Kerry started laughing. "Do you realize the first X-rated movie I ever saw was in your living room?" she whispered, catching the stern looks from their neighbors despite the fact that the show had not yet started. "Jesus, people...chill out!"

"Well." Dar leaned closer to her. "Would you be talking about X-rated movies in front of your family?"

Kerry hastily covered her eyes with one hand and bit her lip.

"Didn't think so."

A short time later, the house lights began to lower. Kerry tucked her fingers inside Dar's once more, and settled down to watch, resolving to enjoy the moment, the night, and the sense of occasion, even if opera wasn't her favorite thing on earth.

IT SEEMED ONLY a few minutes later when the lights were coming back up, and the show was over. "Wow," Kerry murmured. "That was pretty cool." She joined the audience in enthusiastic clapping. "What'd you think?"

"I liked it," Dar agreed. "Funny story, catchy tunes," she added. "And pretty girls. What more could you ask for?"

Kerry chuckled. "Hm...with a lead girl character called Yum-Yum, I should have known you'd like it."

Dar half turned and gave her a mock outraged look, putting one hand on her hip. "Kerrison!"

Green eyes batted their lashes at her with devastating Midwestern innocence. "Yes?"

"Let's go get ice cream." Dar stood up and extended her hand to her partner. "I think you need cooling off."

Kerry accepted the aid, and was lifted gracefully to her feet by a smooth contraction of Dar's arm. "Why thank you, ma'am. After you?"

They walked out hand in hand, going along with the slow flow of the audience as it filtered through the tall, beautiful entranceways and out into the lobby. There was a buzz of conversation, and Kerry found herself smiling as she took in a crowd once very familiar to her. "Honey, I'm going to go use the restroom...meet you by the bar, there?"

"Nah. I'll go with you." Dar laid a hand on her back as they edged through the press of bodies. "Know what?"

"You're hungry," Kerry replied without missing a beat. "I hear you growling back there even over this circus." She jumped a little as Dar growled in her ear, ending the noise with a rumbling purr. "I'm fairly sure there's at least one restaurant around this place."

Dar chuckled, as she pushed the bathroom door open for both of them, extending her arm easily past Kerry's body. "This was really nice," she commented. "Remind me to send Alastair a box of cookies or something for it, will you?"

"Sure." Kerry found herself a partition and entered. She idly listened to the conversations around her as she went about her business. She heard Dar's low, vibrant voice exchange a mutual excuse me, and then a sharp, very New York accented tone complain bitterly about the quality of toilet paper.

Kerry pulled off a few sheets and examined it. "Hey, Dar?"

A soft throat clearing nearby. "Yes?"

"You see this here fancy napkins they put in here?" Kerry put as much of a drawl as she was capable of into her tone and was rewarded with a muffled snicker. "I'm going to take me some of these and put them on the table back home."

"Okay, Forrest," Dar replied through a rumble of laughter. "You do that."

Kerry finished up and went to the sink, washing her hands while still chuckling under her breath. She wiped her fingers dry and turned to wait for Dar, exchanging glances with a tall redheaded woman also standing by waiting.

"That's a gorgeous tattoo," the woman commented, with a faint nod toward Kerry's chest.

Kerry blinked, suffering a moment of bewilderment before she looked down at her shoulder and realized the woman was talking about her. "Oh. Thanks," she murmured, peering back up with a bit of sheepish look. "Haven't had it that long."

"You have it done here?" the woman asked, turning her arm to display the point of her shoulder, which had a cobra on it. "I had this done last month."

The cobra was nice, but Kerry noticed it lacked the vibrancy of her own decoration. "No, I had it done down in Miami," she replied. "There's a guy there who's a really good artist."

"Yeah, no kidding." The woman leaned closer. "That's very cool." Her eyes studied the mark. "Who's Dar?"

"That would be me."

Kerry resisted the urge to look up and over her shoulder. The redhead didn't, however, and she straightened up and took a step backwards when presented with Dar's towering intimidation.

"Well, anyway, congrats on a nice tat." The woman retreated further, grabbing a napkin off the counter before she left the bathroom, taking her somewhat disappointed looking cobra with her.

"Ready?" Kerry gave Dar a smile as she led the way out of the bathroom with her sauntering lover behind her. "You know, that was nice."

"What was, the TP? I'll get you a double case of Charmin at Costco when we get back, okay? You can keep some in your desk drawer."

"That lady liking my tattoo," Kerry said. "But I'll remember that offer. I don't know what the heck the facilities people were thinking last month, but the stuff they changed to reminds me of grocery bags."

They walked outside, accepting the shock of going from icy chill to muggy heat as something natural. "What's your poison?" Dar asked. "I had Italian last night, but I'll do it again if you want."

Kerry licked her lips. "Mm...let's walk down a little bit and see what we find. I don't know if I'm in the mood for that."

The streets were busy around them in a way Miami never was. Their hometown had no central downtown area and was in no sense a walking city. It was far more a huge urban and suburban sprawl, extending up and down the coast for three counties made up of clusters of shopping surrounded by clusters of residential areas.

This was a nice change, really, Kerry thought. It reminded her a little of the trips she'd occasionally made to Chicago with her debating team, when they'd get away for the afternoon and roam the downtown near their hotel, finding anything that didn't smack to hell of home.

Like Garrett's popcorn. Kerry licked her lips in memory, even after all these years. Or the pieces of thick pizza they'd shared on the sidewalk, looking up at the huge, towering buildings. It had been very different than her few trips to Manhattan with her family, that's for sure.

Ah well.

Dar took her hand again as they strolled along, passing brightly lit store fronts and places that became suddenly familiar to them from television. "Hey, look." Kerry pointed. "That's where you always see people standing with signs looking like goofballs on the Today show."

"Uh huh," Dar agreed. "Isn't that where that huge Christmas tree goes?"

"And the ice skating rink, yeah," her companion said. "Can you ice skate?"

Dar pondered the question briefly. "Yes," she finally admitted. "Chinese?" She directed Kerry's attention to a storefront one level up. "I could go for something spicy."

"Sounds pretty darn good to me." Kerry led the way over to the restaurant. They had just gotten seated when first hers, then Dar's pager went off. "Oh, pooh."

Dar removed her device from her purse and keyed it. "Ops center. Never good news."

Kerry sighed and lifted her cell phone, speed dialing and holding the device to her ear as she listened to Dar order for them both. "Hi, it's Kerry Stuart," she said as the line was answered. "What's up?"

"Oh, hi ma'am," the voice answered. "This is Jason. Sorry to bother you, but Mark said I should page out. We had a big forced entry attempt here a little while ago."

Dar's eyebrow cocked up as she caught the tinny sounding words from the phone Kerry was holding a little ways away from her ear.

"Successful?" Kerry asked.

"Ma'am." Jason managed to sound politely scandalized. "If it had been, you'd be talking to Mark right now, not me, that's for sure. No offense."

Dar snorted softly.

"Does Mark have a culprit?" Kerry asked. "Any ideas, or..."

"He's got some stuff he's tracking down. He wanted me to tell you to tell the boss someone was trying to call her bluff."

Dar's eyes narrowed and the planes of her face shifted into a dour expression.

"The boss knows," Kerry said. "If he finds anything, tell him to call us."

"Will do, ma'am."

Kerry folded her phone up and tapped it on the table. "I don't much like the sounds of that."

Dar eased back in her seat, giving the waiter a nod as he delivered two chilled glasses of plum wine. She picked one up and sipped from it before she answered. "It was excessively stupid of me to make that damn claim."

"Oh, well, that's not what I meant..."

"Kerry, it was," Dar interrupted her. "Regardless of whether it was true or not, pissing into an open fire hydrant is just plain idiotic. Mark's going to be cleaning up after that for months." She glared at her wine. "Bah."

Kerry patted her partner on the leg. "It got us good press, sweetie. If Mark can keep them at bay, we can get even better press out of it. I have faith in him, and in your infrastructure."

"Hmph." Dar looked mollified, however. "Maybe if he's got a lead on who they are, I can go back on them and nail 'em," she suggested. "That'd be fun."

"There you go." Kerry smiled at the waiter, who appeared with two bowls of steaming hot and sour soup. "Mm...that smells great."

Dar had removed her PDA from her purse and was scribbling on it. Kerry watched her as she picked up a spoon and sipped her soup. "Mark?"

"Yeah."

"You know what would be cool?"

"What?" Dar glanced at her.

"If we had software that could not only detect stuff like this, but proactively go out and find the jerks trying it and turn the tables on them," Kerry said. "Couldn't you write something like that, Dar?"

Dar tapped her stylus idly on the edge of her PDA. "I don't do coding anymore," she demurred. "I haven't even looked at some of the newer languages..."

"Sure you do," Kerry disagreed. "You write little things all the time. My dancing gopher, that program that keeps track of our expenses, that database thing Maria uses...those are all yours."

A half shrug. "That's just little stuff, like you said." But Dar's voice lacked real conviction.

"Wouldn't it be cool?" Kerry repeated. "That would be such a killer app, if you could have it go out and snag these losers. Find a way through all those backdoor portals and all that masking stuff."

Dar's eyes went briefly unfocused. "Hm." She made a noise deep in her throat, low and thoughtful. "That would be cool," she admitted. "Might fit in with some of the heuristic stuff I was looking at...maybe I could take a look at what the structure might need..."

Ahh. Kerry smiled inwardly. Caught that mind, I think. "It would be awesome."

Dar scribbled several notes, then keyed something, and scribbled several more. Then she hit send and closed the device, folding her hands over it. "So." She turned her attention fully to Kerry. "What were we talking about...toilet paper, right?"

"Toilet paper, and tattoos." Kerry lifted her wine glass, and touched it to Dar's. "And pretty little girls named Yum-Yum."

Dar returned the toast, and they both took a sip. "You know..." Dar looked around. "New York's not so bad after all."

"Hear hear," Kerry agreed, with a smile. "I'm glad I had a chance to play here with you."

The blue eyes lit as a returning smile appeared. "Me, too," she replied. "Ker, I really appreciate you coming up here. I...um..." Dar's gaze dropped briefly, then lifted again. "I really do."

Kerry put her glass down and reached over to cover Dar's hand with her own. "Any time, sweetie. It made me so happy to do it. I about did somersaults in the airplane aisle," she reassured her partner. "I loved being here."

Dar lifted her glass again, and they touched rims, then impishly, she leaned much closer and twined her arm through Kerry's. They drank from each other's glass, and took advantage of the restaurant's trendy dimness to share a kiss that lasted one heartbeat short of a scandal.

Ah well, Kerry reflected, as they parted and picked up their spoons.

If anywhere on earth could handle that, it was New York. It was big enough to handle just about anything.


Other Melissa Good Titles



Tropical Storm



From bestselling author Melissa Good comes a tale of heartache, longing, family strife, lust for love, and redemption. Tropical Storm took the lesbian reading world by storm when it was first writ-ten...now read this exciting revised "author's cut" edition.