Eye Of The Storm - DK3 (32 page)

“Did you hear that?” Kerry spoke into the phone.

“Yeap.” Andrew cleared his throat. “Should be all right. Just not too much. She can’t take it.”

“Other arm.” Dr. Steve injected the medicine, then sat back. “Now, you listen to me, okay?” He wagged a finger at her. “Soon as your stomach settles, get some water into you—at least two glasses.”

Dar nodded mutely.

“You get any more dehydrated, and we’re going to have to start using the dirty H word, okay?” Dr. Steve packed up his bag and carefully labeled the blood sample. “If I didn’t know better. I’d say you’d been drinking antifreeze, Dar. It’s those kind of symptoms. Is this the first time you’ve been sick?”

“In a long time, yeah,” Dar told him. “Antifreeze? That’s nuts.”

“Well, you’ve got something in you that ain’t supposed to be there.”

Dr. Steve stood, and glanced at Kerry. “Keep an eye on her. Make sure she drinks that water or Gatorade stuff if you’ve got it.”

“We do.” Kerry nibbled her lip. “Could it have been the drink last night? That’s the only place we were at that’s strange.”

“Timing’s about right,” Steve acknowledged. “Maybe something got in there. Weirder things have happened.” He ruffled Dar’s hair gently.

“You’re going to be okay, sugarplum. Give that stuff a chance to work, and just take it easy.”

Whatever he’d given her was hitting hard, Dar realized, as a sense of displacement put distance between her and the rest of the room. It wasn’t entirely a pleasant feeling, but along with it came a soothing lethargy that coursed through her body, relaxing muscles tense and sore from the day’s battle with her rebellious stomach.

Even better was the ebbing of the nausea and the ability to breathe normally without worrying about throwing up. She was vaguely aware of the door closing and Kerry’s quiet tones, then warmth surrounded her as she was lifted up a little, while Kerry resumed her pillow duty.

Having someone in your life
, she decided fuzzily,
really rocked.

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KERRY DRIFTED IN and out of a light sleep, the sound of the television in the background, along with the soft hiss of the surf just audible through the glass windows lulling her into a peaceful somnolence.

The golden light of sunset came in the window next to the front door, spilling across the living room where they were and painting stripes all over everything. Dar had been sleeping peacefully since Dr. Steve left, and Kerry was content to stay right where she was, with her lover half sprawled over her body.

She’d gotten one cell phone call from Mayte telling her Ankow had come sniffing around, but had been distracted by Duks, who dumped a pile of reports the size of a hippo on him with the Accounting VP’s typical deadpan manner. No other crises had happened, and the Newark mess had been sorted out by the networking office, so it looked like they’d gotten away with her disappearing.

Kerry stroked the dark hair spilling over her lap. Not that she would have made a different decision, even if all hell had been breaking loose and Ankow had been sitting on her desk. She’d have gotten up and walked out, and that was just that. She put her arms around Dar and hugged her, and wondered, just for a moment, what it would be like if she couldn’t do that anymore.

She had only known Dar for all of what…eight months? So much of her life had changed when she’d met her, too. Her job. Her future.

Her family.

She hadn’t really thought twice about it, either. She’d just followed her heart.

A stripe of sunlight chose that moment to impudently paint itself across Dar’s face, turning her tanned skin a burnished gold. Kerry wound a bit of the hair it caught into her fingers, noting the faint mahogany highlights seldom visible.

The muscles under the sunlight moved, then tensed, and Dar’s eyes opened and blinked, appearing dazed and a little confused.

“Hey.” Kerry put a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “How are you feeling?”

Dar rolled over onto her back and peered straight up at Kerry, a good sign, since a cramped fetal position had been all she’d been able to manage earlier. “Better.”

Kerry produced a warm smile and reached for the bottle of Gatorade she’d parked there earlier. “Good.” She offered Dar the bottle, much like she would have a baby, and bit her lip to keep from laughing as Dar sleepily complied, sucking at the nozzle and folding her hands over her stomach. “See? You’re not so bad when you’re sick.”

A couple of mouthfuls were all she could manage, then Dar closed her eyes and rested her cheek against Kerry’s stomach. “Must be the quality of the care,” she mumbled, feeling totally wiped out, but not too bad otherwise. “I had a dream about you.”

“Oh yeah?” Kerry put the bottle down and ran her fingers idly through Dar’s hair. “What about?”

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Dar’s body moved as she shrugged a bit. “Hard to say. You were riding a horse and reciting poetry.”

“Ooo.” She chuckled. “Sounds more like a nightmare. Tell you what.

Why don’t we get you into bed, and I’ll bring you in some broth. How does that sound?” She scratched Dar’s scalp, concentrating on the spot just behind her ears.

“You sure you weren’t someone’s mom in a past life?” her lover mumbled, a faint smile appearing. “Because you’re really good at this.”

Kerry considered the question seriously. “Maybe,” she finally replied. “God knows, I didn’t learn it at home.” Surprising, really, how those bits of bitterness surfaced sometimes. She looked down to see Dar gazing back at her and put a fingertip on her lover’s nose. “So I guess you get to be the object of all my maternal instincts.” Their eyes met and held, and Kerry felt a tiny shiver go down her back. “Well, you and Chino, anyway.”

“Right.” Dar exhaled, shaking off the weird sensation of almost memory. “I’m not sure if I can handle broth, though, and I’ll only go to bed if you join me there,” she bargained.

“Well, you get some soup down, and I’ll see what I can do.”

The blue eyes closed contentedly. “Deal.”

CECILIA PAUSED AS she put a last container in the basket on the counter and glanced outside, glad to see the bright, sunny weather. She went to the door and slid her head around it, spending a moment just looking at the tall figure slouched in a chair nearby.

Andrew was working at fixing her can opener. He’d taken it apart already and was reassembling the mechanism with deft, confident movements. Ceci sighed, leaning her head against the wall as she realized it was going to take some getting used to having the other half of her life back. She’d have just bought a new one. “Andy?”

Sharp blue eyes looked over and blinked in acknowledgement.

“There’s a nice spot up by the lake. Would you like to take a walk up there?”

“All right,” he agreed, standing up and bringing her appliance back over. He pressed the button, and the battery powered item whirred.

“There you go.”

He’d always been like that. Ceci gave him the basket as they left the apartment, cut through the back path, and headed up a small slope just behind her building. He had an innate knowledge of how things worked and a talent for fixing them.
That had come in very useful when they’d lived
on base
, she remembered, having to cope with changes in her life that had started with going from rich to definitely not rich, and progressed from there.

It hadn’t been easy, not for her and not for Andy, whose ship assignments kept him away for six months at a time. He’d gone AWOL in fact, when she was pregnant, and ended up hiding out in their quarters the 176
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last month before she gave birth, just helping her live through one of the toughest times of her life.

Maybe she’d never forgiven Dar for that, Cecilia mused, as Andrew took her hand in his as they walked along. Certainly, she’d hated being pregnant and resented the restrictions she’d suddenly found herself under. But that wasn’t Dar’s fault, any more than it was her fault that she’d inherited the genes for height, and dark hair, and blue eyes, and the fighting nature from the daddy she’d adored since the moment she was born.

Ceci sighed. No, it hadn’t been easy. Dar had been a very tough child to raise, hyperactive and wild, headstrong and by the age of twelve, already larger and stronger than the mother who was trying to rein her in. And possessing a powerful, significant intellect that made her so much more difficult to interact with than Andy was.

Not that her husband was stupid, by any means. He had a core of good, solid common sense and an orderly mind well suited to everyday problem solving. But Dar, who had always tested years ahead of her age, had developed an edgy, restless brilliance that she hadn’t had the patience or discipline to cope with.

Maybe that was what frustrated her so. Dar had so much potential.

She was so intelligent and could have gone into so many different fields, that her single minded, narrow focused goal of the Navy just drove Cecilia out of her mind. She had silently celebrated when they’d said

“No” the last time, and had cheered Dar’s stubbornness for the first time, when her daughter refused to accept anything less than following in her father’s footsteps.

Well. So she turned out to be the CIO of the largest computer services company in the world. Guess I just had to wait long enough.
Ceci felt a smile emerge. Life was so strange sometimes. She also hadn’t been immune to a bit of unexpected parental pride, surfacing between the layers of grief, and awkwardness on seeing Dar again, all grown up in ways she’d never anticipated.

Watching her family’s jaws drop, on seeing the family member they all considered a poor country bumpkin morph into this tall, sophisticated woman who handled herself with poise and reserved grace, who entered their cultured world bearing Andy’s very distinctive stamp.

Yeah.
She couldn’t take credit for any of it, but she’d still acknowledged what she saw.

“Whatcha thinking about?” Andy asked, as they climbed up the wooded slope.

“Just memories.” Ceci led him towards a grassy area, full of sun and overlooking the water. “Our child when she was little.”

“Ungh.” Andrew dropped his gaze to the ground, thoughtfully regarding a small patch of tiny purple flowers before stepping carefully around them. “She was a handful,” he admitted. “Wild little thing. ’Member that time she jumped out that tree house and damn near broke an arm?”

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Ceci shook her head. “Oh yes. I certainly do. Thank everything you were home or I’d never have gotten her in for those x-rays. She almost took out three nurses as it was.”

“Lord. That’s the truth.” Andy chuckled. “That little Kerry’s got her wrapped round her finger, though. You’d never believe it.”

“She seems nice,” Cecilia ventured.

“Good kid,” he agreed. “Got a good heart and she’s damn gone on Dar.”

“Roger Stuart’s kid, isn’t she?”

“Half assed bastard. Yeah.”

Her pale eyebrows lifted. “Didn’t know you knew him.”

Andy didn’t answer for a moment. “Threw her out the house when she done told him ’bout her and Dardar.”

“Mmm.” Ceci pursed her lips. “He’s pretty conservative. I know it was a little hard for us too.” She paused. “It was an adjustment. Must have been quite a shock.”

“Mmm.” They sat down in the grass, and Andy stretched his long legs out, leaned back against a jutting rock and looked out over the water pensively. “More than that. He tried to put her butt in the nuthouse cause of it.”

Ceci felt like she’d been hit in the chest. “What?”

Andy nodded soberly. “Yeap. Took her out of the house and locked her up.” His nostrils flared a little, and he peeked at her. “Dar flew up there and busted her out.”

She blinked in shock. “She did?”

Her husband pulled at his lower lip, trying to mask the look of intense pride. “Yeap.”

A soft sigh. “She’s definitely your daughter.”

His blue eyes took on shadows. “I know you two always wrassled,”

he acknowledged softly. “She turned out okay though.” He turned his head towards her. “Think maybe you two’d get on better now?”

Cecilia considered the statement. “Maybe,” she responded with a sigh, then opened the basket and removed a wine bottle and two glasses.

She uncorked the bottle and poured them each a portion. “So much has changed.”

Andy took his and studied it. “Yeap.”

They were quiet for a bit, just watching the flocks of birds circle the lake, some landing to feed, other wheeling over them in intricate patterns.

Finally Ceci rested her cheek against his arm. “Where do we go from here?” She felt the shift and knew that if she tilted her head back she’d see him looking at her. “Now that I can start my life going forward again, instead of just letting it drift past me.”

It was curious. She could feel the minute shifts in her husband’s body, as he collected his thoughts and prepared to answer the question.

But she also got an undeniable sense that he was holding back a surprise, in the way that he used to unpredictably show up in her bedroom win-178
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dow, one hand firmly behind his back and a tiny sparkle in his eyes.

He sorted out his questions and asked the first one first. “You like it here?”

Ceci shrugged. “It was the furthest away I could get from where I was.”

He just looked at her and didn’t answer that for a minute. “Been living out of the VA hostels down south. Bunks and a blanket when I could get ’em. Not something you’d be wanting, I don’t think.”

“As long as they’ve got an extra blanket.” She gazed peacefully at him. “That sounds great.”

“Cec—”

“Listen to me.” She reached up and caught his jaw, forcing eye contact. “You are my life.”
Inhale. Exhale.
“I don’t care if you live under a bridge. Wherever you go, I’ll go.”

His eyes smiled at her. “Honey, I know that,” Andrew answered softly. “I wasn’t gonna say you can’t. I was gonna say I was damn tired of living that way and I’d got a hankering to find me a little place…out near the water. Fer just you and me.”