Free Fight the Tide by Keira Andrews Page A

brow was creased so often he’d likely get wrinkles there eventually. If he lives that long . Adam reached out and ran his hand over Parker’s head, needing to touch. Maybe he could film him later, get him talking for the camera. But he sensed Parker wasn’t in the right mood at the moment.
    Parker answered, “It’s… I don’t know.” He shivered. “It’s okay. For now. I mean…” He rolled his neck restlessly, his hands still jammed in his pockets. “What do we do about them?”
    Adam watched the trees. “They seem good. Useful that Abby was a paramedic.”
    “It is. Too bad Craig was a PR manager. Don’t think we’ll need press releases or image consulting.”
    Chuckling tentatively, Adam said, “Probably not. But… They do seem trustworthy. Don’t you think?”
    “They do. Although we’ve been fooled before.”
    Thoughts jumbled through Adam’s head: Ramon’s gleaming smile, waking strapped down and helpless, clinging to Parker on Mariah. He shouldn’t have trusted Ramon, but he still ached at the loss of knowing another werewolf. It had been so many years, and for so long he’d shoved it away and told himself he couldn’t have it.
    Then he’d met Parker, and that was something he hadn’t thought he could have either: a lover and partner, someone who filled the cracks in him, someone who was more than a one-time fuck. And now these other people were with them—this family , holding each other close and safe, and if Adam could have a partner, maybe he could have a pack too. If they went to that island…
    Then more images invaded: Parker naked and hurt, bleeding and alone. The helplessness Adam had felt washed over him anew.
    “What?”
    Adam realized he was staring at Parker and the shadowy bruise on his temple. “Nothing.”
    Exhaling with a frown, Parker looked at Adam for another few moments before picking up one of the ropes that lined the side of the boat and wrapping it around his fingers. “They seem like decent people. We can take them back to their boat tomorrow to see if it’s still there. Get their stuff. But then what? I told them we could drop them off on land. They don’t even know what trimming the jib means. Even you know that now. They’ll be dead in the water.”
    “You could teach them.”
    “I guess.” Parker unwound the rope and started again, wrapping his fingers tightly. “Could give them a crash course and then go our separate ways. Hurricane season should be over. We can head for the Caribbean. We’re not that far from Beaufort. It’s one of the good places to cross the Gulf Stream.”
    “What exactly is that again? Aside from the place Dexter dumped his bodies. It’s a strong current, right?”
    A smile ghosted over Parker’s lips, and Adam wanted to haul him close and take his mouth. But he kept his hands at his sides. Parker was still healing, and he didn’t want to do anything…wrong.
    Parker answered, “Right, it’s a current. It’s basically like a river in the ocean that’s flowing north. It’s narrower down where it starts in Florida. Thirty, forty miles across, I think? Gets wider as it goes north, and it’s moving at two and a half knots per hour. That might not sound like much, but if you get caught in it with wind coming from the north, you can be really fucked. Big waves. You want to cross when the wind’s blowing from the south or southeast. But we don’t have weather reports anymore, so it makes it harder to gauge. Winds can change fast.”
    Adam pondered it. “So if we crossed the Gulf Stream up here, then we’d be…going south toward the Caribbean? In the middle of the ocean, basically?”
    “Yep. We’d try to pick up the trade winds to take us southeast. It’s the right time of year for it.”
    “You know where the winds will be?”
    “Roughly. Depends on the season. But like I said, they can change, and with global warming, the patterns aren’t as stable as they used to be. We shouldn’t have any more hurricanes now