Page 7 of Windlass (Seal Cove #3)

“Freddie could always use more TLC.” Ivy patted his neck. “This is Freddie. The lump—”

“She’s a beautiful lump.”

“—in the pasture is Olive. And yes, she’s beautiful. I’m Ivy.”

Jaq, who had turned bright pink under Ivy’s attention, nodded mutely.

Stevie discovered over the course of the ensuing conversation Ivy carried out with Jaq as the two of them untacked and groomed Freddie, Ivy walking Jaq through her routine, that Jaq was fourteen, lived up the road, had two siblings, didn’t care much for school, had a dog, had done a little riding but not much, and mostly just really, really, really wanted to be around horses.

Stevie retrieved Olive for an evening groom while they worked. The rhythm of the curry comb passing over Olive’s familiar frame calmed her mind, and she nearly jumped when Jaq turned up beside her. Stevie passed her a hard brush.

“How did you get Olive?”

“She was a client’s horse, actually. I work for a veterinarian—did Ivy tell you that? She’s a vet too. Anyway, Morgan—Dr. Donovan—and I got a call about a downed horse. When we got there the woman said the horse was her niece’s, but the niece didn’t want her because she couldn’t barrel race.”

“She wanted to barrel race a draft horse?” Jaq’s doubtful tone warmed Stevie to her despite her foul mood.

“Exactly. Idiot, right? She didn’t want to pay for the surgery Olive needed, and the farmer couldn’t afford it, so it was put her down or . . .”

“You saved her.” Jaq stroked Olive’s nose and looked into the horse’s eyes, her young face taut with sympathy and something like pain. Stevie glanced away. Her own pain was plenty. She didn’t need to burden herself with this kid’s, too.

Even as she thought the words she sensed the lie in them. Twenty minutes in this kid’s quiet company and Stevie was ready to go to war against anyone who hurt her.

“Yeah, I guess I did.” She wasn’t sure what else to say. She had saved Olive, but there were so many other animals she hadn’t been able to save, and it seemed inappropriate to accept the credit Jaq seemed eager to give her. Sarcastically she added, “Figured I needed a barrel racing prospect.”

Jaq smiled, still looking at Olive. “What do you do with her?”

“Mostly trail rides.” Stevie patted Olive’s warm shoulder. “Mounted archery, too, because I’m a nerd.”

“That’s nerdy?”

“I mean . . .” Was it these days? She’d just said it for the hell of it, unsure how to explain her interest. “I read a lot of fantasy.”

“That’s cool.”

Something was wrong with today’s youth—or maybe right . Reading fantasy had been the opposite of cool when she was younger. She eyed Jaq to see if she was being sarcastic. The kid had moved on to scratching Olive’s jaw, which the horse loved; her lower lip drooped in appreciation.

“Does Ivy shoot, too?”

“Nah, she’s normal. Three-day eventing or something. She’s really good, though. Look her up sometime. She’ll be a good teacher.”

Ivy met Stevie’s eyes over the horses’ backs and gave an appreciative nod.

Jaq busied herself brushing Olive, leaving Stevie to return to her dark thoughts.

The effort of keeping her bad mood to herself was taxing, even with Jaq’s admittedly pleasant presence.

Eventually Stevie sighed, leaning an arm across Olive’s withers, and rested her face in Olive’s flaxen mane.

Maybe that was all she could hope for in terms of happiness in love: the constancy of animals.

That could be enough, right? She didn’t need to be yanked around—

Angie wasn’t yanking her around, she reminded herself. Angie owed her nothing except friendship. If anything, Stevie was being the asshole by expecting something from Angie that Angie wasn’t able to give. She still wanted Lana to fall in a bear trap, preferably one filled with rusty spikes.

Olive twitched her skin, indicating she’d had enough of Stevie’s melodrama. She straightened. If Jaq had noticed her strange collapse, she didn’t say anything, earning her another point in Stevie’s estimation.

The soft knock on the barn door separating Angie’s work from the horse stalls interrupted the snow of horsehair falling on the barn floor.

“You can come in,” she said, not turning around. Her chest gave an unhealthy spasm. She knew that knock. She saw Jaq and Ivy look up out of the corner of her eye, wave, pause, and then Ivy murmured something about taking Freddie and Jaq for a walk around the pasture.

Stevie had not, apparently, hid her mood as well as she’d hoped. The clop of retreating hooves rang out in the malevolent silence.

Footsteps as soft as the knock came up behind her, Angie’s shaking breaths audible between the swishes of the brush. Stevie concentrated on matching the strokes to her breath. Her face felt hot and tight, and her white-knuckled grip on the brush trembled.

“I’m sorry.” The words were accompanied by Angie’s arms wrapped around Stevie’s stomach, and her face nestled beside Stevie’s. Angie’s cheek was damp. The urge to comfort her warred with her own pain. How could the feel of Angie’s body both soothe and flay her open?

She shrugged as if she wasn’t bothered. “It’s fine.”

Angie didn’t say anything, but she didn’t move either.

The heat of her body on the humid day should have been oppressive; it wasn’t.

The angry, bruised ache in Stevie’s chest lessened with each passing moment of contact.

Touching Angie always felt like a lens coming into focus.

Her arm came to rest by her side of its own volition, brush held limply in her fingers.

Olive craned her head around in the crossties to examine the interruption with a warm brown eye.

She could ask Angie what she was sorry for and make her spell it out. She could shake her off and stay angry and hurt, since she was going to be angry and hurt anyway. She could tell Angie exactly what it felt like to hear the person you lo—

Nope. Nope, nope, nope.

“Just . . . can you go to her place next time?” A reasonable request. More than reasonable. Any friend would be upset to hear someone they cared about getting shoved around, even if Angie clearly enjoyed it. Stevie’s molars creaked beneath her clenching jaw.

Angie tightened her grip on Stevie in a way that suggested she might be trying to control a sob. Sob or no, Stevie didn’t want Angie letting go—ever.

“There won’t be a next time.”

“Uh huh.” She’d heard that before about Lana.

“I mean it.”

“Uh huh,” she said again. A breeze stirred the horsehair at her feet into little eddies. Angie’s body, soft and hot, pressed tightly against her own. If she could only focus on the perfection of that feeling and ignore the rest of the situation . . .

Maybe she should try a dating app again to put distance between them. As if. Besides, previous attempts had only ended up with her hurting someone else’s feelings. It wasn’t fair to date someone when you were in love with someone else.

She was such a dumbass.

Angie’s next words, however, broke the pattern. “But I need your help.”

“Okay.” Angie sat on the far side of the couch twenty minutes later with her chin resting on the knees she’d drawn up to her chest. Stevie considered doing the same but settled for leaning against the back of the couch with her head propped in her hand.

“Okay as in you’re going to tell me what’s up, or okay as in . . .?”

“Okay as in let’s talk.”

“Oh.” Her heart lurched. Talking had seemed like a good idea yesterday. Today, not so much. “Uh. Okay.”

“You know I don’t care about her.”

“Is that supposed to make this better?” Couldn’t Angie see how that was worse ? How it proved that Angie would rather be with someone she didn’t even like than be with Stevie?

“I just—this might take me a second to explain.”

As if Stevie could deny her anything, least of all time. “Sure.”

“You know I’m not . . . I mean . . . I’ve got issues.”

It was impossible to get to know Angie and not guess, eventually, that she had a rough history. Her family’s treatment of her made Lana look tender.

Angie tried to continue. “Lana is a . . .” before trailing off again.

“She’s a coping mechanism. I get it.” She did get it, too. Unfortunately. If Angie couldn’t see how unhealthy that coping mechanism was, though, Stevie wasn’t sure how she was supposed to help.

“Kink is—”

Not this argument. Stevie tried not to grind her teeth. “What you’re doing isn’t kink, Ange.”

Angie’s posture curled inward defensively. “You don’t know that.”

“I do. I’ve looked it up.”

Angie raised her head. Mischief glinted behind the sheen of tears. Mischief, and a curiosity that Stevie was probably just imagining. “You’ve researched kink? What kinds?”

Being fair-skinned had its occasional downsides, white privilege notwithstanding—blushing like a stoplight chief among them. “That is none of your beeswax, Angela Rhodes.”

“Come on.” Angie’s coaxing tone held an edge of flirtation that really wasn’t appropriate, given the context, and which also ignited the usual fire in Stevie’s blood. She’d done her research, and she had paid the price. It had proved impossible not to picture Angie with her arms bound behind her—

Angie was upset. Angie needed her. Angie did not need to deal with Stevie’s baggage.

“Enough to know it’s about consent, and there are boundaries.”

“What I do is consensual, like I’ve said—”

“Okay, yes, but you’re using it as self-harm.”

Angie opened her mouth to argue. Stevie waited. Angie shut her mouth. Frowned. Opened it again. Her teeth were lovely and white against her dark lips.

“That’s . . . maybe . . . fair.” When Angie looked away from Stevie, a tear slid down her lashes to land on her leggings.

“Which is why you need my help?” Stevie prompted.

“Yeah.”

“How?”

Angie hugged a pillow to her chest and looked Stevie directly in the eye. “You can distract me in better ways.”

Yes, she certainly could. Don’t be a creep . Angie didn’t mean it that way.

Anything was better than listening to Angie use Lana to punish herself. She’d take up sword swallowing if that’s what it took.