Dar, however, brightened. “Mm.” She took her own scoop and plopped it down. “Favorite of mine.”

“Really?”

“Uh huh,” Dar said. “My father used to trade for big cans of the stuff for me on base,” she volunteered. “I’m surprised I never overdosed on it.”

“What kind of base?” Mary Lou asked from the other side of Mariana. “My family was Air Force.”

“Navy,” Dar replied, then edged out of line and headed for a table.

She put her plate down at an empty one, then looked around for something to drink.

“Here.” Kerry put down two glasses of milk by her plate before seating herself and taking a sip from a glass of juice she’d gotten for herself.

Steven and José were just passing the table and they both glanced at Kerry, then looked at Dar. José just continued past, but Steven’s eyebrow twitched and he smiled faintly. Dar merely returned his gaze without reacting, but she could feel the skin on the back of her neck heating and she caught Mari’s expression from the next table over.

Screw it. “Thanks, Ker.” She seated herself and opened the cereal box, dumping its contents in the bowl and pouring one of the glasses of milk over it. After a moment, she looked up to find Kerry staring at the glass with slightly widened eyes.

“Shit,” Kerry uttered quietly.

“No problem.” Dar dug into her flakes, chewing them noisily.

“Eat.” She glanced around, then back at Kerry, who was visibly blushing now. “Looks like everyone’s heard about my drinking problem,” she added in a louder voice. “Even you.”


68

Melissa Good

Kerry rested her head on her fist to hide her face and focused on her plate as Mari managed a hesitant laugh and José frowned at them.

It was going to be a very long day.

“ALL RIGHT.” SKIPPY had donned a perky pink sweatshirt with her company’s name on it over neatly pressed white slacks. ”Well, did we all have a good night?” Silence greeted her words. ”Well, that’s great. I’m glad to hear it, okay.”

They were seated around a circular table in the smaller hall near the lake, its screened in walls giving a good view of the water that no one seemed to appreciate.

”Okay. Let’s start with this little exercise.” Skippy plugged bravely on. ”I’d like everyone to tell us about a favorite hobby of yours.” She looked encouragingly at Duks, bypassing Steven. ”How about you start?”

Duks inhaled, then exhaled, folding his arms across his chest. ”A hobby is it? All right...I collect pencils.”

Skippy sighed. ”Mr. Draefus...”

”No, no, I mean it.” Duks held up a hand. ”My oldest one is from 1833, truthfully.”

Everyone looked at Duks suspiciously. ”Who’s next?” The accountant went on blithely.

Mariana was next to him. ”I grow herb gardens.”

“Oh, that’s so nice,” their guide burbled. ”For cooking?”

The personnel VP smiled. ”For Santeria, my uncle’s a priest.”

Skippy’s eyes jiggled. ”Oh, um, next?”

”I, um,” Charles swallowed nervously, ”I raise fish,” he mumbled.

”Salt water tropical fish. I have a tank.”

”Really?” Dar asked. ”How big?”

He looked up at her and pushed his glasses up onto his nose.

”Seven hundred gallons.” He nodded a little. ”I converted my garage.”

Even Dar's eyes popped. ”That’s not a tank, that’s the Seaquarium,”

she murmured. ”That must take a lot of time to take care of.”

”It does, but my wife and the kids, they help,” Charles stated, happy at the reaction. ”I have a baby nurse shark,” he stated proudly. ”I had to segment him, though. He was eating all the flounder and getting fat.””My god,” Eleanor blinked at her assistant in amazement, ”that’s incredible.”

Everyone looked at her. ”What?” The Marketing VP snapped. ”Oh, a hobby, how silly. I have no hobby.”

”Nothing? What do you do in your spare time?” Skippy inquired, encouraged by her last success.

Eleanor remained silent for a moment. ”Well, I go to dinner, of course, and go out shopping, and play cards with friends of ours.”


Hurricane Watch

69

”Oh, well, that’s nice,” the blonde guide smiled perkily. ”What about you?” She turned her gaze to Steven.

He glared at Dar. ”I run,” he answered grumpily. ”I enter marathons.”

Big smile from Skippy. ”Oh, that’s wonderful. I always wanted to do that. I participate in all our corporate walks and runs. Isn’t it great exercise?”

”Yeah.” He tried to clean the black muck from under his nails with little success. ”Great.”

Mary Lou leaned back and grasped her knee with both hands. ”I fly ultra lights,” she stated, grinning at the reaction. ”Yeah, that’s me out there in south Dade on the weekends, buzzing around.” Her eyes slid to Dar, who was seated next to her. ”What about you?”

The blue eyes blinked innocently. ”I collect heads,” she answered with a straight face. ”You know, shrunken ones, with the laces through the lips.”

Everyone stared at her, with reactions ranging from horror to wry amusement. ”Well, it’s what you all expected to hear,” the executive drawled. ”Isn’t it?” She caught the swiftly hidden grin on Kerry’s face.

”Actually, I scuba dive.”

Skippy nodded her head like a back car seat Chihuahua and turned to Kerry, hopefully. ”Hi there.”

Kerry drew in a breath. ”I write poetry,” she answered very quietly, her peripheral vision catching the warm twinkle in Dar’s eyes.

“You do?” Mariana half turned to look at her. “Really?”

Kerry nodded. “I have, off and on, since I was small,” she elaborated. “And I scu...like to take pictures, too. Photography.”

”That’s wonderful.” Skippy looked like she could have kissed her.

”So creative!”

José had propped his chin up on his hand with a bored look. ”I collect baseball cards,” he told them. ”For investments, you know?”

Another pathetically grateful look from the guide. ”Oh, that’s so fantastic. I always wanted to do that.” She made a mark on her clipboard. ”Well, we certainly are a varied group, aren’t we?” She went through her papers. ”Okay, well, I hope you all learned something about each other. Um, let’s try a trust exercise now.” She stood up.

”Everybody stand up, and we’ll take turns catching each other.”

They all looked at her.

”It’ll be fun,” she assured them. ”Really.”

”THIS IS A bad idea.” Dar stood in the back of the circle of people.

Kerry turned and glanced at her. ”It’s okay. We used to do this during practice for gymnastics. It’s just a game, Dar.” She kept herself from giving Dar a comforting pat on the arm, but leaned closer and dropped her voice. “Don't worry, whatever happens, I won’t let you fall.”


70

Melissa Good

Dar gazed at her, a smile playing about the edges of her lips. ”I knew that,” she murmured back. ”I just...” She chewed her lip. ”I don’t like people touching me.”

Kerry rubbed her jaw. ”Well, you could tell everyone not to catch you,” she commented softly. ”But that’s gonna hurt.”

Dar sighed and watched as Skippy joined them with her ever-present clipboard, her hair tucked up under a delightfully pink hat with a prancing, coy pony on it. The executive had an almost irresistible desire to snatch it and bury it deep in the earth.

”Okay. This is how this works,” the guide explained. ”One person stands in the middle, and the rest of you get behind. Then that person just lets themselves fall back, and everyone else catches them. Okay?”

”What if they don’t?” Duks asked, in his deep rumble.

”Excuse me?” Skippy peered at him.

”What if they don’t catch the person?” The Financial VP inquired.

”Oh, well...um... I guess they just...well, they fall, I guess.” The woman’s brow knit. ”I don’t know, really. It’s never happened.”

”That’s very reassuring.” Duks put his hands behind his back and rocked on his heels. He was wearing a pair of cotton painter’s pants and comfortable looking hiking boots, along with a crimson flannel shirt.

Then he turned to Mariana, who was wearing a crisp tan shirt over blue jeans. ”You did bring workman’s comp packets just in case, right?”

Mariana cleared her throat. ”Of course.”

Skippy blinked at her, disconcerted. ”You did? Oh, well, I’m sure you won’t need them,” she hastened to reassure her. ”This is a very safe course. We never have accidents, never.”

”Don’t worry, my dear. The ship is absolutely unsinkable,” Mary Lou muttered, sotto voce, making Dar snicker in reaction.

”Shh,” Kerry scolded her. ”Or we’ll be at this all day. Let’s get it over with.”

”Um, who wants to start?” Skippy gave Steven a little smile.

With a little shrug he came forward. ”Might as well, can’t be worse than being dumped on my ass in the mud this morning.” He glared at Dar.“I didn’t touch you,” Dar shot right back. “If you can’t watch where you’re running, don’t blame me.”

”You could have warned me!”

Everyone looked at Dar, who shrugged. ”How was I supposed to know that mud was there?” she asked reasonably. ”You decided to run ahead of me. Not my fault you didn’t stop in time,” she said. “My reputation as a psychic is highly overrated.”

“Your reputation is highly overrated, that’s for damn sure,” Steven shot back.

”Oh, will you two shut up?” Eleanor snapped, in a foul mood.

”Let’s get this idiocy over with already.”

Sullen glares all around. Steven turned his back on them and let his Hurricane Watch

71

arms hang down straight, his bright blue sweatshirt over a white polo shirt contrasting with his khaki chinos. ”Ready?”

José sidled forward and nudged them all along. ”Come on, come on.” They clustered in a group. ”All right.”

Steven very obviously squared his shoulders, then let himself tip back.A loud explosion behind them sounded. Everyone jumped and whirled, even Skippy, who threw her clipboard up as a defense. ”Oh my!”Steven, forgotten by the distracted group, dropped into the pine needle filled ground with a thump. ”Son of a bitch!” he screamed as his head hit the turf. “You bastards!”

The sound was repeated and they realized it was a backfire from some vehicle. Skippy dashed over to where Steven was lying, rubbing his head, and knelt down. ”Oh my gosh, oh my gosh. Are you all right?”

They were all torn between giving him guilty looks and watching the camp entrance, where a low growling sound indicated someone was approaching. ”Listen, sorry about that kid.” José offered him a hand up.

”That noise, you know, it just startled us, sounded like a damn gun.”

The sound got louder, then a flash of sun on metal almost blinded them as a Harley roared in. It slowed a bit as the driver checked out the scene, then thumped across the uneven ground and headed in their direction. It pulled to a stop and the rider pulled his helmet off. ”Hey.”

It took all Dar’s considerable concentration to keep a devilish grin off her face. ”Hey, Mark, didn’t think you’d make it.” She greeted him.

The MIS chief got off his bike and glanced down at his body, which was covered in tiny, blood specked forms. ”Neither did I, goddamned love bugs. The company owes me big time for this one. It’s gonna take me a week to get all their guts off my bike.” He glanced over. ”What’s he doing on the ground?”


Chapter

Seven

“SO MUCH FOR that.” Kerry leaned back against a pine tree, crossing her ankles and folding her arms. She looked past the figures of Skippy and Steven, in earnest conversation nearby. “Okay, so it probably was a bad idea.”

Dar was scuffing the pine needle littered ground with one boot.

“Pure chance,” she shrugged. “Not like I called Mark up and arranged it, or told him to go first.”

“You’ll get blamed anyway,” Duks said. “The man does not like you, my friend.”

”That was a bitch, Dar.” Mark shook his head as he joined them, having changed out of his leather and love bug carcass outfit into something less gruesome. ”I ended up having the Erding office bring the equipment in for them. You’re gonna owe a few folks out there.”

Dar nodded. ”Good going.” She re-tucked her long sleeved, heavy cotton shirt into her jeans. ”Glad you could join us.” She glanced over where Steven, José and Eleanor were now clustering together. “Tilts the scale a little.”

”Yeah, you look like you’re having a great time,” Mark commented dryly. ”This place is a dump.” He glanced over as Skippy returned with a bunch of little sacks slung over her shoulder. ”Uh oh, now what?”