Wherever You Are by Sharon Cullen

Reed were sailing. They were a few miles away on the Adam’s aft port.
    “Make sail,” he told Patrick.
    Patrick turned around and cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled, “Maaaaake Saaaaaiiiillll.”
    Immediately sailors began climbing the masts like ants on a stick full of honey. The huge cream-colored sails began to unfurl, from the main topgallant sail down to the foresail. From the yardarm to the blunt. Usually the sight of the wind billowing the sails and the feel of the ship lurching forward made his blood sing, but with no wind, the sails hung limp and his stomach clenched. The good news was that even if a small gust of wind came by, they would move.
    Morgan checked the position of the sloop as Patrick turned back to him and stuck an unlit cigarette in his mouth. “’eard you’d flogged a woman.”
    “I didn’t know she was a woman.”
    One bushy eyebrow lifted. “Seems to me a man would know a woman when he saw one. She say why she was on yer ship?”
    “No.” But he had his suspicions. Suspicions he wasn’t quite ready to face.
    “You ask ’er?”
    “She doesn’t remember.”
    Patrick shot him a disbelieving glance. “You gettin’ soft in yer old age?”
    “I’m still younger than you, you bilge rat.”
    Patrick chuckled. “What you goin’ t’do with ’er?” he asked.
    Morgan sighed and leaned on the railing. That was a question he’d been circling. “I have no idea.”
    Patrick withdrew the cigarette and studied the unlit tip. “I ’ave a bad feeling about this ’un.”
    “The ship or the woman?”
    He tossed the cigarette over the side. “Both,” he said before sauntering away.
    “Yeah,” Morgan said to himself. “Me too.”
     
    She drifted toward Morgan, skirting the edges, keeping to the shadows. She didn’t want to trust the man who had her flogged, but she had no choice.
    She’d harbored a deep-seated hope that when she walked out of the cabin she’d miraculously find herself in the twenty-first century. What she found instead was a ship, scruffy men and a vast ocean stretching into infinity. She couldn’t ignore her rising panic as she made her way around the edges of the ship, but she could push it away. Don’t think about it.
    She carefully stepped over a coil of rope and caught sight of Captain Morgan speaking to a very large, well-muscled man who, in her day, would fit right in with a biker gang. She hurried toward them, instinctively feeling safer now that she had Captain Morgan in her sight.
    She found a convenient place to rest out of everyone’s way, yet still close enough to Morgan that she heard the cadence of his voice.
    The man he was speaking to intrigued her. He had a full head of gray hair pulled into a braid as thick as her wrist and a heavy beard that hung to his chest. He was a bow-legged barrel of a man at least a head shorter than Morgan with a twinkle of laughter in his eyes.
    Their relaxed stance was evidence they were comfortable together.
    The gray-haired man wandered off in a rolling gait that marked all men of the sea, leaving Morgan alone. He raised the telescope to his eye and turned toward the horizon. His long hair hung down his back, the color so varied it was hard to describe. She settled on caramel.
    “You shouldn’t be up yet,” he said.
    It took a moment for her to realize he was talking to her. Had he known she was there all along? Probably. He was a suspicious man who more than likely was aware of his surroundings at all times.
    He turned to her. “How’s the back?”
    “Better.”
    “You’re pale.”
    “I’m blonde. I’m always pale.” She let her gaze wander over the water. She’d never seen the ocean before but had always pictured it as wind-tossed, the waves tipped with white foam. This was entirely different. Smooth as glass, it was inviting.
    Captain Morgan leaned against the rail and tapped the telescope on a tightly-muscled thigh. “I see you’ve raided my clothes.”
    “I hope you don’t