Eye Of The Storm - DK3 (76 page)

Andy got four or five steps further on when he heard a voice from behind him.

“Commander Roberts?”

“Lord.” The ex-SEAL gave the bulletin board a plaintive look. “And just what did I do today to deserve this?” But he turned and went to the doorway, putting one hand on the sill and peering inside. Roger Stuart was now standing, his tie slightly askew, looking back warily at him.

“Yeap?”

The two men studied each other, from worlds so vastly different, Andrew doubted they had a single common frame of reference. Stuart was perhaps ten years Andy’s senior, educated, sophisticated…

And stupider than the day was long about his damn kid.
“D’jou want to cuss me out some more? ’Cause if you did, I’ve got lots better things fer me to do then listen to you vent hot air.”

“No.” The other man lifted a hand. “My people looked you up.”

Andrew grunted.

“You have quite an amazing record, Commander.”

“I just did what Uncle Sam paid me t’do, Senator,” the ex-SEAL

answered quietly.

Stuart sat down and rested his hands on his knees, not meeting Andrew’s eyes. “Well, you did the right thing yesterday. Good job.”

One of Andy’s dark eyebrows lifted. He moved into the room and took a seat next to the older man. “Wall, you did too,” he allowed, graciously. “Ah think everbody done pretty well in that there mess.”

There was an awkward silence, but Andrew didn’t see any reason to
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break it.

“I wanted, also, to thank you for stopping and giving us a hand to get out of that room,” Roger finally said, clearly embarrassed.

A good SEAL learned to recognize an opportunity and exploit it.

Andrew had, surely, been a very good SEAL, having lived long enough to retire as one. “Hell, don’t be thanking me, Senator,” he stated.

“Kerry wasn’t leaving till she found you.” He absorbed the quick look from wary gray eyes. “And my kid wasn’t going anywhere without her, so…” He shrugged. “Ah just moved rocks.”

“Yes, well.” Roger made the words sound distasteful. “I’m sure she felt she had an obligation.”

Andrew let out a breath. “Makes me feel real comfortable knowing someone like you’s up making laws, when you don’t even know squat about your own kid.”

“Commander—” Roger replied stiffly.

“Don’t you commander me, ya twenty watt bulb.” Andrew snorted.

“What in the hell’s wrong with you, anyhow? You been wearing a necktie so damn long it cut off the flow of blood to yer brain or something?”

“All right. That’s enough, mister. Or I’ll—”

“Or you all will do what?” Andrew snorted. “Slap me around like you done to her? You will not like the results, ah can tell you that.”

“I didn’t—”

Andrew stood up. “Senator, you will not sit there and tell me you did not take hold of Kerry and put her up somewhere,” he told the other man sternly. “Because even if she were the storytelling kind, which she ain’t, mah kid surely is not and she told the same tale.” He paused. “And Dar would not lie to me.”

Roger Stuart also stood, paced to the wall and slapped it in frustration. “Goddamn it, I was just trying to make her see reason.” He turned and put his hands on his hips. “It’s my right as a father to bring my children up as I see fit and I don’t care what anyone, including you, thinks of that.”

“By locking her up?” Andrew asked, incredulously.

“By putting her somewhere people could talk to her and give her guidance and whatever help she needed to get…to get over this…this,”

the senator swallowed bile, “perversion.”

Andy’s eyebrows contracted and he put both hands on his hips.

“’Cause she’s in love with my daughter? Is that what you call that?” His voice dropped warningly.

A visible shudder went through the older man’s body. “How in the hell can you just sit there and say that and not throw up?” he asked.

“You’re married. You’re in the military. You’re not some whacked out whiney assed liberal.”

Andy sat down and crossed one ankle over his knee. “Wall,” he scratched an ear, “ah can tell you, Senator, ah ain’t never had feelings for any other male type individuals.”

Stuart snorted.

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“But being as ah spent thirty some years in the Navy, it ain’t exactly a foreign notion to me,” he continued dryly. “I got to tell you that ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ notion you all came up with weren’t a bad idea. ’Cause if they all told, you all’d roll right up outta Capital Hill and bounce yer asses into the Potomac.”

Stuart just stared at him.

“Look.” Andrew sighed. “Mah family came from Alabama. Mah daddy was one of the hatingist bastards ah ever did meet and ah got two brothers who got sent to prison fer beating half to death a young feller who didn’t do nothing but be born a different color than they were.”

The senator shifted uncomfortably. “Well, certainly that was the wrong thing to do but—”

“No buts, Senator. It ain’t right to teach a child to hate. No matter what the cause.”

The gray eyes were pinned on him intently.

“Ah grew up hearing how what we was made us better than what everybody else was, and believe you me, when ah chose to marry outside what we were, it was not a pretty sight.” Andrew paused, reflecting quietly. “What her folks done and what mah folks done, hurt both of us.” He shook his head.

“I don’t,” Roger hesitated. “It’s not the same thing.”

“Ain’t it?” Andrew asked.

“The Bible says it isn’t,” he replied stiffly.

“That there book was written by folks just as mixed up as you and me, Senator.” Cool, blue eyes regarded him. “At any rate, ah looked at what damage all that hating had done to us and I figgured out with myself, that if ah ever had kids, ah would not do to them what mah folks did to me.” He took a breath. “Ah told myself, that no matter what them kids turned out like, if they was mean, or ugly, or stupid as a rock, I’d still hold ’em, and love ’em, and bring ’em up as best as I was able to.”

Stony silence.

“Wall, sir, I got lucky in the ugly and dumb departments.” Andrew lifted his head proudly. “Cause mah kid ain’t neither of those things.” He nodded slightly. “She’s real smart, and real pretty, and she was damn lucky enough to find somebody out there in the world who’ll love her the same way I love her mama.”

“That’s disgusting.”

“It is not,” Andrew shot back. “It is not, Senator, and if you’d spend just an hour with the two of them and not think that, you’d know it too.”

“Never.” Stuart shook his head in disgust and waved a hand.

“Your loss.” Andrew shrugged and stood up. “’Cause your daughter is a damn fine human being, Senator, and I am glad the Lord let me live long enough to know her.” He was getting mad and that wasn’t a good thing. Punching elected officials only got a man into more trouble than it was worth.

Stuart snorted. “Until she can find a way to betray you. Have fun.”

Andrew turned and pointed. “Don’t you blame her fer that.” He
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shook his head. “Be a man, fer once, and take the responsibility fer what you get yerself into. Kerry didn’t force you into none of that, Senator, and it’s a sign of her goodness that she’s able to see past her love fer you and do the right thing.”

And then he escaped into the hallway just in time to meet his wife getting off the elevator with a large arrangement. “Good Lord.” Andrew took it from her. “Thought you were getting flowers.”

“I thought fruit and snacks would be more useful,” Ceci told him amiably. “Where have you been? Making trouble?”

Andrew glanced at her innocently from between two stalks of celery.

“Hardly had time to do that,” he blinked, “much.”

“Oh boy,” Ceci muttered.

“OH MY GOD.” Kerry trudged into the hotel room and over to the bed, fell face first down on top of it, then yelped, and rolled onto her side.

“Oh, that was stupid.”

“Yes, it was.” Dar chuckled and eased down next to her, with an expressive sigh. “Damn, I’m tired,” she remarked. “I’m glad we went, though.”

Kerry smiled slightly. “My sister and brother really like your folks,”

she commented. “And Dad was so cute with the baby. He’s such a mushball.”

Dar rolled over onto her belly and rested her chin on her arm. “Yeah, he was, wasn’t he? I can remember him playing with me when I was really little. I wasn’t sure which one of us had more fun.”

A little silence fell. “Wow.” Kerry sighed. “Long day.”

“Mmm,” Dar agreed. “Oh, we’re booked on the one p.m. flight back to Miami tomorrow. All four of us.” She started to roll over onto her side, then paused as her injured muscles cramped. “Oh, yeowch.”

“Yeah.” Kerry shifted her sling. “Hey, Dar?” Her brows contracted.

“You know, the press is going to go nuts over this thing for a while.

Maybe it’s better if we lie low for a few days.”

“Hmm?” A thoughtful eyebrow lifted. “Yeah, maybe.” Dar reached around and probed her back gently. “You know, come to think of it, sitting in an office chair is gonna be damn uncomfortable for a while.” She considered the problem and the germ of an idea that had occurred to her in Angie’s hospital room suddenly sprouted.

Kerry wiggled her fingers. “So’s typing,” she reminded her boss.

“We could work from home, though.”

“We could,” Dar agreed. “But we’re not going to.”

“We’re not?”

Dar cautiously eased off the bed and trudged over to the laptop on the desk, sat down at it and rattled the keys for approximately five minutes straight while Kerry lay and watched her. “There,” she hit a final key, then sat back, “we’re on vacation.”

Kerry’s ears perked up visibly. “We are?”

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Dar nodded and allowed a tired smile to cross her face. “I promised you a trip to Key West.”

“Dar, we can’t both just go on vacation like this.” The blonde woman smiled. “Not that I don’t want to.”

“We can,” Dar disagreed. “We are. I just told Alastair and Maríana. If they don’t like it, too damn bad.” She got up, went to the bed, sat down, and reached a hand out. “You, me, and Chino in a bungalow on the beach for a week. It’s a done deal.”

Kerry clasped her fingers with her own. “Sounds wonderful but…you had those meetings this week, Dar…and the new network. I know how important that is to you.”

“It’s not.” Dar’s voice was quiet and soft. “It doesn’t mean a thing to me, not anymore.”

Kerry fell silent. It occurred to her that Dar was being completely truthful at the moment, as she studied the pale blue eyes, shadowed with the strain of the last few days.
Maybe some time off wasn’t a bad idea.

“Okay,” she agreed.
What was the worst they could do? Fire them?
Well, she’d never been fired before. It would be a new experience in that case.

“I’d really like to spend time with you. We haven’t ever really been able to for more than a day or so without work or some other disaster happening.”

Dar looked pleased. “Good.” Her face creased into an unexpected smile. “I’d really like that, too. It’s been a while since I took some time off.”

“Skiing, wasn’t it?” Kerry prodded her memory. “You getting up and personal with nature, if I’m not mistaken.”

“You remembered that?”

“Mmm. I thought it was really interesting. Most people would have lied and said they skied the black diamond slopes,” Kerry replied. “Not you. I remember being impressed at how secure you were with yourself.”

Dar slowly let herself lie down and stretched her legs out on the bed.

“I never thought of it like that,” she admitted. “I was just praying you weren’t going to ask me when, precisely, that skiing trip was.”

Kerry cocked her head. “When was it?” she asked, predictably.

“My senior year in high school.”

The blonde woman’s hand dropped to the bed and she stared. “Are you telling me you haven’t had a vacation since high school?”

Dar nodded sheepishly. “The last time Maríana checked I had enough rolled over time built up to take off an entire year.”

“B—” Kerry rubbed her face. “But what about that place in North Carolina? You spent time there.”

“Weekends.” Dar shrugged.

“Good Lord, Paladar A. Roberts.” Kerry shook her head. “Damn right we’re taking next week off. I may kidnap you and keep you down there for a month.”

Dar grinned happily. “Promise?”

This was a new Dar.
Kerry smiled back at her and interlaced their fin-Eye of the Storm 423

gers. “Promise.” It would be nice, actually, and she could take the time to let her arm heal, before she had to come back and deal with the usual stuff…

Yeah.

Kerry slowly rolled over and got up. “Key West, huh?” She exhaled and started unbuttoning her shirt one handed. “I think I’m going to like this.” Fingers took over from hers and she used that hand to explore the soft, warm skin now inches away. Dar had bruises all over her and little scrapes, tiny dark lines against her tan that rubbed rough against Kerry’s fingertips. “You smell nice,” she commented idly, reflecting that being her height wasn’t a bad thing when it got you the view it got her when Dar was naked.

“Thank you,” the taller woman rumbled. “It’s that scrub stuff you got from the Internet. I kinda like it.”

“Mmm.” Kerry got her nose closer, then took an experimental lick.

“Smells different on you than on me.” She nibbled further.

Dar chuckled unexpectedly. “We’re dif…ah…that tickles.”

“Really?” Kerry repeated the experiment, feeling Dar’s ribcage contract sharply under her other hand as she laughed again. “Hmm…”

“Kerry.” Dar unhooked the sling holding up her arm and carefully lowered it. “Easy.” She slid the device off, then removed the blonde woman’s long sleeve cotton shirt. “What have we here?” She plucked something off Kerry’s bra strap and held it up before her eyes. “Two timing on me, hmm?”

Kerry focused her vision on the tiny item. “Just like in the movies.

You find a blond hair on my underthings too short to be mine.” She sighed. “My cover’s blown. I’m having an affair with our dog.”