Stormy Waters: Book 10 in The Dar & Kerry Series (18 page)

It was quiet, and peaceful, and it smelled like freshly baked cookies. Kerry leaned against the counter and gazed out at the pretty sunlit ocean and indulged in a brief moment of mindless observation.

She went to the refrigerator, removed a bottle of ice tea, then headed to the sliding door and slipped outside into the warm air. It smelled like warm sand and salt outside, and she sat down in their swinging chair with a sense of satisfaction.

Chino had scuttled out after her, and she stood up on her hind legs and put her front ones on the porch rail, gazing out at the sea with an intelligent expression.

"You like that, Chi?" Kerry sucked slowly at her ice tea, swinging back and forth in the chair. "Want to go for a walk on the beach? Just you and me? We can find some sticks for you to bring back to mommy Dar, how about it?"

"Growf." The dog dropped down and came over to her, licking her knee affectionately and sitting down next to the swing chair, her tail sweeping the stone tiles rhythmically.

"You're so cute." Kerry scratched the dog's soft ears. "You know what, Chi? We're going to the cabin this weekend. How do you like that?"

The tail swept faster, as the Labrador recognized a word she knew.

"You like the cabin, right? I like the cabin too. I think I like it better than even this place." Kerry confided. "How about I teach you to ride on the back of the motorcycle, hmm? Would you like that? Your ears all flying back?" She tugged one ear.

"Growf!" Chino wiggled her entire body back and forth.

Kerry chuckled. The sun was already behind the line of the condos, so the porch was in shade. A cool breeze came up off the water, and she squirmed into a more comfortable position, and exhaled in contentment.

Okay, so where am I at the moment? She let her eyes follow a lazy white cloud as it drifted overhead. I've got my project going, the equipment's ordered, my people are in place, and the wiring is going. I'm doing good.

She nodded once or twice.

It's a good plan. I know the technology works. So the only question left is--how do I price it so that it comes in under what that low balling bitch Michelle comes up with? "I know she's going to lie, Chi."

"Rowf?"

"She's going to low ball that bid, sure as I'm sitting here just like she did everything else. But I don't want to fall into that game."

"Rr." Chino rested her chin on Kerry's knee.

"I don't know what I'm going to do about that." Kerry told her pet seriously. "I want to win this one, Chi. I really do." She ruffled the dog's fur, then she let her head rest back against the chair, simply enjoying the lazy moment.

DAR OPENED THE door to the condo, poking her head inside and listening to a surprising lack of sound. "Ker?"

When she wasn't answered, she entered and stood aside to let her father come in behind her, then shut the door and glanced around curiously. "Maybe she took Chino for a walk."

"Fuzzball likes that." Andrew allowed.

With a faint shake of her head, Dar ducked into her study and dropped off her laptop case, then went toward the kitchen. She paused as she spotted a Labrador tail outside on the porch, and changed direction. "Ah. Maybe not."

She slid the door open and looked out, then emerged onto the porch with a grin as Chino scrambled up to greet her. Kerry was sleeping soundly on the swinging chair and only slowly stirred as she heard the noise their pet was making. "Uh?"

"Hey." Dar managed to get past the canine roadblock and sat down on the chair next to her partner.

"Oh...bwah." Kerry blinked herself awake, her hands reaching out instinctively to wrap themselves around Dar. "I fell asleep."

"Really?"

"Uh huh." Kerry stifled a yawn, and then rested her head against Dar's shoulder. "I didn't mean to do that. I was just going to relax for a minute, then take Chi for a walk on the beach." She gave her partner a little hug. "But I guess waking up to find you here is a pretty good substitute."

"You guess?" Dar reached over and tilted Kerry's head up a little to study her injured eye. The swelling had gone down quite a bit, returning a more normal shape to her face, and the bruise seemed a little less lurid. Two pale green pupils looked back at her, rather than the morning's one eye, and she smiled in reaction. "I missed you today."

Kerry grinned, her eyes lighting up from within. "How did your meetings go?"

"Pretty good." Dar leaned back and braced her foot against the rail, rocking them both gently. "Hacking calmed down today. I only saw three attempts, and they were all pretty lame."

"Think you scared them off yesterday?"

"Maybe." Dar said. "Dad's inside. Mom go back to the boat?"

Kerry nodded. "Guess we should go inside and be sociable, now that you woke me up and all." She nudged Dar affectionately. "I need to go put some water on my face. I could go right back to sleep."

"C'mon." Dar stood, lifting her up at the same time. "That's a cute apron. I like the pocket."

Kerry looked down at herself. "Ah." She studied the position of the single, centered pouch, featuring a saucy looking gopher. "I wonder why, Gopher Dar?"

Dar pushed the sliding door open and entered the cool of the condo where her father had taken over the loveseat with Chino in adoring attention. "Look who I found outside."

Andrew looked up. "Hi there, kumquat." He greeted Kerry. "Spiffy looking battle wound you got there." He got up and came over to meet them, peering curiously at Kerry's face. "How in this earth did a feller kick you in there with all that stuff you put on your head?"

"Just bad timing." Kerry released her partner. "The toe of his boot caught me right in the gap here." She touched the front of her face. "It happened so fast, all I knew was one minute I was turning, the next I was on the mat. Boom."

"Wall." Andy turned her face to the light a little. "Ain't a patch on what Dardar there used to get. Should be all fixed up in no time." He patted her cheek gently.

"That's what I hear." Kerry grinned, ducking past him and heading for the downstairs bedroom. "Be right back."

Andrew settled back down on the couch, and Dar took a seat across from him on the larger one. "Been a hell of a week." Dar said, with a grimace. "How's it going on your end of things?"

"Wall now." Andrew spread both long arms out across the leather surface, and extended his legs, crossing them at the ankles. "Ah do believe I have been of some use to you ladies during this here week."

"Yeah?" Dar half grinned.

Kerry poked her head out of the bedroom. "Yeah?"

"Yeap." Andy looked pleased with himself. "Soon as you come on out here, kumquat, I'll tell all about it."

Hmm. Kerry patted her face dry. Maybe it'd been a better day than even she realized.

HALF AN HOUR later, the fish were in the oven, Ceci had returned with a bucket of vegetables and dip to snack on. They were all enjoying a beer as the few lines of sunset peeking between the condos painted the beach outside a coral pink.

Dar was sprawled in one corner of the couch with Kerry next to her. One of Kerry's legs was slung over hers, and she was happy to sit there and listen to the conversation as she slowly sipped at her drink.

It was times like this when she understood the measure of change she'd experienced in the last few years. Aside from having a partner, someone to share her everyday life with, she'd also regained a family that had been lost to her.

It was almost as though she were a completely different person sometimes. Not inside, because Dar knew she herself hadn't changed any, but outside, where other people saw her. Instead of being a loner, mysterious and threatening, she had become someone who even her coworkers treated as one of the corporate family now.

As though falling in love had made her much more understandable to them.

This was odd because it had made her much less understandable to herself sometimes. Dar gazed quietly at the tan thigh covering hers, half smiling as she slid her fingers over Kerry's skin and savored its warmth.

Kerry flexed her leg in response, rubbing the inside her heel against Dar's calf, while she kept on talking, explaining what she'd been doing on the ship.

"So, we finally got everyone to agree to what we wanted to do and give us space." Kerry said. "But I tell you, it wasn't easy."

"Naw." Andrew shook his head. "Nobody likes to give up a nickel's worth of space on board one of them there things, kumquat. Every squinch is worth the earth," he said. "Though them folks should count their blessings. Worst I saw in there was five bodies bunking up together and them's with their own bathroom."

"Oo." Ceci chewed on a celery stick. "Luxury." She poked Andrew in the ribs. "More than six inches of drawer space and I bet they don't hot bunk."

Kerry paused, looking at them. Then she turned and looked Dar questioningly.

"Remind me to take you on a tour of an aircraft carrier next time we're near one." Dar told her.

"O...kay." Kerry amiably returned her attention to her in-laws. "So you're saying they've got it pretty good, compared to what sailors in the service have, right?"

Andrew shrugged one shoulder. "Get used to anything." He commented.

"Yes." Ceci interpreted. "The first time Andy took me to see where he lived on a ship; I nearly took a header overboard. Twelve stories up. Horrific."

"Wasn't that bad."

"Oh, yes it was. Nobody was more relieved than I was when you got your officer's promotion."

"Was it that bad?" Kerry whispered to her partner.

Dar pondered the question, as she watched her parents playfully arguing across from her. "To be honest," she whispered back, "it was the one single thing I knew would keep me out of ship duty."

"Really?"

Dar nodded. "A rack is a six inch foam mattress, with a space underneath to store your stuff. It's got a curtain across it so you can sleep in the daytime, and they're stacked three atop each other."

Kerry's eyes widened.

"Hot bunking is two or three guys sharing the same bunk in turn."

Kerry's eyes nearly came out of her head.

"Hey, beats a foxhole." Dar grinned slightly. "And the food's a lot better."

"Brr." Kerry shuddered. "Well, to hear those guys talk, you'd think I was trying to take away their Christmas presents. But we worked it out."

"Yeap." Andrew nodded. "Heard them hollerin' about the same thing over on the boat I'm at. Don't think they worked out the same deal you did...they were still hollerin' this morning."

"Heh." Kerry smirked a little.

"Them women running that thing don't know much about getting folks to cooperate." The big ex-SEAL continued. "All they do is run to and back making a lot of noise." He folded his arms over his chest. "Ah do not like them."

Dar sighed inwardly. She hadn't expected her father to like them, and it made her wonder how, once upon a time, she had.

Youthful dementia?

"They're not too fond of us," Kerry said. "I thought Michelle was going to chuck up a kidney when she had to call and ask me for that circuit." She leaned back against Dar. "Thanks for sending those pricing lists over by the way."

Dar wrapped her arm around Kerry's waist and rested her chin against her partner's shoulder. "We know for sure they're paying more than we are." She agreed.

Andrew shifted and took a swig of his beer before he answered. "Wall now, something funny's going on there," he said. "Either them women are just nuttier than a squirrel, or I don't know what. They put that damn order in six times, and not one body there can figure out why."

Dar cocked her head in confusion. "Huh?"

Kerry's eyes narrowed. "Six times?"

"Yeap."

"Must be some kind of mistake," Dar said. "How did you know? You got six copies of the invoice?"

Her father nodded. "We figured first it was one big truckload of that stuff you all use, but I was sorting the pages, and they just kept..." He made a rotating gesture with one hand. "Didn't make much sense."

"Oh no." Kerry said. "It makes perfect sense."

Everyone looked at her. Dar blew gently in her ear. "It does?"

Kerry turned her head and her eyes almost crossed. She blinked. "I got a call today from our infrastructure supplier. Seems that all the stuff we need suddenly went out of stock."

Dar's eyebrows hiked right up.

"Do tell?" Andy murmured. "Wall then."

"Hmph." Ceci felt she understood enough of the conversation to contribute at least a token noise of disgusted agreement. She had no idea really of what was being discussed, but the expressions on both Kerry's and Dar's faces clued her into the fact that neither was happy.

"So you think--" Dar paused.

"Do you seriously think it was coincidence?" Kerry replied.

"No." Dar shook her head. "So what's the plan?"

Kerry felt that little tingle inside whenever she had to put her business skills out on display for Dar's perusal. She was good and she knew it, but she also knew Dar was more than good and no matter how long she worked with her, she never got over that little internal squiggle. "I had Mark call them, and tell them either they coughed up our order, or we'd switch vendors company wide."

Dar's eyes widened a little, more white showing around the deep blue centers.

Andrew whistled.

"My." Ceci murmured. "For some reason I'm getting the feeling that meant more to them than me threatening the same thing to Publix."

Dar cleared her throat. "And?"

"They caved. It's on the way." Kerry replied matter-of-factly. She exhaled in satisfaction. "And now that I know who paid those little buggers off, I almost wish they hadn't."

Dar digested the information briefly, and then smiled. "Nice." She gave Kerry a squeeze. "But what did you have in mind if they said no?" Threats aside, specing brand new gear they had no experience with in that time frame wasn't a realistic solution and she knew Kerry knew that.

"Oh, I was going to throw you at them." Kerry assured her. "I was just seeing what they were made of, and it turned out to be Swiss cheese." She patted Dar's muscular leg. "So it turned out okay, but now--now that makes sense, Dar. Don't you think? That has to be why they did it."