HeroAdrift_PRC Read Free

flesh.
    She shook her head. The cold water must have knocked more than a few circuits loose. Sure it had been a while since she'd had a boyfriend--okay, more like an eternity--but she didn't usually have an erotic fantasy while awake and facing a life-altering emergency.
    She looked away from his face and noticed the rest of him, outlined perfectly in his wet suit. Oh, my, she thought.
    His body was hard and leanly muscled as if he had been carved from stone. If his hair hadn't been so military short, he'd have been a dead ringer for the actor Eric Bana in the movie Troy. Abby felt like every speck of saliva in her mouth was drooling from her lips. She swallowed and tried to get her tongue to do something besides pant.
    "Thank you for rescuing Billy and helping me." She finally managed to form coherent words.
    "You're welcome. But, lady, that was an incredibly stupid thing to do. Don't ever jump in after somebody like that again. You could've both drowned."
    "You're right. Thank you again for being there for us," she said.

    * * * *
    Abby watched as her boat took her back ashore. Her hero and the other members of the U.S.S. Comfort were still onboard their boat. It looked as if the Coast Guard was going to tow the Belle back to shore. Probably to be inspected or whatever it was the Coast Guard did after incidents like this. She turned her back and looked at the shoreline. The deputy from the sheriff's department told her they would be returning her to the dock where the tour had started. She was glad. She needed to reassure the rest of the children she was fine, as well as make sure they were all returned safely to their parents.
    After that, she would go to Children's Hospital, where Billy had been taken, to check on him and talk to his parents. She looked back over her shoulder. She really should forget all about her hero. She'd probably never see him again. Women like her didn't come in contact with heroes often, though, and she couldn't stop thinking about him. Nor could she pass up the chance to look at him one more time as the boat sped her further away from him. She just wished she knew his name.

    * * * *
    Oliver cruised the narrow parking lot behind the apartment building looking for an empty spot. According to the guys at the station he was fortunate to have found an apartment with off-street parking because, when the snow started flying next winter, he'd be happy to get his car off the streets. He shivered a little and pulled the collar of his USCG-issue parka higher on his neck. The guys had said the worm had turned here weather-wise and that summer was around the corner. He didn't know about that. He felt like he was freezing and it was the middle of May. His last shift in Miami had been early April and it had already been a sultry eighty degrees. He bet it hadn't even reached fifty here today.
    When he saw an opening a few feet ahead of him, he punched the accelerator and eased into the spot, with inches to spare. Well, Buffalo may not have been on his top ten garden duty spots for transfer six weeks ago, but he guessed it could've been worse. Here he'd only been on watch for four days and he had already had a rescue. Some of the Group Buffalo veterans predicted that, shortly after Memorial Day, things would really get hopping as all the recreational boaters would be out in force.
    As he put the car into park and turned it off, he thought about the rescue yesterday. Truth told he had been a little shaky going into it. He hadn't really known how well his shoulder would hold up to the stress of rescue work. The surgeons had said all the major muscle masses in his shoulder and upper arms were healed, but he figured that was easy for them to say since they weren't the ones using them. Now he knew he could handle anything.
    As he reached behind him for his seabag he felt a little pull and amended that thought. Well, maybe not anything. His thoughts returned to the round woman who'd showed more guts than brains when