Chapter 6

Max walkedbeside Gabe just as perfectly as he had when they’d been on the job together. When he was out like this, it was hard to reconcile him with the anxious dog who’d emerged from his kennel slowly again an hour ago. He’d come out a little quicker than he had last week, unless she was just imagining that because she wanted it to be true.

She glanced at Lori, who’d taken some convincing to accompany her. She was a beautiful woman, and Gabe wanted to get to know her better. Spending time with Solo and her family over the past week was beginning to show her that settling down after a lifetime of Army service really was possible, and really, what was the harm in trying now that she’d decided to put down roots in Chicago? Even if it didn’t work out, a broken heart couldn’t be as painful as the injuries and scars she’d gotten from the insider attack. Although RB, Woodchuck, and Lightning were doing their best to prove freedom was the perfect way of living with their constant drinking, gaming, and dogging around.

“This really is a beautiful place, Lori, but it’s so big. How do you manage it all?”

Lori smiled brightly. “With a lot of help and a lot of passion.”

“I’ve only seen Beth around. You’ve got more people, right?”

“Of course. But the weekends are quieter, especially Sundays, because we don’t have the field trips,” she glanced up at Gabe, “or any visitors…usually.”

So she’d made an exception for Gabe. That had to be a good sign. “So I’m special?”

Lori laughed lightly. “Max is special, and you said you were going to be busy with your repair shop every other day. You didn’t give me much choice, did you?”

Gabe smiled inwardly; she’d always been a big fan of feisty femmes.

“And since then, there’s the not so small matter of you raising nearly $30,000 for this place.”

“What?” Gabe stopped in her tracks, and Max immediately sat beside her, sinking to his haunches. “What do you mean?”

“You commented on one of Max’s videos on our TikTok.” Lori pulled out her phone and flicked around the screen for a moment before holding it up to Gabe. “Look at the likes and views; it’s our most popular video ever, and we’ve gone viral a few times.”

Gabe peered at the screen. “Is that over three million views? And two hundred thousand comments?”

Lori pocketed her phone and nodded. “That’s not the best thing about it though. After you told everyone what Max had done for his country, a ton of people said they’d donate to the Sanctuary. After that, nearly $20,000 came in within a few hours with notes that referenced that video. It’s closer to $30,000 today.” She touched Gabe’s arm briefly then began to walk again. “So I suppose you are special now.”

A warm glow of pride bubbled up at the knowledge of how much she’d been able to help, and so easily. Being able to help Max felt pretty damn good too, and it must have scored some points—if Lori was keeping count. “That’s great. Do I get a gold star?”

Lori wrinkled her brow. “No, but you do get a not fully decorated cake. I was going to finish icing it while you and Max were on this walk, but you kind of insisted that I come along.”

“Homemade cake?” Gabe pressed her hand to her stomach. “If you make something every time I visit, I’m going to get soft real quick.” She bit back a smile when Lori looked her up and down then blushed. Gabe could get on board with impure thoughts if that’s what had just flashed through Lori’s mind.

“Don’t all beefcakes get cheat days? And I use a mix of sugar and sweetener, so they’re not quite as bad for you.”

Gabe laughed and flexed her bicep. “I don’t think I’ve ever been called a beefcake before.”

Lori prodded Gabe’s upper arm. “With baseballs for biceps, I find that hard to believe.”

“As long as you understand I’ve got some brains to go with the brawn, I won’t be offended.” Although Toni had told Gabe that Lori was gay, she hadn’t gone into detail about the kind of women Lori liked. And while Lori seemed to be impressed with Gabe’s appearance, Gabe had no idea whether that translated into a passing fling or something more substantial. She wanted to make it clear she was more than just a muscle head.

“I’m sure you do.” Lori opened a gate between a long line of trees. “Otherwise you wouldn’t be able to run a successful business.”

Gabe led Max through the gate and closed it behind them. “It’s not successful yet.”

“But I’m sure it will be. An all-women auto repair garage will be a big draw for a lot of people, I think. Especially women.”

“That’s what we’re hoping for.” Gabe paused as they got to the end of the small walkway, and it opened up into another huge field with a large driveway joining the main road up to Lori’s house. “What do you use that building for?”

Lori made a quiet noise that Gabe couldn’t decipher.

“Nothing,” she said and turned right to walk along the tree line away from the imposing structure.

“Seems like a waste. Can I take a look? If the garage does well, we might need a place to store cars before we work on them, and that place could be perfect.” Gabe couldn’t read Lori’s expression, and she didn’t respond immediately. Clearly, something bothered her about the place.

But then she smiled and gestured toward it. “Sure. I bet you can sniff the motor oil from here, can’t you?”

Gabe fell in step with her again, and Max walked alongside them both. “What do you mean? Is it where your gardener keeps their ride-on and tractor?”

“Not exactly.”

When they got to the building, Lori lifted the latch on the side door and tugged it, but it didn’t budge.

“Can I help?” Gabe asked, cautious not to swoop in and assume Lori would want assistance.

“Please.” Lori stepped aside and held out her hand. “Let me hold Max.”

She gave Lori his lead and pulled open the door with relative ease. When she turned back, she caught Lori’s gaze on her ass. Yep, Gabe was definitely right about a physical attraction.

“You could’ve made it look a little less easy,” Lori said. She went in and flipped the light switch then stepped back outside. “There you go.”

“You’re not going in?”

Lori shook her head, and her jaw clenched slightly. “I don’t need to; I know what’s in there. I’ll wait out here with Max.”

“Okay.” There was a story to go with the unloved building, but Lori obviously wasn’t ready to share. Maybe she never would be. Gabe stepped inside and couldn’t believe what she saw. Someone had clearly spent a lot of time and money setting it up as a garage, but it didn’t look like it had been used at all. Along the length of one wall was a steel peg board with every tool anyone could need hung on it.

Her gaze moved to the center of the room, where a vehicle of some sort sat beneath a dusty cover. “Is it okay to look under the tarp?” she called out.

“If you want.”

Gabe grabbed a handful of the tarp from the front and lifted it slowly, building the anticipation for herself. “Jesus Christ.” She recognized the distinct shape of the bumper wings and folded back the tarp to get a better look. “No fucking way.” She stepped back and shook her head. What the hell was the story here? Sure, it was in need of complete restoration, but a Ford Brewster town car? Sitting here, rusting and unloved. She pulled out her phone and took a photo of the front of the car’s grill to show Lightning and the others.

Gabe let the tarp fall again and did a complete three-sixty to take in her surroundings. Someone had some serious plans, but they’d never followed through. She didn’t want to make assumptions, but she didn’t think this was Lori’s abandoned project. But she could be very wrong about that.

God though, what a waste. Judging by the undisturbed dust, no one had been in here for ages. Maybe Lori would consider selling it, although all Gabe’s capital was wrapped up in the garage. Then again, maybe she’d let Gabe buy it in a couple of years when she’d made some money. She wouldn’t want to keep it—she’d always been a truck lover—but just working on it would be amazing. And when they’d finished the restoration, it’d be worth a lot of money. “That’s it!”

Gabe rushed out of the building with an idea she was sure Lori would be interested in. “We could bring her back to life,” she said when she got outside. “Restore the engine. Source some white wall tires. Give her a brand-new paint job—Solo is an artist with a spray can. We’d do all the labor for free, and we could get your TikTok people to fund all the parts. Then you could auction her off to raise money for the Sanctuary.” Gabe stopped her rambling when she finally registered Lori looking less than enthusiastic.

“It’s a wonderful offer, Gabe, it really is. But it’s too much. I know how much work it would be, and I can’t accept it because I can’t offer you anything in return.”

Gabe grabbed the bait and wiggled her eyebrows. “Are you sure about that?”

Lori bit her bottom lip and shook her head. “I definitely can’t offer you that.”

“Oh…” Damn it. She’d misread the signs somehow and mistaken Lori’s friendliness and interest as something more than just professional. She sidestepped slightly to put a little distance between them. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to imply?—”

Lori put her hand on Gabe’s forearm, and her touch felt electric. Gabe didn’t pull away, though the intensity of her reaction surprised her. Maybe it had just been too long since she’d blown off some sexual steam.

“It’s okay.” Lori removed her hand and ran it along the length of her ponytail. “It’s my fault.”

“Whoa, no, don’t say that.” Gabe resisted the temptation to reach out to her. “I’m to blame. You were just being friendly, and I got carried away because you’re so damned cute. I’m sorry. I’m an ass. Can we hit reset and just ignore what I said? I need to keep visiting my guy, and I don’t want to mess that up.” She stopped rambling and waited for something—anything—from Lori.

“Take a breath.” Lori put the latch across the door and offered Max’s leash to Gabe. “Let’s keep walking and talking. It’s complicated.”

“Okay.” Gabe ruffled the fur on Max’s head and avoided meeting Lori’s eyes. It wasn’t like she hadn’t suffered her fair share of rejections, and they were still painful in their own way. And maybe it was for the best. With resettling in a new city, getting used to civilian life again, and starting a business, Gabe didn’t need anything else to complicate her existence.

“Did Toni tell you much about my personal life?” Lori asked after they’d walked in silence for fifty yards or so.

“No, not really.” She didn’t want to cause friction between the two of them, and all Toni had told her was that Lori was a lesbian. Some people were protective of that kind of information and didn’t want to be outed without their express permission. Looking the way Gabe did, it had never really been a consideration for her.

“I’m not usually one for sharing my private life with a virtual stranger. But I don’t want you to get the wrong idea, so I’ll give you some idea of what’s going on with me right now.” Lori tucked her hands under her armpits and led them around the field toward a small valley.

Gabe stayed silent and simply nodded. Her mouth had already gotten her into trouble, and she wasn’t about to make the situation worse by adding anything else. If Lori had simply walked away, that might’ve been a better resolution. She looked down at Max and noticed his ears had gone down. So he was feeling the tension too, Gabe thought. She gave him a cuddle to reassure him everything was okay.

“I got divorced last year.” Lori made the sentence sound like she’d committed murder.

“I don’t need to hear any more. You’re not ready to get back in the field, and that makes perfect sense,” Gabe said.

Lori glanced at her and smiled, relief clear in her expression. “I appreciate that, thank you. But I still need to apologize for giving you signals that I shouldn’t have.” She tugged at her ponytail again then shoved her hands in her pockets.

Gabe relaxed a little, glad that her interpretation of Lori’s behavior hadn’t been completely wrong.

“I don’t get away from the Sanctuary much, so I don’t see many people other than my team and the vet if something’s wrong. When you showed up last week, looking…” Lori pulled her hand from her pocket and waved it in Gabe’s direction, “like that, I was knocked off my feet.”

Gabe clenched her jaw tight to stop herself from grinning widely. Good to know that she could still attract a beautiful woman outside the service.

“My reaction caught me by surprise,” Lori said, “and I couldn’t seem to stop myself from flirting with you.” She sighed deeply. “So you see, you’re not to blame at all.”

Gabe tilted her head slightly and smirked. “Well, I am to blame a little bit.”

Lori frowned. “How so?”

Gabe ran her fingers through her hair. “Because I’m irresistible.”

The invisible tension dissipated as they both laughed.

“Irresistible but not at all humble,” Lori said.

“I guess not.” Gabe noticed Max was panting hard, so she stopped for a moment under the shade of a silver maple tree. She unclipped the water bottle from her backpack and poured some into a collapsible bowl. Max sniffed at it but didn’t drink.

Lori got to her knees and looked into Max’s eyes. “He might be stressed rather than thirsty. We should probably head back.”

“Why would he be stressed?” Gabe dropped down beside him and rubbed the back of his neck the way he used to like it.

“He hasn’t been this far from his kennel base since he got here. We’ve been walking him a lot but always keep him relatively close to his new home. It’s all about showing him he’s in a stable environment, so he can relax.” She looked at Gabe and shook her head. “I’m sorry. I thought he might be ready to go a little farther away with you by his side.”

“Okay.” Weight settled in Gabe’s stomach as she looked at Max, with his ears fully down now and the whites of his eyes showing. In the back of her mind, the horror movie of the insider attack played without her permission, and she tried to blink away the images. She’d been injured in the same blast as Max and while she’d suffered no lasting effects, the fact that Max had tore Gabe apart. When she’d signed up for the Army, she’d known the risks, but her canine buddy didn’t. He’d been bred especially for the job, and he’d had no choice.

“Are you okay?”

Gabe refocused, slowly becoming aware of Lori’s soft touch on her forearm. “Yeah. I’m fine.” She emptied Max’s bowl and tucked it back in her pack before she stood.

“Bad memories?” Lori got to her feet and patted Max’s head.

“We all have them,” Gabe said. The way Lori took a step back made her regret her tone immediately.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have pushed.”

Gabe smiled, appreciating Lori’s emotional awareness. “We’re apologizing to each other an awful lot today.”

Lori’s returning smile was stunning, and Gabe wondered what kind of an idiot let a woman like her get away. She didn’t know the full story, but it was clear that Lori was on the receiving end of the hurting.

“I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing,” Lori said.

Max jumped up and tugged on his leash in the direction of his kennel building.

“I think it’s a good thing.” Gabe followed Max’s lead and didn’t pull him back. “You wouldn’t want to get to know someone better if they didn’t give a damn about your feelings, would you?”

“I don’t suppose I would.”

“So it’d be okay if I wanted to get to know you better—with no pressure,” Gabe said quickly. “As a friend.”

“I could use a friend. I lost all but one in the divorce.” Lori chuckled, and Gabe joined her. “Along with half of everything else.”

Gabe gestured back toward the building with the old Brewster waiting in it, unloved and in need of attention. The parallel to Lori wasn’t lost on her. “Except the amazing car and workshop.”

Lori’s expression darkened. “That’s part of a much longer story.”

“Is it one you’d tell a friend?” Gabe asked gently.

“A friend I know well, yes.”

Gabe opened the gate they’d come through earlier and waited for Lori to go through before closing it behind them. “Then maybe you could walk with us every week and get to know me. I’d like to hear that story, and maybe I could change your mind about me and the guys restoring it for you to raise funds.”

Lori opened her mouth, probably to protest.

“It’s okay,” Gabe said. “No pressure with that either. Just promise me you’ll think about it. And I promise you I don’t need anything in return.”

Lori looked at Gabe and raised her eyebrows. “I think you’re pushing our fledgling friendship by assuming we can make promises this early.”

Gabe shrugged, recognizing Lori’s playfulness. It was another thing to like about her. “Okay, you don’t have to promise me anything. But I’m happy to promise my new friend that I’m being serious about the offer. It’d be a pleasure to restore a vehicle like that, and I can also promise you that the guys would feel the same way. We could make use of those tools too if you wanted to donate them to our cause.” Gabe grinned, but she was only half-joking. Extra tools always came in handy.

Lori didn’t look convinced, but she nodded anyway. Gabe didn’t push, and they walked on in silence for a while. Lori clearly wasn’t comfortable talking about her personal life and had probably shared more than she’d really wanted to considering that it was only the second time they’d met. Even so, Gabe knew that she wanted more. She couldn’t honestly say that she’d ever spent time with someone she was attracted to without acting on it, so this friendship was going to be an interesting one that would test her self-control.

She glanced across at Lori, watched the way her long, wavy ponytail bounced down her back, the way the green hoody she was wearing made her eyes pop, saw how that same top molded around her breasts perfectly, and how the curves of her body flowed like the roll of a gentle wave, making Gabe desperate to run her hands along them, to hold her tight against her as they explored a friendship with very nice benefits.

She drew in a long breath and shook the thoughts away.

This friendship wasn’t going to be interesting. It was going to be torture.