And lurking in the shadows, a lingering fear. “Yes, I can fix it,” Dar replied easily. “Just leave it to me.” She took Kerry’s hands and squeezed them. “You’ll come home on my flight tonight.”
Kerry leaned against her, almost dizzy with relief and more than a touch of guilt. “I’m sorry.”
Dar simply embraced her. “Don’t worry about it.” And in a strange sort of way, she felt glad that Kerry could come to her, knowing what she was asking, and still ask it, knowing that Dar would take care of it for her and not think the less of her for asking. “I’ll work it out.”
“I know it sounds stupid,” Kerry muttered. “I feel stupid even asking but I just…my guts are in knots from what happened last night and I need to chill out from that.”
It was a curious crossing of their professional and personal lives, and Dar recognized that. They’d both worked hard to keep those two parts separate, and she knew this was the first time Kerry had knowingly crossed that line with her.
Scary, but gratifying, as they took an unexpected fork in the road they were traveling together. “No problem, hon.” Dar leaned over and kissed her. “Now, where were we?” She turned the shower up a little.
“C’mere.”
Still feeling a little ashamed, Kerry set her troubles aside in the meantime as she fit her body to Dar’s under the driving spray, taking solace in her partner’s familiar touch. “At least we’ll get our Thanksgiving.”
“Mm.” Dar nibbled the edge of her ear. “I can already taste those taters.”
“Dar!”
“Yum.”
THE HOTEL’S RESTAURANT was busy when Dar threaded her way through the business crowd to a table near the rear windows.
Already seated, Alastair spotted her and waved, and she lifted a hand and waved back. “Morning.” She gave Bob a brisk nod. “Thanks for the lift last night.”
Bob returned the nod. “You look a lot more chipper this morning.
Was it the food or the company?” he asked with a wry grin.
“Neither.” Dar sat down. “Migraine. Delayed reaction from the meeting.”
“Ah.” Bob nodded.
“Damned nasty things.” Alastair appeared relieved. “Glad it was nothing serious, though. Coffee?”
“Definitely.” Dar flipped open the menu and studied it.
“Heard from Redmond last night, Dar.” Alastair leaned forward.
“Doesn’t look good. Johnston sounds panicky.” He took a sip of orange juice. “I heard Kerry was on her way there.”
Dar stared at the menu for a moment, then blinked. “She was.” The tall executive made her decision. “I’ve decided to bring the Redmond team down our way instead.” She glanced up over the edge at her boss.
“I told Kerry to stay home.”
Alastair cocked his head to one side. “Oh, really?”
“Thanksgiving week?” Bob also sounded surprised.
“Yep.” Dar kept her eyes on the breakfast selections. “How’s the Benedict here, Alastair? Any good?”
Her boss was caught off guard. He fiddled with his napkin, then leaned back in his chair and hitched up a knee, cupping his hand around the gray flannel surface. “Never had it, really. Listen, Dar...do you really think pulling the whole team out is a good idea?”
“Yes.” Dar put her menu down and met his eyes. “There’s been a big foul-up there. If I send someone in, it’s on their turf and it’ll take me a week to get to the bottom of it. Bring them in to Miami, and I’ll have it turned around in twenty-four hours. You pick.”
Bob sniffed reflectively. “Got a point there. Sometimes it takes coming out of the forest to see the trees,” he said. “Sounds like they’re buried in crap.”
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“Eh.” Alastair grunted. “Could be, could be. All right, Dar. It’s your ballgame, after all.” He motioned to the waiter. “Benedict, was it?
Wheat toast?”
“White.” Dar gave the waiter a thin smile. “And a half stack of pancakes. Thanks.” She handed over her menu and sat back, lifting her newly poured cup of coffee and sipping at it. She glanced around at the full room, returning nods and smiles from some of the investors she’d met the day before. “Nice crowd.”
“They certainly liked you.” Alastair chuckled. “Haven’t had so many people come up and ask me questions in six years, none of them about the balance sheets for a change.” He gave his CIO a smile. “Even the board members had to come and suck up to me. I really enjoyed that, Paladar...I really did.”
“I bet.” Dar smiled, toasting him with her coffee. Then she pulled out her cell phone and flipped it open. “Now let me give Redmond the bad news.”
Bob leaned back in his chair and munched on a biscuit. “Weather they’ve been having, not sure it’s gonna be that bad, Dar. Now if someone would offer
me
a week in Miami in winter...” He gave Alastair a look. “But noooo...I get to fly to Cleveland from here.”
“Be thankful,” Alastair told him crisply. “It coulda been worse.
Bracken’s been asking me to get him a top salesman out to North Dakota.”
Dar chuckled as she waited for the phone to connect. After a moment, it did. “Morning, Clarice. Dar Roberts here.”
A moment’s silence was followed by a small gasp. “Oh, hello, Dar! I wasn’t expecting you! Here we thought we’d be seeing your new VP, but I hear the flight was delayed.”
“Canceled,” Dar told her. “So get your team together and book a ride down to Miami. I’m not wasting a minute more of Kerry’s time on your impending cluster.” Her voice took on an edge. “Our offices, tomorrow morning.”
“But—”
“No buts. Move it!” Dar barked.
Clarice sighed. “Yes, ma’am.”
Dar closed her phone and returned it to its clip, then finished her coffee, basking in the crowd’s covert attention and glad she’d left Kerry upstairs and away from the avidly watching eyes. “That’s that.”
“Probably for the best, Dar.” Alastair poured her another cup.
“Business comes first, after all, right?”
Dar’s nose wrinkled a little. “Right.”
KERRY SETTLED INTO her leather seat next to Dar, buckling her seat belt and tugging her sweater straight. She knew she’d have to strip it off the minute they landed, but it was soft and pretty, and the plane’s
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air conditioning was chilly so she was glad Dar had bought it for her on a whim.
She was still feeling pretty small, like she was running away from her responsibilities.
But you knew you’d feel like that, and you did it
anyway. So, suck it up and get over it, Kerrison.
She leaned on the console between their seats and glanced at Dar. “Was Clarice upset?”
Dar shrugged one shoulder. “I didn’t give her time to express her opinion one way or the other,” she told her partner. “I just told her to get her and her team’s asses on a plane and be in Miami tomorrow morning.”
“Mm.” Kerry pursed her lips. “You know—”
“Ah ah.” Dar tapped her on the bridge of the nose. “No second-guessing. It’s better this way, at any rate, because you won’t have to deal with them being territorial. You’ll have them at your mercy from the get-go.”
Kerry winced. “That sounds so manipulative.”
“Kerry, they’re endangering a forty-million-dollar contract,” Dar reminded her. “Don’t feel sorry for them. I don’t.”
True.
“I know. I just want to get their side of it before I start hammering on them,” Kerry told her. “I’m really surprised at Clarice. I thought she was very sharp the last project she worked.” She shook her head. “Wonder what went wrong?”
Dar shrugged. “She’s always been stubborn.”
Kerry’s ears perked. “Have you known her long? You never talked about her before.”
Something occurred to Dar. It made her sit up straight and open her eyes wide as she remembered what had precipitated Clarice’s transfer to the Midwest. Slowly she turned and regarded Kerry, nibbling the inside of her lip. “Um...there’s something you’d better know about before you meet Clarice.”
Kerry looked up from reading the emergency card in her seat pocket. “Hmm? What?” She studied Dar’s face closely. “Don’t tell me she’s a phobe.”
I wish.
Dar shook her head. “She shares our lifestyle,” she admitted.
“Pretty openly.”
“Ah.” Kerry frowned, then she glanced back at Dar. There was a distinct hint of “uh-oh” right around her lover’s pretty blue eyes, and it made her pause and think hard. She knew Dar had been involved several times before they’d met, but... “Um...you two weren’t...”
“No.”
Kerry exhaled in relief. That kind of complication wasn’t something she’d bargained for.
“But she really, really wanted to be,” Dar added, lowering her voice and looking around. “And she was pretty persistent.”
Kerry leaned closer, intrigued. “And?”
“Wasn’t my type.”
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“Ah.” The blonde woman nodded. “So...what’s the problem?”
Dar assumed a sheepish expression. “I pulled the old ‘no relationships in the department’ rule on her to get her to leave me alone.”
Kerry stared at her for a minute, then let her face drop into her hand. “Oh, Jesus,” she muttered.
Dar cleared her throat, giving the flight attendant a wan smile.
“Sorry,” she whispered into Kerry’s ear. “I’m sure you’ll be able to handle it.”
Kerry looked up at her from between her fingers, then covered her eyes again and sighed. “Paybacks,” she uttered. “They always getcha.”
KERRY LEANED AGAINST the wall in the copy room and tried to ignore just how much the machine’s whining noise was annoying her.
She wondered what would happen if she gave in and kicked the thing, but the presence of two of the more gossip-prone marketing assistants made her cross her ankles instead.
Okay, Kerry. Take a deep breath and pretend you don’t have cramps from hell, woke up late, and have an ex-admirer of Dar’s to deal with in twenty minutes.
“Okay, all yours.” Candy gave Kerry one of her sweeter smiles and took her papers with her as she and her crony sauntered out.
“Thanks,” Kerry muttered, pushing off from the wall and putting her agenda on the machine before starting it up. She could have asked Mayte to do this, of course, but her assistant was busy getting the conference room ready and pulling down network diagrams to the transparency printer. Besides, walking around usually got her cranky body to loosen up a little, something she fervently hoped happened before she had to start her meeting.
Sometimes
, she reflected,
being female and fertile sucks large piggy
wonks
. The machine finished its work, and she removed her still-warm copies from the sorter and stapled them, then tucked them under her arm as she made her way back to her office.
Mayte was still gone, so she left the collated papers on her assistant’s desk before she went into her office, closing the door behind her as she entered the sunlit space. Her brows lifted as she spotted a small cluster of items she was sure she hadn’t left on her desk surrounding her favorite cup, which was now gently steaming.
“Oho...what have we here?”
She circled the desk and sat down in her leather chair, tucking one leg up under her to try and ease the cramping. Resting on the desk were several things, each with a note. First, her cup, scented with a hint of spicy raspberry, then four wrapped chocolates, then a bottle. “Try this first...” She took a sip of the tea. “Then try these...” She unwrapped a chocolate and popped it into her mouth. “Then this.” She held up the
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bottle of powerful painkillers. “If all that fails, call me.”
Kerry chuckled around her mouthful and took a swallow of the tea to wash it down. “Thank you, Doctor Dar.” She didn’t really expect either tea or candy to work, and she’d already taken a handful of painkillers, but the thought of Dar in here, meticulously arranging her action plan and writing her notes, brought a smile to Kerry’s face and allowed her to forget her misery for a short while.
A very short while.
Her intercom buzzed. “Ms. Kerry? They are waiting for you in the conference,” Mayte’s soft voice floated into the air.
Kerry sighed and unwrapped another chocolate. “I’ll be right there, Mayte.”
“DAR?”
“YES?”
“COMMANDER Albert is here to see you,” María replied quietly.
“Send him in.” Dar finished signing the last of a stack of requests and closed the folder, tossing it in her out bin and putting the top back onto her fountain pen. Kerry had given her the elegant teakwood instrument, and she played with it for a minute, admiring the fine grain before she set it down and folded her hands.
María opened the door and stood back, allowing her guest to enter.
In walked a tall, muscular man in his mid thirties, every crease in his uniform razor sharp and precise. Dar had about ten or fifteen seconds as he crossed the room to decide how to play her side of the encounter and decided, as she stood and took the offered hand, to let the commander make the first move. “Commander. Thank you for coming down here.”
“That would be up, ma’am,” the man answered crisply. “I did as I was ordered to do.”
Oh boy
. Dar resumed her seat. “Please, sit down.” She waited for her guest to comply. “I understand you’re going to be the Navy’s liaison officer for this new project, and I wanted to have a word with you before we got started.”
“Ma’am, I don’t know what you’ve been told, but in my opinion, this project is a waste of both our times,” Commander Albert stated flatly. “I’d just as soon it stopped right here, to save us all the hassle.”
“Commander, that’s not your decision to make,” Dar replied mildly. “Nor is it mine, for that matter. The government, for its own reasons, has decided to contract us to do this, and if you want it stopped, you’re going to have to appeal up your chain of command to do it.”
“With all due respect, ma’am, we do not need a civilian efficiency expert coming in and telling us how to run the Navy.”
“With all due respect, Commander, that’s not what your government hired,” Dar said. “I’m a systems analyst. I couldn’t give a 50
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crap how you run the Navy. What they asked me to do is analyze your systems and controls structures and recommend technological enhancements.”