Read Sadie Walker Is Stranded for Free Online

forget that the shore was becoming more of a shaggy line than a crisp silhouette. I nuzzled my nose down into the oversized neck of my sweater and watched my fellow passengers mill around. Only Andrea and her uncle seemed to know how to conduct themselves casually on the boat.
    As Andrea and I watched, the tall man strode over to the main mast and introduced himself to Uncle Arturo as Moritz Kellerman. He pumped the old mariner’s hand with exuberant gratitude. Mr. Kellerman looked as if he’d just gotten off the boat at Ellis Island—not the one on fire behind us, but the actual historical one—dressed for a journey from another time. Of any of us, he seemed the most out of place, dressed in ponderously formal clothing, a brown tweed suit with a looped scarf and teal dress shirt. He wore loafers and carried a handkerchief where a pocket square would go. Stranger still, his hair was longish, caramel brown and swept behind his ears. I hadn’t seen a man with hair longer than an inch or two in months. For hygiene’s sake, most guys kept their hair very short, even buzzed. Bald-headed men with beards abounded. Kellerman’s brown patchy coat was pushed up to his elbows, showing curiously hairy forearms and artistic hands. He walked away from Arturo to take a seat on a stack of life jackets and tripped on a loose piece of rigging. He swore under his breath in German.
    Andrea followed my gaze. She chuckled. “Nice,” she said, POV rooted firmly in the gutter. “Very nice. I’d lick him on three sides.”
    “Not me,” I said. I was off men. Maybe permanently. Fuck you very much, Carl. “And keep your voice down,” I added, nodding toward little Shane, who didn’t need to know about Andrea’s sexual ethics, or lack thereof.
    Shane leaned against the railing, peering down into the waves. Almost automatically, I pulled him back, a vision of him plummeting into the water below flashing in front of my eyes. He frowned in protest, the baby fat still clinging desperately to his cheeks settling down around his chin.
    “Stay back,” I told him gently. “Or hold my hand if you’re going near the rails, okay?”
    He nodded, took my hand and proceeded to sidle immediately up to the edge of the boat.
    “Looks like he’s got your number,” Andrea said smilingly.
    I gave his hand a pinch. “That true?”
    With a shrug, Shane looked away and put his free hand on the rail. I was used to the silent treatment with him, but it made me nervous. There was nowhere on this stupid canoe to take him and have a private sit-down. I would just have to keep a close eye on his subtle mood shifts, which generally swung between broody and broodier.
    Andrea elbowed me, apparently unconcerned by Shane’s willful silence. She nodded toward Moritz. Fantastic. I was stuck there with not one but two children. Under different, more relaxing circumstances I could see where the German could be considered handsome. He was lean and long-faced with thick eyebrows and a prominent, crooked nose. On another man that nose would be hideous, but he wore it well. And there was that lingering sense of the old world, almost as if he were a ghost or a gentleman. Ha. Those didn’t exist anymore. I don’t mean that in the bitchy, girly magazine male-trashing way. I mean there simply wasn’t room for chivalry anymore. Survival was everything and opening doors and pulling out chairs didn’t mean much when you were starving or dying of pneumonia.
    Mr. Kellerman glanced up at us his with bright, frank eyes. I looked at my toes, embarrassed. Andrea danced her fingertips at him like a true born-and-bred minx.
    After a while I couldn’t stand to do nothing. I went to find Arturo, sure that I could at least pull on a rope or something. Shane came along. He seemed to perk up a bit at the thought of meeting the sailor again or at least being offered a distraction. It wasn’t hard to guess why—Arturo did have a mythic sort of presence, weathered and lined, like a