“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.

Chapter 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.