Page 6 of Spindrift

“Pizzame, Ange,” Morgan said.

Angiegrabbed three slices at random and piled them on a plate. Morgan devoured thefirst slice of pepperoni in four bites. Coming up for air, she asked, “Where’sLil?”

“Stillat the clinic. Emergency came in right before close.”

“Ilove that you still know more about the clinic than we do,” said Stevie. Morganhad to agree. Angie had been a vet tech before inheriting this house and enoughmoney to open the clinic’s affiliated boarding and daycare facility. Despite this,she always seemed to have a line on what was going on back at the office.

“Oneof my many skills.” Angie crammed an entire slice of pizza into her mouth toillustrate yet another skill, smiling around a rogue olive.

“Whyis that so gross and yet so sexual?” Stevie asked Morgan.

“Onlyin your mind.” Morgan tousled Stevie’s hair, which she had taken out of herponytail. The blond strands still bore the crease from their long day.

Angieexamined Morgan more critically. “Fuck this party. You look exhausted, Morgan. Lillianwill be here soon to play vet. You need to get some sleep.”

“Yousure?” Since Angie’s business was technically a part of the clinic, sheadvertised on-site veterinarians. This meant one of those veterinarians had toshow up for staff events occasionally.

“Ofcourse. Stevie will defend me from my minions.”

Steviegave Morgan an exaggerated look of horror.

“Thanks,Ange,” said Morgan.

Alonein her room, she eyed her bed, weighing the pros and cons of a shower. Shesmelled like horse and cow manure. Those smells hadn’t bothered her for years,but she’d feel better if she at least rinsed off.

Thebathroom she shared with Lillian had been cleaned recently. She made a mentalnote to thank Lillian as she shucked off her clothes and stepped into the clawfoot bathtub, which had been effectively, if inelegantly, retrofitted with ashower head and a hideous, dinosaur-themed shower curtain Stevie had bought asa gag gift. Hot water sluiced down her shoulders. She let it soak her hair andrun down her face, washing away the grime of the day. Emilia’s profile with itstight jaw and taut smile drifted across the backs of her eyelids again. Wary.Guarded. Morgan wondered what the hell she’d been thinking when she fell intothe water. Emilia obviously didn’t know her way around a boat well, althoughmaybe she had at one point. Drinking on top of inexperience was downrightstupid. On the other hand, Morgan had seen the spasm of grief that seizedEmilia’s entire body when she’d mentioned Ray. Emilia had lost her father. Thatwas reason enough.

Theancient water heater needed replacing, and she knew from experience that thesudden drop in temperature indicated that approximately forty-five secondsremained before it went from warm to frigid.Wouldn’t that be fitting, allthings considered?Her mind conjured up the way the wet clothes had clungto Emilia’s body when she pulled her from the freezing ocean, and how she’dgasped as the wind had hit her.

Damnit.It had been too long since Morganhad let someone else touch her, and this was the result. Her mind had revertedto desperate measures, even while her heart and her schedule insisted there wasneither time nor space for anyone else right now and hadn’t been since thecollapse of her last relationship six months ago. Besides, what was the pointof going on a date that could be interrupted at any moment by a call from theclinic? That likelihood was exactly why Kate called off their engagement in thefirst place.

Sheshut off the water. Thinking about Kate still made her jaw ache, and she forcedherself to unclench her teeth. Kate had moved on, leaving Morgan here, livingin a house with three other people instead of the apartment she had shared withher fiancée. She stepped blindly out of the tub and elicited a yelp from thedog lying on the bath mat.

“Sorry,bud.”

Backin her room, she set her pager and her phone on her nightstand, then shoved herhead through the worn hem of her favorite Cornell T-shirt (the one thatfeatured a donkey’s head on the front and its rear on the back, courtesy of thelivestock club at school). Barely conscious, she measured out Kraken’s dinner,ruffled the hair around his ears, and slipped into an exhausted sleep.

• • •

Emiliaunlocked the door to her father’s house with shaking fingers. After Morgan had left,she’d borrowed her skiff and rowed back out to her boat to retrieve her bag andtow her leaky dinghy to the dock. Nell looked up at her reproachfully and madea beeline for her dinner bowl as soon as Emilia hefted the old wooden door open.Entering her father’s house still felt strange. Set back on an acre of landthat abutted a small corner of the estuary, the log cabin-style home smelledlike old tobacco and musty leather furniture. Taxidermy animals adorned theliving room walls, and one corner of the sunroom was dedicated to his flyfishing supplies. She’d have to decide what to do with it all at some point,but not while she wore a stranger’s clothes.

Nota stranger. Morgan Donovan.

“Eat,you monster,” she said as she fed Nell in the dim kitchen. Painting the darkwood white would be the first thing she did, she decided. Her father had likedthe constant twilight of his home, but she did not enjoy living in a cave. Hertherapist would no doubt agree.White curtains would help, too.

Shechanged into an old sweatshirt and sweatpants, dumped her wet clothes andMorgan’s into the washing machine, and curled up in the recliner thatoverlooked the window to the yard. It was more of a meadow than a yard really,overgrown with tall grass and old dry stalks painted silver by the moonlight.

“Well,Dad,” she said to the room, “I fell off the boat.”

Hewould have laughed at that. Prior to the divorce he’d laughed a lot. Evenafter, during the years when she had spent the summers with him, he had beenfull of laughter. She hadn’t spent much time with him during the interveningdecade and a half. Vet school and work made it hard to get away, but sheimagined his laugh would have remained the same—so long as he hadn’t beendrinking.Not that I can judge right now.

Adeer crossed the meadow, followed by a fawn. Nell finished her dinner andsettled herself on the vacant couch to watch the deer with interest. Thepeepers chirped in the gathering night, joined by the calls of animals Emiliadidn’t recognize. It was louder here in its own way than the city, though shedidn’t miss the omnipresent serenade of distant sirens.

Herphone buzzed. She scanned the notifications. A missed call from her mother, anda text from her stepsister, Anna Maria. Both could wait, as could the emailsmustering their forces in her inbox. At least one would be from a shelterdirector, reminding her that she had a job waiting whenever she was ready toreturn.Whenever. Not if. So far only her therapist had acknowledged thepossibility that she might not be ready to return to any of it: Boston, herjob, even the veterinary field. Remembering what her therapist, Shanti, hadtaught her about thought blocking, she redirected her mind away from her breakdownand the responsibilities she’d put on hold, and back to the present.

Tomorrowshe would stop by the hardware store and pick up some paint palettes. While shewas there, maybe she’d see about grabbing a fiberglass repair kit to fix theleak in her skiff. One day at a time as Ray Russo was fond of saying—not thathe’d ever managed to stick with AA. No major decisions. She could do this.

Chapter Three

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