• • •

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.

A dry towel appeared over the door a second after she shut off the shower. The reminder of Morgan’s existence helped distill the fresh bout of grief, and she fanned the spark of irritation because she preferred it to the alternatives. Morgan didn’t know anything about her. Sure, she was grateful for the rescue, but the smugness in the other woman’s bearing galled her. She clearly found Emilia incompetent, and while nothing that had happened tonight, admittedly, suggested otherwise, the assumption hit too close to home.