Anyone But You

by K. G. MacGregor

  Though some pretense was necessary. Stacie rarely shared her real name, since the Internet was loaded with news articles about her family’s river shipping business, which was worth millions. The first hit would be the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s profile of how she’d fought against her family’s business interests by lobbying river commissions throughout the country to impose expensive and stringent conditions on shipments of petroleum products. As Marlene, she could enjoy a woman’s company without the specter of Pilardi Shipping.

  Nor did she want to talk about what else someone might find in a Google search—her string of arrests. Some women found her passionate activism difficult to comprehend. She likely would find it difficult too if not for the family wealth that made her advocacy possible. CLEAN was her full-time job, as much a business as running a medical practice, consulting firm or even an oil company.

  The hostess seated them in a wooden booth, and their waitress, dressed in a denim miniskirt and cowboy boots, delivered an aluminum bucket of peanuts in the shell and hurried off to fetch another glass of red wine.

  Cate said, “I hope you’re okay with this restaurant. I’ve never been here before but it looked popular when I drove by this afternoon. It was the only place I could think of to meet.”

  That explained the cocktail dress and heels, which were better suited to a fine dining establishment. Even Stacie felt a little overdressed for roasted peanuts. “I take it you’re not a local. Your profile said New Mexico.”

  “That’s right. And you…you’re from Pittsburgh?”

  “Born and raised. I’m here to meet up with a bunch of friends, so I didn’t know a good meeting spot either. This is fine though. Lively…the people seem friendly enough.”

  Cate tipped her head toward the bar. “Especially that guy in there who was so eager to introduce himself. So where are you staying?”

  “At a farmhouse in Hermantown. Things get really crazy with so many people in the house, so I needed to get out for a while.” She hoped Cate grasped the subtext—they couldn’t go back to her place if they hit it off. Hitting it off that well would be a nice surprise but it also was fine if all they did was have dinner and chat. “I’m really glad you popped up on SappHere when you did.”

  “That’s what I like about it. It’s so spur-of-the-moment. Makes it easy to find someone who’s just looking for company and in the mood to go out.”

  This was the usual routine to set parameters and expectations. Neither was looking for something with strings attached. Dinner, a bit of conversation. Maybe more if their chemistry was right, but not at all a waste of time if it wasn’t.

  So far Cate was perfect, and Stacie couldn’t resist the temptation to know more, even though SappHere discouraged sharing too much information at the first meeting. “So what brings you to Minnesota? July’s not that great for ice fishing.”

  “I’m here to work on a public relations project.”

  Stacy raised her eyebrows and nodded, trying to convey that she was impressed. She had strong opinions about public relations but doubted seriously that Cate would appreciate hearing them. The entire profession was geared toward controlling people’s thoughts and opinions by doling out certain bits of information and withholding others. In her own way, she was in the same line of work, but fancied herself as the antidote to corporate shills who twisted facts to suit their own vested purposes.

  “And what about you? Let me guess. You’re a model,” Cate said, showing off her dimple again.

  “That was pretty smooth, but we both know I’d need eight-inch heels to pull that off. The sad fact is I work for a company that handles freight. Really boring stuff.” Her position on Pilardi Shipping’s board of directors made that a true statement, though it was arguably spun in the sort of public relations manner she detested. Were she laying the groundwork for a relationship, she’d be more forthcoming. This wasn’t that.

  “Does it strike you as funny that we were the only two lesbians to show up on SappHere and neither of us is from Duluth?” Cate asked.

  “I’m sort of glad you turned out to be from somewhere else. It’s kind of sad to think about some poor woman being logged on every night in hopes another lesbian would come to town.”

  Their vivacious waitress returned to take their order—a six-ounce filet for Cate, medium rare, with a house salad.

  Stacie pointed to the menu. “Let’s see…I’ll have the sautéed mushrooms and a baked sweet potato—hold the butter, please.”

  By the look on Cate’s face when the waitress left, she was supremely annoyed. “If you didn’t want a steak, why on earth did you say yes when I suggested the Cowboy Grill?”

  This part was always prickly when she met a date at a restaurant. She suspected the annoyance was actually embarrassment, since her failure to order an entrée with meat implied disapproval. Nothing could be further from the truth. “To be honest, I just didn’t want to say no. I had no idea what other place to suggest, but I knew I’d be able to find something on the menu no matter where we went.”

  “So I take it you’re a vegetarian.”

  “Vegan, actually. My stomach is very sensitive to animal products.” Indeed, it made her sick to know the livestock industry was responsible for up to half of the world’s toxic emissions. “What matters to me is the company, and I’m very glad I came. I intend to enjoy my dinner and I hope you’ll enjoy yours.”

  Their first fight.

  “But if she brings us a basket of vegan bread, don’t expect me to share.”

  “Somehow I doubt that will happen in this place,” Cate said. “And if it does, I won’t fight you for it. I try to stay away from carbs.”

  “That explains how you stay so slim.”

  “Yes, along with forty minutes every morning on the stair-climber.”

  Stair-climbers were famous for producing rock-hard butts, and before Stacie knew it, she was visualizing standing behind Cate as her hips alternated up and down in a pulsing rhythm.

  “You don’t exactly look like a couch potato yourself,” Cate said. “What’s your regimen like?”

  “Yoga. If I don’t get at least an hour a day, I’m miserable. But not nearly as miserable as the people around me. It probably isn’t healthy to need something so much, but if I miss two days in a row I get so wound up I can’t function. And it isn’t just my body that suffers. It’s my brain more than anything.”

  “I know exactly what you mean. I do yoga every night too, usually before bed but sometimes right when I get home from work if I’ve had a hard day. I feel like I’m putting myself back in order, the same way I straighten my desk before I leave work or clean up my kitchen after dinner.”

  Stacie nodded. “I like the way you put that. My life gets really out of control sometimes. Maybe that’s because I always focus on the big picture instead of noticing all the little pieces that go into it. I’m going to try thinking of it as putting myself back together and see what happens.”

  “Maybe we should swap techniques. I could use a big picture perspective.”

  Yoga was a safe topic, one with the potential to reveal what a person was like without all the superficial details about work, family and interests. “How’s this for technique? One of my old girlfriends talked me into trying naked yoga once. She found it far more amazing than I did. I realized Gravity was female, and she’s a bitch.”

  Cate laughed and even blushed a little. “I’ve done Hatha, Iyengar and even hot yoga, but I’ve never tried any of it naked. The most adventurous I ever got was when I went with my mom to the Painted Desert. She went off on a hiking trail and I rolled out my mat on the roof of her car. It was surreal, like floating on a cloud.”

  Stacie liked the idea of sharing a yoga routine with Cate as they both let go of their day. Maybe naked yoga wasn’t such a bad idea after all.

  This wasn’t typical of the conversations she usually had with her SappHere dates. More often than not they warmed up by sharing their experiences with blind dating, all the whil
e trying to get a feel for whether this meeting would lead to another or end up in the dud pile. Such a cursory approach didn’t lend itself to really getting to know someone, but that wasn’t necessarily her objective anyway. Tonight she was Marlene, a woman from Pittsburgh with a sketchy life and no past to speak of.

  It was thoroughly against Stacie’s rules to probe for personal details, but Cate intrigued her more than most. Throughout dinner they exchanged the particulars of their respective yoga routines, describing the physical and often spiritual sensations they sought. By the time they finished their meal, her sense of kinship with Cate was stronger than what she usually felt on a first date.

  Stacie stretched across the table for Cate’s hand. “I can’t believe we talked all through dinner without either one of us checking our phone or looking at our watch. I don’t think that’s ever happened before on a SappHere date. You’re pretty damned charming.”

  Cate grinned and lunged for the check. “And you’re a pretty cheap date. We should do this again.”

  “How long are you in town?”

  “Depends on how long my project lasts. At least a couple of weeks, maybe as long as a month. You?”

  “Same,” Stacie replied, flashing her most suggestive look. Nothing ever justified an oil spill but this one had brought her to town at just the right time. If she could manage to stay out of jail, these next few weeks could be a lot of fun.

  Cate walked with her across the parking lot, the very picture of poise in those towering heels. She said, “I don’t really know my work schedule yet, but I could drop you a note when I get some free time.”

  “Sounds like a plan. Just do me a favor in the meantime. Stay off SappHere. I don’t want some lonely Nordic lesbian snatching you up.”

  “I will if you will.” That dimple again.

  Standing next to her Prius, they were shielded from view of the restaurant by a pickup truck sporting monster tires. Stacie tugged her close and snaked an arm around her neck. “I sure hope you like kissing.”

  Slick lips slid confidently, as though they’d known each other for years. So decadent was their kiss Stacie barely recognized Marlene’s persistent announcement. “Text message from Jenn…text message from Jenn.”

  “Dammit! I thought I turned that off.”

  “I hope Jenn isn’t your girlfriend. That would be bad news.”

  Stacie silenced her phone and tossed it into the car. “Even worse for Marty, since he’s her boyfriend. She probably wants me to pick up something on my way home.”

  “I should probably be going anyway. Early day tomorrow.”

  “Me too.” She fingered the chain of Cate’s silver belt, imagining how easy it would be to slip her out of that dress. “But let’s not let early days ruin our fun. Two weeks goes by in the blink of an eye. We can catch up on our sleep later.”

  Cate kissed her forehead and stepped back until only their fingers touched. “In that case, I’ll use tonight to rest up.” Then she turned and walked to her car, her calves rippling with every step.

  Stacie wanted to feel those legs around her waist, and she had a pretty good idea Cate wanted that too.

  She started the car, and as an afterthought, checked the message from Jenn. “Ethan Anders arrested. War has begun.”

  Chapter Four

  Cathryn stepped out of the shower and took notice of her nude figure in the full-length mirror on the back of the door. High breasts, trim waist and good muscle tone. Not bad for forty-four.

  If she could sneak out of the hotel after the morning press conference, perhaps Marlene would meet her for lunch. She’d proven to be more than her profile promised. Her tiny photo had been cropped from an outdoor snapshot, but in normal light her features were much softer. Obviously Italian heritage, with creamy olive skin and wide brown eyes. Long eyelashes and perfectly sculpted brows that stood out without even a hint of makeup.

  Such a find was frankly rare on SappHere.

  A loud pounding on the door startled her, and grew more insistent as she hurriedly dried off and pulled the flimsy hotel robe around her. If it turned out to be Woody or Amy, the building had better be on fire.

  She opened the door to a man of about fifty wearing boots and denim, and enough cheap cologne to choke a horse. His scowl immediately turned to one of the slimiest leers she’d ever seen, and she regretted not taking the time to get dressed.

  He tipped his brown leather fedora to reveal sweaty gray hair matted to his head. “Well, well. Hoss sure likes ’em pretty. I’ll give him that.”

  “Who the hell are you?”

  He hitched his thumbs in his belt buckle and rocked back on his heels. “Most people call me Mr. Depew, but you can call me Karl.”

  So this was the man Hoss and Bryce had hired to handle the “dirty work.” He certainly looked dirty enough, with his mud-smeared clothes. Clearly he’d been out to the spill site this morning.

  “Why are you pounding on my door at seven o’clock in the morning? Is there something that can’t wait until I get to the hotel at eight thirty?”

  “Why yes, there is,” he said, his voice dripping with faux politeness. “In the first place, we aren’t meeting at that fancy hotel downtown anymore. And in the second place, if you wait till eight thirty, you’ll miss the meeting that starts in fifteen minutes over at the clubhouse.”

  “The clubhouse?”

  He pointed toward the check-in office. “Where they serve that slop they call breakfast. We’ve bought up all the rooms in this here hotel so it’s ours. Fifteen minutes.”

  Cathryn normally didn’t make snap judgments but she was pretty sure she hated this guy. And she also was sure Hoss meant for her to keep her distance from his dealings. “I’m not exactly sure why you’re telling me about this meeting, Mr. Depew—”

  “Karl.”

  “My job is to handle the press and to coordinate information with the operations and legal teams. Your job, I presume, is to manage security. Am I right?”

  He nodded once. “Among other things.”

  “To the degree security is relevant to press relations, you may liaise with my technical assistant, Woody McPherson. He’s two doors down, and if he has any questions, have him call me.”

  She then closed the door and flipped the security bolt.

  With a shudder, she returned to her bedroom. After that encounter, she needed another shower.

  * * *

  Ethan appeared on the other side of a secure glass door and shook his personal belongings from an envelope. He looked frazzled, as though he hadn’t slept all night.

  “Are you okay?” Stacie asked. She and their lawyer, Matt Stevenson, had been waiting since six a.m. for a magistrate to set bail. It was a relatively minor offense—a sheriff’s deputy claimed he smelled marijuana during a routine traffic stop—but some jurisdictions were stricter than others.

  “I guess. A little freaked out maybe.”

  “The first time is always tough.” It was hard to ask kids barely out of high school to put their futures on the line by taking a stand. “After that you realize it’s a badge of honor.”

  Matt led the way to his car, where Ethan slumped wearily into the backseat. “Ethan, I don’t usually ask my clients questions like this but it’s very important I know the truth. Were you smoking marijuana?”

  “No! I tried it a few times back in high school, but not since I started college. And even if I did, I’m not stupid enough to smoke it in my car.”

  Stacie had been arrested once for public drunkenness when a cop at a protest site claimed he smelled alcohol, but she shot it down quickly by calling an attorney to the scene who insisted on a Breathalyzer. Fighting a marijuana charge was a little more complicated, but the idea was the same. “They have no proof so it’s just your word against his.”

  Ethan looked ready to burst into tears. “So basically I’m screwed.”

  “Don’t worry. Matt’s going to take you to a lab right now for blood and urine samples. If they come back cle
an the charges will be dropped. Believe me, this kind of crap happens to us all the time. Your questions at the press conference about tar sands must have struck a nerve. This is classic Big Oil and I bet I know who’s behind it. His name’s Karl Depew, or as I like to call him, Asshole for Hire. He makes a few contacts with the local authorities and gets them to hassle us so we’ll feel intimidated and back off.”

  Ethan choked out a hollow laugh. “It’s working. How am I ever supposed to get a job with a drug bust on my record?”

  “Once they drop the charges, the arrest record goes away,” Matt said calmly. “This’ll be over by the end of the week.”

  “And that’s when we push back, Ethan,” Stacie said, turning in her seat to face him. “From now on we travel in pairs, and we record everything that happens and upload anything outrageous to the Internet immediately. We need to get this out there in the press so the public will know what these people are up to.”

  He looked at her incredulously. “You expect me to write about this?”

  “Absolutely. We have to compile a public record. Call it something like ‘My Bogus Arrest by the Bullies of Big Oil.’ You’ll be a hero, a crusading journalist. That’s not a black mark on your résumé, it’s a gold star. And keep going to their press conferences and asking hard questions. Show them what you’re made of.”

  Matt dropped her at his office where she picked up her car. He’d scored her a critical meeting with a county commissioner who could help them navigate the local ordinances and secure permits for their big rally next week. It was getting harder every year to find officials who were willing to cooperate—not because CLEAN’s environmental cause or strategy was unpopular, but because Big Oil had spread its largesse up and down the geographical corridors they wanted to control, funding political campaigns for those who would go to bat for them against the public interest.