Page 1 of Windlass

Chapter One

Stevie would do anything for her friends, including, it appeared, carry baggage the approximate density and weight of a neutron star. She lowered the last box to the floor of the cabin living room and wiped her sweating palms on her jeans. It was hot for late June. Too hot to be hauling boxes of Morgan’s things out of the back of a truck at any rate. Sweat pooled in places best left arid. At least Morgan hadn’t decided to move into her girlfriend’s cabin in August or, worse, January.

“What did you pack in this?” Stevie asked, nudging the impossibly heavy plastic bin with her toe. “Weights?”

Morgan, who stood a rude seven inches taller than Stevie, winced as she took note of the box at Stevie’s feet. “How much will you hate me if I say yes?”

Stevie tore off the tape securing the plastic lid and pried it open. A set of kettlebells stared up at her.

“Are you serious right now?”

Morgan ran a sheepish hand through her short, dark curls, her blue eyes rueful. “I didn’t mean for anyone else to grab that one.”

“Sure you didn’t.” Stevie did a little mental arithmetic. “This weighs at least seventy pounds. What kind of asshole packs a box withseventy pounds of weightsin it when herbest friendsare helping her move?”

The best friends in question were Stevie, Angie, and Stormy. Stevie and Morgan had been inseparable since they were kids. They worked together now at the Seal Cove Veterinary Clinic, where Stevie played technician to Morgan’s large animal veterinarian, and had even lived together up until today. They’d met Angie, their other roommate, at the veterinary clinic, and through Angie, Stormy, who owned a café-and-brewery in town and who didnotlive with them, something Stevie currently regretted. Deeply. The number of roommates had dwindled over the year, with their fourth roommate, Lilian, moving in with her girlfriend earlier that winter, and now it would just be Stevie and Angie.

Shit.

“This kind,” said Stormy, popping her head into the living room and patting Morgan on the shoulder. “Cold drinks are ready in the kitchen.”

“Beer?” Morgan asked, her tone hopeful.

“Water. I poured you each a glass. You need to hydrate.”

“Or drink the pain away.” Stevie rubbed her right biceps.

“You lift seventy pounds all the time,” said Angie, who had followed Stevie in from the truck with a few miscellaneous items that had broken loose in transit. She lightly pinched Stevie’s arm.

Her fingers were warm. Stevie tried not to let her gaze linger on the delicate beads of sweat dotting Angie’s chest and shoulders, which meant she ended up staring at the strip of skin between the top of Angie’s leggings and the bottom of her cropped yoga top. Why,whyhad anyone let the early aughts back into style? She snapped her gaze back up to Angie’s face, focusing instead on her wavy brown hair, which she’d bundled into a messy bun. A few strands had sprung loose to hang in languid curls around her face.

Somehow, that was worse.

Besides, knowing Angie, she would have shown up in a sports bra and bike shorts regardless of style. The aughts could not be blamed for everything.

“Yeah, I lift that muchfor work.”

“Marvin is work? Don’t let him hear you say that.” Angie tossed her armful of junk into a chair and propped a hand on her hip. “You carry that dog around like a toddler, and he weighs what, sixty-five?”

“Yeah, well, those five pounds make a difference.”

“Are you actually hurt?” Morgan asked.

At the real concern in her friend’s voice, Stevie dropped the act. “It’s the principle of the thing.”

“I appreciate your help, buddy.”

“Go get me some water.”

Morgan grinned and obliged, returning with two glasses, which she handed to Angie and Stevie before returning with one for herself and Stormy. Like Angie’s, Stormy’s tight black curls were piled high on her head, but unlike Angie’s, they remained contained, save for the short strands she’d left out intentionally to frame her face. Morgan’s short hair did what it usually did: looked like it was just dying for some tall drink of water to run her fingers through the thick curls, which was, in fact, why they were there—moving Morgan into said tall drink of water’s house.

“How are you not dying like the rest of us?” Stevie asked Stormy with a vague gesture to indicate the unseasonable heat.

“I work in a kitchen.” Stormy caught Stevie’s eye. “And I deadlift fifty-pound bags every day. This is nothing.”

“I deadlift your mom,” Stevie said automatically.

The other three groaned, though Angie did let loose an, “Eyyyy,” first, before settling onto the arm of Stevie’s chair to drink. The couch and remaining chair were occupied by Morgan’s worldly possessions, leaving her little choice. Stevie studiously looked away from the bare skin now directly at her eye level. Her peripheral vision noticed anyway.

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