Kerry felt oddly itchy. She’d realized on the walk down to the boat that she wanted, more than anything, to be gone from the island and away from the chaos their vacation had become.
“Um, hello?”
Kerry looked up, to find Bob’s unwelcome form standing on the dock. “Oh. Hello, there.”
Bob stuck his hands in his pockets. “I…um…” He cleared his throat. “Can we talk?”
“Do we have to?” Kerry refused to budge from her deck chair, forcing him to crane his neck to address her. “I think you said pretty much everything you needed to last night.”
He edged around closer to her. “Listen, I was just way out of my league, you know?”
“We weren’t?” Kerry rolled her head around to look at him.
“Getting involved with you almost got us and our friends killed.”
Bob shrugged uncomfortably. “I didn’t think it was that serious. I didn’t think he’d go…nuts like that.” He leaned on a pylon. “I’m sorry.”
Kerry got up and went to the side rail, facing him. “What really sucked was you wanting that paper back…before we got Bud.”
Bob looked down at the dock. “You don’t understand,” he 346
Melissa Good
muttered. “It’s like a hatchet he holds over all of them…especially Tanya. I was only thinking about her.”
“A hatchet?”
“The money.” Bob looked up. “But like I said,” he gestured at the
Dixie
, “you don’t get it. “
Kerry leaned on the railing, studying him with an enigmatic expression. “I understand that better than you’d ever imagine,” she replied. “But people are more important than money, no matter how much of it you have…or don’t have.”
Bob shook his head. “Easy for you to say,” he said. “Tanya’s coming down here. Now that we know for sure the old man wasn’t nuts, we’ll find a way to get what we want. Without anyone else’s help.” He turned and walked away quickly, almost colliding with one of the other boat owners. The man shoved him off, and cursed, shaking his head as Bob just kept on going.
Kerry sighed. “What a jerk.”
Just then, Dar appeared on the dock and circled the stern, hopped on board and stepped down onto the deck. “Yep. That he is,” she agreed, joining Kerry on the side. “Hope we don’t need him as a witness.”
“Witness?” Kerry turned to her. “You think we will?”
Dar shrugged.
Kerry exhaled. “Any damage?” she asked, glancing over the side of the boat. “Didn’t look like much.”
“Not too bad,” Dar confirmed. “Just a few scrapes.”
“Good. Do we have a plan?” Kerry held out a hand.
Dar stepped closer and took it, walking around behind Kerry’s the chair and letting her other hand rest on Kerry’s shoulder. “A plan.” Dar yawned, her jaw cracking softly. “I’m still too wiped to have a plan.” She eased into the chair next to Kerry’s and slung one long leg over its arm. “I guess we’ll go talk to the cops first.” She rested her head on one hand. “What do you want to do after that?”
Leave
. Kerry bit back the answer, knowing her sense of responsibility would berate her for it. “Well, if that all turns out okay...”
“You think it won’t?” Dar interrupted softly. “He asked us to lunch, not down to the station.” She studied her knuckles.
“Wonder how much we should tell him.” Her eyes lifted and gazed across the water. “We could be in trouble, Ker.”
“I know,” Kerry agreed. “So I’d rather not take anything for granted. Now, if that turns out okay, we could go see Bud and make sure he and Charlie are okay.”
“Mm, yeah,” Dar grunted.
“We could take Dad out for dinner before his flight.”
That got a much more interested response. “Okay, that sounds good,” Dar agreed. “Where did he run off to, anyway?”
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Kerry shook her head. “He didn’t say. Just that he’d be back.”
She glanced at the deck pensively. “I think I pissed him off earlier.
The chair creaked as Dar leaned toward her. “You?” Her voice expressed disbelief. “How?”
“I asked him about him and Bud and Charlie,” Kerry admitted.
“I don’t think he likes people knowing about all that. I guess it’s embarrassing for him.” She paused thoughtfully. “Or something.”
She turned her head and gazed at Dar. “I’m sorry I mentioned anything.”
Dar reached over and gave Kerry a scratch on the back of the neck. “Sweetheart, it’s not what you think,” she said. “Yeah, the whole damn thing embarrasses the hell out of him, that’s true.”
“Having them think he was gay, you mean?” Kerry asked. “In that world, it’s kinda understandable.”
Dar chuckled. “No. He didn’t really care about that. But let me start at the beginning.” She cleared her throat. “It was really all my fault.”
“Your fault?” Kerry asked in much the same tone Dar had used moments earlier. “How?”
“I’d just come out to him and Mom,” Dar related. “It was tough for my folks, being part of the military world, and seeing as I was such a pain in the ass child anyway…”
Kerry smiled but kept quiet.
“So, my dad went out and read a whole boatload of stuff about homosexuality at the library,” Dar went on. “He even checked out a few books, and apparently took one of them with him on a maneuver with a couple of squads off the base.”
“Uh oh.”
“Yeah.” Dar nodded. “So then he got assigned to sea duty for four months. The captain of the boat he was on was a real tight assed conservative, and one day he went off about gays in front of the guys.” She paused to reflect, then sighed. “My dad, being my dad, took him into a torpedo room and nearly removed a couple of teeth from his mouth.”
“Yikes.”
“Word got around about it, and everyone put two and two together and got six.” The dark-haired woman stretched out her legs. “After that, Charlie figured Dad was fair game.”
“Oh.” Kerry frowned. “But… I mean, Dar, he was married and had a child. Didn’t they get a clue?”
Dar looked at her, one eyebrow lifting in wry sarcasm.
“Yes, I know that’s not necessarily an indication of heterosexuality, but Jesus! Your father drips it,” Kerry protested.
“True. But that’s not really what he’s pissed off about,” Dar explained. “It wasn’t that they thought he was gay. Since I am, that wasn’t something he found offensive.”
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Kerry cocked her head. “O…kay…” Her brows contracted.
“But…”
“He was furious that they thought he was the kind of man who would cheat on his wife,” Dar said simply. “He never forgave them for that.” She pushed herself out of the chair. “Want a drink?”
“Sure.” Kerry quietly absorbed the information. “Wow. That makes sense.” She shook her head. “It was hard for me to think Dad would have been that embarrassed about someone thinking he was what we are,” she admitted. “But I can understand now.”
“Mm,” Dar agreed. “He told me about it when he came back that time. He said he couldn’t tell Mom, but he wanted to share it with me so I knew what really happened, in case I heard anything on the base.”
“Did you?” Kerry asked in a soft voice. “Hear anything?”
A half smile twitched at Dar’s lips. “Not directly,” she said.
“By that time, I…um…had quite the reputation for a temper, and most of the other kids on the base knew if they ribbed me about my father, it meant a fight.”
Kerry tipped her head back and regarded Dar with a slight grin. “Two of a kind.” She reached up and touched the insignia now threaded through the silver chain around Dar’s neck. It nestled against Dar’s joining ring and collected just the faintest hint of reflection off its dully burnished surface.
Dar stuck her hands into her pockets and looked down at the item, unable to hide the unabashedly proud grin. “Yeah.” Her eyes twinkled. “That we are.” Her attention returned to Kerry’s face.
“Don’t worry, Ker. Dad would never be mad at anyone just for asking a question. Especially you.” She stroked Kerry’s hair. “He loves you.”
The green eyes looking up at Dar filled with unshed tears.
Kerry remained silent, just watching Dar’s expression.
“We’ve got a while before lunch,” Dar said in a gentle tone.
“Let’s go inside and relax. Okay?” She held out a hand. When it was taken, she guided both of them through the cabin door and out of the sun.
Inside, Kerry tugged her to a halt. She moved close and put her arms around Dar and hugged her fiercely.
Dar returned the hug, rubbing Kerry’s back as she did so.
“Urgh,” Kerry exhaled. “Can we just go out and get lost somewhere tomorrow, Dar?” she asked. “Find another of those blue holes and just leave our minds out to dry?”
“Hmm. That’s an appealing thought.” Dar inclined her head and nipped Kerry on the jawbone. “As a matter of fact, I could see spending a couple days lost somewhere with you.” She felt Kerry’s body press against hers. “I think I know some nice, deserted islands out there where it’ll just be you, me, and if they’re very lucky, a
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349
couple of dancing lobsters.”
“Dancing into my nice big pot?” Kerry burrowed into Dar’s chest, greedily breathing in her scent. “I have a bottle of champagne in here that would love to meet them.”
“Oh yeah,” Dar assured her. “We’ll spend the whole day just being sea bums.” She squeezed her partner, feeling her shoulders shift and relax. “Hey, I’ve got an idea.”
“M’sure it’s a good one,” Kerry mumbled into the skin of her neck.
“I know we were going to go up to the condo for New Year’s.
How about we spend it down at the cabin?”
“Mmm.”
“Kind of get a couple of days of vacation back?”
“Kerry made a low, pleased humming noise. “Even if we don’t have furniture, I think I’d really, really like that.”
Dar rested her cheek against Kerry’s hair, pleased with the reaction to her plan. While she knew the interruptions had really been neither of their faults, she still felt bad about the net effect of it robbing them of their needed time off.
It was funny, but despite the fantastic nature of the events of the preceding day, she already found them fading into memory.
She’d always had a philosophy of setting things aside once they were over and done with, but she found it strange that she could look back on what she’d done the night before and not have it seem terrifying to her. It had been a bad situation; she had dealt with it as best as she’d been able to; and in the end, things had turned out all right. What more, really, could she have asked?
It was over. Most often when traumatic things happened, she examined them for lessons to hopefully avoid the problem the next time around, but usually that was in a business context. Dar sincerely hoped she would not have to put her experience in escaping wacko salvagers or pirates to use any time soon in the ILS
boardroom. Her blue eyes twinkled suddenly.
Well…
“What are you doing?” Kerry asked.
“Just thinking,” Dar replied. “Why?”
“I can feel you smiling.”
Dar chuckled. “I was just imagining Alastair dressed as Captain Blood.”
Kerry’s body convulsed in abrupt laughter. “I can barely imagine Alastair dressed as Captain Kangaroo.”
“Heh.”
The blonde woman sighed and circled Dar’s neck with her arms, swaying against her as the boat rocked. “Well, there’s one thing to be said for all the stuff that’s happened.”
“Hm?”
“Made me totally forget my family,” Kerry murmured.
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Melissa Good
Dar lifted her head and looked down at Kerry’s profile. “Is that a good thing?”
Kerry nodded. “Maybe it helped some to see other people with crummier relatives than me,” she stated. “I was thinking about that this morning after I talked to Dad down in the hotel lobby. My parents were pedantic and clueless, Dar, but you know something?”
“Mm?”
“I think you were right. I think at some level, somewhere they both did love all of us.” Kerry blinked. “Even my father. Even me.
Because as bad as he was, somewhere in all that twistedness he thought he was doing the right thing.”
Dar blinked, surprised at the speech.
“I think I’ve seen enough true hatred the past few days to tell the difference.”
“Ah.”
“He hated what I was doing. He hated us. He hated my being gay, he hated me squealing on him,” Kerry went on. “But I don’t think he ever hated me.”
Dar nodded silently.
“I can live with that,” the blonde woman said. “Because it gives us something in common, because I never hated him either. Even after everything he did.”
And then,
Dar considered,
I’ve always lived by the theory that
things happen for a reason.
She cupped Kerry’s face in her hands and smiled at her. Their eyes met, and she could see a note of tired peace in Kerry’s expression for the first time since they’d gotten back from Michigan. She leaned forward and rubbed noses with her. Kerry pulled Dar towards her and traded a nose rub for a kiss.
Then they hugged each other again. “Okay.” Kerry released a long, heartfelt sigh. “Let’s get back to the serious business of having fun.”
Dar kissed the back of Kerry’s neck, moving the pale hair aside as she was rewarded with a sudden intake of breath at the action.
“I’ve had about enough…” she growled into Kerry’s ear, “of real life intruding on my hedonistic vacation. How about you?”
“You bet.” Kerry felt a nudge. “Hey!”
Dar nudged her again.
“I think I’m being bumped.”
“You are.” She followed the admission with another gentle shove.
“Looks like it’s toward the bedroom.”
“Good sense of direction,” Dar said.
“Heh.”
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351
KERRY LAY ON her back, her body half tangled in sheets and Dar’s head pillowed on her stomach. With one hand, she idly stroked the dark hair fanned across her belly, twirling a few strands of it around her fingers. After a moment, she lifted her arm and examined her palm, flexing it a little and turning it into the light.
The bruises were already fading. It felt a little stiff, both her hands did, but more like she’d had a tough workout on the bag at the gym than anything else.