Fast Women

by Jennifer Crusie

  “I’ll be damned,” Riley said. “Good for you.”

  “No, not good for her,” Gabe said savagely. “I very much want to talk to Lynnie, which may be a little harder now that she knows we’re on to her.”

  Nell put the money on the desk. “I’m sorry I let her know we knew, but I got you the money back. I helped.”

  He didn’t look impressed. I’m fired, she thought.

  “Okay, listen,” she said, talking faster than she ever had in her life. “I know you’re mad, but I still think I did the right thing. I think this is a great agency, but it needs some help with the office, and part of that is getting the finances back in shape, and they’re in a lot better shape now because of what I did, and I did not break the law, I didn’t even break all the agency rules, and anyway the third one doesn’t count because I didn’t know about it.” She stopped as Riley closed his eyes, and Gabe jerked his head up.

  “I really think this is a great agency,” she finished.

  “Thank you,” Gabe said, his voice grimmer than she’d ever heard it. “I want to talk to you but I have to see Riley first. We are going into his office. When I come out, you will be here.”

  “Certainly,” Nell said, sitting down.

  He turned to Riley and pointed to his office. “In there.”

  “Don’t take this out on me,” Riley said. “You hired her.”

  * * *

  Gabe slammed the door to Riley’s office and said, “Here’s some good news. Not only did our secretary steal that damn dog, she vandalized her husband’s office. I just had to pull the cops off her. And Lynnie now has a pretty good case for extortion, so they may be back. She’s out of control and she has to go.”

  “No,” Riley said, and Gabe stopped, surprised. “Yeah, I’m surprised, too,” Riley said, sitting down behind his desk. “But I’m going to fight you on this one. She’s good. She’s just having a hard time right now. Give her another chance.”

  “Why?” Gabe said. “So she can do something else to destroy this agency?”

  “She’s not the threat to this agency,” Riley said, “and you know it. You’re not mad at Nell, you’re mad at Patrick.”

  Gabe stopped, caught, and then said, “No, I’m pretty sure I’m mad at Nell,” but he sat down while he said it.

  “You think Patrick helped Trevor cover up Helena’s murder and you also think Lynnie found something he left behind that she’s using to blackmail Trevor and possibly Jack and Budge. And you can’t do anything about it, so you’re taking it out on Nell.”

  “No.”

  “She’s done more for this office in one week than my mother did in ten years,” Riley said. “She works hard, she’s efficient, and she deserves the job. She gets another chance.”

  “One more chance could bring us down,” Gabe said.

  “Talk to her,” Riley said. “Stop bossing her around and acting like your dad. Take her to lunch and give her a chance to explain. And if you come back and still want her gone, I’ll agree.”

  Gabe drew in a deep breath. He was not projecting his anger at Patrick on Nell, she was earning it all in her own right. But Riley was a good partner, and it wasn’t a lot to ask. “All right,” he said, and stood up.

  “I don’t think you’re necessarily wrong about Lynnie,” Riley said. “I think she found something, and I think she’s a good bet to blackmail the O&D three. You want me to go roust her now? She might open the door for me. She has before.”

  “You and women.” Gabe shook his head. “I can’t believe you slept with Nell.”

  “I can’t believe it, either,” Riley said. “She kind of gets you when you’re not expecting it. Watch yourself at lunch.”

  “Funny,” Gabe said, and left.

  * * *

  Nell was sitting obediently at her desk, praying that when Gabe came out of Riley’s office he’d see that she’d done the right thing and—

  “Come with me,” he said to her as Riley followed him into the outer office. “We’re going to lunch.”

  He sounded threatening, so she picked up her purse. “What about the money? And SugarPie?”

  “Riley will take care of the money and SugarPie.” Gabe pointed toward the door. “Now.”

  Riley looked at Nell with sympathy. “Sorry about that, kid.” He stuck the bank envelope under his arm, picked up SugarPie’s basket, and went back into his office.

  Gabe stood by the door, looking like Lucifer shortly after the fall, and Nell felt the hand of doom on her, all because she’d done the right thing, several times. It was so unfair.

  “If you’re going to fire me,” Nell said, sticking her chin out, “just do it here. Get it over with.”

  “I’m going to feed you,” Gabe said. “Then we’re going to discuss the depth of your understanding of the rules here, and then if that understanding is deep enough, I will not fire you and we’ll come back here and you’ll to do the office work we hired you for. If your understanding is insufficient, however, you’re going to need more copies of your résumé.”

  Nell tried to think of something scathing to say, but if there was a chance he wasn’t going to fire her, discretion was clearly the better part of her financial future.

  “Thank you,” she said and went past him and out the door.

  * * *

  The two-block walk from the agency to the restaurant was fortunately short because Gabe was silent behind his dark glasses. “Nice day, isn’t it?” she said once, and he didn’t answer, so she shut up and picked up her pace to keep up with him.

  At the restaurant, a local bar and grill called the Sycamore, they took one of the small tables near the front, and Gabe sat with his back to the light, leaving her the view around one of the big stained-glass panels that hung in the windows behind her. She twisted around to look at the place—lots of dark wood and Tiffany ceiling lights and old advertising prints on the walls—and then the waitress came for their drink order, and Gabe said, “I’ll have a draft and a Reuben.” He looked at Nell. “Order.”

  The waitress looked taken aback.

  “Black coffee,” Nell said to her, smiling sweetly.

  “She’ll have an omelet,” Gabe said to the waitress. “Four eggs, plenty of ham and cheese.”

  “I don’t want an omelet,” Nell said. “I’m not—”

  “Do you really want to have this argument with me right now?” Gabe said, and the waitress took a step back.

  “I’ll have a Caesar salad,” Nell said.

  “Good.” Gabe looked up at the waitress. “Put a double order of grilled chicken on it, and bring her a double order of fries.”

  “I don’t want—” Nell began.

  “I don’t care,” he said, and Nell shut up until the waitress was gone.

  Then she said, “You know, my lunch is none of your bus—”

  “You trashed your ex-husband’s office. His new wife swore out a warrant for your arrest.”

  “Oh, God,” Nell said, every nerve in her body turning to ice.

  “When I hired you, you didn’t have a pulse,” Gabe said. “Now you have a police record.”

  “Oh, God.”

  “What the hell did you do? She kept snarling something about icicles.”

  “Awards,” Nell said faintly. “Ohio Insurance Agent of the Year for the company. I broke them.”

  “Hope you enjoyed it. Jack and I spent the morning fixing that for you. He argued that since you still own half of the agency the warrant was no good. Your ex-husband finally gave in. The police are no longer looking for you.”

  “Thank you,” Nell said politely and began to shred her paper napkin in her lap.

  “Then there was Wednesday night when you tried to sleep with a client’s husband.”

  “That was a mistake,” Nell said. “I apologize.”

  “And I gather you did sleep with Riley.”

  “Hey, I’m clear on that,” Nell said, rallying a little. “You didn’t tell me not to fuck the help.”

  Ga
be looked taken aback. “I know I didn’t. I didn’t tell you because I didn’t think you would. Frankly, I didn’t think you could say ‘fuck,’ let alone do it.”

  The waitress put their drinks in front of them and said to Nell, “Your food will be right out.” She looked concerned.

  “Thank you,” Nell said, trying to look unabused.

  When the waitress was gone, Gabe said, “Then yesterday you talked to someone outside the firm about a client, and last night you stole a dog. And this morning you extorted money from a former employee. All in all, you’ve had a full week.”

  “I did it for the firm,” Nell said virtuously.

  “You’re out of control,” Gabe said, and launched into a lecture about values and responsibility and the agency reputation that lasted until the waitress came to the table and started unloading food.

  Nell’s salad was enormous, brimming with chicken and extra cheese and croutons. Gabe pointed to it. “Eat.”

  “I’m not going to eat all of this,” Nell said.

  “Then we’re going to be here a long, long time.” Gabe picked up his sandwich.

  Nell stabbed at her salad and took a bite. It was good, but who the hell did he think he was, anyway? She swallowed and said, “Who do you think you are, anyway? What I eat is not your business.”

  “Yes, it is,” Gabe said, picking up a french fry. “You represent my office.”

  “So?”

  Gabe pointed at her salad, and she stabbed it again. “So you look like death. If you don’t put on some weight, clients are going to think I don’t pay you enough.”

  “You don’t,” Nell said around a mouthful of salad. “And I look fine.”

  “You look like hell,” Gabe said. “Shut up and eat while I explain the three rules to you.”

  “I know the three rules,” Nell said, and Gabe pointed at her salad again. She thought about arguing, decided it would be faster if she just ate, and stabbed the salad again.

  “The reason we do not talk outside the office is that people come to us with information that is confidential and they want it to stay that way.”

  Nell swallowed. “I know that.”

  “When you told Suze about the dog, you broke that confidentiality. Your friends are not part of the office. If I can’t trust you not to tell them, I can’t trust you.”

  Nell chewed slower. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

  “I’m always right.” He waited until she’d forked up more salad and then he said, “Breaking the law is almost as bad. We have a good relationship with the police because they know we’re straight. I do not want that good relationship jeopardized because you think you’re above the law.”

  Nell swallowed her salad. “I don’t think I’m above the law. I’m sorry about the office, and I won’t do that again.”

  “You also stole a dog. And you still think that was right.”

  “You didn’t make me give it back.”

  “Shut up and eat,” Gabe said, and then before Nell could feel smug, he added, “Which brings us to fucking the help.”

  Nell slid down a little in her chair and ate more salad.

  “I don’t care if you sleep with Riley, that’s your business,” Gabe said, sounding mad.

  “I’m not sleeping with him,” Nell said hastily, feeling guiltier than ever. “Not anymore. It was a short fling. One night. Really.” She smiled at him, trying to look innocent, and then picked up the mug of beer and drank. This wasn’t one of the better lunches of her life. The beer felt good, tart and cold going down, and she drank again, feeling the alcohol ease into her bones a little.

  Gabe signaled to the waitress.

  “And it was my fault, not his,” she told him, licking the foam off her lip. “I was being pathetic and he felt sorry for me.”

  The waitress came and Gabe said, “We’ll need another beer.”

  “What?” Nell said and then looked down at his beer in her hand, half gone. “Oh, sorry.” She tried to push the mug back to him.

  “Keep it,” Gabe said. “It has calories. And it wasn’t because you were being pathetic. Riley has no interest in wimpy women.”

  “I didn’t say ‘wimpy.’”

  “Eat,” Gabe said, and Nell went back to forking salad.

  When the waitress had brought the second beer and gone, he said, “Those three rules are there because of experience, Nell.”

  She looked up at him, surprised. He’d never called her Nell before.

  “They were my dad’s rules, but he made them for good reason,” Gabe said. “They—”

  “What was the reason for the no-sex rule?” Nell said, hoping to distract him.

  “He married his secretary. The rules—”

  “Your mother was his secretary?” Nell stopped chewing. “Wait a minute, wasn’t Chloe your secretary?”

  “The rules—” Gabe said, and Nell waved her fork at him and said, “I’ve got it. I’ll never break another one, I swear.” When he looked skeptical, she said, “No, really. I do understand. I like this job and I want to keep it. If anything like the dog comes up again, I’ll bring it to you and then nag you until you do something about it.”

  “Oh, yeah, that’ll be better,” Gabe said, but he picked up his beer, so the yelling was probably over. “Eat,” he said, and Nell stabbed a piece of chicken and ate, surprised at herself.

  It had been years since anybody had told her to do anything, yelled at her about anything. Maybe never. She and Tim had settled into a life where she’d run everything and he’d gone with the flow. And then one day he’d found somebody else, somebody who wouldn’t run his life so he could have the illusion he was in control. Only now, from all reports, Whitney was running his life. Which must mean Tim wanted a woman to boss him around, he just didn’t want to admit he wanted a woman to boss him around. He wanted to be Gabe without the responsibility.

  Her fork hit the bottom of her bowl and she looked down. The salad was gone.

  “Good.” Gabe shoved her french fry plate closer. “Start on those. And say something. When you’re not talking, you’re thinking, and when you think, my life goes to hell. Eat and tell me what happened with Lynnie.”

  Nell took a deep breath. “Well, I went to her apartment and I told her that we were going to the police if she didn’t give back the money. And then we talked.”

  “What did she say?”

  Nell closed her eyes and put herself back in Lynnie’s living room. “She said she’d been sick.” She recited the conversation as best as she could remember, deleting the part where Lynnie had accused her of falling for Gabe. When she finished and opened her eyes, he was regarding her thoughtfully.

  “How much of that did you make up?”

  “None of it,” Nell said, outraged. “I may have forgotten some of it, but everything I told you happened.”

  “Good memory. I’m ‘my way or the highway,’ huh?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Nell said and picked up a fry.

  “Okay.” Gabe took a fry, too. “What aren’t you telling me?”

  Nell thought about saying, “Nothing,” and then decided that lying to Gabe McKenna was not a good idea. “She got personal. I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “There might be something in it I can use.”

  “Nope.”

  Gabe dipped a fry in ketchup and handed it to her. “Eat.”

  “I like vinegar better,” she said. He motioned for the waitress and asked for vinegar and the check, and then he went back to his own lunch, deep in thought. Nell relaxed, and when the vinegar came, she sprinkled it on the second order of fries, inhaling the sharp, sweet cider. Heaven.

  “So she was putting the screws to somebody,” Gabe said. “I don’t suppose you got a name?”

  “I got exactly what I told you,” Nell said, and he nodded and finished his sandwich.

  When the waitress brought the check, Gabe looked at it for a minute before putting a few bills on the tray. When she was gone, he said, “How serious are you ab
out this job?”

  Nell stopped chewing. They were back to her. That couldn’t be good. “Well…”

  How serious was she? She liked Riley, and Gabe was growing on her. She’d felt good rescuing SugarPie, good about getting the money back even though she liked Lynnie. Even finding out that night as a decoy that Ben was a cheater was something; it would help his wife out. People should know when they were being lied to, it was wrong that they didn’t know. You couldn’t fix your life if you didn’t know what was wrong with it.

  “I’m very serious,” she said.

  “You have not demonstrated that you’re a good risk,” he said, not accusing her.

  “I know,” Nell said. “I’ve had a very rough week, but it was educational, too. I’m going to be all right now.”

  “What happened?” Gabe took one of her fries and winced when he bit into it.

  “Vinegar,” Nell said.

  “What happened this week? Prove to me you’re not insane.”

  Nell swallowed. “Okay.” Where did she start? “I’ve been divorced for a while. Over a year.”

  Gabe nodded.

  “It was hard. My marriage and my job were pretty much the same, so I lost everything all at once. I kept thinking I was all right, but I wasn’t. I mean, he just left me, Christmas afternoon, just stopped right there, in the middle of all the wrapping paper, and said, ‘I’m sorry, I don’t love you anymore,’ and left me to clean up the rest of it. It didn’t make sense. I couldn’t make the world make sense if that happened.”

  Gabe nodded again.

  “Why do you do that?” Nell said. “Nod and not say anything. Those silences are killers.”

  “If I say something, you’re not talking,” Gabe said.

  “Tricky.”

  “What happened?”

  “Well,” Nell said. “I tried to cope and be understanding and figure it out so it made sense, and then he met Whitney and married her and put her in my old job, and I ended up falling asleep a lot. And then Suze and Margie found out that he…” She put down the french fry she’d been holding as she remembered the way the world had rocked that day. Only two days ago. A lifetime ago.

  “That there was another woman after all,” Gabe said. “Whitney all along?”