“Something about bears?”
“No, no. I was just thinking about ordering…um…pizza or something. Interested?”
“Sure,” Mark agreed amiably. “I’ll order. Let’s see…” He closed his eyes and concentrated. “Sausage, Pepperoni, beef and pork with extra cheese.” One eye opened and peered hopefully at her. “Am I right?”
Dar chuckled. “Yeah.”
“Wooo, you mean Kerry hasn’t converted you to a veggie pizza yet?”
Mark laughed. “I know she’s not scarfing down that prescription for a heart attack.”
“We get a half and half,” Dar admitted. “I make sure to flick any errant growths over on her side of the pie.” She concentrated on another part of the configuration. “Ah, there.” She cut and pasted, then recycled the screen and reset the equipment. “That’s better.”
“Damn.” Mark peered at the monitor with wry admiration. “Can I be like you when I grow up?” He picked up the phone and dialed. “Want some cheese breadsticks sticks too?”
“Sure.”
“Pepsi?”
“Root beer.”
“They have floats.”
“Bingo.”
“Right.” Mark placed the order and put the phone down, then got up and manually reset a large machine. “We’re going to have to replace this switch, Dar. It’s been giving me fits and they can’t work the kinks out of 270 Melissa Good that Y2K patch.”
Dar grunted and set up a test pattern. “That’s the international DS3’s figures.”
The door opened, revealing Brent’s stocky figure as he rolled an AV
cart into the room. “Hey, Mark. What’s up? I hear we—” His blue eyes went round, “Oh. Sorry, ma’am. Hello.” He paused. “Is your machine not working? Want me to take a look at it?” Blue eyes went a little rounder as he saw Dar manipulating the big console. “Or set you up a new one?”
“Hi, Brent.” Mark chuckled. “Don’t get freaked out. Dar’s router qualified.” He smiled at the look on Brent’s face. “She’s reconfiguring the new network.”
“Got a problem with that?” Dar growled softly.
“No, no, ma’am, of course not. I just…” Brent looked a little perplexed.
“Just what? C’mon, spit it out.”
“Um…well, sure…I,” the tech peered at the seated executive, “I mean, I didn’t think…um…”
Dar looked right up at him, pinning him with an intense gaze.
“Think what?”
He swallowed. “Well, I didn’t think you…what I mean is—well, see, you’re the boss.”
“And?” A dark eyebrow lifted.
“And bosses do bossy things,” he blurted. “Not um…techie things.”
He paused. “You know?”
Mark wisely kept quiet, burying his head into his monitor and typing away furiously. He knew his boss was just playing with the sometimes overly serious Brent, but hoped she didn’t take it too far. Dar could be a little too intense sometimes, especially for the younger crowd who didn’t know her like Mark did.
Dar finished what she was doing and folded her hands on the console. “Are you insinuating that I’m not a nerd?” Her voice took on a dangerous note.
He blinked at her.
“You think that just because they gave me a title, that I don’t know what end of a cable to plug in like the rest of the people on 14?”
“B—” he squeaked, then stared at Mark in desperate appeal.
Dar got up, needing a stretch anyway, stalked over to Bent and put her hands on her denim covered hips. “Are you accusing me of techno turniphood, Brent?” She towered over him, eyeing the tech like a hungry panther.
He stuck his tongue out trying to speak then bit down on it, making his nostrils flare. A blush colored his face brick red and he looked like he was going to faint. “N-n-no, ma’am. No. I’d never do that.”
She leaned forward and lowered her voice to a purr. “Good.”
“Dar?” Mark peeked out from behind his console, realizing his tech was about to burst into spontaneous human combustion.
“Yes?” the same, low, sexy voice answered, rolling the word play-Eye of the Storm 271
fully.
“Unless you want to clean up the piddle, stop scaring the piss out of Brent, willya?” He glanced at the hapless tech. “Relax. Her bark is way, way worse than her bite.”
Slowly, Dar turned and faced him, lowering her head a little and pinning him with an icy, merciless gaze. One eyebrow edged way up. “You have never been bitten,” she reminded him. “So how would you know?”
“Uh.” Mark rubbed his jaw. “I heard stories?” he ventured. “Really, really good ones?”
Dar paused, then laughed. “Yeah, right.” She returned to her seat and resumed her task. “For the record, Brent. I count as a geek.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he replied instantly. “Maybe we can talk some EPROMS sometimes.”
Mark chuckled. “Dar can talk EPROMS. Heck, Dar can burn EPROMS. Matter of fact, Dar designed this ops room,” he commented.
“And about fifty percent of the systems we run on, for that matter.”
“Really?” Brent sounded interested. He rolled his cart in and put it away, then edged around the console desk and settled in a chair near Dar.
“Hey, wait a minute. Back in the cross-patch room there’s a bunch of DR’s stenciled on the punch downs. Is that you?” He was obviously viewing her in a whole new light.
“Yup.” Dar set up another test pattern. “This looks decent. I’m going to try and bring the rest of the subnets online.”
“Wow,” Brent murmured. “Hey. That means you wrote the inven-tory program too, huh?” His eyes brightened. “Your initials are in the code.”
Dar nodded.
“You put in that subroutine that catches the boxes serial number and cross-references it against the original invoice to make sure it’s billed to the right department?”
“Yes.”
“Wicked.” Brent sighed. “I love that subroutine.” His gaze took in Dar’s profile with new, intense interest. “It’s my favorite one.”
Dar looked up at him for a moment, then at Mark, who snickered.
“Thanks.” She leaned back and propped a knee up against the wood of the console, watching her program run. The phone buzzed and Mark picked it up, then stood.
“Pizza’s here. That was fast,” he remarked. “Be right back.” The MIS
chief slipped out of the door and let it close behind him, leaving the two of them alone.
There was a bit of silence. Dar remained deep in thought, memories cascading gently over her of the hours spent administering this small cog in the company. She’d been happy doing that, she realized. Probably it had been the last time she’d been able to simply go home at night and forget about her job.
Gone home and escaped to the clubs, spending her time drinking and trading bullshit stories with a group of like minded friends, dabbling 272 Melissa Good in shallow attractions and losing herself in long weekends of bumming around on the beach.
Going nowhere in particular and finding herself satisfied with that as the pleasures of the moment absorbed her interest and she let a lot of things slide—ambition chief among them.
Then there’d been Shari.
And everything had changed.
Nothing was fun anymore. She’d learned to judge herself by a different set of rules and left behind the comfort zone of the ops center to push herself into the stark challenge of project management. Proving she was everything Shari said she wasn’t. Driving herself to higher and higher levels until she’d broken through the glass ceiling and landed her butt in a plush office with a business card that said Vice President on it and everyone who ever said she was a loser could just chew that and swallow.
And you know what? No one had cared. No one had been left close enough to pat her on the back and say, “Good job, Dar. You did it. We’re proud of you.”
No one. The night she’d gotten her promotion she’d taken a bottle of champagne down to the beach and shared it with the night crabs and the hiss of the waves, feeling nothing but a sense of empty relief. So she’d decided to just allow the achievement to become its own end and convinced herself that it made her happy.
Until one damn fall day when she’d taken over a consolidation gone bad and walked into a small, boxy office to deliver a pile of bad news to some ordinary company manager she never expected to see again.
And lost her heart, her soul, and her carefully constructed self-deception all in less time than it took to think about it.
“Ma’am?”
Dar jumped a little. “Oh, sorry. Yes?”
Brent moved a little closer, the flush visible on his pale skin. “Do you mind if I ask you something?”
She shook herself, dispelling the memories and turned in her chair.
“No. Go ahead, Brent.” She issued him a brief smile. “I wasn’t upset before. I was just tweaking you a little.”
“Yeah, I figured. Um.” His nostrils flared. “You and Ms. Kerry are pretty good friends, right?” He looked around and lowered his voice.
Wild, ringing alarms went off in Dar’s head, so loud she was surprised Brent couldn’t hear them. “Yes,” she answered cautiously. “Why?”
What now? A thousand situations ran through her head, and Ankow was at the bottom of most of them. Did he have different information? Had Brent heard him hunting down facts? What was he up to? What trouble…
“Uh.” The man rubbed his jaw. “Well it’s just…”
“What is it, Brent?” Dar asked, her interest sharpening.
“Do you…um…I know this is a weird question…but d’you know…um…”
Uh oh. “Yes?”
“Is she seeing anyone?”
Eye of the Storm 273
Total silence. Dar sucked in a breath and clamped her jaw shut to keep the nervous giggle from emerging. She waited a beat. “Yes.” She gave a grave, considered reply. “She is.” Goddamn it. Is he the last person in the whole bloody company to get the bleeping memo?
“Oh.” He looked crestfallen. “Okay. Well, I kinda thought so. I mean, she’s so nice, and so pretty. But I figured it was worth asking. Thanks, ma’am. I know it’s a real personal question and I do appreciate you answering it.” He was still brick red.
“No problem.”
“She’s probably not my type anyway. Huh?” he asked in a wistful voice.
Dar stared at him. “Um…Brent…”
“It’s okay.” He dropped his eyes. “It’s probably some real smart guy with a nice car.” He exhaled and shrugged. “Kind of a stupid question.”
“Um.” The executive rummaged around, trying to come up with something intelligent to say. “I’m sure you’re…ah… There’s nothing wrong with you, Brent. She’s just…um…”
“Hey, ma’am. It’s okay, really. I understand. You don’t have to go any further.” Brent sighed. “Must be some lucky guy.”
“B—” Dar was sure her brains were leaking out her ear by now. “N–”
The door opened and Mark walked in with two boxes full of pizza.
“Hey. Look what I found.” He opened the door further and a familiar blonde figure came in behind him.
“Hi,” Dar croaked gratefully.
Kerry trudged in, circled the console, put her arms around Dar’s neck and kissed her head. “My transmission gave up just outside the office and I got roped into Country line dancing Karaoke charades. I’m trashed. Can we go home?” She let her cheek rest against her lover’s dark hair. “Hey, Brent.” Gentle green eyes regarded him wearily.
There was a tiny little silence, until Brent shuffled his feet. “Guess I had the smart and the car right,” he muttered, flushing an even deeper red as he stood up and scurried out of sight behind a couple of mainframes.
“Huh?” Kerry cocked her head. “What’s up with Brent?” She looked at Dar and her brows creased, then she glanced up at Mark, who shrugged in honest puzzlement.
Dar sighed. “A clue just bit him in the ass.”
“Ow.” Kerry peered into the gloom behind the consoles. “About what?”
Dar scratched her jaw. “Tell ya later.” She patted Kerry’s calf, absorbing the warmth pressing against her back as the smaller woman leaned against her. “Siddown. I’ve just got to finish this setup.” She turned and pulled the keyboard closer as Kerry settled in the chair next to her, watching with interest.
Dar glanced at the monitor, bemused to see her reflection faintly echoing back at her from the glare, a smile shaping her lips completely without her permission. Kerry’s hand casually rested on her knee under 274 Melissa Good the desk, and the smile widened.
A thought suddenly crossed her mind. Would Kerry care if she was just a mid level ops manager? She turned her head slightly and studied the intelligent profile next to her. She liked the perks of their respective positions, Dar was sure, but…hadn’t she said she’d be content to wander around selling poetry for food if she had to?
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