Read KS13.5 - Wreck Rights for Free Online Page A

only moments before.
    “It’s going on three months, Wy,” Moses said. He stood upright and walked around to face her. “Too stubborn, is that it? Too damn proud to make the first move?”
    She stayed in position, staring straight ahead as if she could bore through his skull with her eyes. If only.
    He waited. He was good at it. It was six a.m. on a sunny Sunday morning in July. The birds were singing or honking or chirping or croaking. At the foot of the cliff the massive Nushagak River moved by with stately unconcern. Wy had a six-week contract to fly supplies into an archaeological dig ten miles west of Chinook Air Force Base. Moses had volunteered to take Tim to his fish camp upriver for the silver run, away from the rough crowd of boys he had fallen in with during the school year. He’d learn to run a fish wheel, salt eggs, fillet and smoke salmon and, she hoped, realize what a rush it was to earn money of his own. Best of all, he’d be out of the reach of his birth mother, who was prone to fly in from Ualik and, after a night at the bars, shove her way into Wy’s house and demand Tim’s return, even if the last time he’d been in her custody he’d wound up in the hospital, broken, bruised and bleeding.
    All in all, the next month looked positively rosy, especially when she compared it to the previous three years. She was marginally solvent, content in her work and her family, and if the lawyer handling Tim’s adoption called a little too frequently for more money, it was summertime and the flying was frantic. She could hear the cash register ringing on every takeoff and the cash drawer sliding out on every landing.
    So what if it was three months since she’d spoken to Liam Campbell? There were other fish in the sea, and in particular, there were a whole hell of a lot of other fish in Bristol Bay, with and without fins. The small voice that pointed out that she had allowed only Liam to swim up her stream and spawn could and would be ignored. She was content. She used the word like a mantra. She didn’t need anything more — or anyone else — to complicate her life.
    Wy became aware that her teeth were clenched so hard that her jaw ached, and made a conscious effort to relax.
    Moses, naturally, persisted in attempting to suck the well-being right out of her. “You want him. He wants you.” Her sifu snorted. “And it sure as hell ain’t like you’re getting it anywhere else.”
    “I have Tim to consider.” Her voice had a pronounced edge to it.
    Moses pounced. “Give your menfolks a tad more credit than that, Wy. Liam’s a grown man, and he had a son of his own. He knows how to handle kids. And as for Tim, hell, having a man — the same man — around on a regular basis would be a new experience for him. Would teach him all men don’t get drunk and hit. A good thing for him to learn, I’d’ve thought. Of course, that’s just me.”
    Wy felt her teeth clamp together again. “I didn’t mean it that way.”
    “Oh, really? How did you mean it, exactly?”
    Her neck got warm. “I meant that I have to look good to the adoption board. They look at your lifestyle, at your habits.”
    “Ah.” Moses gave a judicious nod. “I see. So the adoption board won’t let kids go to prospective parents who have the audacity to have healthy, normal lives of their own.”
    The warmth seeped from her neck up into her cheeks.
    Moses’ eyebrows, thick and black, rose into interrogatory points. “Anything to say about that? Besides ‘I’m sorry for trying to bullshit you, Sifu’?”
    She hadn’t.
    “Good,” he said briskly. “On your feet.”
    She rose shakily to her full height, five feet eight inches; five inches taller than Moses, not that it ever seemed like that much of an advantage. Her dark blond hair, streaked with gold by the summer sun, had come loose from its ponytail. Thankful to have something to do with her hands, she made a business out of tying it up again. That done, there was nowhere