Page 9

Now that Lori had given Gabe permission to visit Max again, she’d find out in good time. But while patience was clearly one of Lori’s virtues, judging by her lemon trees, Gabe had always been one for instant gratification and hated waiting for anything. Still, the possibility of something developing with Lori would make the sixty-mile roundtrip to see Max even more worthwhile.

Solo stood in the doorway as Gabe pulled onto their drive. Gabe double-checked the time to see she was four minutes early, but in army time, that was considered late. Lucky for her, Janie worked on civilian time, so Gabe wouldn’t have already irritated one of her new business partners.

She put the truck in park and got out as Solo hurried across to her.

“You’re cutting it close, Jackdaw.” Solo held out her arm to pull Gabe into a bro hug then pulled back and waved her hand in the general direction of Gabe’s torso. “What the hell happened to you?”

Gabe looked down at herself and chuckled. “Max happened. Don’t worry, I’ve got a clean shirt.” She recalled the look of pure desire on Lori’s face when Gabe had offered to change her shirt after her time with Max.

“What’re you grinning like a maniac for?”

“Am I?” Gabe grabbed her shirt from the back of the truck and quickly changed.

“Jesus, you could’ve done that inside,” Solo said. “You’ll have all the bored housewives swarming around you.”

Gabe wiggled her eyebrows. “I don’t mind some gay-for-you action.”

“Then maybe you don’t remember the trouble that got you into last time.”

Gabe waved Solo away, uninterested in a trip down that particular memory lane. As she retrieved the gifts from the backseat, her watch beeped. “Better get inside; it’s twenty-hundred hours, and I don’t want to upset your beautiful wife.”

Solo led the way back into the house, and Gabe followed her into the dining room where Janie was placing a sizzling dish of something tasty onto a hot plate in the center of the table. Once her hands were free, she came over to Gabe and kissed her cheek before embracing her warmly.

“Welcome to our home, Gabe,” Janie said.

“Thank you so much for inviting me.” Gabe held out the flowers and champagne. “I’m sorry it’s not chilled.”

Solo snatched it from her hand. “I’ll stick it in the freezer for a half hour.”

Janie arched her eyebrow, and Solo ducked her head slightly and smirked. “Normal rules for guests don’t apply to Jacko; she’s family.”

Right on cue, something thudded into Gabe’s calves, and she turned around to see a tiny human holding onto a technicolor zebra on wheels just as she backed up and thrust the plastic animal at Gabe again.

“Tia!”

At the sound of Janie’s voice, Tia looked up with the perfect hand-in-the-cookie-jar expression before she burst into a fit of giggles. Bringing up her rear were her two identical sisters, though they had far less mischievous expressions. Gabe pegged Tia as the trio’s ringleader, and she had to stifle a laugh as she rubbed her calves and made exaggerated noises of extreme pain.

“I’m sorry about that, Gabe,” Janie said. “Tia, that wasn’t a nice thing to do to your Auntie Gabe.”

“Hidey boo,” Tia said and giggled some more.

“That doesn’t even make sense,” Solo said as she scooped her up, though she had to tug a little to pry Tia’s vice-like grip from the handles of her walker.

Gabe ran her hand over the top of her head, trying to get a handle on Janie calling her Auntie.

Solo used Tia like a guided missile and pushed her mini feet against Gabe’s arm. “Auntie Gabe is made of iron, Tia. You can’t hurt her.”

Gabe threw her a warning look, but Solo simply laughed and used the kid to kick her again.

“What’s wrong, Auntie Gabe? Is miniature me kicking your ass?”

“Hannah.”

Gabe smirked at Solo’s reaction to her wife’s simple reprimand. Gabe didn’t have the words to describe her expression, but Solo scuttled off to the kitchen with Tia cradled in one arm and the champagne in her other hand. “Wow, you’ve got her well trained. Our CO would be impressed; he tried for years to get her to follow orders without questioning them.”

Janie looked mildly amused. “Which was probably why she never got promoted.”

“Hey now, that’s not true. I was a specialist.” Solo returned with Tia on her shoulders, still giggling.