“All right.” Kerry took her hand and pulled. “C’mon. Let me show you one last place.”
“Your bedroom? I’ve seen it,” Dar teased.
Kerry smiled privately. “No, the attic.”
“YOU THINK THE governor’s really going to do it?” Mike asked, as they reached the room Angie had been staying in and sat down on the bed. “Name mom to take dad’s spot?”
Angie shook her head. “It seems ridiculous. Why should our mother be a senator, just because she was married to our father?
She doesn’t know the first thing about politics. You know she always made a point of steering clear of all that.”
“Yeah, I know,” Mike said. “But you have all those scum-buckets who worked for him desperate to keep their jobs. And how else will they do it? Not like they can just dig up an election this time of year.”
“Mm.” Angie nodded. “That’s true. Hope she tells them to go stuff it.”
Mike’s lips quirked into a smile. “You’re in a feisty mood today.”
Angie sighed. “I’m just sick of it. That stuff with Kerry pissed me off.”
“Me, too.” Mike nodded. “I mean, it’s not like it’s this deep dark secret anymore, so what’s the big deal? If the lawyers hadn’t been stupid enough to make Kerry just blurt it out on national television, that’d have been one thing, but, Jesus, like, who cares anymore?”
Angie shrugged. “That’s what I was thinking, too. It’s old news, and besides, it’s not like she’s done anything really radical, like buying a motorcycle or getting a tattoo.”
Mike self-consciously cleared his throat.
Angie looked at him. “Oh, you didn’t.”
He batted long, dark lashes back at her with devastating innocence. “Don’t worry. No one’ll see it unless they get me really mad, and I show them where they can kiss my ass. Tony and Brad and I went out last week and got pretty plastered. They bet me I didn’t have the guts to go through with it, so…”
Angie sighed. “Michael.”
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“I know, I know.” Michael grinned. “I’m a jerk.”
“You’re hopeless. When are you going to grow up?”
Michael shrugged.
They were quiet for a moment. “You going to keep working for the publicity firm?” Angie asked.
Michael stared at the floor past his clasped hands. “I dunno. I haven’t really thought about it. I don’t have to now, do I?”
“No.” Angie shook her head. “But he’s not around to get your butt out of trouble anymore, either.”
“I could run away and join the circus.”
“Mike.”
“You going to tell mamma about Brian?”
Angie fell back onto the bed and gazed up at the ceiling.
“Maybe. I might have to. I slipped the other day and left Andy’s medical papers out where Richard could see them.”
Michael looked at her. “So? He doesn’t have Brian’s name branded on his ass, does he?”
“No, but my blood type is O and Richard’s is A. Andrew’s is B, just like Brian’s,” Angie said with a grimace. “I told Richard they must have made a mistake on the papers.”
“Ah,” Michael murmured. “Well, if things get real bad, you can reveal that little tidbit, I’ll pull down my pants, and Kerry’ll come out looking like the Republican in the family.”
Angie paused a moment, then burst out laughing. Mike joined in, relieving some of the stress of the situation.
“What’s so funny?” Kerry asked, as she paused in the doorway.
“Don’t ask.” Angie propped up on her elbows. “We were just comparing scandals. What are you two up to?”
Kerry and Dar entered the room. Kerry took a seat on the wooden side chair, and Dar merely lowered herself to the carpet, extended her long legs out, and crossed her ankles. “I was giving Dar the tour. She didn’t get to see much last time. What scandal did you get into now, Michael?”
“I got a tattoo,” Michael admitted.
Dar snorted and folded her arms over her chest. Kerry just rolled her eyes. “Oh, God, it figures. How drunk were you?”
“Maybe I wasn’t,” Mike retorted in an injured tone. “Maybe I just decided it was something I wanted to do for personal growth.”
Kerry studied him, her fair head cocked, then she smiled. “No way, Mikey. You’re the biggest chickenshit I know when it comes to pain. You were either drunk off your butt or unconscious.”
Mike scowled, then stuck his tongue out at her. “You’re just jealous because you don’t have one.”
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Kerry’s green eyes twinkled. “How do you know I don’t? You haven’t seen all of me in a very long time.”
Mike looked at Angie, who looked back at him, then they both looked uncertainly at their older sister.
“I have.” Dar came to their rescue. “Every square inch, and she doesn’t.” Kerry blushed a deep crimson, making her fair eyebrows stand out vividly. Everyone laughed, and even Dar chuckled at her lover’s loss of composure.
“Stop that.” Kerry covered her face with one hand and rubbed her skin. “Dar, you’re so bad.”
“Well, you don’t,” Dar said matter-of-factly.
“Wanna see mine?” Mike asked, to distract everyone.
“No,” Dar replied. “Based on what I know about you, I can make a guess where it is, and that window’s got a clear shot to the street.”
Angie burst out laughing, holding her stomach as she rolled over. Kerry joined in, pointing at Michael’s injured expression.
“She’s right, isn’t she?”
Michael stuck his tongue out again. “You guys are such girls.”
Dar pulled her collar away from her body and glanced inside her shirt, then nodded. “Guilty.”
Now the laughter turned a little giddy, mixing amusement with relief and not a small touch of bittersweet-ness. It finally petered out, and Kerry wiped her eyes with her sleeve and regarded her siblings.
“Sorry I lost it before,” she said. “I know you guys were trying to keep things under control.”
“That’s okay.” Angie rolled over onto her side and exhaled.
“After you left, we both did too. I’m just so over it. Mike’s just so over it. We’ve had enough of all the political garbage, and we just want our sister back.”
It caught Kerry by surprise, and she gave them a stunned look, her face going very still for a long moment. Finally she released a breath and rested her elbows on her knees. “I’d like that too. I never meant to hurt either of you.”
Angie got up and went to Kerry’s side. Dar remained very still, just watching. “Kerry, you never did. If you did anything, you helped us both realize there was another way to live.” She put a hand on Kerry’s arm. “You always were our ringleader.”
“Yeah.” Mike scrambled to them and stepped carefully over Dar’s legs. “We love you.”
Dar smiled from her spot on the carpet. Kerry’s siblings were surpassing her expectations of them, and she was silently delighted at the look of surprised pleasure on her lover’s face. She
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was glad, now, that Kerry had changed her mind, though Dar would have supported her either way. This was better. Kerry needed this.
Now, if she could just figure out a way to prevent the rest of the Stuart family from ruining it.
THEY TROOPED UP to the attic together. Mike opened an unobtrusive door set in a small alcove, and they walked up the heavy wooden stairs.
Dar listened to the door close behind her, and she exhaled, shifting her shoulders nervously before she followed Kerry. The stairwell was very narrow, and her shoulders only just fit in the space. The closeness made her uncomfortable, and she suspected Kerry realized that, because halfway up, a hand reached back and she took it and felt the comfort of Kerry’s fingers curling around her own.
That was good, because the ceiling came down rather close to her head, and by the time they climbed up and out into the vaulted attic space, Dar was twitching. It was far more open, though, and she relaxed a little. It was warm—the heat from the house clustered up there despite the chill outdoors, and the eclec-tic nature of the place quickly drew her interest.
There were steamer trunks pushed against three of the four walls, and stacks of neatly bagged bedding and clothing. Two old rocking chairs sat peacefully in the corner, and there were con-tainers of unknown items scattered around here and there. Dar had no idea why Kerry had wanted to go up there, especially after their footsteps stirred up a mild cloud of dust and they all sneezed, but she was willing to go along with it for a while.
“We stuck them here.” Mike dragged one of the larger trunks out into the middle of the floor and knelt in front of it. He dialed the combination lock and threw the top open. “All of Kerry’s stuff that Angie and I could find around the house before the thought police came through.”
Ah.
Dar’s ears perked up and she slipped around Kerry to investigate the trunk. “What have we here?”
“Hm. Good question.” Kerry scuttled to the trunk and knelt beside it. “Think I can just have this whole trunk shipped?”
Dar pulled out a pair of very old, yellow, obviously well worn footy pajamas that featured a threadbare cotton tail on the back. She grinned at Kerry, who was making a face at them, and pulled out her cell phone, flipped it open, and keyed in the memory. “FedEx? I’d like to schedule a pick-up.”
“Oh, my God.” Kerry covered her eyes. “Of all the things for 114
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you to save.”
Angie snickered. “You know something? It was worth it, just to see your face right now.”
“Dar, give me that.” Kerry reached for the rags, but Dar lifted them up beyond her reach. “Dar!”
“Shh.” Dar finished giving the address to the operator, then folded her phone shut. “These are…um,” she lowered the pajamas to eye level, “cute.” She examined the fluffy tail in the back.
“Wanna model them?”
“Augh.” Kerry lunged across the trunk and snatched the old things out of Dar’s hands. “I haven’t worn those since I was six, thanks.” She tucked the fabric under her arm for safekeeping, then warily explored the top layer of the trunk. “Oh, God, Angie…”
She lifted out a photo album. “I was wondering if you snagged this.”
Dar settled at Kerry’s side and peered at the book with interest. It was leather bound and age creased. Kerry opened the cover.
Angie and Mike also inched closer, and sat cross legged on the floor at her side.
“Oo.” Dar laid a long finger on the page. “I like that one.”
“Dar.” Kerry had to smother a chuckle. “That hoary, old baby-on-the-bearskin picture?” She eyed her naked infant self, sprawled over some fuzzy fabric and staring up at the camera with a look best described as astonished. “Can you believe that’s me?”
Dar examined the picture. “Sure. Parts of you haven’t change a bfwh.” Kerry covered Dar’s mouth with her hand as Angie and Michael started cackling.
“You are so dead,” Kerry said. “You just wait, Paladar. I’m going to…to…to…yow!” Kerry pulled her hand away from the nibbling teeth and exploring tongue. “Stop that!” She grabbed Dar’s tongue and pulled.
Angie almost hurt herself as she rolled onto the floor, narrowly missing the edge of the trunk. “Oh, my God,” she gasped.
“You guys are too much.”
Dar retrieved her appendage and returned it to its normal location. Then she grinned, looking into Kerry’s eyes, getting the hoped for tiny crinkle above the bridge of her nose and the faint smirk that meant her lover really wasn’t as annoyed as she sounded.
What’s gotten into her today?
Kerry wondered silently. Being so demonstrative in the company of others was definitely not normal for her usually far more reserved partner. Dar would, on occasion, put a hand on her back or ruffle her hair, but never did she indulge in the kind of extremely personal horseplay she was dis-Thicker Than Water 115
playing that morning.
So, since she was, there was a reason. Kerry knew Dar well enough to know that. Very, very seldom did Dar ever change well ingrained patterns without a solid, logical thought path behind it.
Kerry glanced at her siblings, who were much more relaxed, and joking with Dar about the rest of the pictures on the page, daring her to guess which of them each one represented.
The realization clicked for Kerry.
Acceptance.
That’s why Dar was acting the way she was, because she knew it would make Kerry feel better if her family liked Dar. So Angie and Mike were getting the cute, mischievous side of her lover that very few people ever saw.
Kerry was touched. She lightly scratched the back of Dar’s neck and smiled into the inquiring pale blue eyes that turned her way. “Thanks,” she mouthed.
Dar winked at her, then went back to studying the photographs. “Hey, there you are on a pony.”
“Oh, yes.” Kerry nodded, leaning over the book. “Tympani.”
She put a fingertip on the picture. “What a little bastard he was.”
“Remember the time he bit Mike?” Angie said. “Nastiest temper I ever did see on a horse.”
“Pony. Maybe he had a short horse complex,” Dar added with a straight face. The others snickered and Kerry poked her in outrage. “Friends of ours down south had some horses when I was younger. It was always the little ones that were hell on four hooves.”
Angie relaxed onto her side. “Did you ride, Dar?”
“Sure.” Dar nodded. “We used to take three or four of them and just go on campouts in the Glades in the winter. Catch our own food, make our own shelter, that kind of thing.”
Mike goggled at her. “Really?”
“Really.”
“Like, hunting, and all that?” Angie asked.
“Yep,” Dar said. “Of course, now that I’ve learned where the supermarket is, you won’t catch me doing that again.”
They all laughed. “Yeah.” Kerry combed her fingers through Dar’s hair. “Dar and I both agree the only camping we’ll do is from the inside of an air-conditioned RV.”
“With a satellite hookup,” Dar amended. “Which reminds me, the sat company called before we left. The system for the cabin’s in stock.”
“Cabin?” Angie asked.
Kerry told them about the cabin. “It’s a little place down in the Keys. Pretty run down, but Dar and I have been doing it all over on the odd weekend. It’s cute. And very peaceful. We can 116
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pull the boat right up to a dock nearby, and it’s getting to be pretty cozy.”