Page 5 of Windlass (Seal Cove #3)

The thought of Stevie listening to Lana fuck her horrified Angie.

She also couldn’t deny the slick heat gathering between her legs as she imagined Stevie standing inches away, unable to move, pinned in place by Angie’s voice.

Would Stevie want her then, despite herself?

Sometimes she wondered if she kept Lana around because only in these moments, safe in the sanctity of pain, could she let herself imagine Stevie on her knees, Angie’s leg around her shoulder, Stevie’s tongue deep inside her as she said without words, finally, the thing that had lain unspoken between them for years.

If Stevie knew—if she had any idea that the only way Angie could come was by silently screaming her name—

Lana’s jaws clamped down like a cat with a kitten. Like a kitten, she made a mewling sound, the arm twisted behind her back straining painfully in the socket, her free hand pressed flat against the door in supplication.

Stevie , she mouthed silently. The wood tasted like dust.

Stevie’s headphones could only do so much. They blocked sound, yes, but did nothing for her imagination as she sat curled up on Morgan’s window seat staring out at the stars. Angry rock music blasted her eardrums. She did not take in a word.

If only she could be sick. She felt sick. Her stomach twisted and cold sweat prickled her hairline while the rest of her flushed hot and cold in time to her heart’s vicious rhythm.

She always hated seeing Lana’s ugly mug.

Why did this time, though, feel so much worse?

It wasn’t like she’d expected Angie would drop Lana merely because Morgan had moved out.

That logic made no sense. Yet, had she expected it?

Had some part of her hoped Angie would forget about Lana just because it would be easier for Stevie since she’d never dealt well with Lana’s presence even with Morgan and Lilian around to act as buffers—and restraints?

If she had, she was an idiot. No, it wasn’t cool that Lana was at their house, especially on a day they normally spent together, but Stevie didn’t own Angie’s time.

Angie dealt with things in her own way. If Lana was how she wanted to deal with Morgan’s departure, that was her choice, even if it was clearly the wrong choice.

It certainly proved one thing: the previous night had been in Stevie’s head. They had not almost kissed. That was wishful thinking or, worse, she’d made it awkward with her one-sided attraction, and Angie needed to wash the taste out of her mouth with a stinking cup of Lana.

She could call Morgan. No—then Morgan might feel guilty about moving, and Morgan deserved happiness and at least a week unmolested before Stevie started giving her a hard time.

She could and would get through this on her own. It would be fine. It was fine.

It was not fine.

She stood with angry haste and walked to the door, throwing it open.

Her music drowned out any other sounds as she walked down the hall to the stairs, which had the misfortune of being located right by the back two bedrooms. She tried to move swiftly and quietly.

The song ended, however, before she could fully round the landing, and in that silence, she heard the thud of bodies moving against the door.

She tripped. Caught herself. Half-wished she hadn’t.

A tumble down the stairs sounded pretty damn good. At least she’d have Angie’s attention.

No, Stevie was not that pathetic. They could at least have done her the courtesy of making it to the bed, though.

Yet even as angry as she was at Lana and, if she was honest with herself, Angie, fair or not, she couldn’t stop herself from pausing. Lana was dangerous. I’m here for you , she willed Angie to feel. I hate you right now, but I’m here .

She caught the first note of a moan before her music started back up.

It followed her out of the house and across the yard to the barn, then up to the loft, where she ducked beneath the railing that separated the open space over the stalls, and balanced on the wooden beam above Olive.

When she got to the place where one beam perpendicularly met another, she sat, headphones around her neck, and listened instead to the calming sounds of horses browsing on hay and shifting their weight from hoof to hoof. Tears tracked silently down her cheeks.

She needed to grow up and get over Angela Rhodes.

Morgan glanced over at her for the seventh time as they drove to their first appointment.

“What?” Stevie said, not bothering to soften the word. Morgan grimaced.

“Do you . . . want to talk about it?”

“There’s nothing to talk about.” And there wasn’t. There really fucking wasn’t.

“Just checking.”

“Well, don’t.” Stevie crossed her arms over her chest, aware it made her look like a petulant child, but needing the protection around her ribcage. Morgan switched off the radio.

Bad sign. Very bad sign.

“I’m not going to talk about it,” she said to forestall whatever Morgan was about to say. “I can’t, and you don’t need to deal with my bullshit.”

Stevie knew she looked like bullshit herself, having seen enough cow manure.

Her eyes were red and shadowed, and she had slept terribly when she had finally come back inside after Lana drove off sometime around two, curling up on the couch to avoid running into Angie in the hall.

Marvin, poor dog, had been very confused and had whined off and on, further disrupting her sleep.

Talking about it now would only make her want to cry again, and that would aggravate her throbbing headache.

“Then can I get you a coffee? Doughnut?”

She peeped at Morgan’s profile. Damn her for knowing Stevie so well. “Maybe.”

Morgan slowed the truck and did a U-turn in the empty country lane.

“We’ll be late, though.”

“No, we won’t.”

Stevie slumped deeper in her seat as they drove the short way into town. Rain clouds built farther down the coast.

“Do you want to come in?” Morgan asked when she parked beside Storm’s-a-Brewin’, Stormy’s coffee shop and bar.

Stevie shook her head.

“Be right back then.” Morgan slid out of the truck, lanky and confident and everything Stevie was currently not.

The ocean was visible between the buildings.

A decayed lobster wharf was directly in her line of sight, and a cluster of seagulls cawed raucously into each other’s faces in the parking lot opposite.

It didn’t look like friendly conversation, but what did she know?

If Angie were here, Stevie would have made up a conversation between the gulls to pass the time.

Angie, unlike Morgan, would have fed into it, because Angie was as ridiculous as Stevie, even if she hid it better.

Unhelpful thoughts. Her stomach churned and ached.

It was stupid, frankly, that emotions came with physical responses.

Stupid and unfair. Wasn’t it bad enough she’d had her heart clubbed with a nail-studded bat without having to feel like she was going to throw up and have diarrhea at the same time?

Time strolled by, heedless of her misery, and then Morgan was back with a hot coffee and a giant cinnamon roll. “I know I said doughnut, but Stormy said you like these.”

A lump formed in her throat. Fuck . She was going to cry anyway. Morgan moving out, the not-near-kiss, Lana, the beautiful goodness of her friends . . .

“Thanks,” she mumbled thickly as she accepted the offering. Then, noting a distinctly teeth-shaped excision, said, “There’s a bite missing.”

“Delivery fee.”

Stevie bit into the soft, sweet dough. At first her tastebuds reacted with the same laconic misery as the rest of her body.

Gradually, though, cinnamon and other secret spices penetrated the barrier of her depression, and by the time she had licked her fingers clean she felt mildly better and they were halfway to their first appointment, only a few minutes behind schedule.

She washed the sweetness down with coffee.

“Thanks,” she said again.

“No problem, bud.”

The radio was still off. She contemplated reaching for the button, but that seemed like a lot of work.

“Lana come over yesterday?”

Stevie flinched. “Did Angie say something?”

“Just a guess.”

She stared at the mixed hardwood forest passing on her right, seeing only Angie. The need to get the toxic weight off her chest forced her next words out.

“I heard them.”

No need to explain what she’d heard.

Now it was Morgan’s turn to wince. If she said she was sorry, Stevie decided, she would open the truck door and throw herself out.

Better to be a smear on the potholed asphalt than an object of pity; she already felt pathetic enough.

But Morgan didn’t offer platitudes. She was annoyingly prudent that way.

“You know you’re always welcome at our place.”

Stevie nodded. The coffee had reduced the pounding in her head somewhat, and she realized, now that her stomach had something to chew on besides itself, that she hadn’t eaten breakfast. Her appreciation for the cinnamon roll grew.

“I think I need to move out.” The very thought made her bones ache, but she did not have to go through what she’d gone through last night. She was an adult with choices. Getting over Angie—and getting back to being friends instead—would be a lot easier without forced proximity.

“Wait, what?” Morgan took her eyes off the road to stare at Stevie.

“I can’t do this. I can’t be around . . . that, without you there. Not unless we turn it into a duplex. Maybe not even then.”

Morgan went quiet again. The angle of her brows suggested she was deep in thought, which boded ill.

She did not say anything else on the subject, however, and before long had parked the truck outside their first farm call of the day.

If she had come to any conclusions, she didn’t share them with Stevie, and Stevie found she was ultimately still too dejected to care.

Morgan strolled into Angie’s office, accompanied by the sound of barking dogs before the door swung shut.