Page 20 of Windlass (Seal Cove #3)

“Only if you want.” Stevie made a mental note to dress like an adult for feedings, instead of showing up in sweatpants, braless, and often in flip-flops, which were definitely not barn-safe. Setting a good example was a lot of work.

Jaq’s expression wavered from quiet enthusiasm to uncertainty. Stevie’s response had not, apparently, been what she’d been hoping for. Stevie backpedaled.

“It would be a huge help, and Olive loves attention in the morning, but if it’s too early for you—”

“It’s not.”

“Right. Okay, then. Olive gets a scoop of this feed mixture, which I make myself . . .”

Jaq listened raptly, pausing occasionally to make a note on her phone, and took the buckets from Stevie to deliver to the horses.

Stevie dumped the water buckets, which both horses seemed to enjoy getting absolutely filthy overnight, and refilled them before checking on the pasture trough.

She found Jaq in Olive’s stall upon her return, brushing her coat until it gleamed.

Olive munched contentedly, one hoof cocked in her most relaxed posture. The horse obviously liked the kid.

“You ever shot a bow and arrow?”

Jaq looked up. “In gym class, and my dad and cousins hunt, but they don’t take me with them.”

“Why not?”

“The patriarchy.”

Stevie laughed. “Fuck that. I’ll teach you. I have targets set up around the orchard. Extra points if you can hit an apple by the fall.”

“I’ll ask Ivy to show me some balance exercises.”

“She’d know them. How are lessons going?” Stevie had yet to be present for one as when Ivy had days off, Morgan usually worked—and therefore so did Stevie.

“Freddie’s fun. And Ivy’s a good teacher.”

“You like her, then?”

Jaq blushed. “She’s nice.”

Stevie briefly imagined what Lilian would have said to that, prior to Ivy and Lilian getting together, back when she had hated Ivy with a passion that had turned out to be just that—passion.

The thought made her miss Lil, who would have also had a thing or two to say about what was going down in the house of late—probably something about Stevie’s bare ass on the coffee table and hygiene, which was fair.

“I have an easy day today unless there’s an emergency. Stop by this evening and I’ll let you shoot.”

“Can I join?”

They both jumped and wheeled around. Angie leaned against the door frame in her work clothes with a thermos of coffee, smiling innocently.

Stevie’s body lit up like a fucking electrical fire.

Angie had snuck into her bed again last night, and while Stevie’d once again pretended to be sleeping, this time heat had stemmed from more than one location.

She wasn’t sure she could manage another platonic night.

“If you want Jaq to beat your ass, yeah.”

“I’m always up for having my ass whipped, Stevie. You know this.”

Again, Angie’s tone was all innocence, and almost appropriate for younger audiences. The images that flashed through Stevie’s mind were not.

“Pro tip,” Stevie said to Jaq, turning away from Angie before her ability to remain cool and professional disintegrated entirely. “Choose your roommates carefully, or you’ll end up with one like this.”

Jaq’s gaze flickered between them, and Stevie groaned inwardly as Jaq smirked. So much for playing it cool.

“I’ll see if Ivy wants to join too, if she gets off in time,” Stevie added. Safety in numbers.

The sketches Angie had done of Stevie burned through the cover of her sketchpad, watching her all that day.

She turned to them regularly, knowing, knowing , it was a mistake to put herself directly in the way of temptation.

Her art didn’t come close to the real thing, but she had managed to capture enough—the glint of something hard behind Stevie’s bright blue eyes and easy smile. A promise of iron.

She turned up the fan on her desk, momentum pushing her along, faster and faster, relentlessly, and the moment it stopped the crash would come—and with it, regret.

She couldn’t stop. At least Ivy might be there this evening. Perhaps she should insist on chaperoned-only time with Stevie to prevent herself fucking things up.

Or she could just talk to Stevie.

That thought cooled her down. What the hell would she say? She checked the kennel reservation list as she mulled this over. At least she wasn’t thinking about Lana. But had she replaced Lana with Stevie, or was what she was feeling real?

She needed Lilian and Stormy, not just Ivy. People who got her on a fundamental level and would tell her what to do, so that at least when she did the opposite she’d know she was fucking up.

Texting on the clock was fine if you were your own boss, so she opened a group chat with Stormy and Lilian, begging them to come shoot holes in things. Her leg bounced beneath the desk, periodically hitting the side with a metallic thud. Poor Jaq. She hoped the kid wouldn’t be too overwhelmed.

In the end, everyone came for archery.

Angie emerged from the barn to a gorgeous early July sunset and familiar cars parked in the driveway. There was plenty of light left in the evening, despite the pink clouds, and Stormy’s laughter bounced across the yard from the patio, where the group had gathered.

Stevie was blocked from her view. Her heart threw a fit anyway, thunking heavily as it hurled itself around her ribcage like a caged animal.

She pressed a hand to her sternum to calm it before it tried to claw its way up her throat.

People talked about getting butterflies; this was more like getting pterodactyls.

Wasn’t it bad enough she’d been in a state of constant arousal for the last few days, alternating with emotional chaos?

Getting off didn’t even help. An hour later, and her body would be right back, begging for something she should not let it have.

She inhaled the summer air, redolent with wildflowers and grass, and tried not to look for Stevie.

Hah. As if that was an option.

She sought salvation elsewhere. Stormy stood the nearest. Angie wrapped her arms around her neck from behind, resting her head alongside her friend’s.

Stormy’s curves filled her with a kind of comfort she’d found rarely in her thirty years; she was soft and strong whereas so many of the people in Angie’s life had been hard and weak.

Brittle, like her parents. She swept her gaze over the gathering, heart aching with a fierce longing for days like these to last forever, for these people to last forever, like this.

Stormy, with her easy warmth and generosity of spirit.

Lilian, practical and kind. Morgan, steady and stubborn and safe.

Ivy and Emilia, who they’d brought into the fold, were welcome bright spots, and they’d soothed her friends’ private hurts; she loved them both.

And Stevie. Always Stevie. Her little pterodactyl.

Stevie must have sensed Angie’s gaze because she looked up, still smiling from something someone else had said. The smile paused, then deepened, and her eyes stayed on Angie as she responded to the conversation.

Memory jerked her back to the coffee table and to Stevie, leaning toward her, her eyes a javelin thrown straight through Angie’s chest, before sauntering out of the room. It was perhaps the hottest thing that had ever happened to her.

“Hey, love.” Stormy gently bumped their heads together, bringing her back to the present. “This is fun. Will Stevie shoot an apple off the top of your head?”

“I heard that, and no I will not. Safety first. Right, Jaq?” said Stevie.

Jaq, who stood by Stevie and Morgan, grinned. “You should totally do it.”

“You’re a bad influence on my stable hand. Jaq, this is Stormy who owns—”

“That coffeeshop in town everyone goes to,” Jaq finished.

“ Do they?” Stormy’s rich, low voice sounded delighted, and Jaq blushed. The kid was so fucking gay. This would be good for her. Positive role models and all that. Angie knew a lost lamb when one came bleating onto her farm looking for love—or horses, which amounted to the same thing.

She wondered if Stevie had noticed the burn scars on the kid’s wrists. Self-inflicted? There was trouble at home, all right. She’d bet her own house, leaks and all, on it.

“Next time you come in, tell whoever’s working I said you get a free drink. I’ll put a note out for my baristas.”

Jaq’s blush deepened.

“Watch out for that one,” said Stevie, fake warning lacing her voice. “She’ll get you hooked on her baked goods.”

Jaq couldn’t afford those baked goods if the holes Angie’d seen in her socks were any indicator.

It was hard for Angie not to see her own childhood looking back at her: strife, poverty, and worse.

There was usually a “worse” in there somewhere.

Those huge brown eyes would get Jaq far, though, once she figured out how to use them.

“It worked on me.” Ivy smiled. She looked immaculate in riding breeches, boots, and a white T-shirt that only Ivy could wear to a barn.

Angie was one hundred percent certain Ivy had dressed in that outfit to torment Lilian, who, while casually sipping from a tumbler of iced tea, was clearly struggling to keep cool on several levels.

Her eyes kept straying to Ivy’s ass and miles of toned leg.

The woman was unfairly attractive, and Jaq’s eyes settled on her with adoration.

“Ivy has a secret admirer,” Angie whispered into Stormy’s ear.

“Secret my ass,” Stormy replied with a throaty chuckle. “Though I’d take riding lessons from Holden any day of the week. Bareback lessons.”

“Slut.”

“Takes one to know one.”

Angie kissed Stormy’s cheek and released her. A loose curl tickled her cheek. “I hope you have more bows,” she said to Stevie.

“Sure don’t. Y’all will have to take turns.”

“Are you gonna correct our postures?” Stormy’s voice was suggestive.