Thicker Than Water - DK5 (37 page)

Dar felt very off balance. She was a little buzzed, and she’d been in the sun all day; her brain wasn’t working nearly as well as it usually did. “Huh?”

“Promise me something,” Ceci repeated patiently. “It’s not that hard, honest.”

“Okay. What?”

“Promise me you won’t ask me how or where I got this from,”

Ceci said, feeling more than a bit nervous. “Okay?”

Dar leaned against the doorway, feeling the warm teak wood against the skin of her shoulder. “Okay,” she agreed, completely
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at sea. “I won’t. Why would I, anyway? You don’t usually ask people where they…”

Ceci had opened a trunk just inside the door as Dar was speaking, and now she lifted something and held it out.

Dar’s voice trailed off as she stared at the object, then slowly she reached out and took it. Her eyes absorbed the contrast of slate gray against still vivid color, details meticulously etched by a careful and very patient hand.
Her
careful and very patient hands, which had first built, then painted the model aircraft carrier many years before.

Ceci just watched her. There was so very much about their shared past she could not change, but this one little thing she’d been bound and determined to. It had taken a while, but she’d persisted in gaining back one of the largest bones of contention there had ever been between them. Even Andy had been shocked and angered at her when she’d gotten rid of Dar’s models.

Dar finally drew in a deep breath and looked up and away from the ship, her gaze open and wondering. “Wh—”

“Ah ah ah.” Ceci shook her head. “You promised.” She covered the intense emotion she felt by indicating the chest. “The rest of them are in here. I don’t know if you even have room for them, but I…” She heard a slight scraping sound as Dar put the model on the table, then felt the warmth as she approached. “…thought you might…” A hand gripped her shoulder and she felt herself being turned.

Having little choice, she went along with the prodding and found herself facing her daughter, and in the moment their eyes met, Ceci felt like a mother again. But she didn’t really get a chance to absorb that before Dar did something very unexpected.

She stepped forward and put her arms around Ceci and hugged her.

Good goddess.
Ceci managed to respond in kind, wrapping her arms around Dar’s strong body and giving her a healthy squeeze.

The last time I did this…
She let out a small breath.
The last time I did
this, she was ten years old.
“Dar, I’m sorry. I wish it’d been different for us.”

“I don’t care.” Dar closed her eyes and just hugged harder.

“It’s different now. That’s all that matters.”

Ceci was lifted up a little, and she gained a new perspective on why Kerry took such care to remain strong and fit: you could get a little bent otherwise. But it felt good. She hugged her daughter and smiled in relief, thoroughly enjoying the moment.

DAR STUCK HER hands in her pockets and stretched, feeling 220
Melissa Good
a tiny cloud of wonder following her around as she made her way off the bridge. It lasted just long enough for her to get across the sand and realize what everyone was looking at. She could feel the slow burn of embarrassment heat her skin as she heard the laughter and slowed her steps.

Kerry was kneeling beside her father, one arm draped over his shoulders, pointing out something on the page with one finger. As the laughter rose again, she glanced up and their eyes met.

In a twinkling instant, the amusement vanished from her face. She stood, gave Andrew a pat on the shoulder and pushed through the crowd towards Dar.

It took all of Dar’s considerable self-discipline to not simply turn and leave.

“Hey.” Kerry sounded like she was walking on verbal egg-shells.

“I didn’t realize I was the party entertainment,” Dar replied in a clipped tone. Another spurt of laughter and her whole body jerked, stilling when Kerry touched her stomach in a reflex action.

It was hard to believe just how angry she was.

“Dar.” Kerry frantically sorted through her thoughts for a way to prevent the explosion she could feel about to take place.

“Honey, please listen to me, okay? Before you go off the deep end?”

Dar remained completely silent.

“We’re your friends and family, and we love you,” Kerry whispered. “Your mom and dad are so proud of you, and they want to share their memories of you with your friends. Don’t be upset, please?”

Dar stared over her shoulder at the crowd, who hadn’t noticed her presence in the twilight shadows. Her face was still and closed, her pale blue eyes remote and very cold. Then, as though a switch had been flipped, she relaxed and sighed.

“I hate those pictures,” Dar muttered. “I look like such an idiot.”

She shoots, she scores!
Kerry wrapped an arm around Dar.

“You do not. You were such an adorable baby, Dar. I wanted to just squeeze you.” She did so, getting a soft grunt out of Dar.

“Especially that one picture with you in the bunny suit.”

“Eemph.” Dar grimaced. “I’m gonna go wait on the boat.”

“No, no, no.” Kerry kept hold of her and dug her heels into the sand with a remarkable lack of success in stopping Dar’s progress. “C’mon...c’mon, Dar, please?” Her voice broke on the last word, and it actually made Dar stop and turn and put her arms around Kerry.

Oo. Have to remember that.
“Come over and look at them,”

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Kerry pleaded gently. “Please?”

Dar exhaled unhappily. The very last thing in the world she wanted to do was go look at ugly old baby pictures of herself. On the other hand, it would make Kerry happy. Was she willing to do something she really, really didn’t want to do to gain that result?

Dar tilted her head and regarded the serious, mist green eyes looking back at her. “I’m not comfortable with people getting this close to me. It’s crossing a line I’m not sure I want crossed.”

Kerry absorbed that, her lips pursing as she considered the statement. “My life was lived so much in the public view, I didn’t even think of that with you. I apologize, Dar. I should have stopped your father.” She looked into Dar’s eyes. “Forgive me?”

Like I have a choice?
A smile pulled at Dar’s lips as she surrendered her dignity and simply wrapped her arms around Kerry and started towards the group circling her father.
What the hell.

She endured the sudden glances and grins with wry stoicism. “All right, which one of the seven thousand bad baby shots is he showing you now?”

“Aw, Dar, you were such a sweet baby.” Maria smiled at her boss. “So cute.”

“Mm,” Ceci agreed with a nod, catching up to them as they reached the rock. “I was going to pitch her as a baby model but she bit the photographer.”

Everyone looked at Dar, who grinned, then they made room as Kerry and Dar settled at Andy’s side. Kerry put an arm around Dar’s waist and rested her chin on her shoulder. “What on earth were you doing there?” She pointed at a small, square Polaroid of a perhaps five or six year old Paladar in denim overalls on a very fuzzy, very unhappy looking animal.

“Riding a llama.” Dar sighed, remembering the Pirate World Adventure during one of Andy’s infrequent leaves. “Neither of us enjoyed the experience, if I recall.”

“Ya’ll were pulling on his ears, Dardar. What’d ya expect?”

Andy drawled.

“Ah, is that where you got the experience to do that?”

Alastair asked.

“Yeah.” Dar grabbed her boss’s ear and gave it a healthy tug as he yelped. “So you better watch it.”

The laughter rose again, but Dar felt a bit more comfortable with it this time. She released Alastair’s ear, then bent her head to regard the next page.

“HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO you, happy birthday to you…happy birthday, dear Dar…”

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Dar listened to the chorus of voices, the cacophony evoking only a relaxed grin from her. They were in a circle around the fire, plates full of food balanced on laps and mugs of alcohol being freely passed around.

Dar was mildly drunk and she knew it. Kerry was even more so, sitting next to Dar with her sturdy legs sprawled out and an arm draped over Dar’s thigh. Her head leaned back against Dar’s hip as she related a funny story, her warm tones echoing out over the water.

It suddenly seemed oddly familiar. Dar experienced a flash of almost memory as she set her plate aside, put her arm across Kerry’s shoulders, and nursed her mug with her other hand. Was it the fire, some sliver of memory from her much younger years, some time spent out camping?

Laughter resounded and Dar smiled as Kerry’s voice rose a bit, taking on a subtle, yet deep timbre. The sound echoed slightly, and Dar suddenly felt if she closed her eyes and opened them again…But no, there they still were—at the fire with their friends around them, the Miami night sky twinkling overhead.

Strange.

“Well, I tell you, Kerry, that’s a heck of a way to spend a birthday,” Alastair said as Kerry finished her tale. “I think I’d have given them up after that.”

“Well,” Kerry ran her thumb lightly along Dar’s inner thigh,

“I did…for a long time, until I moved down here.” She paused.

“And took my life back.” Her face settled into a quiet reflection, and the tenor of the crowd changed a little as people took the moment to dig into the excellent stew and munch on crusty garlic bread.

Kerry took a sip of her beer and gazed out over the water, glad of the solid, warm presence she was leaning against. Ceci and Andrew were on the other side of Dar, and Mark was seated next to her, and she found herself very glad to be in this fire lit circle, surrounded by her friends and family.

Her family. Kerry took another swallow of beer, knowing that sitting in the sand covered in salt and suntan lotion wasn’t anything her other family would have ever been caught dead doing.

Not even Angie or Mike, who loved her, but who loved their priv-ileged lives just as much. “Y’know, Dar?”

“Mm?” Dar selected a bit of carrot sticking out of her stew and offered it to Kerry.

A smile crossed Kerry’s face as she accepted the offering—

licking Dar’s fingers as she munched on the carrot. “I don’t think I ever fit in at home.”

“No?”

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“Nope.” Kerry wondered, briefly, what would have become of her if she’d stayed there, had not taken the chance and jumped at the impulsive move to a state as far away from her home as she could get. “Glad I decided to come find you.”

Dar chuckled softly. “Me too. Otherwise I’d have had to come to Michigan and terrorize the area until I found you.”

“Think you would have?” Kerry imagined coming around the corner in Meijers and finding Dar. “Maybe you’d have,” she thought a moment, “found me at some job fair and hired me.”

“Nah,” Dar mumbled around a mouthful of stew beef. “Something more dramatic. How about…oh…I rescued you from being captured by white slavers and took you away for a life of vaga-bond excitement and crusading, traveling around the world.”

They were both silent for a moment, deep in thought.

Kerry rolled her head back and looked at Dar. “Honey, I love you but you’ve been watching too much of that late night television again.”

“Hey, I could have said we’d go off and become crocodile wrestlers.”

Kerry laughed. Dar joined her, pulling her closer and sliding down off the log so they were side by side. Duks started a story of his own and Kerry listened, tilting her head back and regarding the canopy of stars.

Are they twinkling at me? Watching me?

Was her father up there somewhere, finally in a place where lies didn’t work and the truth was like a harsh light that could blind if you weren’t prepared for it?

Did he know the truth about her now? And if he did, would he ever accept it, or would he go through eternity damning her for being something outside his personal box of understanding?

Kerry found the Big Dipper and traced its outlines.
Goodbye,
Daddy.
She let out a small breath.
In spite of everything, I really did
love you.

A soft voice tickled her ear. “Whatcha looking at?” Dar gazed upward with her.

“Just the stars,” Kerry replied. “Look at that patch, Dar.” She pointed. “You think that looks like a bear?”

Dar pressed her cheek against Kerry’s and studied the pattern. “Nah.” She shook her head. “A pig.”

“A pig?” Kerry lifted an eyebrow. “How about a pig riding a bike?”

Dar didn’t answer. She just smiled.

Other Melissa Good books available from

Eye of the Storm

(2nd edition)

Just when it looks like Dar Roberts and Kerry Stuart are settling into their lives together they discover that life is never simple - especially around them. Surrounded by endless corporate and political intrigue, Dar experiences personal discoveries that force her to deal with issues she had buried long ago and Kerry finally faces the consequences of her own actions.

Can their love and support for each other get them through these challenges.

Follow the continuing saga of Dar and Kerry as they face their greatest crises yet.

ISBN 1-932300-13-9

Red Sky At Morning

Continuing from where
Eye of the Storm
leaves off, this fourth chronicle in the Tropical Storm series has Dar Roberts and Kerry Stuart’s lives seeming to get more complex rather than moving toward the simpler lifestyle they both dream of.

This story begins with Dar presenting the quarterly earn-ings for the company. Meanwhile, Kerry encounters plane problems on her way to Chicago to solve a problem, and her flight diverts to New York. Sensing Kerry is in trouble, Dar leaves right in the middle of a stockholder cocktail party leading a colleague to question Dar’s commitment to the company.

Dar and Kerry return to Miami to begin a Navy contract and they encounter a cover-up of the worse kind. They end up in Washington to confront the military brass and expose Dar’s old friends and in a sense, leave her childhood completely behind.