Kerry lifted her shoulders and almost smiled as she used the huge, brass doorknocker. She heard footsteps behind the door, then the lock turned and the portal opened. Her brows lifted.

“Hey.”

Angie looked profoundly relieved. “Good grief, get in here before you freeze.” She pulled Kerry and, by default since their 98 Melissa Good hands were still linked, Dar, into the house and shut the door behind them. “I’m really glad you decided to come over, sis.” Her eyes shifted. “Good morning, Dar.”

“Morning,” Dar replied.

“Seems quiet here today,” Kerry ventured. “Where is everyone?”

“It’s just us,” Angie answered. “Mom, Mike, and me. Everyone else is someplace else, and I for one am damn glad of it.” She took Kerry’s arm. “C’mon, we’ve just started breakfast.”

Kerry resisted the tug, giving Angie a direct look. “Was that on purpose?”

Angie hesitated. “Ker.”

“It’s all right. I wasn’t looking forward to a screaming match with uncle Al over coffee,” Kerry said. “And God knows we don’t want the press to know Dar and I are normal people who eat with forks and shave our legs.”

Dar’s eyebrows lifted. She patted Kerry on the back, but was at a loss for words.

“Kerry, c’mon now, that’s not fair,” Angela said. “Maybe we wanted a little peace too, you know? It’s been really tough around here the last few days.”

“Yeah.” Kerry pointed towards the dining room. “Whatever.

Let’s go.”

Angie sighed, but she turned and led the way inside, straightening her blouse as she entered the foyer and crossed its marble emptiness.

Dar followed behind the sisters, taking a moment to look around at the interior of the house. She remembered it somewhat differently than it was now, probably due to the circumstances and the late hour. In the daylight, the house was a large, airy, well designed place with vaulted ceilings and a beautiful curved stairway going up to the second story.

They walked through the foyer and under an archway she vaguely remembered, then turned and entered a small dining room with a vaulted skylight that let in the wan winter sun.

Seated at the table were Cynthia and Michael, and both looked up as the trio entered.

Dar watched them carefully for a reaction, pleased when she saw welcome and relief. She’d figured that might be the case, but with Kerry’s family you never knew, and she had no intention of standing quietly by if it were otherwise. She was rested, her arm was much better, they’d had a great night together, and she was feeling pretty feisty.

“Ah. Kerrison.” Cynthia stood and came over to them. “I’m so sorry about yesterday.” Michael got up also and went to hug his Thicker Than Water 99

sister.

“It’s okay.” Kerry decided to be gracious about it for the moment. “I needed a break last night anyway.” She returned Michael’s hug and gave her mother a smile. “How are you?”

“As well as you might imagine,” Cynthia replied. “Come sit and have something for breakfast.” Her eyes drifted up and met Dar’s. “And you as well, Dar.”

It was a peculiar experience, Dar mused. She followed them back to the table and sat down on a chair she recognized as antique, at a table covered in fine linen, china, and silver service.

For breakfast. Dar shook her head a little, turning when she sensed a presence at her elbow.

A young woman stood there with a tray. “May I put this down, ma’am?”

Dar nodded, and was presented with a plate of fresh fruit and gently steaming eggs, then the woman put an identical plate in front of Kerry. Dar noticed that Kerry, though giving the woman a quiet thanks, otherwise treated this as a completely natural thing, and it struck her how different this was from their normal lives.

Breakfast at home, such as it was, generally consisted of a glass of something—milk for her, juice for Kerry—and something that would give them energy for running. Usually eaten standing in their kitchen, while the sky outside the window turned from inky black to the pearly pink of dawn.

Hm. Dar had known Kerry’s family was well off. She’d known, at an intellectual level, that her lover had been brought up with the proverbial silver spoon in her mouth, and little things like her impeccable manners sometimes reminded her of that. But it was strange to actually see her fitting in here. She listened to the talk, slightly strained and very general, everyone staying away from any controversy, and wondered if that was normal, or just put in place because of the uncomfortable things between them all.

“Excuse me, Dar?”

Shaken out of her musings, Dar looked up and met Cynthia Stuarts’ eyes. “Yes?”

“Kerrison told Angela you weren’t well last night?”

Huh? I was g… “Oh.” Dar cleared her throat slightly. “It’s not really anything. I managed to do a little damage to my shoulder recently, and it was giving me some trouble. Maybe the weather.”

She inhaled in surprise as Kerry poked her under the table, and she shot her partner a look. One of Kerry’s eyebrows was raised and a half smile tugged at her lips. “What?”

Cynthia gazed at both of them with a mildly puzzled look.

“Well, I certainly hope you feel better today, after resting.”


100 Melissa Good

“Resting?” Dar asked with a slight drawl, seeing Kerry’s eyes widen out of the corner of her own. “Oh, right. I feel much better today, thanks.” There was an awkward little silence, which Dar used to ingest a forkful of eggs in peace.

“So, what project are you working on now, Ker?” Michael asked, neatly changing the subject.

“Well,” Kerry took a sip of juice, “I just finished reorganizing one of our operational divisions, and we added two brand new support groups in the western US. My life’s been a lot nicer since Dar put our new network online.”

“Everyone’s has,” Dar said wryly. “Even mine.”

“How does it help?” Angie asked. “I remember reading in the paper about your company doing something that revolutionized something or other, and it was very fast.”

Kerry took a biscuit, sliced it open, and neatly added a pat of butter to it. It gave her a moment to try and come up with a way to explain to her family what she did. How do you describe high speed, high bandwidth WAN networking to someone who never even turned on a computer? “Well…”

“A network is like a highway,” Dar said. “If you have a few cars on it, everyone goes fast. Add more cars, everyone starts to go slower. Find a spot in the road where it narrows, and everyone bottlenecks and comes to a standstill.”

“All right.” Cynthia nodded. “That seems clear.”

“We had mostly two and three lane highways. I made them forty lanes across,” Dar said. “And took out the speed limit.”

“And made everyone buy Ferraris,” Kerry murmured.

“Ah!” Cynthia looked pleased. “Yes, that’s very clear. I understand.”

“Yeah, so do I,” Michael added. “Outrageous. Can you explain what a chip is next?”

Dar looked him right in the eye. “You sure you can handle it?

It involves a lot of silicon.”

Michael gazed uncertainly at her, not sure if she were joking or not. “Does that hurt?”

“Only if you get some up your wazoo,” Kerry replied dryly.

“So, what have you been up to, Mike?” She neatly cut off a square of biscuit and collected some eggs with it on her fork. It was stressful and uncomfortable, and Kerry realized they were all putting a conspicuous gloss over a lot of things. But haven’t we always? Why should this be any different from any other time?

“We’ve made some plans,” Cynthia murmured into the small silence that had fallen. “The service is scheduled for three tomorrow.” She paused and took a breath. “I realize it’s quite short notice, but the staff seems to feel—”


Thicker Than Water 101

“Mother,” Kerry put her fork down, “who cares what the staff thinks? Is that what you want to do?”

Cynthia shifted uncomfortably. “Well, dear, it’s really not…”

She stopped. “There are quite good reasons for it, you see—”

“Bullshit.” Kerry found herself getting really angry. She stood up. “First they have the balls to tell me to stay away, then they tell you when you should bury daddy? Where are these assholes? I want to talk to them, right now.”

Dar blinked in mild alarm, put out a hand, and laid it carefully on Kerry’s back. She could feel the tension vibrating through her lover. “Hey,” she murmured. “Easy.”

“Kerrison!” Cynthia protested. “Come now, your language.

They’re doing what they think is best for all of us; surely you understand?”

“No.” All of a sudden it became too much for Kerry. “I don’t understand. It’s never what’s best for us, only what’s best for them. Always.” She ducked out from behind her chair and just started walking, needing space and air, an overwhelming fury buzzing around her head like a swarm of bees. She got through the dining room door and kept moving, one hand grabbing the door edge and slamming it shut behind her. The solid crash of wood against wood gave her primal satisfaction.

THERE WAS A definite silence after she left. Dar felt all eyes turn to her and she took a breath before she looked back from the now closed door to her lover’s family. “Um…” She set her silver-ware aside.

“Well,” Cynthia Stuart put her napkin down, “I must go speak with her.”

“No.” Dar stood. “I’ll take care of this,” she said with quiet firmness, then put her own napkin down and followed Kerry without waiting for them to respond.

The door closed again behind her. “This is outrageous,” Cynthia said.

“What did you think was going to happen?” Angela asked. “I told you she’s still really ticked off, mother. Did you really think she’d just waltz back in here and everything would be peaches and cream again?”

“She could make an effort. We are her family,” Cynthia replied.

“Maybe it would help if she hadn’t been tossed in the looney bin last time she was here,” Mike replied bluntly. “Or if you hadn’t told her she wasn’t welcome here last night because she’s gay. That would put me in a bad mood, too.”


102 Melissa Good

“She wasn’t coming anyway,” Angie muttered.

“We’ve discussed that.” Cynthia looked annoyed. “You know your father was just doing what he considered best for Kerry.”

“Bull.” Angie slapped her cup down. “I’m so tired of hearing that. He had no interest in what was best for Kerry, and you know it. All he cared about was not letting the press find out he had a gay daughter.”

“Angie.” Cynthia gave her an exasperated look. “Please.”

“It’s true.” Now Angela was upset. “I’ve had to listen to two days of everyone saying what a freaking saint he was, and I’m sick of it.” She took a breath. “No one here’s grieving, mother; we all know that. He never cared about any of us, just himself.”

Cynthia sighed. “He was a very forceful man.”

“And Kerry was the only one of us who had the guts to stand up to him,” Mike said. “Now she’s paying for that big time, when all these freaking people should be patting her on the back and saying ‘good job.’ If they treat her like that again this afternoon, I’m going to kick their asses out of the house.”

“Michael!” Cynthia stared at him.

“I don’t care!” Mike stood up. “I don’t give a shit about any of them. Kerry’s the person I care about. She’s my sister, and I’ll be God damned if those two-faced, lying bastard uncles are going to give her grief. And if I can’t do it by myself, I’ll get Dar to help me. I bet she could kick their asses sound asleep.” He pushed his plate back and stepped away from the table. “I’m outta here.”

“Me, too,” Angie said. “And if any of those weasel aides say a word, I’m going to slap them.” She followed Michael out the door, leaving her mother in pristine silence.

Cynthia released a breath and sat back. The door opened and a tall, slim man, carrying an appointment book and a pen, entered.

He took a seat next to her.

“We’ve got everything scheduled, Mrs. Stuart. Here are the details.” He offered her a sheet. “Now, the press will be by later, as the more important guests arrive. We need to discuss how you want to present the family.” He gave her a little, sympathetic smile. “I know we’ve got some work to do on that.”

Cynthia looked at the paper, then looked at him. She placed a fingertip on the page and moved it back to him. “I’m afraid you’ve got it a bit wrong. My family’s perfectly capable of presenting itself, and you would do well to remain uninvolved.”