolts, she made sure her flexing biceps were in clear view of Lori’s lens. Maybe Gabe could get the garage some business from the lusty women who lurked around TikTok, drinking up all the thirst traps on offer.

She removed the final bolt, and Woodchuck took the weight of the hood while RB scooted out of the driver’s side to help. Shay went around the car and indicated where they should lower it onto the large soft tarp that she’d laid out for all the pieces they’d be removing. Gabe watched while Lori moved around the car to follow the action.

Rosie cleared her throat beside her.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Gabe asked, hoping to cover the fact that she’d been staring at Lori’s sweet form as she filmed.

“Beautiful but incredibly fragile,” Rosie said.

Gabe bit her tongue softly to stop from grinning. So this was going to be the “Hurt my friend, and I’ll hurt you” spiel from a woman eight inches shorter and about sixty pounds lighter. But Gabe knew better than to underestimate the power of a feminine woman, particularly one with such lengthy, weapon-like nails. “It’s okay, Rosie, you don’t have to give me this speech. Lori and I are just friends.”

“Friends can be the ones who have the ability to hurt us the most,” Rosie said.

Gabe motioned to Shay. “Should I get my bestie to have the same conversation with Lori?” she asked and laughed lightly.

Rosie tilted her head slightly and arched her eyebrow, clearly not amused. She looked Gabe up and down slowly, and not in the appreciative way she was used to by ultra-feminine women but more like the way someone would when they were sizing her up to try to knock her down.

“You don’t look like the kind of person who needs extra care from her bestie.”

Gabe tried to stifle her amusement by biting harder on her tongue. She had to get Rosie on her side to have any chance of keeping Lori as a friend. They were obviously tight, and Gabe didn’t want to alienate Rosie by laughing in her face. “Looks can be deceiving,” she said, struggling for anything other than a cliché, then she decided to just try being upfront. “Seriously, I understand your concern, but you don’t need to worry. Lori’s told me about the breakup of her marriage, and she’s made it clear that she just wants a friend. And honestly, I’m good with that because I could use more friends now that I’ve left the Army, and I’m trying to settle into civilian life.” She gave Rosie her most genuine smile. “And then there’s Max. I don’t want to do anything that might jeopardize my access to him.”

Rosie nodded and looked like she might believe her. Obviously, Gabe wasn’t about to share the reason why she was no longer in a position to make a move even if she wanted to. That kind of information would give Rosie the power over her friendship with Lori, and she didn’t want to give her anything else to be suspicious of.

“Okay,” she said slowly, perhaps not yet fully convinced. “I’m going to cut you some slack for now, but?—”

“I know; if I do anything to hurt her, I’ll have to answer to you.” Mom, she wanted to add but was sure it wouldn’t land in the way she intended.

“What are you two deep in conversation about?” Lori asked as she approached with her camera still attached to its tripod.

“We were just discussing your TikTok channel and how great the response has been to this joint project of yours,” Rosie said without missing a beat.

Gabe smiled, as much in admiration as agreement. There was no way anyone could’ve suspected that she’d just pulled the protective mama bear act.

“Spoilsport.” Lori pursed her lips briefly and frowned. “I wanted to tell Gabe about that.”

“She didn’t get to the details,” Gabe said. “She was just warming up the crowd for you to swoop in with the big news. So what’s been happening? Are we good to progress with the schedule I sent you yesterday?” Gabe saw the miniscule twitch of Rosie’s eyebrow, and she took that as a nod to her playing it cool.

Lori clasped her hands together and smiled widely. “Yes! And I love that schedule, by the way, thank you.”

Gabe shrugged. “Who doesn’t love a good spreadsheet?”

Shay stopped short of a full guffaw. “You don’t, for starters. You should’ve seen her tapping out each line one finger at a time while I dictated it.”

Rosie’s laugh was genuine, and Gabe saw her lightning-fast appraisal of Shay’s body from tip to toe. She wasn’t sure if Shay had caught it too, but she’d be sure to tell her as soon as their well-heeled guests left.

“Is that true?” Lori asked, arching her eyebrow.

“Busted,” Gabe said. “I figured that you’d like that kind of detail to go with the contract.”

“Oh.”

“Hey, no, I didn’t mean anything by that,” Gabe said, hearing a hint of disappointment and possibly even hurt in Lori’s tone. “I’m just learning that you like things to be organized, and Shay said you’d appreciate it.” Gabe raised her eyes to the ceiling. “Though the color-coding thing took forever.” She smiled at Lori, and the grip around her heart released a little when she smiled back.

“Ah, that’s okay then,” Lori said. “For a moment there, I thought you were still annoyed by the whole contract thing.”

Gabe touched Lori’s arm gently. “Definitely not. I totally get that, and I’m glad it’s in place.”

“Me too.” Shay nudged Lori’s shoulder. “We wouldn’t want you taking advantage of us poor mechanics, would we?”

“You’re sure you wouldn’t like that?” Rosie asked.

Shay’s attention snapped to Rosie, and she gave her a trademark full-on flirtatious look. If she hadn’t seen Rosie’s appreciation earlier, Rosie had certainly made it blatantly obvious now.

“Only in the right circumstances,” Shay said and winked.

Lori cleared her throat. She took her phone off the tripod and thrust it under Gabe’s nose. “These are all the email strings from companies and individuals who have responded to our campaign so far.”

Gabe chuckled at Lori’s clumsy shift back to the original conversation. She looked at the list and nodded. “That’s a lot of interest.”

Lori pulled her phone back and opened an email. “Not just interest, Gabe. These are bona fide pledges from people who want to see the car restored. But that’s not even the best thing. Based on the estimates you sent over with your carefully crafted spreadsheet yesterday, I don’t think we’re going to need them all.”

“No way. You think you’ve secured all the funding already? That’s amazing.”

“And that’s why I wanted to be the one to tell you.”

Lori shot a pointed look toward Rosie, but Gabe noted she was too busy gazing at Shay to acknowledge her friend’s displeasure. “That’s got to be a record for you,” Gabe said, wanting to bring all of Lori’s attention back to her while Rottweiler Rosie was otherwise distracted.

“It is.” Lori refocused on Gabe and sighed deeply. “It’s amazing. We’ve gotten quite a few offers from parts manufacturers, but the Garrison family have offered to underwrite the whole thing…on one condition.”

Gabe’s stomach sank. Conditions equaled strings, which often meant someone else wanted to be in control. She steeled herself for bad news while trying to figure out how to let Lori down easy. Gabe had offered her team’s services, but only if they maintained project management. She really didn’t want to have a conversation with Solo to convince her she had to paint the Brewster in wild pink for some trust fund kid. She cursed herself for not putting that in the contract when Janie had asked if she wanted to add any conditions.

“Who are the Garrisons? And what’s the condition?” She expected the worst from an uber-rich family, who likely had too much money and too little taste.

“They’re regular supporters of my family’s work,” Lori said.

“Yeah?” Damn, this was getting more dire by the second. A long history between the two families was sure to mean no compromise, and Lori was about to get very defensive when Gabe put her foot down. She wasn’t about to risk her team’s reputation when they were only just starting out in the business.

“Yep. They donate a very tidy sum on an annual basis, but this offer is in addition to their usual support.”

Gabe looked over Lori’s head to see Woodchuck and RB glaring at her with their arms crossed. So they were listening in too. She held up a finger to Lori. “’Scuse me one second,” she said then spoke around her. “Why don’t you check out the other side of the hood? I’ll bet those bolts have soaked up the WD-40 and are ready to pop.”

They grumbled and gave her unimpressed looks before getting to it.

“Sorry, Lori. You were saying?”

“Coffee and beer delivery,” Solo shouted as she ducked under the front metal shutter. She held up the tray of drinks and an overstuffed paper bag. “Do I need to go back for wine?”

“That’s okay,” Lori said. “We just had coffee. We’re fine.”

“Great,” Solo said with a little too much enthusiasm before she introduced herself.

She gave Gabe her flat white and distributed the rest of the drinks. Gabe heard the hiss of air being released from beer bottles by the side of the car where RB and Woodchuck were and wondered how much work she’d get out of them now that they’d cracked open their first of the day. “Sorry again,” she said to Lori.

“No problem. You’re busy, and we’re interrupting.” Lori motioned toward the door they’d come in by. “We should probably get going and leave you alone.”

“No, no,” she said far too quick and loud. “I mean, it’s okay. You wanted to get some more video for your TikTok, right?” And Gabe needed to know what this damn condition might be.

Lori nodded. “Absolutely. I mean, we don’t need it to raise funds for this now, thanks to the Garrisons, but I still want to pump up interest for the eventual auction which, thanks to your amazing scheduling,” she said and winked, “we can set a date for now.”

“Can you tell me what the Garrison family condition is?” Gabe asked as vaguely as she could muster, even though the knot in her stomach had tightened with every second since Lori had so casually mentioned it.

Lori narrowed her eyes. “You don’t have to worry, Gabe. It’s nothing you’ll have to deal with.”

Given that Lori had seen through Gabe’s veil of disinterest so easily, she was going to have to get better at keeping her simmering attraction under wraps. “Okay, cool…but what is it?”

Lori raised her eyebrow in possible amusement, and Gabe squirmed a little under her intense gaze. That was new; she was used to maintaining eye contact in difficult situations. What the hell was going on?

“They’ve got a racehorse with some sort of leg defect,” Lori said, “and they want me to take it in rather than having it euthanized. Are we good? Or do you want to run an ethical background check on the Garrisons?”

“Nah. I’m good. We’re good.” In stark contrast to the ease with which Lori had read her, Gabe was unable to decide whether Lori was serious or not. She was able to register Shay’s delight at her stuttered behavior though and wanted to throw something at her head. She motioned to the Brewster instead. “Maybe you can film us removing the engine?”

Lori gave her a knowing smile. “Sure. That’d be great,” she said, set her phone on its tripod again, and moved into position.

As she and Shay worked to get the engine loose, Gabe had trouble concentrating on what she was doing and tried to forget that Lori’s lens was focused on her every move. But that didn’t work, and she found herself tensing and over-straining her muscles for effect—not for the thirst trap but for Lori’s benefit. She didn’t rise to Shay’s occasional smart-ass, whispered comments, but she did quietly promise Shay that she’d get her own back soon enough.

Solo operated the winch to lift the engine out once they’d gotten it free, and Gabe guided it safely over the Brewster’s chassis and mounted it onto the engine stand where they’d strip it down and rebuild it piece by piece.

Lori packed her movie kit into her purse, and Gabe was careful not to stare now that Rosie’s attention was no longer focused on Shay, who’d headed to the restroom.

“And I’ll see you tomorrow…when you come to see Max?” Lori asked.

Gabe liked the sound of hopefulness in Lori’s voice, like she was genuinely looking forward to seeing her again. “Absolutely.”

Woodchuck tapped Gabe on the shoulder. “Did you tell her about that?” she asked and jutted her chin upward.

“Damn, I totally forgot. Sorry, bud.” Gabe clapped her on the back and pointed to the camera that Woodchuck had wall-mounted. “Woody set that up so you’d have a time lapse recording of the whole restoration. She’s set up a second one in the back room where she and RB will do the spray job.”

Lori inspected it from where she was and shook her head. “That’s wonderful…Woody?”

“You can call me Woody,” she said. “It’s preferable to my real name.”

“Thank you, and thank you for that.” Lori gestured to the camera. “I didn’t even think about something so clever. What a great idea.”

Woody grinned, clearly pleased with herself. But a cold sweat crept over Gabe’s shoulders—that thing would be recording everything, including what they’d been saying, and then Lori would watch it and listen to it. She glanced at Shay, and if her expression was anything to go by, she seemed to be having the same lightbulb moment. “It’s just video though, right? I think you’ll have to put a voiceover or music on it to make it more interesting.”

Woody looked offended. “Audio and visual. I thought it might be good to give a commentary on some of the work as it was done.”

Shit. Gabe was sure Woody hadn’t mentioned that when she told her about the idea. Or maybe Gabe just hadn’t thought to ask. “We could do that after, couldn’t we? In post-production, or whatever they call it. There’s always a lot of cursing when we work, and TikTok closes down accounts for that sort of thing. I got a community violation notice for captioning a photo of us in the garage with Kick-ass mechanics.”

Lori pressed her lips together and wrinkled her nose. “Ah, that’s right. But the video will be perfect anyway. I can do voiceovers, like Gabe said, and maybe we could do a live TikTok at some point, and you could talk the audience through a particular part of the restoration.”

“We better go if we’re going to catch the salon before it closes,” Rosie said.

Gabe stopped herself from commenting for fear Lori would think she was making moves again.

“What do either of you need? No salon could improve on perfection,” Shay said, ripping the words from Gabe’s mind.

Her brazen comment was met with giggles and blushes from both Lori and Rosie, leaving Gabe wishing that she’d just had the guts to say it. Friends could compliment each other, couldn’t they?

Lori touched Gabe’s bicep, and when she instinctively flexed it, Lori exhaled a short breath. Of desire? Gabe kicked herself; she shouldn’t be trying to elicit that kind of response. She had to keep telling herself Lori was out of bounds. Maybe she should have a new tattoo to that effect etched in her palm. God damn Cynthia Nelson, and God damn herself for the path she chose.

“Tomorrow then,” Lori said and walked away.

She hooked her arm into Rosie’s, and they went out the front entrance. Gabe tried to keep her jaw from hitting the floor as she watched them sashay out with the style of catwalk models, then she turned and grabbed a beer from the bag Solo had brought in.

Shay came to her side and leaned in close. “God help you, Gabe, because I’d be powerless if either one of them set their sights on me. Screw the past.”

Gabe smiled but didn’t feel the emotion she put behind it. She’d love to screw the past, but that’s what had messed everything up, and now the past was screwing her.