Page 46 of Windlass (Seal Cove #3)

After dinner, a sumptuous feast of pasta, mussels, fresh mozzarella balls and delicate cherry tomatoes, and a carrot sauce that was surprisingly delicious, they returned to the deck with more citronella candles and bug spray.

Lilian found a hammock and strung it up for Ivy.

Angie leaned against one of the arches and let the warmth of a full stomach and friendship seep into her pores.

Quite suddenly she felt cold again. The slight buzz of the cocktails Stevie had brought her soured into something bitter and familiar.

She watched herself as if from a distance.

She looked as if she could belong here, lit by the glow of laughter and candlelight, and she knew these people loved her, but the void in her chest yawned.

Even with all of this love, it still wasn’t satisfied.

Love slid off her the way water slid off oil.

It couldn’t penetrate the layer of pollution at her core.

A hand warmed her shoulder blades. Stevie . If she could only have turned and tumbled into her arms, but no. She forced a laugh at a joke instead and settled for leaning into the touch. Stevie rubbed small, comforting circles on her back, no seduction in the motion.

How had Stevie known what Angie needed? What had she not managed to hide that Stevie saw? She almost pushed her away. She almost kissed her, not with passion—though not without—but with a relief so powerful it could only be tasted, a thanks she could express only with touch.

“What did the horse say to the donkey who cut in line?” Stevie asked quietly. At Angie’s huff of breath, Stevie answered herself: “‘Hay, don’t be such an ass.’”

Angie’s laugh had a hiccup of sob in it. “Oh my god. That’s awful. You made that up, didn’t you?”

“With great pride.”

She turned to look at Stevie. Her hair shone in its tight bun, sleek and almost silver in the candlelight.

Angie would be the one to take it down later, transforming the proud angles of Stevie’s face into softer planes, the ends trailing over Angie’s skin like promises.

She wanted to say thank you; she didn’t.

She wanted to tell Stevie what she meant to her; she didn’t.

She wanted to break this tension, break the chokehold the world always had at her throat; instead, she fished an ice cube out of her empty cup and slipped it down the front of Stevie’s vest.

Stevie’s ensuing squeal shattered her melancholy, and she laughed with delight as the surprise on Stevie’s face changed to outrage, amusement, and finally the certainty of payback. Her body hummed with anticipation.

Ivy sat across from Stevie, eyes half closed as she enjoyed the evening. Stevie suspected that her apparent nonchalance was an act, and that Ivy was panicking beneath those eyelids, based on the way her foot jiggled.

“Hey, I wanted to talk to you about something,” Stevie said. She could distract Ivy if nothing else. Angie, who sat on the porch railing, perked up.

“Oh yeah?” Ivy straightened and stilled her foot.

“Jaq. I think someone in her home is hurting her.”

“I’ve been worrying about that, too.” Ivy’s pale brows furrowed as she thought. “But without her telling us anything I don’t know what we can do. We have no evidence.”

“She hasn’t said anything to you either?”

“No,” said Ivy. “We could put in a call for a welfare check.”

“How old is the sister?” Angie asked.

“Turning eighteen soon.” Stevie remembered Jaq mentioning a plan for her birthday while braiding Olive’s mane and tail.

“She can legally move out at eighteen without her dad’s permission. She has a job, right?”

“Yes,” Ivy said, frowning. She couldn’t see where Angie was going with this either.

“She can apply for housing assistance, food stamps, and other government programs.”

“That doesn’t help Jaq, though.” Stevie studied Angie’s face. “Right?”

“Jaq could stay with her sister. I can help them with the paperwork if they need it. The sister doesn’t need to have full custody, just a place for Jaq to go that’s safe.”

“We don’t know if Jaq’s dad would let her.”

“My sister’s a lawyer,” Ivy said thoughtfully. “I bet she could find a clause somewhere they could use to scare the father. Jaq’s only fourteen, but I can pay her for more work around the barn. Money doesn’t have to be a limiting factor.”

“But can’t we just, like, get them out of there?” Stevie knew it was a stupid question, but still. You should be able to get kids out of bad situations.

Angie’s eyes were sympathetic as she responded. “Sometimes the best thing you can do is give someone the tools they need to save themselves. Jaq’s lucky to have you in her corner. Don’t underestimate that.”

“But—”

“Angie’s right,” said Ivy. “We focus on what we know we can do to help.”

Stevie acquiesced with a grumble, not because she was willing to cede this ground quite yet, but because Angie’s words were replaying in her head, loop upon endless loop.

Was Angie acknowledging that she too was lucky to have Stevie in her corner?

That Stevie had given her tools to help herself?

Angie wouldn’t quite meet her eyes, which added to her confusion. What had she given Angie besides love?

It hit her then how obtuse she’d been. There was no “besides love.” There was only love. Love and support were everything , and here was Angie telling her it was enough.

She was enough.

Angie had planned on teasing Stevie the rest of the evening, the dress making it easy to offer casually seductive views without looking like she was doing any such thing.

The group settled onto the couches around the fireplace, which although it was not lit given the warmth of the evening, still conveyed a certain cozy dignity.

She chose the corner of a plush sofa and nestled into it, tucking her feet up beneath her instead of stretching into a more enticing pose.

Stevie sat close enough for their hips to touch.

Angie shifted to lean her head against Stevie’s shoulder.

She did that all the time and had for years, in fact.

It shouldn’t signify anything to the others.

Right now she didn’t particularly care. The episode of emptiness, for she did not know what else to call it, had left her unsettled, and the only thing that soothed it was proximity to Stevie.

Leaning against Stevie, she could enjoy the conversation and join in.

When Stevie got up to use the bathroom, however, her skin broke out in goosebumps at the chill.

Perhaps the thing she hated most about the banality of trauma was its ability to destroy the present as well as the past. Why should she feel suddenly hunted in a place where she’d not only felt safe moments before, but was safe?

Why should the darkness on the old glass windows press itself greedily against the rippled pane instead of reflecting the joyful company within?

Stormy raised a brow in question once. Angie smiled with as much reassurance as she could.

She really was fine. Stevie’s return banished the hunted feeling once again.

Stevie’s arm stretched along the back of the couch, and she took full advantage of it.

The conversation waded through waters familiar and new, from music to veterinary gossip to—briefly and with an unease that had an immediate cause—the anti-science political trends.

She did not remember dozing off.

“Hey.”

She stirred, neck stiff, and opened her eyes to darkness.

A few blinks let her adjust to the ambient starlight streaming in through the windows, but without much moon the illumination was weak.

Her brain panicked until it recognized the shape of the furniture before her body had time to join in. Ivy’s house. Stevie.

Someone had draped a blanket over her shoulders. Holding it close for warmth, she sat up yawning and asked, “How long?”

“Dunno. I dozed off, too. So much for games.” Stevie also had a blanket draped over her. “Adulthood, man.”

“I probably drooled on your vest.”

“Not my vest, but definitely my arm.” Stevie stretched as she spoke, tossing the blanket aside. “Bed?”

“Only if you carry me.”

“Are you serious?” asked Stevie.

“I wasn’t, but now I am.”

“We’ll die on the stairs.”

“I’ll do the stairs on my own if you do the rest.”

Stevie’s laugh softened the night, “Whatever you want, girl.”

“Up up,” Angie said imperiously. “Peasant.”

“I am not roleplaying with you right now.”

Angie swiveled to straddle Stevie, wrapping her legs around her waist. “ Now implies a later.”

“If I don’t drop you.”

Angie looped her arms around Stevie’s neck and drew Stevie’s head into her cleavage. “Don’t drop me.”

“Mnmnn,” Stevie said.

Angie giggled at the vibration against her sternum. Watching Stevie try not to stare at her the whole evening had been delightful, melancholy aside. The way her eyes filled with longing. She shifted her hips, some of her sleepiness wearing off and the loneliness far away for now.

“Hold on.”

She did. Stevie rose, the blanket falling fully off her shoulders as she gripped Angie’s legs. Angie bit back another giggle. When she could stop her brain from overthinking things or running away entirely, anything seemed possible. Even this.

Stevie staggered at first, then figured out the balance of their bodies and headed roughly in the direction of the stairs all the while kissing whatever skin she could reach.

“Do you think Lil and Ivy did it in front of the fireplace?” she asked Stevie, refusing to slide off when they arrived at the first step.

“One hundred percent.”

“Do you—”

“I’d do almost anything you wanted, but . . .” Stevie lifted her head from Angie’s breasts to meet her eyes. “I don’t want to be thinking about Lilian and Ivy right now so that rules out fucking in front of the fire.”

“I mean, objectively speaking they’re both hot . . .” Angie let the sentence dangle, wondering if she could make Stevie blush enough for her to see it in the dark.

“On your feet, m’lady.”

“You said you wouldn’t roleplay.”

“Get upstairs.”

“You just want to watch my ass—”

Stevie pushed her up against the wall nearest the stairs but after searching Angie’s face, she paused.

“Ange,” she said, hair loose and silken in Angie’s fingers, the bun falling in a wave as Angie tugged it free. “Are you okay?”

The emptiness. The desperate desires of her stupid, stupid heart. “I will be,” she managed as she slid off Stevie to stand on her own.

“Ange.”

“What?”

Stevie didn ’ t step back, but her posture put enough distance between them that Angie could focus on her face in the dim light.

“It’s okay if you’re not.”

Tears welled with a sudden ferocity that suggested they’d been lying in wait. Damn Stevie. Gentle arms folded her into an embrace she didn’t deserve, not after what had almost happened with Lana. She accepted anyway, burying her face in the warmth of Stevie’s neck.

“Come on,” said Stevie when Angie finally stopped shaking. “Let’s go someplace we can lie down, yeah?”

“You’ll sleep with me?” she asked like a child.

Stevie wiped tears from Angie’s cheeks with her thumbs. “Duh.”

Back in the room Stevie scooped her up from behind and dumped her on the bed, both of them trying to stifle laughter, hers tainted with occasional sobs.

She shed her dress without ceremony. It melted into the shadows where she tossed it.

Stevie shucked off her clothing and slid into bed beside her.

They’d done this enough times that it felt normal.

This should scare her, but right now she was grateful and tired of stepping around the mines in her own mind.

Minefield. Mindfield. She needed one of those mine-sniffing rats to walk before her.

“Stephanie?”

“Yeah?”

Angie’s hand lay splayed across Stevie’s chest. She toyed with the notch of her collarbone, stroking the hollow with her middle finger. She knew what she wanted to say, but had enough self-awareness to know she would scare herself off if she said it. The rat sniffed the ground ahead.

A head full of rodents was probably a sign she was losing it anyway.

“I have another rule,” Angie said at last.

“Oh yeah?” Stevie kissed the top of her head as she spoke.

Her finger fit perfectly into that little hollow. Stevie’s breasts, a perfect handful, because everything about her was perfect, rose and fell steadily beneath her palm.

“Don’t leave me.”

Stevie stilled. Angie waited, knowing that what she asked was unfair, hypocritical, a euphemism for the words she’d said to Stevie many times, but never with the depth of honesty Stevie deserved.

“Scientific evidence suggests I’m incapable.”

“Why have you stayed?” Angie asked. Stevie’s heart kicked against her ribs, and Angie felt the stutter travel up her arm and through her.

“Angie . . .”

“Tell me.”

“You know why.”

And there it was: pain. She heard it in Stevie’s voice, rough and rueful. Maybe she was a sadist after all. Gently, she skimmed her fingers up Stevie’s neck and turned her face until their noses brushed.

She could say so many different things in this moment. She could say the right thing. But what if she said the right thing and it felt wrong?

She traced Stevie’s lips with her fingers, feeling Stevie shiver in response. It would be so easy to kiss her right now. Maybe easy was the wrong word. She wanted desperately to kiss her. She wanted to be sure first that she could trust herself not to run.

Damn Lana for calling her on that.

Think she’ll stick around when you step out on her? And worse: Like how you fucking hit and run.

If only she could strike those words from her memory.

Her first two fingers pressed against the bow of Stevie’s upper lip and the curve of the lower. She kissed the back of those fingers. Stevie’s lips parted, and Angie caught the soft, small sound she made in her mouth and swallowed it.

Then, because she was who she was and they were who they were, she slipped her tongue languidly between her fingers and across Stevie’s parted lips.

It took all of a second for Stevie to flip her onto her back, pinning Angie’s hands over her head.

“I have another rule, too,” Stevie said, breathing quickly, her hair tickling Angie’s cheeks and her eyes absolutely stricken with both lust and longing. “Every time you do that I get to do this.”

Happiness swelled from her stomach to her chest at the frustrated restraint in the curve of Stevie’s body above her own.

“What’s ‘this’?”

Stevie showed her.