At one time it had seemed very sterile to her, but since she’d moved in, she’d coaxed some personal items out of Dar, and added her own stuff to it resulting in a warmer and more cheerful atmosphere.

The room now included some prints they’d picked out at the Grove Art Festival, a colorful native woven blanket that was draped over the central table, and a brass sculpture of dolphins and waves sitting in the middle of it. On the entertainment center, once barren of anything but a little dust, there were pictures of her and of Dar at various ages, and one of them together that always made Kerry smile when she looked at it.

She walked over and picked it up, both of them staring back at her sprawled on the couch pretty much in each other’s laps. “What this picture didn’t kick off.” She shook her head. “Good thing I got it back before I left home.”

Kerry set the picture back down and trotted up the stairs, dropping her laptop off in her office and continuing on to her room.

She still had to run that through her head when she walked in, as the spacious vaulted ceiling and the wide glass doors that opened out onto the Atlantic Ocean hit her eyes. It was the master suite for the Hurricane Watch

25

condo, and though she slept downstairs with Dar in the big waterbed, Kerry had taken pains to carve out her own little space here.

She’d moved most of her things up from her apartment. It still seemed a bit strange to see Pooh holding out his arms for a hug from the comfortable, overstuffed chair perfectly situated for reading as the sunlight came in the room.

She’d hung her pictures on the wall, and it was her quilt on the bed, and the dresser held her things in slight disarray.

Go spend time back in Kendall? Kerry gave her head a faint shake.

No way. This was home now, even if she and Dar hadn’t quite made that formal commitment to each other.

She put her bag down and went to the glass doors, sliding them open. She went out onto the wraparound balcony to just stand and gaze out over the black, rippling water for a long moment, watching the quarter moon send a tiny splash of light over the waves. It smelled of salt, and the rich scent of the freshly fertilized lawn below her, and the hint of hickory smoke from the beach club just down the way.

It was beautiful, and she loved it, even though she had to pinch herself sometimes just to prove it was real, and not just some outlandish dream. Not just the house, but her life. Sometimes she was a little afraid to go to sleep at night, fearing she’d wake up one day and it would all be gone as though it had never existed.

A sigh. ”C'mon, Kerry, get changed, and stop being goofy.” She went back inside, closing the doors. Kerry slipped out of her work clothes, exchanging them for her favorite sleep shirt and hanging her jacket and skirt up in the huge walk in closet.

A tiny whine alerted her, and she looked up as Chino pushed the door open with her nose, and came stumbling in, having laboriously negotiated the stairs. ”Hey, Chino. C'mere honey.” Kerry sat down and let the puppy scramble over her. She played with her for a minute then got to her feet and headed downstairs, with the animal trotting behind her. Dar was in her office, working on something, and she looked up as Kerry poked her head in. For a minute, they just looked at each other, and then Dar leaned back in her comfortable chair. ”That smells great.”

She put her hands behind her head and exhaled, pulling the thin fabric of her worn baseball shirt against her body. ”Ken sprang something on me tonight. He broached the subject of me going back into competition.”

Kerry came forward and perched on the arm of the couch.

”Really?” She watched Dar’s face. ”You think you want to?”

Dar nibbled the inside of her lip. ”I don’t know. When he first mentioned it, I came up with all the reasons why I couldn’t, and they seemed like good ones.” She shrugged. ”I mean, it takes time, a lot of effort and training,” She sighed. ”It's been a long, long time. I don’t know if I could still do it.”


26

Melissa Good

”But?” Kerry saw the indecision in her expression. “You’re thinking about it.”

Both hands lifted, then fell to the arms of the chair. ”Maybe the stuff I’ve been doing with him triggered some stupid adolescent urge or something. I don’t know. I’ve been getting quite a kick out of trying to see how much I could get back.” She looked up. ”What do you think?”

Kerry studied her in silence. ”I think you should go for it.” She grinned. ”I love the classes, but watching you and Ken go at it afterward has been such a blast. You get this incredible look on your face when you get past him.”

Dar scratched her jaw, looking a touch embarrassed. ”I do?”

”Yes, you do.” Kerry held out a hand, as she checked her watch.

”Come on...we’ll talk about it over dinner. It should be ready.”

They settled in front of the large screen television, Dar flipping it on after she set her gently steaming plate down. ”Oh, look, it’s the Crocodile Fanatic,” She peered. ”What’s he after now?”

Kerry observed the screen. ”Snakes.” She took a bite of chicken and then a mouthful of the steamed rice, which she’d put a touch of ginger and spices into. ”Hmm...rattlesnakes.” She shook her head. ”Jesus. He’s picking them up by the...Dar, he’s crawling into a cave of those things.

Isn’t the Discovery Channel afraid they’re going to have a lawsuit on their hands when he gets eaten alive?”

Dar pulled her plate over and took a bite. ”They probably had him sign a document in quintuplet that absolves them of any responsibility for him.” The spicy peanut sauce on the chicken contrasted with the gentle, gingery taste of the rice, and she sighed contentedly. ”Kerry, this is great.”

”Thank you.” Kerry took a sip of ice tea. ”We have strawberries for dessert, you know.”

”I know,” Dar chuckled softly, as she settled an arm over Kerry’s shoulders, eating one handed. ”What’s he doing now? Oh...hey...is his wife pregnant?”

Kerry peered. ”Either that, or she's been munching on the crocodile crackers overtime.” She watched. ”And he drags her up into mountains, and hands her the tail of a rattlesnake to hold onto...Jesus!” The man on the screen cooed at the angry female rattlesnake. ”You gotta love them?

No Steve. I don’t!”

She chewed. ”He’s got such a cute accent, though.” She reached over and picked up a green bean from Dar’s plate, and offered it to her.

”Here, I sautéed them in a little garlic butter. Just pretend it’s a French fry.”Dar obligingly took the bean, chewing it speculatively. ”I think I’m being condescended to,” She blinked. ”Look at him. There must be a dozen snakes under that rock. Can’t he just leave it alone? Wait, did he just say ‘shit’?”

Kerry's brow creased. ”Yeah, he just said ‘shit’. What's...oh man, Hurricane Watch

27

did you see how pale he just got?” She turned up the sound a little. ”Oh Jesus. He’s got a snake between his legs.”

Her lover burst out laughing. “Typical guy.”

”Tch, Dar. No. He’s got a rattlesnake between his legs! Look, they’re going nuts. He doesn’t know what to do!” They watched as the man on the screen eased out of the way, and scooted out of range.

”Wow. That was outrageous. I wonder if they’d show it if he actually got nailed in the nuts by a poisonous snake.”

”Well,” Dar laughed helplessly. ”At least he could get a tourniquet in place, unlike if he got bit on the face,” She sighed, and chewed a mouthful of rice. ”I think he’s an adrenaline junkie.”

She quieted for a moment. Looking

for

that

fix,

that

excitement...was that what was tugging her towards resuming the aggressiveness of competition? Otherwise, what was the attraction of going back ten years, and trying to recapture that particular bit of glory? Or was this a reaction to her turning thirty, a reassurance to her ego that she still had ‘it’?

Now, that was a depressing thought.

Conceit or a challenge it would just be fun to attempt Hmm. She took another bite of her rice, pausing as Kerry shifted and snuggled up next to her, letting her head rest on Dar’s shoulder.

“You think I should go for it?”

“Mm hmm,” Kerry nodded, her mouth full of chicken. She swallowed and licked her lips. “I love watching you fight.”

Dar forgot about crocodiles as she looked at Kerry’s profile, both eyebrows lifting in surprise. “You do?”

“Sure,” her partner cheerfully assured her. “It’s really sexy.” She found her jaw being gently gripped and her face turned so she was forced to meet Dar’s eyes. “What?”

Both dark eyebrows were up near Dar’s hairline. “Sexy?”

Kerry grinned. “Gonna do it?”

Dar drummed her fingers on the arm of the couch, a thoughtful expression on her face.


Chapter

Three

“SO, HOW’D A sharp girl like you end up in a rat’s nest like this?”

The smile was meant to make her understand it was all in good fun.

Kerry reflected, taking a thoughtful sip of her peach ice tea. ”I submitted a resumé, and it was accepted,” she replied dryly, ”and I happen to like it very much.” It had been a slow morning, unfortunately, and no crises had developed that might have excused her lunch invitation from Steven Fabricini, although, Dar had volunteered to create one if she really didn’t want to go.

”You do, huh?” Steven chuckled, scooping up a spoonful of yogurt.

“That’s hard to believe considering who you work for.”

Kerry shrugged. ”You know, people say that a lot, but I really enjoy working for Dar. She’s smart, she knows her stuff, she gives credit where credit’s due, and she stands up for her staff.” she commented, honestly. ”If you know what you’re doing, you have no problem with her.” Just like Mark Polenti had said at their first meeting. ”Of course, if you don’t...” She let the thought hang.

He laughed. ”You poor little thing. Wait until you get thrown to the fire as a sacrifice the first time she has to take the blame for something. You can’t really be that naive, can you?” He leaned forward.

”Listen, cupcake, I know her, all right? You don’t. She will turn on you like a rabid dog at the first opportunity.”

”Really.” Kerry nibbled on her sandwich. ”Well, thanks for the warning.”

”Anytime.” Fabricini smiled, then lowered his voice. ”Listen, there’s no reason we can’t work together, all right? My job here is to try and punch through these roadblocks we seem to be coming up against, and if I do it, the whole company benefits. Don’t get caught on the wrong side of that, hmm?”

“What kind of roadblocks are you talking about?” Kerry asked.

He regarded her for an instant. “Sales dried up,” he said.

“Everyone looks at this company as too slow and too old school. We can’t get our foot in the door.”

Kerry took a sip of her drink. “I see.”

“We need fresh blood, and new ideas,” he added, “new incentives for customers. We can’t rely on those old metrics of yours to drive new business. It doesn’t work anymore.”


Hurricane Watch

29

“So, you want to give them a good deal, maybe some free services up front, to get them to sign—is that it?” Kerry rested her chin on one hand, letting her other hand lay casually on the table.

He put a hand on her wrist. ”You’re a sharp kid. Everyone says so, and when this all shakes out, there could be opportunity for you, if you know what I mean.”

Kerry smiled kindly at him. ”You mean, if you dig up enough things to force Dar out, I might get her job.”

He smiled back. ”I said you were sharp.” A dangerous glint entered his eyes. ”Stick with me, cupcake.”

She wiped her lips with her napkin, and set it down neatly on her plate. ”There’s just a few things I’d like to get squared away first.” She paused.

”What’s that?” he smiled, a knowing look on his face.

”One, you need to let go of my wrist before I sink my fork into the back of your hand,” Kerry responded very mildly. ”Two, if you call me cupcake again, I’m going to file a discrimination complaint on you with our personnel department. I don’t appreciate it.”

She stood up and took her tray as he released her. “Excuse me,” she said. “I have actual work to do.”

She left him sitting there, as she counted to twenty under her breath, waiting for her heart to stop hammering in her ears from anger.