“Sure.” He gazed at her in quiet compassion. “Go take a walk, Dar. Get some air. You’re white as a sheet.”

Nodding absently, she walked out, not really sure where she was going Tropical Storm 297

until she was outside, where she mechanically found her car and opened the door, collapsing into the seat and leaning against the steering wheel. “He’s crazy. He doesn’t know what he’s…I’m not…”

She stared at the instrument panel, thinking about the past few days.

Thinking about how she felt. Thinking about how Kerry made her feel, and how just the impact of those green eyes on hers sent daggers of emotion stabbing through her. About how hugging Kerry made her happier than just about anything else ever had. About how she’d driven out in the middle of the night just to check on a little bump on the head and jeopardized a major account to keep from looking bad in front of her—setting aside the slowly creeping knowledge that for the first time in a long time she’d found something she cared about more than her job and her settled, predictable life.

Slowly, she leaned back, letting her arms fall to her thighs as the inescapable realization hit her. Son of a bitch. I am in love. A faint laugh forced its way out of her chest. Then she gripped the steering wheel and stared out through the tinted windows. Now what do I do?

“OKAY, LOOK, IT’S only a bulletin board,” Kerry said, gazing patiently at the short, upset woman sitting across from her desk. “I know it’s something everyone likes, but the drive array went down, and they have to replace it.”

“But you don’t understand…we had important messages on there,” the woman stated in agitation.

Kerry cocked her head. “It’s a bulletin board. I thought it was for posting things for sale, company notices, that kind of thing.”

“No, no.” The woman looked frustrated. “It’s this…we’ve got all our social stuff on there, and Mary puts out these little poems, they really make everyone’s day. It’s like a community. We’re helpless without it. No one knows what’s going on!”

Kerry folded her hands together. “Helen, what exactly is it you want me to do?”

“Can’t it get fixed faster?”

“It’s a server drive array. They have to custom-order it from Hewlett Packard, and it has to be configured. They’re doing it as fast as they can, believe me,” Kerry explained. “That’s not the only thing affected. Printing and faxing services are down, too.” The server crash had been an unexpected, yet welcome emergency, putting off Mark’s questionable questions until some undefined later time.

Unfortunately, the workers had complained more about the downed bulletin board than if the mail servers had crashed. “We’re still trying to find out why it went down,” Kerry said. “That was a very strange failure.” She got an immediate guilty look from the woman, who stood hastily.

“Well, I hope they hurry. I have a lot of things on there that I need.” She gave Kerry a distinctly unfriendly glare. “I’m sure Ms. Roberts would have resolved it already.” She walked out, leaving a bemused-looking Kerry, who shook her head in mild disbelief.

“No, she would have told you to get your gardenia-smelling butt out of her office,” she informed the closed door wryly. Then she sighed and glanced 298 Melissa Good at the clock. “Speaking of which, where in the hell is she?”

It was close to noon, and there was no sign of her boss. Kerry had set up a monitor that checked periodically for Dar’s login, and so far, the executive had been conspicuous by her absence. Kerry drummed her fingers on the desk, then picked up the phone and dialed. “Hi, Maria.”

“Hello, Kerrisita.”

“Any word from the boss?” Kerry tried to keep the concern out of her voice and make it only sound vaguely interested. “I have some documents I need to go over with her.”

Maria sighed. “No, honey. You and everyone else in the world is looking for her…and nothing. I tried her cell phone, the pager, nothing. I hope she is all right.”

Kerry felt a deep worry grab her guts. “Yeah, me too. That’s not like her,”

she murmured, as if she were an expert after all of less than a month.

“Si, ay. Wait, I hear her voice coming this way.” Maria sounded relieved.

“Okay, great. Thanks, Maria.” Kerry hung up with a mixed sensation of relief and anticipation. “No running down the hallway, Kerrison. Let her sit down first.” She decided to get herself a cup of tea instead, so she opened her drawer and took out a blackberry teabag, then grabbed her cup and headed for the door.

The kitchen was relatively quiet, and she smiled at the two other women inside as she put some Equal into her cup, then added boiling water from the dispenser over the teabag.

“Hey, Kerry.” One of the women sitting at a small table looked up. “I hear you signed up for the gym. You going tonight?”

The blonde woman nodded. “Yep. I sure did. I’m really looking forward to it. I put my name down for some light aerobics and that self defense class.”

She casually walked over, dipping her teabag in and leaning against the wall.

“Are you going?” The woman’s name, she recalled, was Candy, a uniquely inappropriate tag for the usually snippy administrative assistant.

Candy leaned back with a sigh and nodded. “Yeah.” She patted her thighs and made a face. “I thought I could get away with just some treadmill plodding at home, but I don’t do it enough, and it’s showing. I put on ten pounds in the last two months, and it’s either go to the goddamn gym or spring for new clothes.” She glanced at Kerry. “Self defense, huh? That’s pretty funny, coming from Dar Roberts’ assistant. And what the hell happened to your head?”

Kerry sighed. “Close encounter with a parked truck while I was Rollerblading last night,” she explained. “Yet another reason to pick the gym instead. Fewer obstacles,” she added wryly. “And it’s air conditioned, has a sauna…”

“Oh yeah, and nice looking bodies running around,” Candy added with a smirk. “My boyfriend refuses to go in there. Says his gut makes him embarrassed.” The other woman, someone from Marketing, Kerry remembered, snickered.

“Well, that’s self-defeating,” Kerry protested. “If he’d go in there for a while, he wouldn’t have to worry about it.” She disposed of her bag and took a sip of the sweetened tea. “But I know how he feels. I’ve put on a few pounds Tropical Storm 299

myself since I started working here—all those daily specials downstairs,” she commented casually.

Candy snorted. “Kerry, you’d have to double yourself before anyone would notice, let me tell you. But, um…” She glanced around, then up at the blonde woman. “I hear through the grapevine your boss is joining the gym gang. True?”

Kerry hesitated, then picked her words carefully. “As a matter of fact, I think I heard her saying that the other day. So yeah, I guess she is. Why?”

“Interesting, that’s all. First she participates in Global Day, now this. She trying to change her image or something?” Candy asked slyly.

Sensing dangerous waters, Kerry merely shrugged. “She said it was her turn to do Global. And as for this, who knows? I sure don’t. She said she wanted to use some climbing thing or other that they have. Maybe that’s it.”

“Maybe,” Candy purred. “Guess we’ll find out tonight, eh? C’mon, Drucie, break time’s over, let’s go feed the press.” She glanced at Kerry. “See ya.” They got up and sauntered out.

“See ya,” Kerry mouthed after her, making a face. She sighed and sipped her tea, then slipped back out of the kitchen and down the hall, opening the door to her office and stepping inside. She was several paces into the room before she realized there was something sitting on her desk. She stopped, one hand raised with the cup in it and the other at her side, and just looked.

Squarely in the center of her desk rested a small, crystal vase containing one single crimson rose. Kerry let out a tiny gasp and moved closer, putting the cup down and circling the furniture, sitting down in her chair and resting both arms on either side of the vase.

The flower was beautiful, large and full with thick petals that gave off a wonderful scent, and the vase was slim, and faceted, and glittered in the light coming in the window. “Oh my god, that’s gorgeous.” Kerry breathed, touching the flower with a lightly shaking finger. “Did you do this, Dar?” she whispered.

The unexpected romantic gesture touched her deeply, and she sighed, resting her chin on her fists and letting a smile appear as she absorbed the delicate scent. Flowers had never been a particular focus of hers, but who in their right mind could resist a beautiful rose half the size of your head? In a crystal vase? Kerry reached out and touched one of the petals, feeling it soft as silk against her skin.

Finally she sat up and gently put the vase at the front of her desk, centered neatly, before she stood and ran her hands through her hair. “I think I need to go say thank you,” she told her computer screen, just before ducking out the back door and down the utility hallway.

“SO WHAT, EXACTLY, is the problem?” Dar leaned her chin on her fist and regarded Mark with a tolerant eye. “I thought you ordered a new RAID

array.”

“I did.” Mark sighed, rubbing his eyes. “But HP said they can’t get a duplicate unit. If we want to replace it, we’ve got to go bigger.”

“Okay. So do it.”


300 Melissa Good Brown eyes blinked at her. “What?”

“What part of that didn’t you understand?” Dar shot back. “I’m up to my ears in whining secretaries who can’t get to their love poems, Mark. Get the goddamn array in here before I start taking pot-shots at them with a pellet gun.”

“Dar, we’re talking big bucks, here,” Mark protested. “It’s not a critical server.”

“Maria tells me Kerry spent at least half the morning listening to people tell her just how critical the damn thing is, and I’m not going to waste her valuable time in dealing with it!” Dar roared. “Get the damn thing in here. I don’t care what it costs!”

“Jesus!” Mark jumped out of his chair and backed off. “All right, all right.

But when that bill comes in, don’t say I didn’t tell you so.”

“Just do it,” Dar ordered. “And by the way, how in the hell did the damn thing crash anyway?”

Mark paused in the doorway and pursed his lips, glancing around.

“Um…they ran a… Well, it’s a streaming multimedia clip that got out of hand.” He cleared his throat. “It chewed up all the resources, then corrupted the allocation table. When the server went to shut down, it blew the drive controller card.”

Dar sat there, her hands resting on her desk. “You’re not telling me something one of these technogorps did crashed an array.”

He nodded. “Um…it was a streaming clip of Leonardo DiCaprio dancing nude.” Then he was gone, leaving Dar to stare at the door in disbelief.

The phone rang. Dar punched the button. “Yeah?”

“Afternoon, Dar!” Alastair’s cheerful voice filled the room. “Where the hell have you been?”

Dar eyed the phone. “In Miami. Why?”

“Lady, I’ve been calling you since last night,” her boss said. “Had half the company after my shorts for the payroll. Didn’tcha know?”

Dar blinked. “What?”

“Jesus Christ, Dar!” The voice took on a hint of frustration. “What in hell’s going on down there?”

Dar had to admit she was dumbfounded.

“Tell you what, good thing you picked that new little assistant of yours,”

Alastair added. “ She took care of it, but good lord, lady! You had us in a hell of a twist.”

Dar pulled out her cell phone and stared at it, looking at the blank display with an almost comical expression. “Sorry, Alastair,” she managed to cough out. “My cell’s on the blink.” She pressed the power button and watched the device light up. “Just got it back.”

“Was it?” her boss queried. “Well, that’s a damned thing.”

“Yeah.” Dar watched the message waiting light start up and flash frantically. “Glad Kerry was here and took care of it.”

Alastair grunted. “Seems like a nice enough kid,” he allowed. “Glad to find out it was just a phone screw-up, Dar. You had me a little worried there,”

he said. “Not answering the line all that time.”

Jesus. “Yeah, well, sorry about that, Alastair,” Dar said with a sigh. “I was Tropical Storm 301

at an appointment this morning, just got to the office. I’ll have to get a backup phone or something, I guess.” She folded the cell up and put it on her desk, shaken inside and out from the lapse.