Page 10 of Windlass

“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.

“Uh, hi.” Angie pushed back her chair and straightened up from the slump she’d fallen into in front of her computer. “Everything okay?”

“Not sure.” Morgan came around the desk and perched on the edge, looking down at Angie. Morgan Donovan: tall, dark, and handsome with her black-Irish looks and tousled curls, and all stern gentleness. Angie’s heart swelled with the surety of safety she usually felt in Morgan’s presence. She already missed living with her more than she could verbalize.

“What’s up?”

Quietly, Morgan asked, “What the fuck, Ange?”

Safe, and also blunt. Angie considered pretending she had no idea what Morgan was talking about. That, however, would only drag the conversation out, and she had no desire to dwell on this topic. Guilt already coated her insides like an oil spill.

“It’s my house.” She had a right to be defensive if Morgan was going to come after her without preamble.

“And she pays you rent.”

“Yeah. To live there. Not to dictate who I . . .” She didn’t finish her sentence. The word “fuck” sounded too vulgar in her head, not that Lana deserved something less uncouth.

Morgan raised her eyebrows. “Then you’re in luck. She told me this morning she wants to move out.”

Fear speared her through her breastbone. She stared at Morgan, unable to breathe at the thought. Stevie wouldn’t. Would she? The memory of how close she’d come to kissing Stevie swirled around her stomach. This was Angie’s fault. She’d shown her cards, and then she’d panicked and slapped Stevie in the face with Lana. Anyone sane would want to get away. But if Stevie left, Angie would come apart at her already badly patched seams.

Morgan’s eyes searched her face and softened.

“I . . .” Angie tried, but words required breath, and she might never breathe again.

“Just think about what you’re doing, okay?”

Morgan might as well have saiddon’t be the world’s biggest asshole. Angie deserved it. She deserved worse. Yesterday’s logic—the void inside her, the need for release, for obliteration—looked less sound in the light of her office with its bright paintings of dogs. She’d done those paintings herself: one of each of the house’s canine residents. Marvin’s portrait smiled at her with his lolling tongue. Stevie had lounged behind her while she worked, she remembered, occasionally leaning in to ask a question about paint.

Lana never asked her anything personal because Lana didn’t give a shit. The two could not be compared, which was the point. Stevie was the one thing in her life she was determined not to fuck up, and she didn’t need to read the judgment in Morgan’s eyes to know she’d done so.

She was such an idiot. No, not an idiot—a bitch. A manipulative, fucked-up bitch, who had put her best friend through hell because she, Angie, couldn’t get her shit together enough to deserve her.

“Hey.” Morgan pulled her into a hug, aided by Angie’s treasonous rolling chair. She tucked her head against Morgan’s arm and breathed in the smell of horse.Whyhad Morgan moved out? She knew why, obviously, but Emilia could have moved in with them instead, and rented her father’s cabin out to strangers. Privacy was overrated. Much better to keep your friends around you so that you were never truly alone with your thoughts.

Stevie couldn’t move out. Angie needed her. She needed her more than she needed anything, which was, of course, the problem.

“She can’t move out,” she mumbled into Morgan.

“Then don’t drive her away.”

“I’m not—” She stopped herself. They both knew that was exactly what she was doing. Extracting herself from the comfort of the embrace, she asked, “What do I do then?”

“I’m a hypocrite here, but have you thought about therapy?”

“Of course I have.”

Morgan waited.

“I don’t have time for therapy.” This was true. She worked long hours, and she had zero interest in spending her day off discussing her baggage. More relevantly, however, she couldn’t afford therapy.

“But you have time for Lana.”

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