Tropical Storm - DK1 (47 page)

Mary laughed. “Oh, Kerry, you have no clue. Dar’s been in the company for fifteen years, and she never does this stuff. She told someone last year she’d have to be drugged senseless to spend time with people she works with on the weekend,” she said. “So we figured, I’ve got money on it, that you talked her into it. Tell the truth, did you?”

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Melissa Good
Kerry looked past the woman’s shoulders and right into Dar’s watching eyes. She saw the smile form and felt her lips moving in response and her perceptions shifted subtly as she acknowledged the connection, whatever it was, between them. “Honestly, I didn’t talk her into this,” she repeated. “Why don’t you ask her why she’s here?”

Mary lifted both hands. “No thanks!” She backed away. “Oh well, thought I’d pick up a few easy bucks. Take care, Kerry. See you later.”

Kerry continued walking, keeping her eyes on the ground in front of her as she kicked thoughtfully at the grass.

THE RUSTY PELICAN sat on an outthrust bit of land, on the seaward side of one of the small Keys that led out to Key Biscayne. The twilight was just settling, lighting the western side of the wooden building in shades of burnished, deep red. The restaurant was a two-level wood building, with rustic decorations including fishing nets and old oars, and came complete with creaking floorboards which held a deep scent of the sea locked in their salt-encrusted pores.

Dar mounted the steps and took a breath of the air, then smiled as she held the door for Kerry. “They look pretty busy,” she noted. “Glad we carpooled.” She let her eyes briefly scan the interior, which held scattered clusters of waiting patrons.

“Me, too.” Kerry stifled a yawn. “Glad we got a chance to use those school showers, too. Boy, I was grungy.”

“Mmm.” Dar muffled a grin. “Next community project should get them new shower curtains.”

Kerry frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Never mind.” Dar indicated the interior. “After you?”

“It’s nice out here,” Kerry said softly as she passed in front of the taller woman. “I like the park on the other island.”

“So do I,” Dar agreed. “Maybe we can stop out there afterward.”

Kerry felt a quiet thrill at the words. “Sure, I’d like that.” She grinned, then entered the building, spotting her friends immediately. “Hey, guys.”

“Hey.” Colleen and the rest were standing near the seating station, looking at a tank full of fish. “Ready? I’m hungry enough to eat one of those little beauties raw.”

The hostess led them to a round table. Colleen, Ray and Susan took seats beside one another, and that left the two seats on the far side of the table.

Kerry took one, and Dar took the other. “I think I definitely need a beer.” She glanced at the waitress. “Got something amber on tap?”

“Make it two,” Susan agreed. “Ray?”

“
Mojito, por favor
.” Ray gave the waitress a charming smile. “Lots of mint, okay?”

“Vodka and cranberry for me,” Colleen added.

The waitress scribbled, then looked up at Dar with an inquiring expression.

Dar debated asking for milk, then conceded to the occasion. “Whatever she’s having.” She indicated Kerry. The woman nodded and disappeared,
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leaving them all looking at each other in a somewhat awkward silence. Susan peered out the window. Ray played with his napkin. Colleen studied the menu. Dar sighed, then recalled that she was capable of holding her own in hostile boardrooms. “Did you all know you’re sitting in the Bermuda Triangle?” she inquired casually.

That broke the ice, big time. Kerry turned to her. “You’re joking.”

The executive shook her head solemnly. “Nope. This is the western edge.

It hits here and scrapes along Key Biscayne. You are, indeed, at this moment, inside the Bermuda Triangle.”

“
Dios mío
!” Ray yelped, looking behind him as though expecting ghostly aviators to float through the window. “I knew it. I felt…so strange…coming out here. I knew it.”

“Damn.” Susan laughed. “I know the weather out here is weird; I never realized it was part of the Triangle, though.”

“It’s a microclimate.” Dar spoke knowledgeably, regarding her interlaced fingers. “Because of the pressure ridges over the coast, it rains a lot less, and the humidity content is much different than the mainland. You can see it in the foliage here, too.”

“You lived here all your life?” Susan asked, her reserve broken as she rested her chin on her hand, peering at Dar with interest.

“On and off,” Dar replied. “I did a study of the ecology when I was at the university down here. I spent a lot of time at RSMAS.” She cleared her throat.

“It’s interesting if you go out to the tip of the Key, where the state park was.

You know Andrew wiped that entire Australian pine forest off, and they let it grow back up as natural vegetation. You can’t recognize it anymore.”

“Wow. Yeah, I know.” Susan leaned forward. “I used to go out there and picnic. After the hurricane, I went out and almost cried. Then they told me that entire forest was really parasite trees, imported, and they were going to burn out the remnants. I was pretty pissed off until someone explained what the Australian Pine was doing.”

The tension relaxed and the chatting went on, diverging to discussions on various shellfish which were on the menu. Kerry felt the knot in her stomach relax and she started to enjoy herself, trading jokes with Colleen and ordering a lobster in defiance of Susan’s protestations that sea roaches were just disgusting. Dar, she noticed, had ordered a mixed platter, and the executive was talking reefs with Susan, who had done a one-day diving workshop when she’d gone to Bermuda the preceding year.

Okay, this isn’t so bad,
she thought happily.
I should have known Dar could
handle these guys. Silly me.
She leaned forward, her knee pressing against Dar’s, and held her breath until it became obvious to her that Dar had no intention of moving away. It felt nice. She smiled, then her eyes widened as their dinner arrived and she was faced with a large, pugnacious-looking lobster, staring at her with baleful, beady black eyes. “Oh, gosh.” Everyone laughed, and she picked up the nutcrackers the waiter handed her, peering at the large animal uncertainly. “Good grief. Why did I order this again?”

“You saw it under the water?” Dar muffled a smile.

“I’m sure I saw a flounder under the water, too.” Kerry poked the lobster. “Oh, my god, it’s looking at me.”

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“Hah. Told you the sea roach would be too much for you!” Susan crowed, pointing her fork at Kerry. “You better order something else.”

“No, no, I can do this,” Kerry objected, poking at the shell with the little bitty fork they’d given her. “Somehow.” She scowled at the red object, who scowled back. “Why do they leave the shell on?”

“So you can get exercise with your meal.” Dar reached over and covered Kerry’s hand with her own. “Give me that.” The executive took the nutcracker out of her hand. “C’mere.” Dar picked up a claw and put the cracker around it, closing her hand and breaking it efficiently. “See?” She held up the claw, with the pink lobster meat peeking out of it.

“Ah.” Kerry took it from her, and examined it. “Okay, I gotcha.”

“Good.” Dar handed her the cracker and went back to her own plate.

Kerry nibbled the lobster. “Mmm.” She glanced up at the watching faces, startled to see quiet, knowing smiles there. “I usually stick to shrimp,” she explained sheepishly, giving them puzzled looks as they exchanged glances and started their own dinners.
Wonder what that was all about?
she mused, then shrugged, and went to work on her stubborn lobster.

IT WAS LATE by the time they finished dinner and left the others with a cordial set of good-byes. Kerry was happy. They’d had a good time, and so, she thought, had Dar. She glanced at her boss as they got into the Lexus, and she settled into the leather seat with a groan. “Oh god, I think I’m going to explode.”

“That’s all right, leather cleans up,” Dar blithely replied. After a slightly awkward pause, she asked, “You, um, still up for a walk on the beach?”

“Moon’s out. Looks pretty nice for it.”

Kerry peeked out the front window and spotted the round, golden orb.

“Wow,” she murmured. “Yeah, that’s pretty. I’d love to go look at it for a while.” Her eyes shifted to Dar’s waiting profile. “A walk sounds great, especially after that dessert.”

“All right, then, let’s go.” Dar put the Lexus into gear and pulled forward through the parking row, turning left out of the lot while the rest of their group went to the right. “I like that place. Food’s pretty good.”

“Once I figured out how to use the can opener, yeah.” Kerry leaned back.

“Key lime pie, what an odd combination of sweet and sour that is.”

Dar chuckled. “Some people say it’s just a reflection of what South Florida is—a lot of sour with a little sweet on top just to fool you.”

Kerry thought about that. “I don’t know. It was kind of refreshing. I think I liked it,” she decided, watching the softly blowing palm fronds go by as Dar drove over the last causeway and pulled into a familiar parking lot. “This is ironic,” she commented as they got out and let the cool sea breeze hit them.

“This is where I went that night.”

Dar leaned on the hood of the car, watching her. “The night we ended up at my office?”

Kerry leaned on the other side. “The night you saved my life,” she replied, quietly serious, “and then changed it.”

Dar wasn’t really sure what to say to that. She straightened up and
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walked around to the front of the car, sliding her hands into the pockets of her jeans. “That was quite a night, huh?” she eventually muttered as they walked together through the lot and towards the soft roar of the sea.

“Sure was.”

The boardwalk was relatively quiet and echoed their footsteps as they left the lights of the parking lot behind and approached the softly sighing shoreline. The moon tracked along with them, lighting a rippling pathway across the water, leading up onto the beach. Kerry felt the onshore wind brush back her hair, and she welcomed the full moon’s reflection across the endless length of the water before them. Far out on the horizon, a buoy winked as it bobbed back and forth, and faintly, on the wind, Kerry could hear music coming from the hotels down the shore south of them.

It‘s pretty,
she thought as they paused and perched on the railing of the boardwalk, listening to the waves. The moonlight reflected off Dar’s hair, and made her pale eyes colorless, but Kerry had no trouble conjuring up what they looked like as she glanced up into Dar’s quiet face.

She could feel the slow beat of her heart, the rhythm picking up as Dar’s gaze left the horizon and tracked to hers, and the lips curved into a smile.

Dar’s voice broke the stillness in a quiet rumble.

“Nice night.”

“Mmm. It is, yes,” Kerry reveled in the currents she could feel running between them. “Thanks for taking them up on the invite. That worked out better than I thought it would.”

Dar slid off the railing and leaned back against it, so that their heads were almost on a level. “Wasn’t bad.” She grinned. “I got them with the Bermuda Triangle thing.” She studied Kerry’s profile, outlined in the moonlight.

Kerry smiled back. “You sure did. Is that true?”

“Oh yeah,” Dar assured her, turning around and pointing. “You’re standing in it right now, in fact.”

The turn had put her shoulder right up against Kerry’s thigh, and it was too much for Kerry not to let her hand drop to rest against the smooth back, feeling the warmth through the cotton of Dar’s shirt. Dar didn’t move. She just continued to look out over the water, but Kerry could see the muscles in her jaw clench a little, then her throat worked as she swallowed. The blonde woman’s fingers stirred of their own accord, tracing a gentle pattern casually.

The dark head turned very slowly, until those blue eyes were looking right at her. Looking right through her, and she felt it in her guts as her knees started to shake a little. “Dar?”

“Mmm?”

A faint, playful smile was starting, plucking chords in her deeper than anything in her life ever had. “Can I ask you a personal question?”

Kerry knew it was her voice, but she had no idea where the words were coming from, and she felt her heart start to pound. A shifting of muscle, a sliding of shadows and light as Dar straightened up, moving closer until Kerry could feel the warmth of her, then a gentle touch on her face brought her eyes up as the taller woman tilted her chin and studied her intently. Kerry felt soft cotton under her hands as she slid them up against Dar’s body, wanting the contact as Dar ducked her head gracefully and she felt lips brush 230
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hers. Light as a feather, then again, as solid contact, lingering and powerful, lasting long enough for her soul to recognize something in her very deep.

Then Dar was pulling back, and she had to focus on those eyes again.

“Does that answer your question?” Dar asked, very softly, her breath warming Kerry’s face.

Breathing had never seemed so difficult before, but Kerry somehow managed to pull enough air into her lungs to speak an audible “Yes.” She opened her mouth to say more, but found a finger against her lips.

“Slow.” Dar breathed. “Easy, I wasn’t really expecting this, and I don’t think you were either.”

Kerry felt like she was drowning. Every inch of her skin was tingling and she leaned against Dar’s touch, almost deaf from the thunder of her own heartbeat. She felt like laughing and crying, all at once, and she knew Dar was right—this was way too powerful. They both needed time to think and react.

But her body was craving something she knew she wasn’t capable of denying it any longer. “C-ca…can I…” she stammered softly, moving closer, her hands moving slowly and timidly against the cotton of Dar’s shirt. The taller woman’s arms closed around her, and as their bodies made contact, a warm, familiar wave flowed over her.

Kerry let herself settle into place, tucking her head down against Dar’s shoulder, and burying her face into the taller woman’s shirt, as she felt Dar’s chin rest on the top of her head. It was an explosion of feeling…a deep, aching familiarity that brought tears to her eyes so quickly she couldn’t stop them.