Tropical Convergence (11 page)

DAR DIDN'T EVEN bother with the front door this time. She pulled the Lexus around to the back and parked in the loading dock, hopping out and slamming the door as Kerry did the same. They strolled over to the entrance in companionable silence and ducked inside.

It was much less chaotic and much more organized, Dar noticed at once. She paced slowly down the aisles of now completed booths, giving the odd security guards now on duty an amiable look as she passed them.

The ILS booth was in the center of the room, and she circled it entirely once before she entered the neatly made up space. "Nice," she commented to Kerry, who was checking out the locked case full of routers and switches. "Everything look good?"

Kerry walked to one of the sets and brought it up, coding in her password and running a few quick commands. "Looks very good," she said. "Decent throughput."

Dar leaned against the center column with her hands in her shorts pockets, admiring the contrast of Kerry's sun-gilded skin against the white cotton of her shirt. The sleeves were rolled up, and the shirt was tucked into her worn denim shorts and Dar found the whole picture quite appealing. "Know what?" she drawled.

"What?" Kerry looked up inquisitively.

"You're gorgeous."

Kerry's sunburn deepened several shades, and she glanced around the room before she produced a grin. "Um...thanks," she murmured. "What brought that on?"

Dar shrugged. "Merely an observation. Are we getting a two meg download?"

Kerry blinked. "What?" Her brows creased for a long moment before she realized what Dar was talking about. "Oh...um." She looked back at the screen in confusion, and then punched a few more keys. "One point eight."

"Good enough," her partner decided. "We're streaming locally anyway. At least I hope we are. Check to see if the marketing nitwits downloaded the mpegs." She wandered over to the far side of the booth, examining the colorful brochures curiously as Kerry bent over the console again.

A door slammed. Dar lifted her head at the sound, turning and peering across the center toward the front of the room. She spotted the two figures and barely stifled the impulse to grab Kerry and disappear, reasoning that they'd have to face off against their two adversaries sooner or later.

But there was no point in rushing the confrontation, so she merely went back to examining the marketing literature.

"Dar?" Kerry's low voice reached her.

"I know," Dar answered calmly. "Just do your thing."

Kerry sat down in the nearest seat and continued her parsing, examining the file structures of the presentations they'd sent out from the office earlier that day. Her ears were perked, though, as she listened to the footsteps wandering through the hall, which would, she knew, eventually end up right where they were.

She grinned a little, and cracked her knuckles.

MICHELLE STOPPED AS she reached the edge of the booth and waited for the two women inside it to look up.

When they didn't, she cleared her throat. "Well, well."

Kerry glanced up from her screen. "Oh, hi." She greeted their guest cordially. "C'mon in."

Michelle availed herself of the invitation and stepped inside the booth, circling the desk Kerry was at and taking a seat on the edge of the console. "Hello, Dar." She peered at the booth's second occupant and paused.

"Hi." Dar rested her chin on her fist and looked up briefly, then went back to studying the settings she had been investigating. "How's it going?"

Somehow, it wasn't the reception Michelle seemed to have been expecting. "Damned good, actually. Bet you're surprised to see me here."

"Not really." Kerry finished checking her screen, and moved to another one. "You guys get everything taken care of? We heard there were some problems last night. I thought your booth looked pretty well together."

"Our booth?"

"Mmhm..." Kerry indicated the Telegenics display a few rows down. "I like the LCD scrolling--it's nice." She tapped a few keys, and clicked twice with her mouse, reviewing the results. "There, that's better. Did you adjust that, Dar?"

"Uh huh," Dar responded. "Put prioritization in and filtered out some of Mark's crap."

"So you liked our stuff, huh?" Michelle decided to go with the flow of the conversation. "Glad to hear that. We worked hard on it, just like we've been working hard on getting new accounts around here. You must have noticed that too."

Kerry sat back and gazed thoughtfully at Michelle, then she turned her eyes to Dar, who had looked up and was now twiddling her thumbs at her workstation. Dar shrugged. "Are you? Well, congrats, then," she replied.

"So, you didn't notice we took eight of your accounts from here?" Shari stepped around the pylon and confronted them, leaning on the counter right above where Dar was sitting. "Hello, Dar."

"Hi," Dar responded, without budging an inch. "Business is business, I figure. You win some, you lose some." She tipped her head back, meeting Shari's eyes evenly, feeling her guts clench.

After a long moment, Shari looked away first, ostensibly turning her attention to Kerry. "That the way you see it too, Ms. Stuart?"

"Is there any other way?" Kerry queried. "We've got lots of competitors."

Michelle and Shari exchanged quick glances. "Well, that's great," Michelle said. "Frankly, we were hoping you'd feel that way. I mean, yes, we're competitors, but we've all got a lot in common, don't we? It'd be nice to do some friendly networking for a change." She smiled at them. "Matter of fact, we were hoping you both would be here today. We checked in a few times, but didn't see you around."

"Nah." Dar leaned back and extended her long legs, crossing them casually at the ankles. "We came in and did our part last night. We've been relaxing all day."

"At the parks?" Michelle smiled again.

"Like you were, huh?" Kerry indicated the Goofy shirts they were wearing. "It was a beautiful day, wasn't it?"

Shari glanced down at herself, and her face twisted into a half grimace. "Yeah, well, we love shopping," she muttered. "Never can have too many of these."

Dar slid her hand up, covering the grin that threatened to appear on her face.

"Listen." Michelle wrested control of the conversation back. "We really dropped by to make sure things were ready before we headed back to our hotel. You two free for breakfast tomorrow? Maybe we can chat then."

I'd rather eat Donald Duck jello eggs on toast with a pack of mimes
. Kerry hesitated, trying to recall what their schedule was for the following day. The convention started at ten, so... She looked at Dar, reading the resigned set of her eyebrows and the faint twitch on either side of her mouth.

Kerry wrinkled her nose slightly, and saw the wry twinkle appear in Dar's eyes. "I think we're free for breakfast, aren't we? Unless you promised Marketing we'd meet with them." She gracefully gave Dar an out anyway, and waited for her decision.

"I can't take Eleanor before coffee," Dar replied. "Yeah, we're free." She glanced up at Shari. "Where are you staying?"

"The Sheraton across from here," Shari answered warily. "But their restaurant is pitiful."

"Ours isn't," Kerry said. "Why don't you meet us there? It's the Grand Floridian." She flipped off the monitor she'd been working at and stood up. "They've got great banana stuffed French toast." She let her hands come to rest on her hips and cocked her head at them. "Eight all right? We get up early."

Dar folded her arms over her chest, content to let Kerry hack and slash her way through with her charmingly piratical good manners. "Yeah, that's early enough to miss the characters. I don't want to scare Pluto again," she remarked with an easy grin.

Michelle appeared as though she'd sucked on a sour orange. "Sure," she finally agreed. "We'll meet you there." She got up and stepped out of the booth, giving Shari a backhanded slap on the arm. "C'mon. Let's get out of here."

Kerry perched next to Dar's seat and watched them leave, casually leaning her wrist on her partner's shoulder. "I think we scored," she remarked as they walked through the entrance and out of sight. "You were right, Dar. That was exactly how to handle them. Good call."

"Oh yeah." Dar closed down her connection and stood, stretching her body out. "Round one to Roberts and Stuart, Ding ding," she added. "But now we've got round two at eight a.m. tomorrow."

"Yeah." Kerry sighed. "What a way to ruin perfectly good French toast." She slipped her arm around Dar's waist as they walked together toward the rear door. "You know, Dar, I really don't like Shari."

"Oh, really?" Dar opened the back door and held it as they exited.

"Really." Kerry took a breath of the warm, humid night air. "In fact, I'd like to take a set of cat five crimpers and clamp the end of her nose with them."

Dar looked at her. One eyebrow lifted. "What would that do?"

"Make her scream like a cat in a blender," Kerry replied, with a firm nod. "Start my day off just right."

Dar's nostrils flared. "Remind me not to piss you off, okay?" She draped an arm over Kerry's shoulders.

Kerry chuckled and shook her head.

"THANKS." KERRY SCRIBBLED her name on the room service check and handed it back to the waiter, then closed the door after him as he slipped out into the hallway. On the table near the window he'd left a tray, which had a large white china pot, two cups, and a plate full of chocolate dipped strawberries.

Kerry inspected the tray, lifting the lid on the pot and sniffing appreciatively. "Mm." She put the lid back down and dusted her hands off, turning her back on it and heading for the bathroom.

Dar was inside, applying aloe to her shoulders which were a deep, burnished color half tan and half sunburn. Kerry took the bottle from her and smeared the stuff across her back, rubbing it gently on the patches between the straps of her swimsuit. "You got toasted, honey."

"I feel it." Dar seemed embarrassed. "Next time remind me to put my damn sunscreen on after I get out of the water, willya?"

"Sorry. Thought you had." Kerry winced at the red marks. "My fault. I should have checked when I had you put some on me."

"Your fault?" Dar chuckled softly. "I could have remembered when I was putting some on you." She flexed her arms and turned, taking the bottle and putting a little on her fingers. Then she carefully painted Kerry's face with it, tracing the pink skin over her rounded cheekbones. "You got a little toasted too."

"I sure did." Kerry let her hands rest on Dar's hips. "But you know what? I had a great day. The dive was stupendous, and scaring the poo out of those two was so choice."

Dar grinned. "Yeah, it was," she admitted. "A little juvenile, though."

"So was their trying to make trouble last night," Kerry stated. "And so was their showing up tonight and trying to bait us. So there."

"So there." Dar leaned over and kissed her, tasting a hint of lip balm as she explored Kerry's mouth. "I am starting to wonder now what they're up to, though." She added, "The bitchiness I understand. Them being nice is scary."

Kerry took her hand and tugged. "Well, let's give 'em the benefit of the doubt, Dar. You never know--maybe they decided to grow up too."

"Mm." Dar followed her willingly. "Like us, you mean?"

"Exactly." Kerry paused and indicated the tray. "So, grownup. Wanna share some hot chocolate and berries with me?"

They walked to the table hand in hand. Dar gazed down at the treats with a smile, picking up a piece of apple garnish and taking a bite of it. "What more could any woman ask for?" she inquired around her mouthful of apple.

"Share." Kerry stood on her tiptoes and closed her teeth around the apple slice, and they both nibbled toward the center, giggling as their noses bumped and they fought over the last scrap of it.

"Whoops." Dar rolled her tongue around a small, hard point. "Seed."

"Where?" Kerry caught the pink appendage in her teeth, surprising Dar into releasing the seed into her mouth. "Ah! Got it!" She pulled back and swallowed the seed sticking her tongue out a few times like a lizard. "Mm."

Dar laughed. "Did just swallow that?"

"Yup." Kerry picked up a strawberry chaser and bit into its chocolate shell ruthlessly. "I heard a story once that if you swallow an apple seed it makes the tree of knowledge grow inside you."

"Um."

"Here. Don't think about it. Just eat." Kerry offered her half a strawberry. "It was a goofy story, but it's better than the other one I heard."

Dar chewed her berry contentedly. "That it makes you healthy, wealthy and wise?" She hazarded a guess.

"That it makes you pregnant."

Dar spit a bit of berry halfway across the table and nearly inhaled the rest of it. She covered her mouth as a laugh erupted from her.

Kerry patted her back solicitously. "Told you it was goofy. You'd be surprised at what you end up being taught in Sunday school that far north, honey."

"Jesus...remind me to throw some of our education outreach budget up there, will you?" Dar buried her face into Kerry's shoulder. "Before they start teaching Cabbage Patch creationist theory."

Kerry gave her a kiss on the head and exhaled happily, patting Dar's cheek when she lifted her head up. "Will do." She brushed Dar's cheek with her lips. "But they threw the book away when they came up with you."

Dar poured out two cups of hot chocolate, lifted hers, and clinked its edge against Kerry's when she picked her own up. "Here's to us." She looked into Kerry's eyes. "To hell with everyone else."

Kerry took a sip, and gave a kiss. "I'll drink to that anytime."

DAR SETTLED HER balance, gripping the bar on the weights with both hands at shoulder width and pressing her back against the weight bench. Slowly, she lifted the barbell clear, and lowered it, pushing it away from her with the same deliberation until her arms were straight.

It was very quiet in the hotel's gym, not surprising since it was before dawn. Dar lowered the bar and pressed it up again, keeping an even rhythm until she'd done it ten times. Then she set the weight back on the bar and let her arms drop.