They all fell briefly silent as they started breakfast, and Kerry was left in peace to think about Mike's first question.

Why. Why had she really gotten the tattoo? For herself? For Dar? Kerry chuckled a little under her breath and shook her head. She still really didn't know for sure. "So anyway." She broke the quiet. "I love the thing. Dar was in New York when I got it, and I had a day or so to let it heal before I showed it to her. I could see it was going back and forth in her mind if she wanted to get one too."

"Kerry?" Mike looked up. "Thanks for making breakfast. This rocks."

Angie looked around, but the two servant women had retreated back to the kitchen. "Yeah," she said. "Thanks. I know I used to make brownies, but I have no idea how to tell these people to make things I like."

Kerry waved a fork at them, busy chewing.

"Have you decided what you're going to speak about at the banquet tonight?" Angie asked. "You know, Marga Smithton called me last night and said she saw us in the restaurant with Mom and she said everyone's been talking about it."

Kerry rolled her eyes.

"Hey, slow news week," Her sister held a hand up. "C'mon, Kerry. You used to live here. How many weeks did duck racing make the front page?"

Kerry swallowed and wiped her lips with her napkin. "They need to get a life," she said. "I've figured out two different ways to go tonight, and it depends on how they react when I get there. Either they're going to get my professional presentation, or they're going to get the radical biker dyke. All up to them."

Both her siblings blinked at her.

"Ah. Forgot to tell you I got a motorcycle too." Kerry grinned, and took a sip of her coffee. "Actually, it was a joint purchase. Dar and I use it down at the cabin in the Keys," she explained. "Which by the way, you both have to come down and stay some time."

"I'll take you up on that," Mike said. "Can I ride the bike?"

"Sure." Kerry could still sense the faint waves of shock rolling around the table. "We go down on weekends a lot and just bum around there. It's quiet, and it's right on the water, I love chilling out on the beach in front."

"Sounds gorgeous." Angie recovered and picked up the conversation again. "Is it a long drive?"

"Well, it's about an hour and a half, I guess, but we also take the boat down there and that's a little longer. We don't care though because we stop and dive on the way down."

"Man," her brother shook his head, "what a life."

Kerry smiled and took a forkful of pancake to eat. She felt a faint buzz in her pocket and pulled out her phone, setting it on the table and opening it. "Excuse me." She put the forkful down and pressed the answer button. "Kerry Stuart."

"Hello, Ms. Stuart?" a male voice answered. "This is ops. We have kind of a situation here and we need someone to make a decision."

"Called the right person." Kerry regretfully glanced at her plate. "Go on. What's the problem?"

"There's a new sales account, the International Cellular group?" the tech ventured. "Do you know about them?"

"Sure," Kerry said.

"Okay, well, they were supposed to come live next week, but it turns out their stuff came early so they want to bring up the circuits into the network, but the change control's not ready."

Ah. Kerry leaned back and folded her arms, considering the issue. "Does Mark have the network provisioning ready?" she asked.

"He says he can have it."

Ah. Kerry almost laughed. That meant everyone really wanted to help out their new customer, and no one wanted to stand on procedure--but no one wanted to cross her strict insistence on documented change control either.

Only Dar would casually do that, and often did. But to be fair, if anyone else asked Dar if they could do it, Dar sent them to Kerry. She reserved the right to bypass the rules for herself and Kerry had accepted that without much qualm, not only because Dar was her boss, but because she trusted her instincts.

"Okay, you have my verbal approval to proceed, so long as Mark files the paperwork in the system and it comes up after business hours."

"Right oh, ma'am." The tech sounded happier. "Mark's on the way to do that now. Thank you!"

"Anytime." Kerry hung up the phone and went back for her fork, glad the issue had been simple.

"So who was that?" Angie asked.

Kerry held up her finger, and managed to get a mouthful of her breakfast. She patiently chewed it and swallowed. "Our operations center in Miami," she said. "We put some new policies and procedures in place and they're determined to stick by them."

"So you really do run that place, huh?" Mike said.

Kerry nodded, but kept eating.

"She does," Angie said. "I don't know if Mom googled you last night, but I did. Holy bananas, Kerry. You're an executive vice president."

"Uh huh." Her sister nodded again.

"So, I have a question. "Angie leaned forward a little. "If you make what you do, and Dar makes what she does, and you live in a gillion dollar condo on some ritzy private island, and you own a boat, and a snazzy cabin in the Keys--why the heck do you cook for yourself and drive your own car?

Kerry stopped chewing and looked up at her, head tilted slightly to one side. After a second she hastily swallowed and picked up her coffee cup, washing her mouthful down. "Huh?"

"Yeah." Mike had no such worries. He plowed through his pancakes as he talked. "How come you don't have a half dozen people chasing after you holding your briefcase? I could be one of them."

How come? Kerry was honestly perplexed, never having even considered anything remotely like it.

"Well," she said, after a long pause. "I like cooking, and I like driving. Why would I let someone else do it for me?"

She looked at her siblings, and they looked back at her, and she suddenly felt the gulf between them like it was a physical void. It was strange, and upsetting, since she'd grown up in this same type of home, in this same type of environment and yet living like her sister lived, like her mother lived, was as alien to her as winter had come to be.

"Huh." Mike grunted. "I like people doing things for me. Who likes to do laundry and stuff? I'd rather have clean clothes appear like magic."

"Me too," Angie agreed. "If I didn't have someone helping me with Andrew, I'd go crazy."

Kerry sucked on her fork tines then shook her head. "I don't have time in my life for that," she said. "It's way too complicated, dealing with people doing stuff for me. It's a lot easier to do it myself."

Angie looked at the plate, and then she chuckled and shrugged. "Well, no one can argue. You know what you're doing, sis. Whatever makes you happy."

"Right on," Mike agreed. "You can cook for me anytime."

"Thanks." Kerry went back to her breakfast, more than a little bemused. "Now can we shut up and eat? Before I have to get up and cook it all over again?"

"Oo--she's the boss."

DAR TOOK ADVANTAGE of being slightly behind Alastair to take a moment to pull her cuffs straight as they stood waiting to enter the sturdy oak doors to the conference room. She then put her hands together over her leather binder, shifting her shoulder a little under the weight of her laptop case as she listened to Alastair's cheerful chatter with their hosts.

She was the only one with a laptop, naturally. The rest of the team with them were sales executives, who had thick leather portfolios clasped under their arms, dark suits, light shirts, classy ties and appropriately confident, but reserved expressions.

Like theirs, Dar's business suit was a conservative charcoal grey, but that's where the resemblance stopped. She was wearing a knee length skirt and a creamy beige silk shirt, and her lapel was impudently decorated with a jewel encrusted microchip just to drive the point home that she wasn't one of the front of the house boys.

Nerd. Dar licked her lips and hid a smile, straightening her shoulders as she heard the doors start to open, and the chatter died down.

"Well, here we go." Alastair turned, glancing behind him as if to make sure Dar was there. "Ready, lady?"

Dar wrinkled her nose at him, and chuckled.

"Gentlemen," the polite man opening the door paused, "ah, and lady. Please come inside. Welcome."

"That's twice in sixty seconds," Dar muttered, as she followed Alastair inside, the rest of the team deferring to her. She glanced around as she crossed the thick carpet, appreciating the high ceiling and expansive proportions of the conference room.

At the head of the table sat Sir Melthon Gilberthwaite, who was such a stereotypical forties movie style British magnate Dar half suspected there was a film crew around somewhere. Seated next to him was Hans, who solemnly winked at Dar as their group entered.

"Ah, Sir Melthon." Alastair advanced confidently. "It's good to see you again."

"McLean," the magnate barked gruffly. "Good start. You lot showed up on time. I hate slackers, like this godson of mine."

Hans smiled benignly.

Alastair reached the table and took Sir Melthon's extended hand in a firm grip. "We try not to slack, though I have to tell you this time difference smacks the heck out of us." He released the man's hand and turned. "Let me introduce my team here."

Dar stood quietly waiting, letting Alastair's genial introductions of the sales team roll past her as she waited her turn. She was pretty sure that he would introduce her last as he usually did when they were in a group. She wasn't sure if it was something to do with her being a woman, or just her being her, but she realized the magnate at the end of the table was waiting as well as he looked right at her the whole time.

"And of course, our Chief Information Officer, Dar Roberts," Alastair concluded, turning to give Dar a nod, "the architect of our infrastructure."

"Sir Melthon." Dar inclined her head in response, meeting his eyes. "It's good to meet you."

The magnate stood up and walked around the table to where she was standing, shooing the others out of the way. He stopped in front of her, his head nearly but not quite even with hers, and put his hands on his hips. "You the git who kicked my godson in the rear?"

"I am," Dar replied mildly, aware of Alastair's widening eyes behind him.

"You're one of those smart mouthed women, aren't you?" Sir Melthon accused. "One of them who think they know everything?"

"Absolutely," Dar agreed. "I wouldn't be here otherwise. I don't waste my time on small potatoes and two bit thinkers." She could hear the air being sucked out of the room around her, and wondered if the two European sales managers were going to pass out right on the conference room floor. "I don't think you do either."

Sir Melthon grunted. "Hah." He turned and went back to his chair. "What's the world coming to, hah?

Foreign women in my boardroom. Scandalous!" He looked at the rest of them. "Well, you idiots! Sit down! You think I'm going to talk to you getting a crook in my neck? Especially that smart mouthed woman! Sit!"'

Everyone hastily grabbed for a chair except for Dar, who meandered around to the other side of the table and set her laptop case down first before she took a seat in one of the comfortable leather chairs. "Nice," she commented to Hans in German.

"It will get better. He likes you," Hans advised her, in a low mutter. "I think perhaps he wants to take you to bed."

Dar nodded, steepling her fingers as the sales team prepared their presentation. "Did you tell him I was married?"

"I did so," Hans replied, in a regretful tone.

"To another woman?"

The German half shrugged. "Not so much."

Dar chuckled under her breath and removed her laptop from its case, opening it and starting it up. "This is going to be a party I can tell already. He's going to love it when Kerry gets here." Hans smiled and folded his hands over his stomach, beaming contentedly at the room.

"THAT IT?" Kerry nudged the box she'd carried and lifted into the flatbed of the pickup into place. She stood up and dusted off her hands, glad she'd decided to keep her tank top on to work in as the afternoon sun warmed her skin.

"Ugh. I hope so." Mike sat down on the tailgate of the truck. "That was hard work."

"You carried three boxes." Kerry took a seat on the edge of the truck side, resting her elbows on her knees and removing the pair of leather work gloves she'd put on. "Give me a break."