Page 55 of Windlass (Seal Cove #3)

Angie dragged Stevie with her to the grocery store on the way back from the island. Stevie grumbled about shopping getting in the way of more important things, but Angie stayed firm, coaxing Stevie along with sordid promises.

“Besides, Olive will be fine for another thirty minutes,” she told Stevie, “and I don’t have sex when I’m hungry.”

Which proved a remarkably effective argument.

She assured Stevie it would be a quick trip as she yanked a cart free from its fellows and trundled it into Hannaford.

The store was busy for a Sunday evening.

Tourists mostly. She wove through shoppers, Stevie at her heels, hoping to make the visit quick.

This many people unnerved her. Stevie tossed items into the cart under Angie’s orders.

“Try to load them in the order you want them bagged,” Angie suggested.

“You’ve hung out with Lilian too long.” It was a fair accusation. She had gotten more particular about shopping as a result of shopping with Lilian, but her methods were not madness—

“Hey, Ange.”

Her head snapped up at the sound of Lana’s voice. She could see her own reflection in the frozen vegetable cooler door: scared and guilty. Stevie stiffened beside her.

“Hi,” Angie said. “How are you?”

Lana didn’t have another woman with her that Angie could see, but that meant nothing. Blond Bridget could be close. With luck, she’d show up now and take Lana away. Angie didn’t want to deal with her, not after the weekend. Not with Stevie bristling like a feral cat beside her.

Please don’t fight , she begged Stevie with her body language, sliding between them as she turned.

“Great.” Lana’s eyes drifted to Stevie. Angie tensed, prepared to pull Stevie off Lana as she’d had to before, but Stevie leaned back against the cart and nodded coolly. Lana’s cheeks darkened with an angry flush.

“Are we in your way?” Angie asked. We . It felt good to say even in these circumstances.

“Not you.” Lana’s eyes suggested Stevie was in the way.

Stevie reached into the cooler and snatched a bag of frozen peas. To do what? Throw them at Lana? Angie curled her toes in anxiety, the action hidden by her shoes.

“But I come in peas,” said Stevie as she proffered the bag to Lana.

Angie burst into laughter so loudly several nearby shoppers turned to look. She laughed until she had to slap a hand over her mouth to stop herself.

Lana couldn’t have looked more disgusted if someone had taken a giant shit in the middle of the aisle. She tugged at the brim of her hat, adjusting it as she glared first at Stevie, then at Angie.

Now that she was looking for it, Angie saw the hurt still lingering—but the disgust and irritation were stronger.

“She’s perfect for you.” Lana’s tone implied this was an insult of the highest degree.

Angie smiled. I come in peas . Knowingly or otherwise, Stevie had done the one thing Lana couldn’t stand: embarrassed her.

“I know,” Angie said. To Stevie, she added, “Put those in the cart. I’m making you eat them later.”

“I hate peas.”

“You’re a big girl.”

By the time they’d finished bickering, Lana had stalked off.

Angie watched her go. An odd sadness passed over her and faded.

It wasn’t that she’d miss Lana, not in any way that might concern Stevie or Angie’s friends.

She didn’t know what it was that twinged, exactly.

Perhaps an echo of a life she was choosing to leave behind, like a door swinging shut in the darkness of a quiet house.

She didn’t think she’d hear from Lana again.

“Thank you.” She looked back at Stevie, who jerked her eyes away as if she hadn’t been studying Angie closely.

“For what?”

“For not flipping out.”

“I never flip out. I’m peas-full.” Stevie patted the bag of peas in the cart. “Or I will be when you force them down my throat.”

“Because I’m totally going to make you deep-throat peas.” Angie rolled her eyes, unable to squash her smile.

Stevie straightened. “We’re done shopping, right?”

“Almost.”

“Then why are we standing here?” Stevie took the cart and started off in the wrong direction.

“Bread is this way.”

Stevie halted and spun the cart around with an unpleasant squeak of tires.

“Knew that.”

“Course you did.”

Stevie brought the cart parallel to her, those blue eyes quieting in concern. “You okay? Lana . . . you know.”

“I am,” said Angie.

She was. The sense of severance felt peaceful, Stevie’s puns notwithstanding. Lana’s disgust had been genuine. Her words had been, too, though not in a complimentary way.

Stevie was perfect for her. Lana could get fucked. Still, she wished her well. Maybe she’d find her way one day, preferably before she hurt too many more women. It seemed unlikely. Angie hoped for it anyway.

“You know you’re too good for me, right?” She fingered the hem of Stevie’s T-shirt, not making eye contact. She needed to tell Stevie about what had happened outside Stormy’s bar. And she would. Tonight.

“Peas stop saying that.”

Angie kissed her, ignoring the scandalized look a pair of older women gave them. When she pulled away, Stevie grinned as cheeky as they came and said, “That works, too.”

Returning to the mainland felt a bit like waking from a good dream.

Stevie did not want to blink, lest she hurry the process.

Even the memory of karaoke was tinged with golden magic, though never again would she be able to think of the song “Can You Feel the Love Tonight” without hearing her voice and Morgan’s creaking out of tune.

It was, however, good to see Olive again. She stroked the round plates of her cheekbones and blew gently into her nostrils, cooing sweet nothings into the summer air. Olive accepted them as was her due.

“. . . got rid of her with a pun,” she finished, explaining to Olive the finer points of her encounter with Lana. “I still wanted to deck her, though.”

She’d replayed the moment often in the hours since their return home: Lana’s appearance, Angie’s eyes widening in anxiety, the sharp pain of knowing she was as much a part of that anxiety as Lana.

Lana’s face had been so comically annoyed that the burst of ugly rage in Stevie’s veins had sputtered out.

She’d won—not that Angie was a thing to be won, but still.

Lana was a sore loser who couldn’t accept that Angie had moved on.

It was pathetic. She was aware that she, too, would be pathetic in the face of losing Angie, but that was beside the point.

Looking at Lana, she’d acted on instinct.

And Lana had hated it. The previous gloating look in her eyes, which had dogged Stevie for days after their last close encounter, was a result of getting under Stevie’s skin. If she didn’t let Lana see that her very existence on the planet was an abscess on Stevie’s asshole, Lana lost her edge.

More crucially, she’d wanted to relax Angie and prove she wasn’t volatile; she was someone Angie could rely on.

It had worked beautifully.

“Hey.” Angie slipped into the barn. “Did she survive without you?”

“Barely. Isn’t that right, munchkin?”

Olive didn’t react to the insulting nickname.

“Can I talk to you?”

The bottom fell out of Stevie’s stomach first, then the ground. In fact, it was bottoms all the way down. No good had ever come out of those words.

“Sure.” She patted Olive on the shoulder.

The breezeway of the barn doubled as shade cover when the apple trees in the orchard pasture weren’t enough.

Olive and Freddie usually made a mess of the concrete, but Jaq had clearly kept up on it.

This had the unfortunate effect of giving Stevie nothing immediate to do with her hands.

“It’s not—oh my god, your face. It’s not like that.” Angie threw her hands up to ward off Stevie’s fears. They were slightly allayed. “It’s something I should have told you sooner.”

“Shockingly, that doesn’t make me feel better.” Stevie’s attempt at sarcasm fell short.

“Can we sit?” Angie took her hand and tugged her to the pair of overturned buckets drying at the end of the breezeway. They sat side by side.

“Okay?” Stevie hated herself for the note of belligerence in her voice. She tried again. “You know you can tell me anything, right?”

Angie tossed her a sideways look that said, “Nobody is prepared to hear anything , no matter what they say.” Which was accurate. Stevie didn’t feel prepared at all.

“Nothing happened.”

“Again, less than reassuring!”

“I’m trying— I don’t do these things well.”

What, communication? She wisely kept this snarky thought to herself. Angie did not do communication well, but that was not Angie’s fault.

“I’m sorry. I’ll shut up. Tell me?”

“It’s something you need to know about me before you decide if you want to be with me.”

“You’re a mutant. No, a werewolf.”

“Caught me.” Angie’s smile was small and sad. Stevie hated it.

Haltingly, Angie told her about the encounter she’d had with Lana outside Stormy’s. Stevie listened with a sick throbbing where her heart normally beat. Angie had needed her, and Lana had been there instead. More aptly, Lana had ambushed Angie, sensing vulnerability like blood in the water.

When Angie finished, Stevie sat in silence, gathering her thoughts and sorting through them, unsure where to begin.

“You didn’t know she had a thing for you?” she asked, deciding to start small. Stevie had known it for ages, hating every possessive glance Lana sent in Angie’s direction.

“We had an arrangement, not . . .”

“Most people don’t stick with an arrangement that long unless they have feelings.”

“I did.”

“You’re not most people.” Stevie paused, grinding her teeth. “And it’s okay if you did—do—have some feelings for her. Small, shitty feelings, obviously, but you know what I mean.”

Angie scuffed a bit of dirt with the toe of her shoe. “Maybe, but not romantic ones.”

“Seriously?” This was excellent if surprising news. “I figured—well, she’s been around for a while.”

“We had chemistry, I guess. But I try not to get involved with people I can hurt.”