Ride the Tide (Deep Six #3) - Julie Ann Walker Page 0,34
almost forget how scared she’d been all day long. “I’m officially past my sell-by date. In fact, I’m afraid the only thing holding me together right now are my clothes. When I take them off later, I might ooze into a puddle like a stinky cheese.”
“Great,” Wolf muttered. “Now I’ll have that imagery in my head when I’m tryin’ to get to sleep tonight.”
“You’re welcome.” Alex went up on tiptoe to hug his neck.
It was weird. She’d never been the touchy-feely sort before moving to Wayfarer Island. But Romeo always rubbed her neck. Doc always tossed an arm around her shoulders. And Wolf gave the best hugs. Like, he really committed, with lots of pressure and a little lift off the ground.
When he set her back on her feet, he hooked a finger under her chin. “How’d you hold up under questionin’, kiddo?”
“Pretty good,” she admitted with a kick of pride. Then she winced and added, “That is until Special Agent Albus Fazzle came in. I thought Agent Tomlinson was bad. But Fazzle has all the charm of a broken Slinky. I may or may not have told him at one point that I wouldn’t be the least bit sad if his dick got stuck in a blender.”
Wolf chuckled. Then his expression morphed into one of commiseration. “Just so you know, I think they make those federal boys hand over their senses of humor before they’ll agree to train them up there in Quantico.”
“Do they also give them really dumb names? I mean, Albus Fazzle?” Alex blinked. “Is he serious?”
Wolf shook his head. “Leastways you were able to hold on to your sense of humor through all this.”
“What was my other option? Draw a warm bath and plug in the nearest toaster?”
Chrissy grunted. “You were tempted to do that too? I thought it was just me.”
Alex frowned at Wolf. “I didn’t like his smile either. It was all veneers and arrogance, but there was no real feeling behind it. He reminded me of a crocodile. Plus, he kept asking me about your guns. I mean, three guys in a speedboat tried to kill us. Shouldn’t he have been more worried about that?”
Wolf rubbed a weary hand over his beard stubble. “That’s because we’re not supposed to have full autos. It’s against this little law called the National Firearms Act.”
Alex didn’t think it was possible for her empty stomach to feel more hollow. But she was wrong. “You used the same guns on Garden Key that night and no one said a thing.”
“Apparently, Fazzle’s a stickler.”
Alex swallowed incredulously. “He’s not going to arrest you, is he?”
She turned to Mason for the first time. She’d avoided doing exactly that because she was afraid one look at his haggard face and she’d lose what little control over herself she still possessed.
She was putting on a good show, but the truth was, for hours she’d been sorely tempted to curl up in a corner. That, or run through the halls screaming his name at the top of her lungs.
She thought she’d been scared that night on Garden Key, but it hadn’t compared to the terror she’d felt seeing him take a hunting knife to the flank. Ever since they’d been separated, and despite what that Coast Guard medic had said, she hadn’t been able to let go of her worry for him. In fact, then and now, she was shaking with it.
“Never said nothing about bagging us, but the motherfucker threatened to confiscate our weapons,” he said in that thick Boston accent that made “motherfucker” sound more like “muthafuckah.”
Other than the deep, delicious timbre of his voice being laced with exhaustion, he really did seem okay. A little pale beneath his perpetual tan, maybe. But otherwise fine.
She was able to draw in a full breath for the first time in hours.
“Luckily,” Wolf added with a smug grin, “someone above Fazzle’s pay grade changed his mind for him.”
“Is that your way of saying you have friends in high places?” she asked.
It was Mason who answered. “The highest.”
“Lucky you, then,” she told him. And she meant it. He was so damn lucky that knife hadn’t done more damage.
One nick of an artery, and instead of standing here in front of her in the too-tight T-shirt he’d gotten on loan from one of the Coasties, he could have been zipped in a body bag. The thought of how close she’d come to losing him forever had her going up on tiptoe to squeeze his neck.