Spindrift

  Table of Contents

  Titlepage

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Copyright

  About Bywater

  For veterinarians everywhere.

  And for my wife, who saves lives every day.

  Chapter One

  Emilia Russo stared at the sailboat. What the hell have I gotten myself into? This whole idea was insane. Then again, so was she, although her therapist had encouraged her to use kinder language to describe herself. Fine. This is just another symptom of my spiral of doom. She rested her hand on her greyhound’s shoulder to steady herself.

  “It's just a boat, Nell,” she said. The black dog leaned into her leg in unmistakable animal solidarity. It’s just a boat, she told herself again. She’d sailed it a hundred times with her father. The old wooden rail was smooth with oil from their hands, and the fiberglass hull with its fading paint even bore her name: Emilia Rosa.

  That was the catch, though, wasn’t it? She’d sailed it with her father. Now he was gone, the worst of the trifecta of disasters that had marked the past year. Her eyes stung. She would do this for him.

  The new engine on the back of the small sailboat reassured her. It had been years since she’d sailed, and with the engine she would worry less about getting lost at sea. First, however, she had to get herself and her dog out to where the boat bobbed peacefully on its mooring in the calm evening water. Rowboats lined the dock. She scanned them, looking for the old blue one she’d grown up with. It wasn’t there. Frowning, she pulled the bowlines of a few of the nearby boats to see if hers had gotten lost in the mix. Her heart plunged when she finally found it.

  “Nell,” she said, staring at the decrepit dinghy riding low in the water, a milk jug bail floating in the small pond at the bottom, “I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”

  The dog watched with interest as Emilia pulled the rowboat closer. It definitely had a slow leak somewhere, and she lay on her stomach on the sun-warmed wood of the wharf as she bailed out the worst of the water. Only then did she dare step into the boat to finish the job. When she was satisfied she wouldn’t sink immediately, she grabbed her bag and tucked it into the driest corner. Then she turned to Nell.

  “Your turn.”

  Nell’s expression didn’t require translation. Oh hell no, her narrow face said, and she backed up against the end of her leash.

  “It’s okay, baby. Come.”

  Sixty-five pounds of stubbornness splayed her paws on the deck.

  “Nell.” Frustration leaked into her voice, and she took a deep breath. Animals needed their humans to be calm and confident. Unfortunately, Emilia felt neither of those things at the moment.

  Footsteps vibrated down the dock, and she groaned. An audience would really ice the cake. “If you come right now I will buy you a cheeseburger.”

  Nell remained unimpressed. The footsteps came closer. Emilia closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and braced herself for unwanted human interaction.

  “Need a hand?” The voice, low and calm, came from the woman standing a few yards away with her hand on the collar of a sable German shepherd. Emilia assessed the dog’s body language and gauged his reaction to Nell, who rarely showed an interest in members of her own species. Then she raised her eyes to the woman. “He won’t bother your dog,” the intruder said, as if reading Emilia’s mind.

  Fuck. Emilia’s cheeks flushed with embarrassment. Life just wasn’t fair. She recognized the woman standing before her, even though it had to have been at least fifteen years since she’d last seen her. Morgan Donovan.

  She was taller now than she’d been as a teenager, but those slate blue eyes remained unchanged. Her wardrobe hadn’t altered much, either. Carhartt work pants, slung low over lean hips. Practical boots. A simple brown sweater that her fingers itched to smooth over shoulders broadened from a lifetime of rugged athleticism. The impulse quickened her irritation, and she jerked her eyes back up, noticing the most significant change. Morgan’s hair was no longer bundled into a sloppy ponytail. She’d cropped it short, and the dark curls brought out the contrast with her fair skin.

  “Classic Black Irish coloring, just like her mom,” her father had said once when he saw Emilia staring at the Donovan’s’ girl in the harbor. Emilia had pined after Morgan the last two summers she’d spent in Seal Cove, before her mother had sued for full custody and her father lost visitation rights. She recalled with humiliation that Morgan hadn’t so much as said hello in all that time.

  It hadn’t occurred to her she might run into Morgan now, and even if it had, she wouldn’t have thought much of it. Unrequited love was one of those universal adolescent experiences that prepared children for the inevitable heartbreaks to come. She’d gotten over Morgan years ago. Still, seeing her when she was barely managing to keep her shit together smacked of cosmic sadism.

  She met Morgan’s open gaze with a glare. “I’m fine, thank you.”

  “Sure.” Her eyes swept over the milk jug and Nell’s stubborn ears. “You look like you have things under control.”

  “I do. Nell, come.” Perhaps it was the unmistakable command in her voice, or perhaps Nell had taken pity on her, for the dog leapt lightly into the boat and settled between Emilia’s knees like she had done so a hundred times before. “See? We’re peachy.”

  Peachy? What are you, five? She flipped the oarlocks into place and fumbled the oars into them. Then, realizing Morgan had shown no signs of moving on, she popped one oar back out and used it to push off. She got six feet before the bowline snapped taut.

  “Shit on a stick,” she said under her breath.

  Morgan knelt with a grin and tugged on the line, which gave her enough slack to unclip it from the dock and toss the rope into the dinghy.

  “Thanks.” Emilia’s face felt hotter than asphalt in July.

  “No problem.” Morgan’s smile deepened, and then faltered as her eyes slid to the name painted on the stern of the boat.

  Emilia put her back into the oars and pulled hard against the water’s resistance before Morgan could begin offering condolences for her loss, or whatever other bullshit phrase she chose to employ. Her efforts were clumsy at first, but her body remembered the steady rhythm of the motion as Morgan shrank in her peripheral vision. Nell helped block her from view by craning her neck around to kiss Emilia’s face at an improbable angle. When she reached the Emilia Rosa and dared to look up again, Morgan had vanished.

  “Thank god,” she said to her dog as she unsnapped the canvas boat cover enough to make room for Nell. “All aboard.”

  Nell stiffened as Emilia hauled her in by her harness, but quickly proceeded to sniff around the musty, salt-smelling cave she’d found herself in. Emilia finished pulling the cover off the boom and stowed it in the small cabin. The furled sail felt cool and familiar under her fingers. She didn’t undo the rope that kept it tied down, nor did she attempt to hoist the boom. Instead, she pulled a flat boat cushion out from the cabin and sat, fishing in her bag for the bottle of wine she’d brought with her.

  “Cheers, dad.” She took a swallow. The wine soothed her throat. Nell lay down beside her, inspection complete, and rested her long snout on Emilia’s knee.

  Cha
pter Two

  Morgan stared at her hand. It remained on the ignition, where it had lingered for ten minutes while she watched Ray Russo’s daughter struggle with the dilapidated dinghy a few moorings over. She quelled the desire to offer further assistance. The look in those brown eyes had been clear: I don’t want your help. That didn’t mean Morgan hadn’t noticed how desperately she clearly needed it. The grief in the other woman’s face had hit Morgan like a mule kick to the gut. She doesn’t need you to save her. The way the woman’s knuckles had whitened on the oars flashed across her mind. What was she afraid of? And her mouth, before it had twisted with determination, with her lips parted and vulnerable—stop. She didn’t normally have this level of empathy for complete strangers, no matter how attractive. Then again, the woman wasn’t exactly a stranger, was she?

  “I should’ve said something.” Her dog pricked his ears at her voice, but when she didn’t add anything else, he lay back down on the deck. A lump rose in her throat as she sat in the captain’s chair and let her hand fall to her lap. She still couldn’t believe Ray was gone. Over the sunlit water, his daughter curled up on the bow of his boat. Morgan saw the glint of light on glass and a deep red glow: wine. The sight made the lump larger. Drinking alone on her boat was what had first brought Ray into Morgan's life, back when she didn’t know the first thing about operating her twenty-one-foot Bayliner. She had been afraid to take it out and just as afraid of admitting to herself that she had no idea what she was doing. Ray had set her straight.

  Well, not about the drinking. She’d helped him home several times over the past few years. Seeing his daughter with a bottle to her lips roused a bittersweet pang. She hoped the girl knew when to stop. Ray never had. The thought settled the decision. She’d stay in the harbor instead of nipping up the tidal river for a little fishing. Being on the water, even if she didn’t move, was better than the chaos of the house she shared with her friends. She leaned back in the chair and watched the clouds turn pink, then orange, as the sun descended further into the western sky. The late May light softened the grays and blacks of the rocky shoreline with its shuttered summer homes and brooding pines.

  Emilia. That was her name, same as Ray’s boat. Ray had mentioned she’d come to stay with him in the summer when she was younger, but Morgan had no memory of anyone who looked remotely like Emilia Russo ever setting foot in Seal Cove. She let her gaze drift back down to the sailboat, remembering the coldness in those brown eyes and the flush of embarrassment across Emilia's olive skin. Hot and cold. She wiped her palms on her pants, aware that the sudden prick of sweat heralded danger.

  The majority of the moorings were empty this early in the season. Few of the summer people had arrived, and only the locals and the lobstermen and women had their boats in the water. Morgan preferred it this way. Quiet. Tranquil. It gave her a break from the hectic schedule of the clinic, which had lost its other full-time large animal veterinarian in April, and it also gave her a break from her housemates. It wouldn’t be the same this year without Ray, though. Settling deeper in her chair, she propped her feet on the dash and closed her eyes.

  Morgan jerked awake some time later as her phone vibrated on her hip. A message from her friend Stevie glowed on the screen: You’re late.

  She ignored it. Sunset brought cold air in from the ocean, and she inhaled the lingering winter chill.

  A splash caught her attention. She shoved her phone back in her pocket as a string of obscenities carried over the water. Her dog woke at once and bounded to the rail with his tail upright and alert. Morgan stared around the harbor for the source of the disturbance. The fading sunlight cast long shadows, and the water surrounding the neighboring boats looked nearly black.

  Emilia no longer sprawled over the bow of the sailboat. This, paired with the frantic barking of the woman’s dog, clued Morgan in.

  “Shit.” She fired up the engine and sprang to unhook her boat from its mooring. The Maine water was still dangerously cold this time of year, especially for someone drinking. She gunned the engine as much as she dared in close quarters, not wanting to slap Emilia with wake, and circled around to bring her boat alongside the Emilia Rosa. She tossed a bumper out of habit and looped a hasty line around a cleat to keep the boats from drifting, then leaned over the bow to extend a hand to the woman clinging to the sailboat’s hull.

  “Here.”

  “I’m fine,” Emilia said through chattering teeth. The anger in her voice made Morgan flinch.

  “Like hell you are. Give me your hand.”

  “No.”

  “Seriously?” Morgan leaned over further and grabbed Emilia by the wrists. She pried her grip away from the sailboat and hauled Emilia over the rail, thankful for the rigorous requirements of her job. The greyhound stopped barking at once.

  Emilia looked too startled at the sudden change in her circumstances to speak right away, and instead stood in a steadily growing puddle on the deck of Morgan’s boat. The thick wool sweater she wore—one of Ray’s, Morgan realized—sagged on her slender frame, and her brown hair dripped into her face. Morgan rummaged through the storage cabinet in the bow and pulled out a beach towel. Surfing penguins emblazoned the worn cotton, but if Emilia found it insensitive she kept it to herself.

  “Your dog okay with other dogs?” she asked Emilia. She didn’t love the idea of an unknown dog on her boat, but neither did she like the thought of leaving an animal behind. If it was anything like Emilia, it might decide to go for a swim, and greyhounds were notoriously cold intolerant. Two hypothermia victims weren’t on her docket for the evening.

  Emilia nodded.

  “What’s her name?”

  “Nell.”

  “Nell, come,” Morgan said in the soft but firm voice she reserved for skittish animals. The greyhound leapt onto the boat in a scrabble of claws and flung herself at her owner. Her own dog, Kraken, grumbled at this invasion of his space, but obeyed Morgan’s sharp command to stay put.

  “There’s a shower at the boathouse. It’ll warm you up.”

  “I don’t have a change of clothes,” said Emilia through chattering teeth.

  “Makes sense. I assumed you weren’t planning on going for a swim?”

  Emilia grimaced in reply.

  “I can lend you something to wear.”

  “You don’t need to do that.”

  Morgan stifled the derisive snort before it could escape. Emilia’s clipped politeness, which bordered on bitchy, obviously covered up the woman’s embarrassment. Morgan wanted to call her on her bullshit like she would have done with Stevie. That, however, didn’t seem like it would go over well. She untied her boat from the Emilia Rosa and took them into the dock a short distance away. Emilia stared at her soaked feet the entire ride, huddled in the seat next to Morgan and shivering in the wind. Even soaking wet and draped in tropical penguins she was gorgeous; an observation Morgan couldn’t help making despite her better judgment.

  “Okay.” She killed the engine and tied up. “Let’s get you warmed up.”

  “I’m fine,” Emilia said again.

  “Look. Emilia, right? You’re not fine. The water is fucking cold, and no offense, but you look like you drank a bottle of wine.”

  “Half a bottle.”

  “Close enough. Do I need to explain vasodilation to you?”

  Indignation flashed across Emilia’s face. Good, thought Morgan. Indignation was proof she wasn’t totally wasted—and that she had a decent vocabulary. Morgan held out her hand, and despite the resentment evident in Emilia’s eyes, this time she allowed Morgan to help her off the boat and up the ramp to the boathouse. Morgan told herself she didn’t notice the strength in Emilia’s hands or the way her cold fingers locked around her own. Noticing things like that would only get her in trouble.

  • • •

  Idiot, Emilia berated herself as hot water from the grimy shower chased the cold out from underneath her skin. You’re a fucking drunken idiot. This was lower than she’d been in a long time,
and the irony of the situation gnawed at her. How many times her mother ranted about her father’s irresponsible drinking? How many times had she herself asked him to be more careful? And yet, here she was, drunk and freezing in a boathouse shower.

  Nell whined and poked her head underneath the gap in the shower stall door. She bent over and stroked her dog’s head with a wet hand, wishing she was anywhere but here.

  At least Morgan was a woman. Emilia didn’t think she would have been able to stop herself from throttling one of the salt-of-the-earth types she’d seen eyeing her around the harbor, or worse, one of the hipster men who gathered around the bars and talked about building their own boats with money from their trust funds, though they never put it that baldly. She would have preferred, however, to be rescued by a less attractive woman, or at least someone who wasn’t Morgan Donovan.

  Or to not have required rescue at all.

  You’re lucky there was someone here, an irritating and logical part of her brain informed her. She shut the thought down, but not before an icy wave of nausea washed over her. If she’d drowned, her mother would have thought she’d done it intentionally, and Emilia never wanted to see that kind of fear in her mother’s eyes again.

  The wine made her head spin in the cramped space of the shower. Morgan probably thought she was an alcoholic. Just like my dad. She closed her eyes and let hot water beat against her lids. Yes, she downed half a bottle of wine while sitting in the boat her father had named after her, but sitting in the boat sober had been out of the question. It had too much of her dad in it. Next time I’ll wear a life jacket, she promised herself. And I’ll leave the wine behind. That wouldn’t prevent the dinghy from sinking or a bank of fog from whisking her blindly out to sea, but it was a start.

  On the other hand, at least she’d gotten her first swim of the season out of the way. She used to compete with her dad to see who could brave the cold water first, both of them shrieking and shouting as the frigid water of the Atlantic closed over their belly buttons. Hot tears joined the water flowing over her body.