“That’s not what I heard,” her boss retorted. “I heard you were already hurt when you went down there and got knocked out by some jackass with a gun.”
Dar took a breath, then released it. “You told me to find a solution,” she said. “I found one.”
Alastair let out a gust of air. “What makes you think any solution or any problem is worth risking you? Why didn’t you tell me you were hurt, Dar? You think I give two shits about some half-assed piece of crap government contract?”
Dar was quiet for a moment. “Alastair?”
“What?” her boss bellowed.
“Thanks for caring.”
There was silence for a few heartbeats, then Alastair sighed. “Well, damn it all to hell, Dar.”
Time to take back control of this conversation
, Dar’s more logical half asserted. “All right. Now that you’ve called, let me get this over with.”
She composed her thoughts. “We went down there trying to retain the data evidence. I told you that was the government’s concern, right?”
“Right,” Alastair exhaled.
“Well, I fucked up.” Dar had to pause slightly after saying that, so unusual was it for her to have to pronounce those words in reference to herself. “I didn’t find out what was going on first, and we walked right into both a military exercise and a setup.”
Alastair didn’t even say a word.
“Thank God my father was with us,” Dar went on in a quiet, unemotional voice. “They knew we were coming, and they were using the exercise to cover their tracks. With real bullets. If it hadn’t been for Dad, things would have been a lot worse.”
“So,” her boss’s voice sounded grim, “what’s your analysis?”
Dar watched Kerry’s profile as she sat moving her spoon around in her soup with her eyes on the television screen. “I was too close to the problem,” she said, watching Kerry’s movements still. “I should have backed out of it.”
“Ah.”
“We should have just dropped the results into the government’s lap and submitted our bill,” Dar went on. “Now we’re going to be involved in lawsuits at the very least.”
Alastair’s only comment was a sigh. “Anyone else get hurt?”
Dar remembered Jeff Ainsbright’s slumped form. “Not any of our people,” she replied. “I take full responsibility for this, Alastair.”
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“Mm,” her boss murmured. “You always do, Dar. I’ve never seen you do less.” He considered a moment. “Still and all, we did fulfill the contract, didn’t we? As far as that request for service?”
“Yes.”
“All right,” Alastair said. “Let’s keep things in perspective, Dar.”
“From a man who was yelling at the top of his lungs when I picked up the phone, that’s quite a statement,” Dar remarked dryly.
“Well, I was more concerned about you,” Alastair admitted. “The fact is, we achieved our goal, and we were just going above and beyond for the customer when things went badly.”
“Alastair,” Dar sighed.
“I’m not making excuses,” her boss snapped. “Easton took advantage of you when he asked you to intervene, and you know it, Dar. He was counting on your being personally involved, and he used that.”
Dar opened her mouth to refute the charge, then closed it again as her mind ran over what her boss had said.
Had he?
She looked up to see Kerry regarding her with a sympathetic look on her face.
“I don’t blame him for that,” Alastair continued hurriedly. “He was in a tight spot and saw a way out of it. I’d have done the same thing.”
Dar sighed. “Maybe.”
“So, take it easy, all right?”
“Alastair,” Dar replied, “you can tell me all day long I was within spec, but we both know I wasn’t.”
“Eh.” A verbal shrug came over the line. “We can talk about it later, Dar. How are you, anyway?”
Dar recognized a deliberate change of subject when she heard one, but didn’t have the energy to protest. “I’m all right,” she replied. “I had a concussion, and I messed up my shoulder a couple of days ago. It’s really no big deal.” Something occurred to her. “I do have to stay home for a few days, though. I’ll call in for the board meeting on Tuesday.”
“Great,” Alastair said. “Looks like the budget’s right on for the fourth quarter, and projections are up for next year, thanks to your network.”
Dar smiled. “Trying to cheer me up?”
A chuckle. “Is it working?”
Dar felt better for having told her boss what was going on. “Yeah.”
“Good.”
Dar held the phone against her ear and took a spoonful of soup.
“How’d you find out about me in the first place?” she asked, around a mouthful of shrimp.
“Your mother called me,” Alastair told her, a touch of smugness in his tone.
Dar stopped in mid-chew and almost snorted bisque out her nose.
“My mother?”
Kerry snickered. “Uh-oh.”
Red Sky At Morning
295
“I HAD TO do it,” Jeff Ainsbright stated for the tenth time. He was seated behind his desk, watching Andrew Roberts’s tall, burly form pace back and forth. “Andy, you don’t understand.”
“Hell I don’t,” Andrew snapped, turning to face him. “You had to sell your damn soul out? That what you’re saying?”
Ainsbright sighed and shook his head. “God damn it, Andy,” he said, “spare me your moralistic hogwash, will you? Maybe you never wanted to work your way out of that three-bedroom shack down the row, but I did.”
Andrew glowered at him. “Least what I had, I got honestly.”
“And what was that?” Jeff replied. “You couldn’t even afford to get your damn wife a new dress most of the time. You never had nothing, you never left her nothing; you couldn’t even send your kid to college.”
He stood up and poked a thumb at his own chest. “I wasn’t about to live like that. So yeah, when they offered me some good money to look the other way, you bet your ass I did.”
“Ah would not have, not for all the damn money in the US,”
Andrew stated flatly. “And what’d it get you?”
“A nice house,” Ainsbright answered. “A nice car. My wife’s a member of the country club and she loves it. My kid’s a ship captain.”
“You buy him that, too?” Andrew asked sarcastically.
“What’d you ever give your kid?” Jeff taunted. “A used tennis ball?”
“Care,” the ex-SEAL replied. “And knowin’ what was right and wrong.” He folded his arms. “I didn’t have to do nothing else. She made her own future without beggin’ me for handouts.”
Ainsbright rolled his eyes. “You’re a fool, Andrew. You always were.” He stood up. “All right, look.” A hand lifted. “Yeah, I knew about everything here. I knew about the shipments, and I knew they were covering them. But I never had anything directly to do with any of it, hear?”
Andrew studied him.
“I did what I did for my family,” Jeff stated. “To give them a better life.”“Now they ain’t gonna have nothing,” Andrew said. “With your ass in jail.”
Ainsbright snorted. “Not for bad record-keeping, Andy.” He managed a thin-lipped smile. “That’s all your brilliant little wunderkind is going to find now.”
Thoughtful blue eyes regarded him. “Think so?”
“I know it. I made sure of that personally,” Ainsbright snapped.
“Despite you getting your ass in the way, that is. I wasn’t after your damn kid.”
“You had a damn M16 with a scope.” Andrew closed on him again.
“Who were you after?”
“No one,” Ainsbright answered coolly. “It was all part of the 296
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exercise.” He pointed at Andrew. “Which your daughter interrupted with an unauthorized breach of the base. If anything happened to her here, it’s her fault, not mine.” He paused. “For that matter, you better just hope I don’t bring you up on assault charges.”
Andrew blinked. “You do that, and ah will make sure you’ll have been assaulted for it.”
“That a threat?” Jeff snorted. “Get out of here, Andy. You’re out of your league, and you don’t belong here anymore.”
Andrew turned and walked to the window, gazing out at the grassy space before the building. “Ain’t that the truest thing you done said here today,” he rumbled. “If you ain’t the one who’s running this show, Jeff, who is?” He turned and eyed the CO, who remained silent. “They pay you to take the fall for them?”
The base commander shook his head. “I’m not taking a fall, Andy. I told you that.”
“’Cause you think you out-thunk my kid, is that it?” A smile twisted Andrew’s face. “Better hope you’re right. I sure never could.”
Jeff snorted. “I’m smarter than you are, Andy. We both know that.”
A slow nod. “That may be true, Jeff. But you ain’t smarter than she is. So you better be damn sure you’ve got all your tracks covered, or it’s your ass what’s going to be run up that there flagpole outside.” He turned and pointed, then turned back and walked over to the base commander, stopping within a pace of him. “Because she will nail you.”
Their eyes locked. “I’m sure,” Jeff finally said. “I’ve got good people who made very, very sure of that.” He turned and straightened his jacket. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, Andrew, I’ve got a lunch date with my wife.” He gestured toward the door. “I’ll have you escorted to the gate.” He turned back toward his desk, then stopped dead.
The office was empty.
“Son of a bitch.” The base commander raced to the window and looked out, leaning out to look up and down. Then he pulled his head back in and searched the room with anxious eyes. “Where in the f—”
Cursing, he reached for the phone and lifted it, dialing a number quickly. “Security? This is the base commander. We’ve got an unauthorized entry. Send a security team to my office and put the base on alert.”
THE ALARM WENT off before dawn, and Kerry reached over quickly to silence it. It stopped its low buzz, and she let her hand drop back down onto the pillow as she glanced over at Dar’s sleeping form.
Her lover didn’t stir, her body relaxed in slumber and her breathing slow and even.
Good.
Kerry sighed in relief. Obsessively, Dar had worked until after midnight on what data she had in her laptop, only surrendering when Kerry coaxed her off the couch and into the waterbed, where she’d fallen asleep almost in the middle of a protest.
Kerry spent a moment just watching Dar’s profile, outlined by the pale blue night-light in the bathroom. Then she rolled over and eased out of bed on the opposite side, twitching the down comforter back into place. She stifled a yawn with one hand as she made her way into the bathroom and closed the door quietly behind her before she flipped the light on.
“Ugh.” Kerry winced and closed her eyes, waiting for a moment before she reopened them and blinked at her reflection. A very disheveled, grumpy woman looked back at her, and she stuck her tongue out at the image.
She had such a damn busy day planned at work. First, she’d have to coordinate the recovery of whatever Mark had retained in that black box, assuming Dar remembered how to reassemble the puzzle pieces.
Then she’d have to assign a high security team to work with the database, reconstructing it meticulously and recording their steps line by line.
Then, since it was a Monday, she knew there would be at least five or six major disasters for her to handle, along with the usual running operations issues. Thank God, Kerry mused, as she splashed water on her face and lathered up some soap, that Dar’s new network had reduced her crisis calls by eighty percent, its flexibility and reliability making her life much more pleasant.
So she’d get some liquid breakfast, throw on her running gear, do her laps, then shower and head for the office. Kerry dried her face and nodded at her still scruffy, but more alert-looking reflection. “Right?”
She watched her lower lip poke out as though of its own volition.
Her brow creased. “Okay, what’s wrong?” The lip poked out 298
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further in a pout. “Kerrison Stuart, you are not going to pout because Dar gets to stay home and you don’t, y’hear me?”
“Growf.” Chino hopped up and put her paws on the sink, peering up at Kerry as if wondering who her mom was talking to.
“Sure, that’s easy for you to say.” Kerry turned and tapped the end of her toothbrush on Chino’s nose. “You get to stay here with her.”
Chino’s tail wagged.
“Yeah, yeah. Rufh min fin,” Kerry spoke through a mouthful of toothpaste.
IT WAS A beautiful morning. Kerry took a deep breath of the cool, salt-tinged air as she walked down the path to the beach, enjoying the lack of humidity that made their running uncomfortable, bordering on brutal during the summer months. When she reached the winding path that led around the island, she paused to stretch out her muscles, as a few seagulls drifted by to watch.
It was quiet at this hour, the soft clanks from the marina and the birds’ curious squawks the only sounds that broke the dawn hush.
Kerry finished her warm-up and started down the path at a slow jog, waiting for her body to wake up and get into sync before she picked her pace up and settled into her run.
She’d finally gotten used to this. Kerry watched a small tug move past the south side of the island as she headed around the marina. In fact, she’d come to look forward to the time she and Dar set aside for their joint morning exercise, because it was a great way to start the day with some peace and quiet.
Okay.
Kerry smiled as she rounded the island’s northern side for the first time.
And some companionable togetherness.
They’d started debating current events the past few weeks, and she found herself missing the company this morning.
How had Dar stood it all those years alone? The thought intruded itself. Then another thought made her almost stop in her tracks.
How did
you stand it all those years alone, Kerry?
Wow.
Kerry tried to remember what her life had been like before she’d met Dar. It had been—well, all right, she guessed. She’d had fun with her friends at work and with Colleen. She hadn’t been lonely, had she?
Second lap already?
Kerry sighed and nibbled her lower lip. No, she really hadn’t been lonely. She’d been more like...waiting. That was it.
She nodded to herself. She’d always had the feeling that just around the bend, just around that next corner, she’d find someone special.