If they weren’t already past that point, that is. Kerry sighed, eyeing her companion. Dar leaned over the counter waiting for the microwave, and as Kerry watched, reached a hand up to push her damp hair back behind one ear.
Kerry squinted a little. Her hands were shaking, she realized, and that made her sling her towel around her shoulders and walk over. “Hey.”
“Hey, almost done.” Dar smiled briefly.
Kerry reached out and touched her arm, feeling the skin chilled under her fingers. “You’re cold.”
The taller woman nodded as she tucked her hands under her arms and folded them across her chest. “A little, it’s chilly in here,” she acknowledged, keeping her eyes on the microwave.
Kerry rubbed her skin gently, sensing the upset in the tall body next to her. Dar’s jaw muscles were tensed, and her gaze remained elsewhere, refusing to raise and meet her own. “It is, I guess. G’wan over to the couch.
I’ll wait for this,” Dar’s voice was soft, but the words were clearly enunciated.
Kerry hesitated, then took a breath. “Why don’t you go in and sit down.
I’ll bring these in. Do you want a long-sleeved shirt or something?”
The blue eyes dim and shadowed, Dar looked at her. “No, it’s all right. I’ll be fine.”
She decided on directness. “Dar, what’s wrong? You got so quiet.” The microwave beeped, and she forestalled the taller woman opening the door and removing the cups, an idea occurring to her suddenly. “Is your side hurting?”
Dar shrugged. “A little,” she confessed, taking her cup. “Let’s go inside.”
Kerry took her own cup and they walked into the living room, taking seats on the couch together in the quiet living room. Dar cradled her hands around her cup and studied the surface of the chocolate. “So, what is it we need to talk about?” she asked. “You sounded pretty serious.”
Kerry heard a note in Dar’s tone she hadn’t expected, and it made her slow, and think, and choose her words carefully. They were two different people who communicated in two very different ways, she’d realized. She could almost feel the tightrope she was walking over as she prepared to pull back another layer of herself and risk causing the both of them a lot of pain.
She knew it had gone too far already, seeing Dar’s whitened knuckles around her cup and feeling the tight ache in her own throat as she realized she had no choice; there was only one way to go with this and still stay honest to her heart.
No way back.
“You know…” Dar’s eyes went to her face, and she almost flinched at the wary look. “It occurred to me that earlier tonight, when those guys came at us, that, um…you got between them and me.”
Dar shifted a little and cleared her throat. “I guess I did,” she admitted.
“I…um, I didn’t think about it, I just…wanted to make sure you didn’t get hurt, that’s all.” She sounded a touch perplexed, not really understanding the direction Kerry had taken. “That was all right, wasn’t it?”
“That’s a nice feeling,” Kerry said, softly. “When you do it, anyway,” she reflected soberly. “I…when I was a kid, Dar, I had a lot of people who said they were just looking out for me. You know?” She paused. “Making sure I
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had the right friends, the right clothes… My father had aides, bodyguards, really, who would go around and report back to him about things they thought weren’t good for us.”
Pale blue eyes watched her intently. “Mmm,” Dar murmured, still unsure of where it was all going. “Parents do stuff like that, I guess.”
“Did yours?” Kerry gazed quietly into her eyes. “Did they tell you what to think, and what to wear, and what to believe in, Dar?”
Dar’s brow creased a little, and her eyes shifted off Kerry’s face for a moment, before returning there. “No,” she admitted. “I think they were just glad I could think, and I was wearing something, and I avoided getting arrested.”
Kerry had to smile. “You have no idea how lucky you are.” She felt the smile fade as she set the cup down and rested her elbows on her knees. “It wasn’t like that for me.”
“Uhm-mmm,” Dar made a thoughtful sound.
“When I was in school, before I went to private school, that is, I had…there were a few kids I really liked, but they weren’t…well, they were pretty poor, or one was…not our religion, or…and the funny thing was, when I found one I really liked, but my folks didn’t, after a little while they’d just go away.” Kerry kept her eyes on her hands. “I’d just go to school one day, and they’d be gone, moved away, sent to another school, whatever.”
“Happens sometimes.” Dar stated softly.
“I thought that too, until I heard one of their mothers saying they’d been forced to move,” Kerry replied quietly. “But it was like that with everything…toys…I had a stuffed rag doll I used to sleep with. They thought that was a bad thing. So I got home from school one day, and it was gone.”
“Kerry…” Dar’s voice had gentled and deepened.
“I, um…I even had a puppy,” Kerry went on, remotely. “A little golden cocker spaniel. Her name was Susie.” She took a sip of her chocolate and managed to swallow it. “I loved her. She was so cute. I played with her all the time. We would run around outside, sometimes with my sister, sometimes just us. She knew how to bring a ball back, and I would sit and comb her hair, you know they have that long, silky hair?”
Dar’s eyes lowered. “Yes, I know.”
“I was playing with her one day, and Kyle…” Kerry’s voice twisted.
“Came to get me, and told me my father wanted me and my sister to pose for some pictures, some magazine people were there. I told him I didn’t want to, that I wanted to stay and play with Susie.” She nodded a little. “And the next day, I came home from school and went to find Susie…but she was gone.” Her eyes filled with tears, even now. Even all these years later. There was complete silence from Dar, and she didn’t dare look at her.
“I searched and searched. Until finally, three days later they told me she’d been taken to the shelter. They wouldn’t take me down there, so I ran…I ran…but I got there too late.” She felt the misery all over again, of going down the long, ill lit hall, with the smell of alcohol and hopelessness around her, and all those sad faces behind the grills. “They told me she’d been sick, and that they’d put her down that morning.” She paused, and waited, for the lump to go down. “I think the worst part for me was knowing she’d gone alone—no 316
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one to pet her.”
How many long hours had she sat there, outside that damned shelter?
Crying until she hadn’t had any tears left, until one of the housekeepers had come to get her. It was the one bit of compassion she’d found that it hadn’t been Kyle or one of the other aides but instead this gentle gray-haired woman she’d known all her life who had given her a hug and told her there’d be other puppies, some day.
Some day.
“I got punished when I got home for running off.” Kerry exhaled at the memory. “Poor Susie.”
She heard a soft, incoherent sound from Dar, but kept her eyes on her cup. This was the important part. She wanted Dar to understand. “So I learned, Dar…I learned not to want anything. Not to care for anything, because as soon as I did that, it would be gone, and the harder I tried to fight for something, the faster it would be taken away from me.” She took a shaky breath. “It just got to where it hurt too much, always losing.” She paused and seemed to gather her thoughts. “I’ve been thinking about that a lot…and about us…and…Dar?” She glanced up at a strangled choke.
She met eyes so dark with rage, they almost seemed purple in the amber light. Dar’s entire face was still, and her body tense and motionless, save her right hand, which was slowly clenching and unclenching.
Good god.
Kerry put her hand on the taller woman’s knee. “Dar?” It was like touching a vibrating engine, the tension fairly sang out of her body. “Are you…” Kerry let her words trail off, amazed at the pure anger being generated.
“How…” Dar managed to get out in a half growl, half groan, “…could they do that to you?”
Kerry wiped the moisture from her eyes and shrugged. “They thought they were doing the right thing, I guess. In their eyes, they were bringing me up properly,” she said.
“In my eyes, that was criminal child abuse, and they should be shot,” Dar answered. “And then beaten, and then stabbed, and then dragged behind a tractor down US 1.”
Kerry was surprised at how strange it felt to hear that. “Dar, they’re my parents,” she objected softly. “I’m sure they thought they were doing what was right.”
“I wouldn’t care if they were Mahatma Gandhi and Mother Theresa,” Dar replied. “Jesus, Kerry.” She reached out and caressed the blonde woman’s face. “How could they think taking away things you loved was right?”
The touch did something to her. Maybe it was the compassion, or the honest outrage in Dar’s eyes. Kerry tried to resist it, but she found herself moving forward and being pulled into a warm hug that threatened to become her whole world. And she so much wanted to let it.
She wanted to let her fears go, and fall into the strength she found herself cradled in, and never leave it. It hurt to tear herself away, and move back, and peer up at blue eyes that ached with misery for her.
For me.
“Dar,” Kerry said softly. “I don’t…I thought I could keep this nice and simple, but I can’t. And the more I want to care for you, the more I think about what my father would do if he found out about us. Dar, I can’t watch you get hurt on my behalf. I can’t.” She put a hand out and touched the dark-haired woman’s arm. “You mean too much to me.”
So.
Kerry exhaled and felt the
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moment of silence between them. She looked right into Dar’s eyes and saw a slight narrowing there, a tilt of the head that projected a totally unexpected response to what she’d said.
“Kerry.” Dar stroked her hair, unintimidated. “It’s all right. He can’t hurt me.”
Kerry took a shuddering breath, and pulled back again. “He can. He will.
Dar, I’m telling you. He has people who do nothing but hunt around all day, looking for dirt and finding ways to screw over people.” She felt exhausted.
“It’s like a game to him.”
“He can’t hurt me,” Dar said again.
“Dar.” Kerry let her head drop. “You don’t know who you’re dealing with in him.”
Dar’s hand touched her chin and lifted it, forcing Kerry to meet the taller woman’s eyes. “He doesn’t know who he’s dealing with in me,” she returned the statement in a quiet, serious tone.
Silently, Kerry leaned her head against Dar’s shoulder, releasing a sigh.
“Kerry, there’s only one thing he can do that would hurt me,” Dar said after a moment, her tone changing again. “And that would be to drive you away…to take away from me a friend I’ve come to value very much.”
Checkmate.
Kerry wasn’t sure if she should be relieved or simply scream in frustration. There was no way back from this for either of them in one piece.
“Jesus,” she finally whispered. “I don’t want that either.”
“Unless what you’re really saying is that you just…” Dar’s jaw worked a moment. “That you just aren’t interested, in being…um…in staying in a relationship, in which case, I understand.” She couldn’t hold Kerry’s eyes any longer and let her own drop to study the tile floor. “And even then, I…still don’t want to lose you as a friend.”
Kerry stared at the dark bent head in shocked silence for a long moment, then she let a small sound of dismay escape her throat. Her hands curled around Dar’s and she squeezed hard. “Oh god no, that is so not the case. Dar, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean for you to…no…no, no…no…no, no…”
Blue eyes peeked up at her quietly. “I’ve got a lousy track record in that regard,” Dar said. “So I wondered.”
“Don’t wonder.” Kerry gave in and accepted the inevitable. “You’re stuck with me.”
Dar felt lightheaded with relief as she folded the blonde woman into her arms again, and they both exhaled simultaneously. “I’m so sorry that happened to you.”
Kerry sighed. It felt so good to tell someone; even Colleen only knew bits and pieces. “Kyle is the worst part. He’s Father’s bodyguard.” Her mind pictured his tall, silver-haired sleekness, and her stomach turned. “He does most of the dirty work. Sometimes I’m not even sure my father knows half of what he does.” She let her head rest against Dar’s collarbone, and paused a moment. “When I was in college, I was going out with a guy I’d known for a few years. I really liked him, and he was a nice guy—good family, very religious. You’d think I’d finally found something my father would approve of.”
Dar waited, glancing down to see the lost, aching expression in Kerry’s eyes. “What happened?”
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“He…Kyle said they didn’t really think this guy was right for me, but he said he knew how stubborn I was, so he had to make sure I did…the right thing.” Kerry’s voice went flat and remote. “So he took me into the back laundry room and, um…” She went silent, then shook her head. “And he told me he’d tell John all about it if I ever saw him again.”
Dar exhaled very slowly, feeling the rage start to build again.
“I was stupid. I went to my father and told him what happened, and you know what he did, Dar?” The blond woman smiled bitterly. “He talked to Kyle and decided I was lying. He brought him in, and made me apologize to him. And all the while, Kyle just smiled at me.” She laughed humorlessly.
“And then, of course, my mother got to me, chewing me out for ‘upsetting my father’ with my ‘shameful tales.’ ” Kerry paused. “I think…that night was the most alone I’d ever felt.” She spent a moment in quiet memory. “Saying goodbye to John was hard; he didn’t understand.” Kerry looked up at the pale, quiet face above her. “I can imagine what you’re thinking.”
“No,” Dar managed to get out. “And you most certainly can not imagine what I am thinking, which is a damn good thing, too.”
Where
had
that image of drawing and quartering come from?
Kerry just looked at her, prickles running down her neck at the fierce tone in Dar’s voice.
“I guess it sounds so incredible. I just learned to live with it,” she concluded softly. “I didn’t even realize life could be different until I came down here.