“Mm.”
“Winter was always full of social stuff,” Kerry went on.
“Dress ups, and press events, dinners…For a while I tried to get interested in current events so I’d have something intelligent to say when they pointed the camera at me, but after a few instances of that, I got told to just shut up and look good.”
Dar looked at her.
Kerry shrugged. “What can I tell you, Dar? They didn’t want to hear what I had to say, or maybe they were afraid I’d develop an embarrassing view on something.” She chuckled softly. “If they’d only known.”
“Did you?” Dar asked. “Develop a view different from your father’s?”
Kerry considered the question. “I liked some of his positions on things. I thought his view on keeping families together was good, though now after knowing what was going on with that other woman, the hypocrisy kind of stinks. He knew a lot more about international politics than I did, and I didn’t have the matu-rity to understand the machinations he was going through here locally to control funding and maintain a conservative majority.”
Dar grunted thoughtfully.
“I didn’t really start disagreeing with him until I was in college,” Kerry went on. “When I got exposed to the wider world and the many kinds of people in it.”
“Ever talk to him about that?”
“No.” Kerry shook her head and leaned forward a little as they started up a steeper part of the hill. “I tried once, but he told me if that’s what college was doing to me, he’d put a stop to it.”
Dar simply stopped walking. Kerry moved on a few steps, then turned and regarded her. “I want to know something. How in the hell did you become the woman that told me to go to hell in Miami?”
Ah. Good question.
Kerry walked back to Dar, took her hand, and led her upward toward the crest of the hill. “It wasn’t something that happened overnight. It was something that was building a little at a time, until I got home after I graduated college with my degree, and was told I was being put to work as a spokes-woman/receptionist in one of my father’s crony’s companies.”
They got to the top of the hill and Kerry paused, regarding the view. “I knew I had a choice. Either put my money where my mouth was and get the hell out of here, or stay here and accept the inevitable.” She walked to a tall, almost bare tree and patted its
Thicker Than Water
171
bark. “So I came up here that night and spent hours looking up at the stars, and finally made my decision.”
Dar joined her. “Not a popular one.”
“No.” Kerry exhaled. “After I’d accepted Associated’s job offer that next morning, I called Brian and told him, then I just packed, told my parents I was taking the job and left.” She leaned on the tree. “But they didn’t make it easy. He kept after me con-stantly. They hoped they’d wear me down and I’d just give up and come home.”
Dar gazed at her. “And I almost made that happen.”
Kerry turned and looked at her. “Almost. But you also were what made me choose my life over their plans for it, and that more than makes up for what might have been, Dar.” She decided to lighten up the conversation. “So, here we have my very first decision tree.”
Dar studied Kerry’s face for a few moments, then relaxed into a smile. “Nice view up here.” She indicated the opposite slope.
The hill was fairly steep, and featured a long stretch of even whiteness, ending in a clear area at the bottom with only a few trees that might provide a dangerous impediment. “That where you used to slide down?”
“Yep.” Kerry sighed. “Wish we had a sled; I’d love to take you for a ride.”
“Well,” Dar removed her small penknife from her pocket,
“first things first.”
Kerry walked to Dar and eyed the knife. “Honey, I love you, but you can’t cut down the tree with that to make a sleigh for me.
I just won’t let you,” she warned with a serious look. “I’d rather get the car and drive to Wal-Mart.”
Dar laughed.
“No, really, sweetie.” Kerry took the knife from her fingers.
“Give me that.” Dar swiped the tool back. “I wasn’t going to cut the damn tree down.” She circled the trunk and found a good spot. “Just do a little carving.” She set to work with Kerry peering over her shoulder.
“Oh.” Kerry smiled. “Okay.” She turned away and explored the hilltop, kicking bits of half buried wood around with the toe of her hiking boot. The wind was stiffer up there and it blew her hair back, stinging her eyes with its chill as she gazed down the slope.
“That night seems so long ago,” she said to the air. “I was so scared. I didn’t know what I was getting myself into, or where I might end up.” The branches overhead chuckled together. “But I looked up at those stars, and they told me to follow my heart.”
She turned and watched Dar. Dar’s brow was creased in concentration as she carved careful letters. “And that’s what I ended up 172
Melissa Good
doing, isn’t it?”
“You say something to me?” Dar poked her head around the tree trunk. “Almost done.”
Kerry strolled to Dar and kissed her on the nose. “Take your time, Geppetto.” She admired the neat heart shaped cut and the curved letters taking form under Dar’s skilled hands. “I bet you could carve wood, if you wanted to.”
“Isn’t that what I’m doing?” Dar finished a K and started on the S. “Or do you mean like sitting on the porch in a rocking chair whittling kind of thing.” She flicked a piece of bark out of her way. “I think I’ll wait for retirement for that, when I’m too old and creaky to do anything else.”
Kerry rested her chin on Dar’s shoulder and exhaled. “We can be old and creaky together. Can you imagine what great memories we’ll have by then?” She had a touch of wonder in her voice.
“What an amazing thought.”
Dar finished her work and turned her head. “You like?”
A simple heart, with four initials and a plus sign. Kerry sighed in deep satisfaction. “I love.” She kissed Dar on the lips.
“Thank you.”
Holding hands, they walked back down the hill. Kerry knew they were watched from behind kitchen curtains, knew the whispers, knew the scandalized looks they were garnering, and the only thing that knowledge evoked in her was an intense desire to laugh.
There were cars in the driveway when they got back to the house. One, Kerry realized, was Andy and Ceci’s rental car, and she nudged Dar and pointed to it. “Hey!” The other was Richard and Angie’s, and she guessed her brother-in-law had come over.
The third she didn’t recognize.
“Huh. Thought they were going to wait at the hotel for us,”
Dar commented as they strolled up the walk. “Hope everything’s okay.”
The front door opened as they approached, and the major domo gave them a brief smile as they entered the house.
It was quiet, but they could hear voices from the solarium, and one of those voices was easily identifiable from its low, drawling tones. Kerry led the way into the garden and waved at the group seated near the end of the glassed-in area. “Hey, folks.”
“Goodness!” a clear voice erupted, and a small, silver haired form popped up from the bench like an albino meerkat. “Kerrison!
There you are.”
Kerry stopped and blinked, then smiled. “Aunt Penny!”
Her aunt hurried around the bench, rushed over to her, and gave her an enthusiastic hug. “Hello, my dear. You look wonder-Thicker Than Water 173
ful,” Aunt Penny said with enthusiasm. “Hello to you, too, Dar.
It’s good to see you again.”
“Same here,” Dar responded cordially, having developed a liking for Kerry’s perky elderly relative.
Aunt Penny clasped both of their arms and led them to the benches, where Dar’s parents and Cynthia Stuart were seated.
“And I’ve just met your lovely parents, Dar. Wonderful!”
Dar felt her face reacting, saw her father’s do likewise, and heard her mother snicker; she realized they both probably wore the same expression. She walked over, took a seat next to her father and exhaled, extended her leather covered legs out a little and regarded her boots as she listened to Kerry and Aunt Penny exchange pleasantries with Cynthia.
“Oh, listen.” Kerry broke the flow of conversation. “I have to get something from our room—I’ll be right back.” She exchanged a glance just slightly too long with Dar as she passed, and touched her partner’s shoulder as Dar patted her calf in understanding.
“Right. Ah…” Cynthia frowned. “Well, Penny, tell us what you’ve been up to? It’s been so long.”
“Well, dear, since I was banned from your house while your husband was alive, that’s not so very surprising, now is it?”
Penny rebuked mildly. “But I’ve been doing some interesting things, so I’m glad you asked.”
Cynthia had the grace to look embarrassed. “I’m so sorry, Penny.” She sighed, glancing furtively at Ceci and Andrew.
Ceci rallied to the occasion. “Don’t worry. Andrew and I are banned from so many households for so many reasons, we don’t even bother with Christmas cards anymore.”
Andy chuckled. “Ain’t that the truth.”
Penny patted his knee, giving Cynthia a reassuring look at the same time. “As I was saying, dear…”
DAR SAT BACK to listen, half an ear listening for Kerry moving around the house behind her, and most of her thoughts fastened on what her partner was up to.
“You ready to go home?” Andrew asked in a low voice.
Dar glanced at him. “Does it show?”
Her father patted her knee, then poked it. “Whacha got here, Dardar? Alligator pants?”
“Leather.” Dar chuckled, smoothing the hide. “Stuck in the back of my closet.”
Andrew studied the garment. “Ah do believe I remember when you got them there pants.” He glanced around and lowered his voice again. “D’jya hear what happened last night?”
174
Melissa Good
“No.” Dar leaned on the arm of her chair. “What?”
“That there lady fired all them hangers-on,” Andrew said.
“Just went in and told them to git.”
Dar’s eyes brightened. “Yeah?” She was pleasantly surprised.
“All of them?”
Andrew nodded solemnly. “Yep. Even that feller we all did not like.”
Kyle? It had to be.
Dar muffled a grin, giving Cynthia mental points she hadn’t expected to tender. “Good for her,” she whispered. “About damn time. Wait ’til Kerry hears.”
Andrew sat back with a satisfied grunt, folding his arms across his chest. He was dressed in his usual jeans, but this time with a heavy sweatshirt against the cold weather and a pair of sturdy military boots. “I do believe she’ll be happier for it.”
“Sure,” Dar said. “She’s hated that bastard most of her life.
Just wish she’d have been there to see it.”
Her father’s lips quirked a little. “Wall, just so happens your momma was there with that little camera thing of hers. So we can have us a picture watching session later on.”
Dar looked at him in surprise. “You were there?”
“Yeap.”
“Huh.”
“Didn’t think we’d let you kids have all the fun, didja?”
Dar covered her face with one hand and shook her head.
After a moment of watching her, Andrew leaned over again.
“Hey, Dardar?”
“Hm?”
“Things work out all right with Gerry?”
Dar stared past the people in the room to the far wall. “Not really. But that was my choice and my fault, so if I pay for it, it’s only fair.” She kept her eyes forward, even when she felt the warmth of her father’s hand on her shoulder. “You taught me that.”
The pressure increased as Andy squeezed her arm. “Yeap, I did. But if it’s all the same t’you, I think you made the right choice, doing what you done.”
Dar managed a smile. “Thanks.”
IT WAS A plain wooden door, set in a half forgotten hallway behind the library and the study, the senator’s official “working”
area. Kerry approached it and rested her hand on the rough, slightly irregular surface for a moment before she turned the knob and pushed the door inward.
Unlike the big study, this room was small, almost intimate. It
Thicker Than Water
175
smelled mostly of books and dust, age and use. Along one wall, under the window, was a desk with an old style wooden desk chair. The other three walls were covered in bookshelves, and they, unlike the outer study, were filled with well-read and tat-tered books.
Kerry just stood in the middle of the room and looked around. It was, perhaps, the third or fourth time she’d ever been in there, and even though the memories she had were hazy, the room didn’t seem to have changed.
This was her father’s private office. Here, he worked on the family financial business, or read books that interested him rather than advertised his achievements. Here, on the walls, hung old certificates from his younger years and pictures from his college days.
Kerry knew she only had a few minutes to search, but she had to pause and study the pictures—stern men standing together, her father in the front row near the middle, almost unrecognizable.
Almost.
Except that the face in the picture held lines she recognized from the mirror she looked into every day. The truth was there in front of her, a truth she knew she couldn’t set aside. She had been a part of this man, no matter what he’d done to her. Kerry touched the edge of the picture frame, staring intently at it. Then she shook her head, went to shelves, and scanned the books on them.
Military histories. He’d loved them, she recalled, and now, thinking that, she remembered his reaction to Dar’s father and a little puzzle seemed to click into place. He’d always admired sol-diers, heroes. His most prized appointment had been to the Military Appropriations Committee. Surely, he’d taken the time to research Dar’s family. Kerry wondered what he’d decided about them. Had he changed his mind? Would he have ever changed his mind about her? About Dar?
With a sigh, she walked to the desk and gingerly sat in the chair, expecting but not getting a protesting squeak from the antique springs. She was reaching for the first drawer when a flash of color to her right caught her eye, and she half turned to look at the desk top.
Pictures were balanced along the back edge of the desk. To her utter surprise, she found herself looking back from one of the frames. Nestled between pictures of Angie and Mike, to one side of a smaller framed shot of her parents together, was not only a shot of her, but a recent one.