Kyle flicked his gaze at the card, then up at her face. “Be careful, Ms.
Roberts. This is family business, and you’re not welcome in it.”
Ice blue eyes stared back at him unflinchingly. “Be careful, Mr. Lewis.
You’d be surprised at what businesses I choose to take an interest in,” Dar replied very softly. “Or what happens when I do.”
He chose not to answer that. Instead, he turned to the silent blonde woman at Dar’s side. “Well, always nice to see you, Kerry.” A forced smile shaped his lips. “It will be good to have you home on Wednesday. Perhaps we can continue our discussion then.” He pocketed Dar’s card, then turned and walked to the door, yanking it open, then exiting and slamming it behind him.
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A momentary silence fell, then Kerry sighed. “Well. That was pleasant.”
She turned and gazed at her companion. “But it could have been a lot worse, thanks.”
“Obnoxious little son of a
puta
,” Dar cursed disgustedly. “Piece of…” She exhaled. “What a horse’s ass.”
Kerry leaned against her. “Yeah.” She sighed. “He certainly is. This coming weekend’s not going to be pleasant.” Briefly, she contemplated not going and was startled at how tempting that was. “I’d rather be here, eating turkey roll on white bread and watching that watchamacallit marathon they’re doing on cable.”
“Well…” Dar kissed her forehead. “If you decide to cop out, let me know.
I’ll stick around and come share turkey roll with you, okay?”
Kerry circled Dar with her arms. “You don’t know how tempting that is, but I have to go. I’ve got to get this over with.” She sighed. “And tell them I won’t be home for Christmas.”
Dar hugged her back. “I’ll be there with you in spirit, you know that, right?”
Kerry looked up at her. “I know that,” she murmured in wonder.
“It…helps. I never could have answered him like that otherwise.”
The dark-haired woman brushed her bangs back gently. “You did a good job of it,” she informed Kerry. “He was looking to push your buttons.”
“Mmm.” Kerry let her head rest against Dar’s shoulder.
And he did, too.
It was just like there was a warm layer between her and his words, even the meanest of them. “Always has to get his digs in.”
Dar looked over her shoulder without really seeing anything, her mind on strategy. “Maybe it’s time someone did a little digging at him,” she commented. “C’mon, let’s go cause some trouble.” She lead Kerry back to the desk and sat down. “He have a favorite airline?”
“Delta, but…” Kerry peered at the screen as Dar activated a session.
“Delta, today, from here to DC…his name… Ah.” She typed in a sequence and pulled up something. “There you go, there’s his flight PNR for his return.” She looked at Kerry mischievously. “You know what you can do in here?” A shake of the blonde head. “This.” Dar typed in a four-letter sequence and the screen disappeared. “Poof. He no longer has airline reservations.” She smiled at the screen. “Welcome to the Information Age, Mr. Lewis.” Kerry covered her eyes.
DAR THREW ENERGY into finishing her work list, clearing out several items in a row and keeping half an ear on Kerry, who was puttering around in the kitchen. She knew Kyle’s visit had unsettled Kerry, and she impatiently answered some of the dozen or so urgent mails she had waiting, anxious to get them out of the way so she could go back to…
Go back to what, Dar? Playing
around?
Her lips quirked
. Yeah.
So much more interesting than telling José he had to go back to the drawing board on two accounts and typing in an official answer to the complaint lodged against her by Peter.
Jerk.
She sighed and rubbed her forehead, considering how to phrase the response. “He screwed up the account, Alastair sent me out there to bail him out, and I did. What’s 368
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the problem?” She drummed her fingers on the keyboard and then backspaced. “No, she’d kill me if I said that.”
“What’s wrong?” Kerry appeared, resting an arm on her shoulder. Her hand had a soft cotton mitt covering it, and she was carrying a mixing spoon which smelled very distracting. Dar immediately licked it and grinned at the smaller woman’s squawk of surprise. “Dar! Cut that out!”
“Mmm. Whatever that is tastes great,” the dark-haired woman replied.
“This. Peter filed a formal complaint against my conduct and I have to answer it. I’m trying to find a politically correct way to say ‘bite me’ and not have Mariana pull her hair out.”
“It’s meatball sauce. I’m trying a new recipe for spaghetti and meatballs,”
Kerry answered absently, peering at the document. “I figured that was pretty safe.”
Dar’s eyes brightened. “Haven’t had that in a while,” she stated. “I don’t usually order it in restaurants; the meatballs generally taste like pressed oatmeal.”
Kerry nodded in agreement. “Yeah. Hey, listen, why don’t you say that you were asked to evaluate the situation, and the client decided they wanted to negotiate with you directly.” She glanced at Dar. “That’s what happened, right?”
“More or less,” Dar acknowledged. “Truthfully, Gerald Easton is an old friend of my father’s. He’s known me since I was a kid.” She sighed. “He just really didn’t like Peter’s style, so he called and bitched at Alastair.”
“Hmm.” Kerry exhaled. “Okay, you can say that you had prior experience with that contract, and the client felt more comfortable dealing with you.”
A faint smile curved Dar’s lips. “You’re pretty good at this stuff.”
Green eyes twinkled. “Debating, remember? You have to sometimes say the same thing four different ways in order to get your point across.”
Dar laughed. “I’d love to have seen you up there. Nothing I like better than a good debate.”
Kerry blushed a little and grinned. “The contest I won was the one thing my father came to. It was pretty high profile, and he had such a good time doing the chip off the old block thing in the audience.” She looked a little sad.
“It felt good to win that.”
“You ever think of going into politics yourself?” Dar inquired.
A soft snort. “No way. If I’d wanted to spend my life deceiving people I’d have gone into marketing, thanks.” She gave Dar a wry look. “You’re not going to tell me you think public servants do it for the pleasure of serving their fellow countrymen, are you?”
“No.”
“Whew. I didn’t want to burst that bubble for ya, let me tell you, Dar,”
Kerry informed her. “It’s a disgusting business.”
Dar grunted softly. “Tell you what, why don’t you type up an answer for me, and I’ll go stir your sauce.” She slipped out of the chair and plucked the spoon from Kerry’s hand. “Fair trade?”
Kerry sat down, the chair warm from Dar’s body and glanced up. “Try not to eat it all, okay?” she teased, getting a flash of a smile in return as she
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turned her attention to the screen.
Dar padded into the kitchen, lifting the cover off a cast iron pot on the stove and releasing a moist cloud of garlic and spices into the air. “Ooo.” She stirred the sauce gently as she thought about the report that had come back about Kerry’s father. The usual, mostly. Minor kickbacks, some reported bribery, nothing concrete. But there were two anonymous bank accounts she was investigating further, and a very strange series of transactions from what looked like a private credit line in his name only. No sense, she’d decided, in letting Kerry see the report until she was finished and had something concrete.
And then what?
Dar exhaled. Despite everything, she suspected Kerry still loved her parents, and her family. Doing something to hurt her father would hurt her as well, and as much as Dar wanted to slam the man for what she considered a disgusting persecution of her friend...
Would that really serve a
purpose?
Maybe the information would come in handy to her, though, in her arguments for staying here.
And I want to give Kerry all the ammunition for that I
can, right?
Of course, there was always the possibility it wouldn’t work. That Kerry would allow herself to be persuaded to leave.
That’s what you’re afraid of,
isn’t it?
Dar’s eyes closed as she absently stirred the sauce.
You’ve only known
her for a month, Dar, the thought of living without her can’t possibly hurt you that
much.
But it did.
She felt so comfortable with Kerry. Her usual wariness around people seemed to evaporate around the blonde woman, and she found herself basking in the warmth of a true friendship for the first time in a long while.
She hadn’t suspected she missed having that in her life quite as much as she did, and now something was threatening that. She didn’t respond well to threats. They made her want to do crazy things like beg Kerry not to go home.
Or go home with her.
Oh yeah.
She laughed uneasily to herself.
That would win
a popularity contest, you just show up at her parents’ house. Let’s see…um… “Hi,
the company is instituting a new program in which supervisors must visit all of their
employees at least once over the holiday, and I’m starting with Kerry. Do you mind?”
Yeah.
She was so involved in her thoughts she didn’t even hear Kerry calling her name until a warm hand touched her back and she jumped. “Wh— Oh, sorry.” She stepped away from the stove and handed Kerry back her spoon.
“Here. I was just…um…”
“A million miles away,” Kerry supplied, gazing at her curiously. “You all right?”
“Yeah. I was just thinking, that’s all.” Dar chuckled. “You finished in there?” She was a little embarrassed to have been caught daydreaming. “I, um, I’ll go take care of that other stuff.”
Kerry gave her a worried little frown, but nodded. “Okay, yeah, take a look at what I wrote. See if you like it.” She patted Dar’s side. “Do you like garlic bread?” Dar nodded. “Silly question. I guess I’ve got some of those breadsticks in the freezer. I’ll put them up, too.”
The taller woman chuckled. “You like doing this, don’t you?”
Kerry shrugged. “I guess, I mean…I don’t think I’d bother for myself. In fact, I know I wouldn’t. I generally just come home from work and grab some 370
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carrots or something, but it’s nice to take trouble for someone who appreciates it.”
Dar regarded her seriously. “I do appreciate it,” she replied quietly.
“Very much so.”
That got her a big smile “I know. I noticed your kitchen doesn’t get used much,” she teased gently. “I have nightmares thinking of you there with your Egg McMuffins and chocolate milk.”
Dar laughed in pure reflex. “Nah, you’ve got me all wrong.” She shook her head solemnly. “It’s Croissanwichs or nothing.”
A poke. “You should take better care of yourself.” Kerry mock scowled.
“That’s going to catch up with you one day.”
“Play hard…die young,” Dar half joked.
“I’d rather you didn’t,” Kerry replied very seriously. “I’d like to have you around for a long time.” An awkward silence fell, as stunned blue eyes looked at her. “I’m sorry,” Kerry finally muttered. “That’s an incredibly presumptuous thing for me to say.” She turned back to the stove and bent over the pot, only to feel hands grip her shoulders gently.
She went still and didn’t resist as Dar turned her around, and she met the pale blue eyes now gentled as they studied her face. “You know, when you came in here, I was wondering what in the hell I was going to do if you did decide to go home,” she murmured softly. “And I was trying to figure out how someone I’ve known for less than a month could become so important to me.”
“Oh,” Kerry replied.
“So, no, it wasn’t presumptuous. It’s nice that you care,” Dar added shyly. “It feels kind of strange, but I think I like it.”
Kerry let out a relieved sigh. “That’s good.” She reached up and interlaced her fingers with Dar’s. “Because I can’t help feeling that way, and I’d hate to be driving you crazy or anything.”
Dar gave in to the insidious craving and hugged her. “Nah.” She released her and stepped back, then smiled. “Let me go finish.” She turned and left the kitchen.
Kerry sucked on the end of her spoon in thought as she turned back to her sauce, and a small, incredulous smile slowly inched its way across her face. Dar went back to the desk and dropped into the chair, propping her chin onto her hand and peering at the screen. She let her eyes scan over the words three times before any of them penetrated. Then she let her eyelids flutter shut and just took a moment to collect herself, feeling a wealth of conflicting emotion battering at her. Half of her was scared shitless. The other half, which was this strange, new, alien-from-outer-space half, wanted to drop to her knees and pledge lifelong devotion to this poor woman she barely knew. “I’m a little old for this hormonal crap, aren’t I?” she muttered to herself wryly. “I haven’t felt like this since I was twelve and had my first crush.”
She rubbed her eyes, then forced herself to concentrate on the screen, this time actually reading it. “Oh, nice job,” she complimented the absent Kerry.
“Yeah, I like it.” The response was very reasonable and politely worded. “Of course she’s gonna know I didn’t write it.” Dar chuckled softly. “But that’s
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okay, the mark of a good manager is knowing where to use their resources, right?” She raised her voice. “Nice work.”
“Thanks,” came floating back, and Dar could all but hear the smile in the word as she hit the Send key and sent the reply on its way. Then she settled down and plowed through the next several issues, trying to ignore the intriguing scents wafting in from the kitchen, only stopping for a moment as thunder rolled overhead. “Hmm.”
Kerry entered, also listening. “Sounds nasty.” She leaned on the back of the chair. “You finished? Dinner’s ready.”
“So I smell,” Dar agreed as she straightened. “Yep, I told off six people, canceled three meetings, and sent two scathing replies to people who should have known better.” She sighed. “Not a bad day.”
“Did you really?” Kerry gave her a look.
Dar nodded wryly. “Yes, I did.” She stood up and stretched. “But don’t worry, everyone’s used to it. If I didn’t do that, they’d think something was wrong with me,” she advised the blonde woman. “You want everything out here on the table?”