“Mm…that was like a carnival ride. Can we go again?” Kerry asked.

Dar eyed her with a faint smile. “You’re in a good mood. Feeling better today?”

Kerry nodded. “Yeah. How about you?” She carefully touched Dar’s shoulder, feeling it move under her fingers as Dar experimentally flexed it.

“Eh. Stiff, but not as bad as yesterday.” Dar sounded mildly surprised. “It’s not throbbing anymore.” Another experimental movement yielded the same results. “Cool.”

Kerry smiled and gave her a hug. “Glad to hear that.” She regarded the window. “Looks like the weather got better, too.

Hey, wanna get dressed and go for a walk? I could show you my 166 Melissa Good favorite sledding hill before we take off.”

Dar remembered her last walk in the cold. “All right.” She eyed Kerry. “But you better keep me warm. It looks like the arctic tundra out there. And how about we find some breakfast first? I noticed you didn’t get much off that table last night.”

“I don’t like pate,” Kerry said. “And neither do you. There’re just so many crackers topped with bits of roast beef and horserad-ish I can handle.” Her nose crinkled in distaste. “Besides, I wasn’t really hungry.” A low rumble made her chuckle a little. “I am now.”

“So I hear,” Dar remarked mildly. “C’mon. I may need some help in the shower.”

Kerry grinned. “Now that’s an offer I’ll never refuse.” She paused and laid a hand on Dar’s stomach. “Dar, about work—”

“Shhh.” Dar ruffled her hair. “Don’t think about it. Let’s just get through today and get home.”

Kerry sighed. Well, there wasn’t much she could do about it anyway, was there? Her eyes drifted off a bit. Or was there?

“WHAT DO YOU think?” Kerry spread her arms and indicated her body. She watched the expressions on Dar’s face cascade from quizzical to thoughtful to outright lecherous. “I meant the clothes, honey.” She sighed, blushing at the compliment nevertheless.

“Oh.” Dar laughed. “Hm.” She reviewed her lover’s choices thoughtfully. Kerry wore a long sleeved flannel shirt tucked into her nicely worn jeans, to which she’d added the cute touch of suspenders. She also had on her hiking boots. Dar thought she looked adorable. “Are you deliberately going for the non-WASP look?”

“Well, yeah.” Kerry put her hands on her hips. “Did it work?”

“I think so,” Dar said gravely. “Should I put on my fringed leather vest?”

Kerry’s eyebrows jerked up in pleased surprise. “Did you bring that?”

Dar chuckled. “No. I was joking. Would you settle for leather pants?”

Kerry looked at her suspiciously, then went to her bag and rummaged in it. “Oh.” She lifted the pants out. “You really have some? I never saw these before, Dar. Where did you get them?”

She shook out the soft, burnt caramel colored hide. “Oo…I like.”

“Thank you,” Dar replied. “And you’ve never seen them before because I won’t wear them at home.”

Kerry eyed her. “Too trendy for Miami?”

“No.” Dar took the hide trousers from her. “Too hot. I figured Thicker Than Water 167

I might get a chance to actually put them on up here, so I brought them along. Give me a hand getting into them?”

Kerry happily obliged, tugging the leather up and over Dar’s hips. They fit comfortably, not too snug, and she neatly fastened the buttons and buckled the two criss-crossing leather beltlets that lent a somewhat offbeat touch to them. The leather was broken and butter soft, and she knelt to fasten the straps near Dar’s ankles. “Meant for boots, I see.”

“Mmhm,” Dar said. “I used to have some that went with them.” She buttoned the sleeve on a tightly woven wool shirt in a creamy butter color. “Back in my wilder days.”

Kerry ran her fingers over the smooth leather, then sniffed it.

“I like them. You’re a natural for this stuff.”

Dar’s lips twitched. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“You should.” Kerry placed a kiss on the inside of her leg, just above the knee, then she got to her feet and offered Dar a hand. “Breakfast?”

Dar curled her fingers around Kerry’s and accompanied her to the door. “Listen, Ker, about last night—”

“Doesn’t that sound like a bad romance novel?” Kerry’s lips quirked into a smile. “It’s not over, Dar.” She looked up at her partner. “I’m going to have a look myself. Maybe I have a little insight into where he might have put that stuff. He was my father.”

Dar placed a kiss on the top of her head and just smiled.

MICHAEL HID A smile behind an English muffin as they entered the breakfast room, still holding hands. “Morning, sis.”

“Hi,” Kerry replied, releasing Dar to walk to a seat. “Morning.”

“Oh, Kerrison…” Cynthia looked up from her plate and stopped in mid speech, blinking at her eldest daughter. “Goodness.” She hesitated. “That’s very colorful, dear.”

“Thanks.” Kerry snapped a suspender at her and sat down.

Dar continued around the table and approached the serving board with pointed determination. She evaded the uniformed server and captured two plates, then proceeded to dump what she considered proper amounts of edible items on them appropriate to both her taste and Kerry’s.

“Ma’am,” the server murmured at her anxiously, “I’ll do that for you. In this household, the family prefers service.”

“In my family’s household,” Dar answered in a normal voice,

“they tossed the food down on the floor in bins, and we had to fight for it. Old habits die hard. Excuse me.” She ducked around 168 Melissa Good the woman and headed back towards the table.

Kerry covered her face with one hand, her shoulders shaking.

Cynthia rose to the challenge. “Why, Dar, I didn’t know you had siblings.”

“I don’t.” Dar set Kerry’s plate down, then took the chair next to her. “But we had a dog.”

“Ah.” Cynthia’s brow wrinkled, then she gave a little shake of her head. “At any rate, I’m very glad you chose to join us for breakfast. Did you have additional plans for today, Kerrison?”

“I was going to treat Dar to a walk in the snow.” Kerry finished buttering her muffin and took a bite. “And show her around the property. Then we figured we’d head back to the hotel and pick up M…Dar’s folks.” There was really no sense, she conceded, in stinging her mother with her usual form of address for Andy and Ceci. Not now that things seemed to be improving as far as familial acceptance went, though Kerry admitted that she was probably pushing things a little today. Just to make sure she wasn’t backsliding, she picked up a piece of bacon and bit it in half, then offered the other half to Dar.

“Ah, saved the crispy part for me.” Dar accepted the treat with a snap of white teeth. She crunched the bacon with a slight wink in Kerry’s direction. “Thanks.”

Kerry grinned back, then turned her head and met the bemused looks of her family. Take it or leave it, guys, she projected at them. This is who I am.

“You guys must be fun to watch in restaurants,” Mike commented with a snort. “Do you slurp spaghetti together, too?”

“No,” Dar said blandly. “It gets too messy. We save that for home.”

Angie nearly snorted a piece of melon out of her nose.

“Hey, I bet Richard never did that with you, did he?” Mike asked his younger sister pointedly.

Angie cleared her throat and swallowed. “Definitely not. It took me three dates just to get him to loosen his tie.” She took a sip of juice. “He’s not a romantic like Dar is.”

Round blue eyes pinned her from across the table in outraged shock.

”Yeah, she gets that from her father,” Kerry said blithely.

Cynthia had assumed a noble, serene air, apparently content to let the conversation flow over her unimpeded. “Commander Roberts is a terribly nice man. He has quite a lovely sense of humor.” She had finished her breakfast and she stood, folded her napkin, and left it neatly in place. “I must attend to some business matters. If you wish, Kerrison, after your plans are completed, perhaps you might stay for lunch.”


Thicker Than Water 169

Kerry considered the somewhat late time of the morning and nodded. “Sure. Our flight’s not until three.” The funeral service was scheduled for four that afternoon, and the focal point would be at the cemetery, not there at the house. They would be left in peace, at least for a little while.

Her mother nodded, then left the room.

Angie propped her head up on her fist and just looked at Kerry. “You are such a brat.”

“Me?” Kerry asked innocently. “Why? I’m not acting out, I’m just acting normal.” She crunched another strip of bacon. “I’m not going to sit here dressed in lace and pretend that’s how I live. I don’t.”

“I think you look really cute,” Mike said. “Angie’s just jealous

’cause she’d never be able to pull off that outfit.”

“Neither would you,” Angie gave him a withering look,

“hippo butt.”

“Look who’s talking,” Mike retorted. “You’re the one who gets her clothing at—”

“Michael,” Kerry said.

He stuck his tongue out at her.

“Remind me again why I wanted siblings,” Dar said to Kerry, with a look of wry amusement. “You know I—” She fell silent by necessity as Kerry stuffed a piece of muffin into her mouth.

“Hush.” Kerry put a fingertip on her nose. “You don’t have siblings because you’re one of a kind.” She smiled at Dar’s charmed expression. “Now, chew, so we can go explore.”

Dar obliged, chewing and swallowing the bit of muffin while she watched her lover and her family trade banter. At least, she sighed, as long as we are here dealing with this disaster, we aren’t back home having to deal with the Naval one waiting for me on my desk.

Dar thoughtfully nibbled another piece of bacon . My ex-desk.

Oh well. She’d figure out something. They had savings in the bank, after all.

THEY WALKED THROUGH the grounds surrounding the house, with Kerry pointing out favored spots from her childhood.

Then they turned out of the gates and walked along the road, its surface sloping up towards the crest of a nearby hill.

“It’s such a different environment,” Dar commented, crunching a bit of snow under her boots. “It’s like you have two worlds in the North, a winter one and a summer one.”

Kerry tucked her gloved hands inside her pockets and watched her breath plume as she exhaled. “That’s true. You’re more aware of the passage of time up here, I think. I always liked 170 Melissa Good spring and summer better. We were out of school in the summer, and at least for a while, that was fun, because I got to go to summer camp.”

“Mm.”

“Winter was always full of social stuff,” Kerry went on.

“Dress ups, and press events, dinners…For a while I tried to get interested in current events so I’d have something intelligent to say when they pointed the camera at me, but after a few instances of that, I got told to just shut up and look good.”

Dar looked at her.

Kerry shrugged. “What can I tell you, Dar? They didn’t want to hear what I had to say, or maybe they were afraid I’d develop an embarrassing view on something.” She chuckled softly. “If they’d only known.”

“Did you?” Dar asked. “Develop a view different from your father’s?”

Kerry considered the question. “I liked some of his positions on things. I thought his view on keeping families together was good, though now after knowing what was going on with that other woman, the hypocrisy kind of stinks. He knew a lot more about international politics than I did, and I didn’t have the matu-rity to understand the machinations he was going through here locally to control funding and maintain a conservative majority.”

Dar grunted thoughtfully.

“I didn’t really start disagreeing with him until I was in college,” Kerry went on. “When I got exposed to the wider world and the many kinds of people in it.”

“Ever talk to him about that?”

“No.” Kerry shook her head and leaned forward a little as they started up a steeper part of the hill. “I tried once, but he told me if that’s what college was doing to me, he’d put a stop to it.”

Dar simply stopped walking. Kerry moved on a few steps, then turned and regarded her. “I want to know something. How in the hell did you become the woman that told me to go to hell in Miami?”

Ah. Good question. Kerry walked back to Dar, took her hand, and led her upward toward the crest of the hill. “It wasn’t something that happened overnight. It was something that was building a little at a time, until I got home after I graduated college with my degree, and was told I was being put to work as a spokes-woman/receptionist in one of my father’s crony’s companies.”