“Jesus. If you’re like this after only knowing her a week or so . . .” Lillian shook her head. “I do like her, though.”

“Which is why we’ll all be friends until she goes back to Boston.”

“And if she doesn’t?”

Morgan clamped her mind shut against Lillian’s suggestion. “She will.”

“Secret conference in here?” Stevie asked.

“No,” said Morgan and Lillian together.

“Okay . . . but we want to know what to do about the steaks you abandoned.”

“I’ll be right out.”

“Your hand okay?”

“It’s fine.”

“Speaking of fine . . .”

“No,” Lillian said firmly.

Stevie looked back and forth between Lillian and Morgan. “Are we not rooting for this anymore? Because she’s real hot.”

“I’m going back to the grill.” She pushed past Stevie and left Lillian to explain however she saw fit.

“Are you broken?” Stormy asked from her seat by the fire when Morgan returned to the site of her injury.

“Nope.” She held out her wounded hand as proof, not looking up. If she looked up, she’d see Emilia, and she needed another minute after her chat with Lillian before she was ready for that. Instead, she listened to the conversation.

“So,” said Danielle. “What do you do, Emilia?”

Morgan tensed. This was the moment she’d been dreading.

“Right now, I’m taking some time to focus on my dad’s estate.”

“I’m sorry to hear that he passed. I lost my parents a few years ago. It’s never easy, and I can only imagine it is harder when it’s unexpected.”

“Thank you.”

“What do you do professionally?”

Damn Danielle and her need for facts.

“Actually,” Emilia said with a laugh that Morgan could tell was forced, “I’m a vet.”

Morgan wasn’t the only one who’d heard. Lillian, who had returned with a tube of something Morgan suspected was burn cream, exchanged glances with their other friends. Stormy looked straight at Morgan with her eyebrows raised.

“Really?” Danielle leaned forward, and Morgan silently begged her not to offer Emilia a job on the spot.

“I was in shelter medicine.”

Now it was Lillian’s eyes that bored into Morgan’s. She ignored them. Emilia had managed to keep a smile on her lips, but Morgan noted how white her knuckles were around her drink.

“Ah,” said Danielle, her voice softening. “That’s hard work.”

Emilia nodded but did not say anything else.

“Well, try to enjoy Maine while you’re here, if you can. Did I hear you saying you sail?”

“Badly, but yes.” Morgan saw some of the tension leak out of Emilia’s shoulders as Danielle steered the conversation elsewhere.

Shelter medicine. Morgan plunged a meat thermometer into a steak as the pieces assembled. Shelter medicine was like one of the carnivorous plants Lillian kept in the greenhouse. It tended to attract the sort of people who didn’t survive long, some quite literally. The suicide rate in veterinary medicine was higher than almost any other profession. Shelter medicine was even worse. Underfunded government clinics and struggling private rescues did their best to accommodate thousands of unwanted animals, which meant problems like severe skin allergies or even an ear infection could end in euthanasia. Shelter medicine required more than professional detachment. It required incredible mental discipline, and few people could euthanize healthy animals day after day without breaking. No wonder Emilia didn’t want to talk about it.