Page 48 of Sanctuary

Lori’s emotional reaction to her story and the invisible connection of solidarity and support surprised Gabe. And it was also strangely comforting to be understood without condition and judgment. “I’m guessing that’s not behavior you recognize in your parents.”

“I consider myself very lucky when I say definitely not,” Lori said. “But that’s a topic for another day.”

“With everything we want to talk about, I feel like we’re not going to have time for anything else.”

Lori crossed her legs and leaned back in her chair. “There’s no rush though, is there?”

“Nope,” she said but thought the opposite. She had a desire to know all there was to know about Lori and to know it yesterday, though she had a feeling that the more she found out, the more her attraction would deepen. Let the chips fall. The only way to stop that freight train now would be for one of them to move away, and that clearly wasn’t going to happen. But she was an adult, and she could handle those feelings. It couldn’t be that hard, especially when physical connections with other women would take the edge off. “Back to this story. I kept trying to be the daughter they wanted, but nothing was ever good enough. So when I was seventeen and a girl named Liliana came into my life on a foreign exchange trip and gave me my first lesbian kiss, I realized that I’d never be able to make them happy, so I’d try to be happy instead.”

“You came out?”

Gabe nodded. “And predictably, they kicked me out. School had never really been my thing, and I had no job prospects and no other family members who would go against my parents and take me in. There’d been a career day the week before, and the Army seemed like the only place to go to keep me off the streets. The last thing, and the best thing, my dad did for me was give his consent for me to join early. I never looked back.”

“Have you seen them since?” Lori asked.

“No. No, I haven’t.” She swallowed around the unexpected ball of…something as she thought about not having seen a single member of her family for twenty years.

“They didn’t even reach out when you were awarded your medals?”

Whatever Lori’s childhood had been like, it was obviously a far cry from Gabe’s, because her look of complete shock and disbelief was undiluted. “No, but I never told them either.”

“No, please don’t do that.” Lori pulled her chair even closer to Gabe and took her hands. “Don’t make excuses for them or lay any blame at your own feet. They failed you, Gabe, and now they’re missing out because they don’t get to see the amazingly kind and generous person you’ve become.”

The cold rush from the A/C vent almost directly above Gabe did nothing to cool the fire rising up her spine and into her face. Shay was a great friend. She was her ride or die and had been for nearly two decades, but this felt like a completely different kind of friendship, one that Gabe was almost too embarrassed to accept.

Lori was so close now that Gabe became aware of the subtle, citrusy-fresh scent of her perfume, and of the soft bounce of her curls, and most distracting of all, how full her lips were. So damned kissable. Gabe wanted to crush her mouth against Lori’s and not come up for air. She wanted to wrap her hand in Lori’s hair and press their bodies together, to feel the sexy softness of Lori’s curves against the hardness of her own. Everything else in her peripheral vision faded out of focus, and all Gabe could imagine was taking Lori in her arms and carrying her to the couch so she could drag her fingers along Lori’s thighs and make her way, slow and hard, inside her.

And then there was nothing but cold air between them as Lori pulled back and jerked her chair away.

“Thank you for sharing that with me, Gabe,” Lori said. “I can’t imagine how hard it was.”

That’s not the only thing that’s hard. Gabe squeezed her thighs together in an effort to stave off the swelling in her boxers. She drew in a deep breath and finished her second glass of lemonade, hoping the ice-cold liquid would work against the incessant heat in every cell of her body. She pulled on the memory of Cynthia and Sergeant Major Nelson to remind her why she and Lori could never be. Gabe was beginning to let Lori in, to let her see who she was, but she’d never be able to show or share everything. The kind and generous Gabe that Lori was so quick to praise had to be all Gabe ever revealed. Because if she told Lori what she’d done, the trust they were building as friends would be destroyed faster than a missile could turn a mountain range to rubble.

And she couldn’t risk that happening because this friendship was already turning into something too precious to lose.

Gabe tapped one of the paper piles on the table and noted all the colored tabs sticking out. “These are the contracts for me to sign?” She glanced at her watch. “I told the rest of the gang we’d probably get to the garage around four, and I don’t know how long it’s going to take to get the Brewster out of the building and safely onto the flatbed without damaging the wheels.”

Lori nodded, though she obviously hadn’t forgotten that Gabe had said she’d cleared her schedule and was in no rush. With that memory thing she had, she couldn’t forget.

“Of course, and don’t forget all the tools.” Lori unclipped her radio and checked in on Shay and Max.

“Shay says to tell Gabe she’ll meet her at the workshop. I’m taking her there now, and then I’ll walk Max and Junker back,” Beth said. “It’s okay to leave her there, right?”

“Yes, of course,” Lori said. “We’ll—Gabe will be over in about ten minutes when we’ve completed all the paperwork.”

“Ten-four, boss,” Beth said and clicked off the line.

“You’re not coming to oversee the operation?” Gabe asked, wanting every minute she could get with Lori. And she didn’t want that awkward moment to be what they parted on.

Lori huffed and shook her head. “If I didn’t have to see that car again, I would be a very happy woman.” She was silent for a moment before she glanced at Gabe and sighed. “But I’ve told my therapist that this whole project is symbolic of me getting the final piece of the lawyer out of my life, so I suppose I should come with you.”

Gabe smiled, her mood brightened considerably by the small concession. “Well, if you’ve told your therapist, then it has to happen, right? Accountability or something, I think.”

“Indeed.” Lori pulled one of the paper stacks toward her and flipped it open to the first colored tab. “And you’re definitely happy with everything in the contract?”

Gabe laughed. “Honestly, I only skimmed it. But Janie has read it, and that’s good enough for me. The gist of it is that we’re both promising not to screw each other over, right?”

Lori nodded. “That’s a great way of condensing about fifty-thousand words of legal language, yeah.”

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