Eye of the Storm

Chapter

Nineteen

KERRY PUSHED THE door open cautiously, peeking inside before entering. She spotted her lover curled up on the couch and tiptoed into the room, after closing the door quietly behind her. Even Chino was asleep, sprawled next to Dar and twitching in some kind of bizarre Labrador dream. She put her briefcase down on the loveseat and then knelt at Dar’s side and studying the sick woman’s face.

Dark lashes fluttered and Dar looked up, a little disoriented.

“Hey.” Kerry put a hand on her forehead. “Mmm. You’re warm.”

“Ungh.” Dar pursed her lips and swallowed painfully. “Time?”

“Just past noon.” Kerry reviewed the open boxes on the table. “Tried everything, hmm?”

A groan answered her.

“That sounds bad.” She pushed a bit of dark hair out of Dar’s face. “I have some good news for you.”

Dar caught her hand and pulled it closer as if in comfort. “Mmm?

Did you run over Ankow in the parking lot? Good girl,” she mumbled.

“I’ll tell ’em you were here all day.”

“No.” Kerry chuckled, using her other hand to rub Dar’s neck. “Your father called. Looks like things are working out fine up there.”

Both of Dar’s eyes opened and she lifted her head. “Yeah?” She forgot about being sick for a minute and pulled herself up, running a hand through her hair and blinking at Kerry. “What’d he say?”

“Just that things were good.” Kerry picked up a cup of water Dar had been sucking at and offered it to her. “Here. Take a sip. You don’t want to get dehydrated.” She stood up. “Let me get this stuff off and we can give them a call. Okay?”

Dar got a quarter of a mouthful down, then stopped and grimaced, concentrating and trying really hard not to allow it to come right back up.

She put the cup down and gave Kerry an unhappy look, too miserable even to dredge up a smidgen of her usual attitude. “Maybe he can tell me where he’s cached a gun and I can shoot myself.”

Kerry made a face. “Hang in there. I’ll be right back.” She trotted upstairs and changed quickly, glad to exchange the restrictive linen for a pair of shorts and a T-shirt, as she unclipped her hair and let it loose around her shoulders.

Eye of the Storm 171

Still thinking, she made her way back down the stairs and rejoined her lover, who was again huddled near the end of the couch, curled up in a ball. Damn, Dar. You’re making me hurt just to look at you. Kerry rubbed the tense calf next to her. “Hey. Listen, you want me to give Dr. Steve a call?”

Woebegone blue eyes peeked out from over the fist Dar had curled near her chin. She thought seriously about the question for a moment, then shook her head. “All he’s gonna do is give me a shot of Dramamine.”

She managed to straighten up a little. “Damn stuff makes me break out in hives.”

“Ooo.” Kerry winced, then settled back and patted her lap. “Want to come over here and put your head down? It’s not medical, but at least I can keep you company.”

Meekly, Dar did so, reversing her position and putting her head down on Kerry’s thigh. “You cancel the marketing meeting?” she asked, as Kerry lightly massaged down her back and shoulders.

“Nope. Just moved it to the morning.” Kerry could feel the cold sweat that had gathered on Dar’s neck, and she wiped it away with a bit of her shirt. “Eleanor and José are entertaining Ankow. Oh, and Dar?

Someone dumped a loop into the system from Houston this morning. I had a ton of complaints.”

“Mmph.” Dar dredged up a semblance of interest. “Let me guess.

You think our friend did it?”

“Don’t know.” Kerry felt the tension slowly leaving Dar’s body and she kept up her kneading. “Probably though. Wanted to see if he could catch us.”

“How long’d it take you t’find it.”

“About thirty, maybe forty five seconds.” Kerry smirked, proud of herself. “You should have seen his face.” She reached over and snagged the phone. “Want to give your folks a call before you snooze off?”

Dar had curled an arm around her knee and was stroking it with her thumb idly. “Okay.” It was amazing, really, how just having Kerry there made her feel so much better or at least, so much more relaxed, which helped ease the spasms. “Ker?”

The blonde woman paused, and leaned over. “Hmm?”

“Glad you’re here.”

“Me too.”

Dar took a breath to continue, then bit her tongue, as her body cramped, forcing a gasp of pain from her. She doubled over and held her breath, barely conscious of the firm, steady grip that kept her from falling.

Kerry held on to Dar with one arm and dialed the phone with the other, retrieving Dr. Steve’s number from the phone’s memory. “Hey. Dr, Steve? Hi. It’s Kerry Stuart. Yeah.” She felt Dar’s chest move as the pain lessened and she started breathing again. “Listen, Dar’s been sick since last night. We thought it was just a bug or something, but she’s in a lot of pain here, and I’m getting worried.” A pause. “I don’t know. Might be 172 Melissa Good tough.” Another pause. “Okay. That would be great. I’ll clear you on the ferry. Thanks. I really appreciate it.”

She hung up the phone and put it down, then rubbed her lover’s back. “Easy there. Dr. Steve’s going to come out here and check you out, okay?”

Dar knew she was in deep trouble, because the thought of that actually sounded good to her. “Mph.” She clamped her jaw shut, not wanting to lose her mouthful of water and wished primarily that someone would hit her over the head with a very large two by four.

“WHAT DO YOU think?” Kerry hovered nervously as Dr. Steve, in a garish pink guayabera and blue Bermuda shorts knelt by the couch.

“I think you have a very sick friend,” the gray haired man answered, peering into Dar’s eyes with a pinpoint light. “What have you been doing there, Miss Dar?”

“Nothing.” Dar closed her eye in annoyance, watching spots dance across her inner eyelid with sickening rhythm. The doctor had taken a vial of blood and probed her belly, which had gotten him a yelp of pain and an accidental kick in the side. “What the hell is wrong with me? I’ve never had a bug this bad before.”

Dr. Steve removed a couple of small bottles and a syringe from his actual, for real, no kidding, little black bag. “Well, I’m not sure, honey, but let me give you something to relax those spasms and a little something for the nausea, okay?”

A blue eyeball popped open and regarded the syringe nervously.

“Dramamine makes me itch.”

“Yeah, yeah, I remember.” Dr. Steve carefully drew a measure of some clear liquid from one of the bottles and picked up a swab full of alcohol. “This is something else. Now hold still.” He swabbed Dar’s upper arm and inserted the needle, with only a small jerk from his patient, then injected the medication.

“Ow.”

“Big baby.”

Kerry perched on the couch arm. “You don’t know what’s wrong then?” she asked, then sighed, as the phone rang. She turned and picked it up. “Hello?”

“Hey there.” Andrew’s growly tones tickled her ear.

“Oh, hi. Sorry we didn’t call you. I had to call Dr. Steve out here for Dar,” Kerry told him. “She’s really sick.”

“Yeah?” Dar’s father’s voice grew anxious. “What’s he say’s wrong with her?”

“He doesn’t know.” Kerry stroked her friend’s hair. “He’s giving her some shots of something.”

Dr. Steve glanced up at her curiously, but kept working, removing a second bottle and syringe and preparing it. “What did you have to eat yesterday?”

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Dar blinked, as the first medication started to work. “Um. Nothing much. Cuban toast and jelly for breakfast…with coffee.” She thought a moment. “Mmm…chocolate chip cookies for lunch…and I didn’t have dinner.”

Steve looked at her. “Chocolate chip cookies for lunch?” He sighed.

“Some things never change. Nothing after dinner?”

“No.” Dar shook her head. “Something happened. I got caught up in it.”

“You had that Kahlua milkshake at the bowling alley,” Kerry supplied helpfully. “Do you think it’s food poisoning?”

“Not with that menu.” Steve shook his head. “I don’t know. We’ll run some tests on the red stuff here. This’ll let her relax and sleep. That’s the best thing.”

“Did you hear that?” Kerry spoke into the phone.

“Yeap.” Andrew cleared his throat. “Should be all right. Just not too much. She can’t take it.”

“Other arm.” Dr. Steve injected the medicine, then sat back. “Now, you listen to me, okay?” He wagged a finger at her. “Soon as your stomach settles, get some water into you—at least two glasses.”

Dar nodded mutely.

“You get any more dehydrated, and we’re going to have to start using the dirty H word, okay?” Dr. Steve packed up his bag and carefully labeled the blood sample. “If I didn’t know better. I’d say you’d been drinking antifreeze, Dar. It’s those kind of symptoms. Is this the first time you’ve been sick?”

“In a long time, yeah,” Dar told him. “Antifreeze? That’s nuts.”

“Well, you’ve got something in you that ain’t supposed to be there.”

Dr. Steve stood, and glanced at Kerry. “Keep an eye on her. Make sure she drinks that water or Gatorade stuff if you’ve got it.”

“We do.” Kerry nibbled her lip. “Could it have been the drink last night? That’s the only place we were at that’s strange.”

“Timing’s about right,” Steve acknowledged. “Maybe something got in there. Weirder things have happened.” He ruffled Dar’s hair gently.

“You’re going to be okay, sugarplum. Give that stuff a chance to work, and just take it easy.”

Whatever he’d given her was hitting hard, Dar realized, as a sense of displacement put distance between her and the rest of the room. It wasn’t entirely a pleasant feeling, but along with it came a soothing lethargy that coursed through her body, relaxing muscles tense and sore from the day’s battle with her rebellious stomach.

Even better was the ebbing of the nausea and the ability to breathe normally without worrying about throwing up. She was vaguely aware of the door closing and Kerry’s quiet tones, then warmth surrounded her as she was lifted up a little, while Kerry resumed her pillow duty.

Having someone in your life, she decided fuzzily, really rocked.

174 Melissa Good KERRY DRIFTED IN and out of a light sleep, the sound of the television in the background, along with the soft hiss of the surf just audible through the glass windows lulling her into a peaceful somnolence.

The golden light of sunset came in the window next to the front door, spilling across the living room where they were and painting stripes all over everything. Dar had been sleeping peacefully since Dr. Steve left, and Kerry was content to stay right where she was, with her lover half sprawled over her body.

She’d gotten one cell phone call from Mayte telling her Ankow had come sniffing around, but had been distracted by Duks, who dumped a pile of reports the size of a hippo on him with the Accounting VP’s typical deadpan manner. No other crises had happened, and the Newark mess had been sorted out by the networking office, so it looked like they’d gotten away with her disappearing.

Kerry stroked the dark hair spilling over her lap. Not that she would have made a different decision, even if all hell had been breaking loose and Ankow had been sitting on her desk. She’d have gotten up and walked out, and that was just that. She put her arms around Dar and hugged her, and wondered, just for a moment, what it would be like if she couldn’t do that anymore.

She had only known Dar for all of what…eight months? So much of her life had changed when she’d met her, too. Her job. Her future.

Her family.

She hadn’t really thought twice about it, either. She’d just followed her heart.

A stripe of sunlight chose that moment to impudently paint itself across Dar’s face, turning her tanned skin a burnished gold. Kerry wound a bit of the hair it caught into her fingers, noting the faint mahogany highlights seldom visible.

The muscles under the sunlight moved, then tensed, and Dar’s eyes opened and blinked, appearing dazed and a little confused.

“Hey.” Kerry put a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “How are you feeling?”

Dar rolled over onto her back and peered straight up at Kerry, a good sign, since a cramped fetal position had been all she’d been able to manage earlier. “Better.”

Kerry produced a warm smile and reached for the bottle of Gatorade she’d parked there earlier. “Good.” She offered Dar the bottle, much like she would have a baby, and bit her lip to keep from laughing as Dar sleepily complied, sucking at the nozzle and folding her hands over her stomach. “See? You’re not so bad when you’re sick.”

A couple of mouthfuls were all she could manage, then Dar closed her eyes and rested her cheek against Kerry’s stomach. “Must be the quality of the care,” she mumbled, feeling totally wiped out, but not too bad otherwise. “I had a dream about you.”

“Oh yeah?” Kerry put the bottle down and ran her fingers idly through Dar’s hair. “What about?”

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Dar’s body moved as she shrugged a bit. “Hard to say. You were riding a horse and reciting poetry.”

“Ooo.” She chuckled. “Sounds more like a nightmare. Tell you what.

Why don’t we get you into bed, and I’ll bring you in some broth. How does that sound?” She scratched Dar’s scalp, concentrating on the spot just behind her ears.

“You sure you weren’t someone’s mom in a past life?” her lover mumbled, a faint smile appearing. “Because you’re really good at this.”

Kerry considered the question seriously. “Maybe,” she finally replied. “God knows, I didn’t learn it at home.” Surprising, really, how those bits of bitterness surfaced sometimes. She looked down to see Dar gazing back at her and put a fingertip on her lover’s nose. “So I guess you get to be the object of all my maternal instincts.” Their eyes met and held, and Kerry felt a tiny shiver go down her back. “Well, you and Chino, anyway.”

“Right.” Dar exhaled, shaking off the weird sensation of almost memory. “I’m not sure if I can handle broth, though, and I’ll only go to bed if you join me there,” she bargained.

“Well, you get some soup down, and I’ll see what I can do.”

The blue eyes closed contentedly. “Deal.”

CECILIA PAUSED AS she put a last container in the basket on the counter and glanced outside, glad to see the bright, sunny weather. She went to the door and slid her head around it, spending a moment just looking at the tall figure slouched in a chair nearby.

Andrew was working at fixing her can opener. He’d taken it apart already and was reassembling the mechanism with deft, confident movements. Ceci sighed, leaning her head against the wall as she realized it was going to take some getting used to having the other half of her life back. She’d have just bought a new one. “Andy?”

Sharp blue eyes looked over and blinked in acknowledgement.

“There’s a nice spot up by the lake. Would you like to take a walk up there?”

“All right,” he agreed, standing up and bringing her appliance back over. He pressed the button, and the battery powered item whirred.

“There you go.”

He’d always been like that. Ceci gave him the basket as they left the apartment, cut through the back path, and headed up a small slope just behind her building. He had an innate knowledge of how things worked and a talent for fixing them. That had come in very useful when they’d lived on base, she remembered, having to cope with changes in her life that had started with going from rich to definitely not rich, and progressed from there.

It hadn’t been easy, not for her and not for Andy, whose ship assignments kept him away for six months at a time. He’d gone AWOL in fact, when she was pregnant, and ended up hiding out in their quarters the 176 Melissa Good last month before she gave birth, just helping her live through one of the toughest times of her life.

Maybe she’d never forgiven Dar for that, Cecilia mused, as Andrew took her hand in his as they walked along. Certainly, she’d hated being pregnant and resented the restrictions she’d suddenly found herself under. But that wasn’t Dar’s fault, any more than it was her fault that she’d inherited the genes for height, and dark hair, and blue eyes, and the fighting nature from the daddy she’d adored since the moment she was born.

Ceci sighed. No, it hadn’t been easy. Dar had been a very tough child to raise, hyperactive and wild, headstrong and by the age of twelve, already larger and stronger than the mother who was trying to rein her in. And possessing a powerful, significant intellect that made her so much more difficult to interact with than Andy was.

Not that her husband was stupid, by any means. He had a core of good, solid common sense and an orderly mind well suited to everyday problem solving. But Dar, who had always tested years ahead of her age, had developed an edgy, restless brilliance that she hadn’t had the patience or discipline to cope with.

Maybe that was what frustrated her so. Dar had so much potential.

She was so intelligent and could have gone into so many different fields, that her single minded, narrow focused goal of the Navy just drove Cecilia out of her mind. She had silently celebrated when they’d said

“No” the last time, and had cheered Dar’s stubbornness for the first time, when her daughter refused to accept anything less than following in her father’s footsteps.

Well. So she turned out to be the CIO of the largest computer services company in the world. Guess I just had to wait long enough. Ceci felt a smile emerge. Life was so strange sometimes. She also hadn’t been immune to a bit of unexpected parental pride, surfacing between the layers of grief, and awkwardness on seeing Dar again, all grown up in ways she’d never anticipated.

Watching her family’s jaws drop, on seeing the family member they all considered a poor country bumpkin morph into this tall, sophisticated woman who handled herself with poise and reserved grace, who entered their cultured world bearing Andy’s very distinctive stamp.

Yeah. She couldn’t take credit for any of it, but she’d still acknowledged what she saw.

“Whatcha thinking about?” Andy asked, as they climbed up the wooded slope.

“Just memories.” Ceci led him towards a grassy area, full of sun and overlooking the water. “Our child when she was little.”

“Ungh.” Andrew dropped his gaze to the ground, thoughtfully regarding a small patch of tiny purple flowers before stepping carefully around them. “She was a handful,” he admitted. “Wild little thing. ’Member that time she jumped out that tree house and damn near broke an arm?”

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Ceci shook her head. “Oh yes. I certainly do. Thank everything you were home or I’d never have gotten her in for those x-rays. She almost took out three nurses as it was.”

“Lord. That’s the truth.” Andy chuckled. “That little Kerry’s got her wrapped round her finger, though. You’d never believe it.”

“She seems nice,” Cecilia ventured.

“Good kid,” he agreed. “Got a good heart and she’s damn gone on Dar.”

“Roger Stuart’s kid, isn’t she?”

“Half assed bastard. Yeah.”

Her pale eyebrows lifted. “Didn’t know you knew him.”

Andy didn’t answer for a moment. “Threw her out the house when she done told him ’bout her and Dardar.”

“Mmm.” Ceci pursed her lips. “He’s pretty conservative. I know it was a little hard for us too.” She paused. “It was an adjustment. Must have been quite a shock.”

“Mmm.” They sat down in the grass, and Andy stretched his long legs out, leaned back against a jutting rock and looked out over the water pensively. “More than that. He tried to put her butt in the nuthouse cause of it.”

Ceci felt like she’d been hit in the chest. “What?”

Andy nodded soberly. “Yeap. Took her out of the house and locked her up.” His nostrils flared a little, and he peeked at her. “Dar flew up there and busted her out.”

She blinked in shock. “She did?”

Her husband pulled at his lower lip, trying to mask the look of intense pride. “Yeap.”

A soft sigh. “She’s definitely your daughter.”

His blue eyes took on shadows. “I know you two always wrassled,”

he acknowledged softly. “She turned out okay though.” He turned his head towards her. “Think maybe you two’d get on better now?”

Cecilia considered the statement. “Maybe,” she responded with a sigh, then opened the basket and removed a wine bottle and two glasses.

She uncorked the bottle and poured them each a portion. “So much has changed.”

Andy took his and studied it. “Yeap.”

They were quiet for a bit, just watching the flocks of birds circle the lake, some landing to feed, other wheeling over them in intricate patterns.

Finally Ceci rested her cheek against his arm. “Where do we go from here?” She felt the shift and knew that if she tilted her head back she’d see him looking at her. “Now that I can start my life going forward again, instead of just letting it drift past me.”

It was curious. She could feel the minute shifts in her husband’s body, as he collected his thoughts and prepared to answer the question.

But she also got an undeniable sense that he was holding back a surprise, in the way that he used to unpredictably show up in her bedroom win-178 Melissa Good dow, one hand firmly behind his back and a tiny sparkle in his eyes.

He sorted out his questions and asked the first one first. “You like it here?”

Ceci shrugged. “It was the furthest away I could get from where I was.”

He just looked at her and didn’t answer that for a minute. “Been living out of the VA hostels down south. Bunks and a blanket when I could get ’em. Not something you’d be wanting, I don’t think.”

“As long as they’ve got an extra blanket.” She gazed peacefully at him. “That sounds great.”

“Cec—”

“Listen to me.” She reached up and caught his jaw, forcing eye contact. “You are my life.” Inhale. Exhale. “I don’t care if you live under a bridge. Wherever you go, I’ll go.”

His eyes smiled at her. “Honey, I know that,” Andrew answered softly. “I wasn’t gonna say you can’t. I was gonna say I was damn tired of living that way and I’d got a hankering to find me a little place…out near the water. Fer just you and me.”

A sense of vivid relief splashed over her and turned the colors nearby far more intense. “I’d like that very much.” Ceci took in a happy breath. “In fact, with the paintings and all, I’ve got a little money put by.

We could—” She hushed, as a large finger covered her lips. She grasped it. “It’s all right, Andy. That apartment belongs to Charles. I just pay him rent for it. There’s nothing holding me here, in fact—” Now she had to be quiet, because the finger had turned into an entire hand, which was larger than half her face.

“Shh.” Andy removed his hand. “When Dar was up here, she had to sign some paper stuff had to do with May’s trust, and—”

“Oh.” Ceci felt herself flush. “Goddess…please. Don’t…I’m so sorry about that.”

He paused. “Huh?”

Cecilia sighed. “It was my fault. I should have checked. I should have…that stupid trust.” She paused. “I’m sorry. I told her I was—”

“Ceci, what are you talking about?”

She blinked. “The trust. When the family found out I was…that I’d asked Dar to come up for the funeral, they asked me to talk to her about it.”

“Yeah?”

She shrugged. “It never occurred to them or to me, honestly, that she’d have been as successful as she is.” Ceci looked up to see honest hurt facing her. “I know. I know, Andrew. I fell into that trap.”

He looked down at the ground.

“Richard had mentioned that Dar had recently changed all her legal papers and had named a new heir. I guess the concern was…” Cecilia stopped and took a breath. “No. I’ll be honest. We—me included—were worried someone was taking advantage of her and she didn’t have the sense to realize it.”

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Andrew sighed. “Lord.”

Ceci exhaled and closed her eyes. “I don’t blame her for being upset.

When I realized…it was so hard, Andy. I didn’t even really know what to say. What to do. I felt like a fool.” She rested her head against one hand.

“What a mess.”

“Well,” Andy put his arm around her, “that musta stung, right nuff.

But I think Dar figgered out a way t’get her own back.” He chewed his lip. “Put it somewhere yer family’d go nuts with.”

“Mmm?” Ceci lifted her head. “What did she do? Give it to the Humane Society?” She half joked, as he slowly tugged something out of his back pocket and handed it to her. “What’s this?”

“What she done.”

She unfolded the paper on to her thigh and read it.

Then she read it again.

Then she looked up at her husband.

“Didn’t even give me a chance t’say no.” Andy smiled wistfully. “I damn near almost fell over.”

“Wow.”

“Yeap.”

Ceci fingered the paper. “I feel pretty damn small.” She had a bitter taste in her mouth. “She’s so outgrown me.”

Andy pulled her closer and she felt a tiny thrill as his lips pressed against her hair, despite the shame that covered her. “We all made mistakes, Cec,” he murmured. “Let’s just tie our shorts tight and move on.”

She collapsed against him. “We got all sorts of new chances now.”

Yes they did, didn’t they? Cecilia put her hands against her husband’s chest, feeling the powerful beat of his heart under her fingers. Dreams were possible now. Though the only one that had ever meant anything to her was real, and breathing, and surrounding her with strong arms.

Anything was possible.