Dar was caught speechless.

"I want a hug," Kerry uttered. "I want you."

Dar swallowed, hearing a note in Kerry's voice she knew meant her partner was very close to tears. "Ker."

A pause. "Sorry," Kerry whispered huskily. "I'm just on overload right now. The stupid guy from CNN called me in the middle of this and I told him off. My phone wouldn't stop ringing."

"I love you," Dar said the only thing she reasonably expected to make her partner feel better. "I wish I was in that car right next to you right now."

Kerry was quiet for a minute, then she exhaled. "I want to be jazzed about what I just did, but you know, Dar...I don't know. I hope it was worth it."

"It was," Dar said, in a positive tone. "I'm sure everyone back at the office is cheering your name right now."

"Hm." Then there was a rustle, and the sound of the car window opening. "Hang on, sweetie." The sound of wind rushed in. "Hey, Mark...oh...oh, yeah, um...that would be great...yeah. Thanks! How...oh, that smells great. Thank you."

Dar smiled faintly at her distorted reflection in the laptop screen. She waited for the sound of the outside to vanish as Kerry rolled up the window again, and heard the rustling of paper bags on the other side of the line.

"Did you have something to do with this, Paladar?" Kerry's voice sounded more normal.

"Me?" Dar inquired. "I'm sitting here in New York. What makes you think I had anything to do with having your dinner delivered?"

A very soft, knowing chuckle answered her. "The fact that my Wendy's spicy chicken sandwich has no lettuce, and extra cheese on it, the frosty is large, and the baked potato has no bacon bits. Mark maybe could guess number two, but the other ones had your little fingerprints alllll over them."

Dar flexed her hand in front of her eyes, studying her fingerprints. Then she let her arm drop to the bed again. "Least I could do," she conceded. "Since I'm not there to do it myself."

"Wish you were." Kerry's voice was muffled as she chewed. "I can admit that now, since this crappy thing is over."

"Wish I was too," Dar echoed softly.

Kerry swallowed, and cleared her throat a little. "Are you okay?" she asked, in a gentle voice. "You sound really down."

Was she? Dar stared at the screen, with its winking green lights. "Yeah, I'm all right," she answered, after a brief pause. "Worried about you all night, that's all."

"Mm."

"Least I have good news for the international board call in half an hour." Dar made an effort to inject some normality into her tone.

"Call? I didn't know you had one," Kerry said.

"Yeah, I forgot too. Alastair reminded me," Dar admitted. "It's on my schedule...woulda binged me anyway. Give me something to do now that the crisis is over."

Kerry seemed to absorb this in silence for a few heartbeats, chewing on her chicken sandwich in a thoughtfulness almost tangible through the phone. "Want some of my frosty?"

Dar chuckled.

"Want me to get on a plane and come to New York?" Kerry asked. "Not for business. Just to keep you company and get my hug?"

"You really have to ask?" Dar responded wistfully. "You know I'd love it. But you've got that damn bid, Ker. This won't take me more than a day or so to straighten out. Then I'll be back and you'll get your hug."

"Mm," Kerry grunted unhappily. "Hell with them," she said. "Oh, crap. I was right. Here come those damn reporters again."

"Ouch."

"You think they'll just stay there filming me if I eat my dinner inside the truck and refuse to open the door?"

Dar smiled. "Worth a try, sweetheart," she said. "Guess I can go order room service now too."

"Bad Dar."

"Bad Kerry," Dar responded promptly. "Two of a kind."

Kerry laughed suddenly, a light, joyful sound that made Dar's tense neck muscles relax in an instant. "Oh, what a compliment that is. Okay, love of my life...let me let you go get dinner, and I'll try not to strangle these reporters. Call you later?"

"Sure," Dar agreed. "I'll let you know what the board had to say about my genius VP Ops."

"Love you."

"Love you too. Later." Dar closed the phone, feeling better than she had all night.

Good enough to make her get up and go to the desk, sitting down and flipping open the room service menu with renewed interest.



Chapter Fourteen



KERRY TOOK HER time finishing her dinner. She hated wolfing her food, and the cool air and warm leather settled her body down into something approaching comfort. The reporter was hovering outside, and she realized quickly after he'd arrived that it wasn't the local woman she'd first spoken to.

Instead, she recognized the Tech TV reporter who'd been retained by Michelle and Shari and, frankly, Kerry was in a mood to keep him waiting well into the next century if the occasion called for it.

Her techs were sitting in the back of the rental truck munching their own dinners, with a hastily rigged light dangling over their heads plugged into her gizmo along with the power to the telecom gear.

Kerry eased the seat back a notch and propped her knee up against the door, picking up a square of neatly cut potato skin and taking a bite of it. It tasted of sour cream and cheese and love, a little salty and a touch sweet, this fast food manifestation of Dar's care for her.

Totally insignificant in substance, and yet that quiet thoughtfulness meant everything to her. Between that, and the words of praise Dar had showered over her, Kerry found herself well able to push aside the aggravations of the day, and watch the anxious pacing of the Tech TV reporter with a sense of contented amusement.

Near the wall, the generators hummed along, their low thrum audible to her through the closed window. The sun had set, and besides the small pool of light from their bulb, the surrounding areas were eerily dark and quiet now that the rain had tapered off.

It reminded Kerry of the night of the storm, way back when she and Dar had first been getting to know each other.

That scary, magical day. Kerry smiled gently, remembering the moment she'd woken up on Dar's couch, lying there hardly breathing as she felt the soft folds of a blanket settle over her accompanied by Dar's distinctive presence.

Where...Kerry waited for the soft scuff of bare footsteps to move away before she opened her eyes, her fingers reaching out to curl around the feather light covering draped over her. The couch leather had warmed to her body and she let herself indulge in a moment of perfect comfort.

Dar's house. She moved her head a little and looked around again at it. Her ears, though, were focused tightly on the kitchen where she knew Dar had gone, every sound she detected sending a prickle up and down her spine. After a moment's hesitation, she sat up and ran her hand through her hair, getting up and wrapping the blanket around her as she went toward the source of those sounds.

She stopped short of the kitchen, spotting Dar inside before the taller woman knew she was approaching.

God, she's gorgeous. Kerry's eyes drank in the lanky form in its covering of thin cotton, her body reacting with a surge of sexual energy that almost shocked her.

Almost mortified her.

Almost. "What's going on?" Kerry continued on into the kitchen, reveling silently in the moment when Dar turned and met her eyes and a grin appeared, seeming to acknowledge the boundaries they both were knowingly skirting.

Dar pointed. "Tropical storm. Out of nowhere."

Kerry walked over to stand right next to her, leaning on the counter as she peered first out the window, then up at the television screen. Sure looked nasty...too nasty for cabs to run, maybe? "What does that mean?"

The blue eyes casually met hers and held there, gaining the faintest of twinkles in their depths. "For one thing, it means you're stuck here."

Shucks. Kerry looked out at the pounding surf as Dar made a call, feeling a sense of deep affection for Mother Nature.

"I was right. Ferries are closed down." Dar concluded.

"Guess I should have left when I had the chance..."

The twinkle grew perceptibly.

"I wanted to get the reports done, and only sat down for a minute...sorry." Kerry concluded her apology. "How are you feeling?"

Dar's eyes dropped, and her expression took on a more somber cast. "Fine. Stuff worked great." Her hand lifted and ran through her dark hair. "Listen, I better get candles out."

Candles? "What can I do to help?"

Dar showed her the shutters. It didn't take long, then she was back in the kitchen watching Dar root around in a box full of hurricane supplies.

Including candles. "What else can I do?"

Cloth in her hands. What else could she do? She could change into Dar's clothing. Holy cow. Was this really happening? "Makes sense. Be right back."

Herself in the mirror, in Dar's shirt, in Dar's house. Well, you know something Kerrison? If she's bringing candles, you've got to step up to the plate and do your part. "Bet she could use a home-cooked meal." Kerry whispered to her reflection. "Make it good enough, maybe she'll ask you to come back."

Yeah.

Kerry chuckled softly, shaking her head at her former self with a sense of unreal bemusement. Love had caught her so by surprise, she'd been overwhelmed by it before she even realized what was happening to her. And that had been a wonderful feeling, but she decided she liked the more seasoned, more faceted relationship she had with Dar now.

Though she would always cherish the look on Dar's face when she'd taken over her kitchen for that very first time. If she closed her eyes, she could still see that look in front of her, half amazed and half shy, the briefest glimpse of her soul mate soon to be.

Gorgeous.

Ah well. Kerry dusted off her fingers and neatly wiped her lips with her lurid yellow napkin before tucking it, along with the rest of the wrappings, into her paper bag. She slurped up the last of her frosty and turned the car off, then popped the door and hopped out into the warm muggy night.

The reporter spotted her and headed her way. Kerry debated on ignoring him, then she altered her steps to intercept his path and halted when she met up with him, tilting her head to one side and waiting in silence.

"Ah, Ms. Stuart?" The man readily started the conversation. "We haven't really met but..."

"But you're Telegenics biographer," Kerry supplied. "Something you want from me? I think I said everything I had to say in the meeting this afternoon."

"No, um...well..."

Kerry eyed the camera. "Is that running?"

"No, no." The man shook his head. "No, I wasn't really here to..."

"Watch us succeed?"

The man rocked back on his heels and held both hands up in front of him. "Whoa, take it easy, Ms. Stuart. You've got me all wrong."

Kerry folded her arms across her chest. "Okay." She was in a mood to be mildly benign. "What can I do for you, then?"

"First off, I'm Ben." He stuck his hand out. "And yeah, I know I'm working on that whole ship story and Telegenics being the underdog up and comer. Okay? Okay."

"Okay."

"But you know what?" Ben said. "The real story in that room today, and here tonight is you."

"Me?" Kerry sounded skeptical.

"Yeah," Ben said. "Yesterday, in that meeting, what I got from you was that it was a waste of your time. That's a strange kind of attitude for someone trying to get some new business."

Kerry considered the question. "I did consider it a waste of time. Not necessarily just of mine, but everyone else's also." She paused. "What was the purpose of having us all there? We were just responding to a fairly standard RFP."

The reporter shifted a little. "Well, maybe that's just how the customer likes to do it," he said. "Who knows?"

"Maybe." Kerry watched his face. "But you know, the last time I saw something like that Michelle Graver was involved too. I wonder if she didn't give Quest the idea."

His face twitched, too fast for him to hide it. "I have no idea," he said, after an awkward pause. "But anyway, now here you are, hacking your way into the phone system. What's the story? I heard the local news people say you got this pushed through when there's two hospitals who can't get phones and emergency service is down."