Page 18 of Windlass (Seal Cove #3)

Angie woke up soaking wet, and not just from dreaming about Stevie. She spluttered, twitched when a drip landed beside her ear, splashing her, and then gave a belated squeal.

Footsteps sounded in the hallway, followed by a knock.

“Ange? You okay?”

“I need buckets,” she said, rolling out of the leak zone and stripping off her wet shirt. Moving informed her she was still wet elsewhere, too, thanks to Stevie.

Her face flamed. Stevie . She fumbled for a dry shirt and came up with something. It went over her arms, but her head—

The light snapped on.

“Sweatpants usually go on the legs, but I admire your commitment,” said Stevie.

Angie’s back was to the door, and in the light, she saw Stevie was correct—these were undeniably pants.

Next to them on the edge of the laundry basket, however, was the shirt she’d worn yesterday.

She pulled it on. Stevie could live with the nipples she’d gone and hardened, which would definitely be visible through the sheer material.

Angie wasn’t looking for a bra in the middle of the goddamn night.

“On my pillow,” she said, waving Stevie and the trash can she’d grabbed from the corner toward her bed. “When did it start raining?”

“About an hour after we went to bed.”

“Is it leaking anywhere else?”

Stevie assessed the bed and bucket, then waved Angie to the other side of the bed. “Let’s move this out of the way. Then the bucket can’t spill.”

Angie pulled while Stevie pushed, sliding the bed to the other wall. She blinked furiously, trying to wake up more fully. She’d had a hard time falling asleep—Stevie’s fault—and had been roused from deep delirium.

“It got my bed ,” she said when they finished, staring at her damp pillowcase.

“It sure did. Here, I’ll strip the pillowcase, and we’ll put both in the wash. You don’t want whatever leaked down through the attic near your face.”

Her arms had wrapped around herself as she chewed on her lip while Stevie took charge, but she couldn’t help it. Her bed . One of the few places she felt safe. She didn’t believe that the universe cared one iota about her, but this did feel a little pointed.

“And now we check the attic.” Stevie held the pillow in one hand and held the other out to Angie. “Let’s grab another pot and chuck this in the laundry room.”

Angie followed Stevie, clinging to her hand, her head refusing to clear. The sound of Stevie’s voice was calming, however. She focused with effort.

“. . . that tarp up tomorrow, if the weather isn’t shit.”

“Thank you,” Angie’s lower lip trembled. Just great. An overwhelmed crying jag was coming.

“No problem. Watch your head.”

They entered the attic, where the plink of rain in the pots already doing leak duty played a discordant melody.

Stevie set another makeshift bucket below the new leak, moving aside the boxes that had been close enough to get wet.

Angie would have to go through those tomorrow, just in case it was something important.

“And we’re good.” Stevie looked around. “Do you hear any more?”

“Not over the others.” Three. Three leaks now, bad enough to work their way through the attic floor. She chewed her lower lip. This was a problem.

“We could also get a big tarp for up here.” Stevie gestured at the space. “That would minimize the damage. And breed mosquitos.”

The last comment had been intended to cheer her up, she knew, but she couldn’t even fake a smile. Stevie glanced at her face, frowned, and guided her toward the stairs.

“You okay?” she asked as they descended.

“Yeah,” Angie lied. “Maybe. It’s just—where am I going to sleep? That was my bed !”

Morgan and Lilian had taken their beds with them when they moved, and she hadn’t replaced them yet.

“Don’t be an idiot.” Stevie tugged her toward her room. “Take my bed.”

A shiver of remembered desire stirred. There were reasons she should say no, but she really had woken up wrong, and—

“It’s not optional. I’m putting you there.”

“Where will you sleep?”

“Couch.”

“Now who’s the idiot?” Angie clenched her jaw to stop her teeth from chattering and very, very deliberately did not look at Stevie. “It’s your bed. We’ll share.”

“Are you . . . sure?”

“I’m cold and wet and tired. I promise I won’t bite you.”

“Wasn’t worried about that,” said Stevie, and Angie couldn’t quite guess her tone, but was pretty sure there was subtext.

She hadn’t lied about being tired and cold, though. Waking up rudely had chilled her despite the warmth of the attic. She gave in to Stevie’s tugging and followed her into the darkness of her room. Marvin snored.

“Lie here.” Stevie folded back the quilt and patted the mattress.

Angie obeyed. The sheets smelled like Stevie. She burrowed beneath the blankets and plumped the pillow up to her satisfaction, mumbling a thank you.

Her last thought before falling back asleep was: and there was only one bed.

Stevie did not sleep. She lay on the other side of the bed, body still on fire from earlier.

It did allow her to wake up extra early, make coffee, do farm chores, and locate and haul out the tarps stowed around the property.

She left a coffee cup by a sleeping Angie.

Rousing her, seeing her stretch and luxuriate in the last grip of slumber in Stevie’s own bed, would be the end of her.

The steaming mug had done the trick, though. Angie emerged out of the front door, wearing that damn sheer tank top and sleep shorts.

Stevie grinned. “Tarpe Diem.”

“How long have you been waiting to say that?” Angie asked as she surveyed the array before her.

“Since I thought of it at, like, three in the morning.”

“Ew, that’s a terrible time to be awake.”

“Well, there was a leak, you may recall. How exactly did you plan on getting these over the roof? And keeping them on?” Stevie asked.

“There’s a ladder in the barn.”

“Oh, goody.” The farmhouse had a big roof; the only advantage to this was the add-on over the mudroom, which created a level surface. Level-ish. Climbing up a ladder onto that roof would be tolerable. It was the rest of the operation that would not.

Stevie went to fetch the ladder. When she returned, Angie was staring up at the roof, shading her eyes from the rising sun, her body language slightly less vulnerable than the previous night, but not by much. Stevie had never seen her so overwhelmed. She pulled out her phone.

How to tarp a roof .

She skimmed the results. Two-by-fours. Screws. Tarp. They had all three somewhere. Yelling back over her shoulder for Angie to stay on the ground while she was gone, she searched the back of the barn for scrap wood, then the workshop for a drill and some screws.

“We need to get up there and secure it with the two-by-fours,” she explained.

“I was hoping we could just weight one side and toss it over. Like a net.” Angie chewed on her lip with a violence it did not deserve.

“I don’t think that’s gonna work.” The wind would whip it off in an instant, and anything heavy enough to resist the wind would tear the tarp.

“But it’s not safe for us to go up there.”

“My job isn’t safe either. I’ll risk it.”

“Wait.” Angie looked around the property but didn’t seem to find what she was looking for. “I changed my mind. I don’t want you up there.”

“I’m not going to fall.”

“You don’t know that.” Angie had gone into her scared kitten posture, as Stevie thought of it, holding herself and hunching her shoulders inwards.

A far cry from the woman who had drawn her last night, but this, too, was Angie.

Stevie approached cautiously, resting a hand on Angie’s back.

She flinched, then leaned into the touch.

“I’m going to do it anyway. You know that, right? If not right now, I’ll get Morgan to help later.”

“We’ll just do the tarp in the attic like you said.”

“You gonna leave that lip on your face or am I going to have to call one of our doctors to stitch it back on?” Stevie dared to touch Angie’s lower lip with one finger, speaking gently.

A smile cracked the vise of her face. Angie tested it with her tongue, and winced. “I didn’t realize I was biting it.”

“Yeah, well, you can thank my oral fixation for saving its life.”

Angie leaned forward, collapsing on Stevie like she’d done a thousand times before.

Stevie bore her dead weight, laughing under her breath, and stroked her rumpled hair.

Angie’s head was turned away from her on her shoulder, her arms hanging at her sides.

Stevie picked up each arm and placed it around her waist.

The fierceness of the embrace that followed would have knocked Stevie over if she hadn’t been prepared for it. Everyone melted down differently. This was Angie’s way—well, one of them. It had alarmed her the first few times she experienced it, but by now she’d figured out how to prop Angie back up.

“Do you need more coffee?” Stevie whispered into her hair.

The messy bun bobbed an affirmative.

“Then let’s go do that. Sun’s out today anyway.”

One of the downsides of working with dogs was that it was impossible to hear anything going on outside the building over the cacophony of their excited barks. Angie wore noise-canceling headphones in her office when she really needed to focus, but mostly the sound didn’t bother her.

Today, though, it had concealed the tell-tale whir of a power drill. She glared up at her roof. The blue tarp stared back at her, impassive in the setting sun.

“Stevie,” she shouted as she flung open the door.

“Yeah,” Stevie called from the living room.

Angie marched over and stopped in front of Stevie, who lay on the couch with Marvin. Sensing the mood, Marvin slunk away.

“Why do I feel like I’m in trouble?” Stevie asked.

Angie had thought her biggest worry with Stevie today would be preventing herself from jumping her. Now she was considering jumping her in another way, maybe with a shank.

“Did you go on the roof?”

Stevie sat up, face reddening.

“Don’t answer that. You did.”

“Morgan—”

“Was what, going to catch you if you fell? Both of you need your arms and legs to do your jobs! What is wrong with you?!”

“You were going to go up there,” Stevie pointed out.

“I changed my mind when I realized how dumb it was .” Her voice rose on the last few words. She swallowed. “I asked you not to.”

“And I told you I was going to anyway.” Stevie didn’t back down.

Angie took several deep breaths. They did nothing to settle the geyser of fury going off in her chest.

“If something happened to you—” Her voice broke again. Shaking her head in irritation, she settled for glaring.

“You’d miss me?” Mischief glimmered in Stevie’s eyes.

“This is not a joke.”

“You would, though.”

“Stevie.”

“You’re mad because you care,” Stevie said in a singsong voice.

“You—!” Angie finished the phrase with a frustrated shout and turned her back on Stevie.

This was why she couldn’t afford to let her control slip. She’d been emotionally all over the place since Stevie had stripped for her, first melting down twice and now screaming.

Caring hurt too goddamn much.

“It should buy you some time, though,” Stevie said quietly. “Assuming it holds.”

Angie huffed. Stevie could have fallen and broken any number of bones, including her neck. If she’d walked out of work to see Stevie crumpled in the grass— A sob raked her throat. “That is a rage sob,” she said, still not turning back around.

“It’s done, Ange, and we’re fine. I’m not saying you’re overreacting, but—”

She whipped around now. Images of Stevie lying broken on the grass bombarded her mind’s eye. “Stevie Ward, if you dare imply this is an overreaction, I am going to have to teach you some serious lessons about gravity.”

Stevie mimicked the sound of a missile falling.

“Just—grow up for a second and think about what I would have done if you’d gotten hurt.”

Stevie’s face slackened with surprise. “I didn’t—”

“You thought you’d get a thank you and—” And what, a fuck? Angie knew she certainly had acted like she wanted it. Well, Stevie could see if Angie ever let her touch her now. Risking her life like that was idiotic. Worse than idiotic.

“I thought I was helping out my best friend.”

Angie tore her hands through her hair, trying to calm herself and failing. She worried so much about losing Stevie to her own poor decisions she’d never stopped to worry about Stevie’s.

“Help me by staying alive .”

“Jesus Christ, Ange, people get on their roofs all the time. My dad did a lot of work on ours.”

“I asked you not to do it and if you’d gotten hurt I would never have forgiven myself!

” she shouted. The house rang with silence in the aftermath; the words she did not—could not—say rang in her head.

And I cannot let myself start depending on you because one day you’ll be gone, and I cannot survive that again .

Stevie’s lips were pressed into a querulous line.

If Angie stayed in the living room a moment longer she was going to kiss them with bruising force.

“Angie . . .” Stevie reached for her.

“I might forgive you tomorrow if you promise me you’ll never put yourself at risk like that again.”

“I work with large animals. Every day could be the day I get kicked in the head.” Stevie maintained a calm tone, but only barely. “Of course, I’d climb on a roof for you.”

Angie inhaled sharply, unsure if she wanted to laugh, scream, or cry. She hated feeling this out of control. Usually she’d call Lana, but that wasn’t an option anymore. What was she supposed to do? How was she supposed to stop her emotions from drowning her? Fucking meditate?

Stevie stood and plucked up a heavy couch pillow, holding it in front of her.

“Hit.”

“What?”

“Use this like a punching bag. Just hit the pillow, please, not me. I’ve seen you work a bag and it’s terrifying.”

“I am not punching you.”

“Not me. The pillow.”

Angie ripped the pillow from Stevie’s hands and screamed into it, a long, frustrated shriek that left her raw and empty.

“Feel better?”

“Yes.” She tossed the pillow back on the couch. Her hands shook. The scream had helped a little, but energy still ricocheted inside her, looking for fuel. She’d burn Stevie up if she got too close. “I can’t be around you right now.”

She turned too slowly to miss the hurt that blanketed Stevie’s eyes, dimming their brightness. Her own eyes blurring with tears, she walked as quickly as she could to the stairs, jogged up them, and made it to her room before self-destructing in a silent fit of tears.