Dar wandered over, and the puppy whined, wiggling towards her.
”Hey, puppy.”
24
Melissa Good
”All right, all right, here.” Kerry turned her over. ”Go. I know who your favorite is. Look, Dar, she was a good girl all day.”
Dar suffered a nose nibble, and peered into the room. ”Hey, look at that. Good girl,” she praised Chino. ”Getting resident services to come and let her out twice during the day was a good idea, huh?”
”You bet,” Kerry agreed. ”Want to take her for a walk while I get dinner up?” She watched indulgently as Dar scratched Chino’s chin, the little tag on her collar which bore her name and their address jingled softly as she moved. ”Dar?”
”Hmm?” The executive glanced up. ”Oh, right, sorry.” She kissed the puppy on the head. ”C’mon, Chino, let’s go out, see if you’ll piddle for me, huh?” She slipped out the back door and down the patio steps into the moonlit grassy area.
Kerry had to laugh, as she rinsed her hands off. ”No one at work would believe hearing that.” She shook head wryly. Dar had proven to be an extremely soft touch when it came to their little addition, and Chino had learned all it took to get a puppy biscuit was a pair of soulful brown eyes, and a tiny paw.
She’d find Dar, and sit next to her, raising the paw up and patting Dar’s leg with it, and the well trained human would immediately produce an Iams biscuit which Chino would crunch contentedly.
It was cute in the extreme, and Kerry loved watching her intimidating lover turn into a blue eyed puddle over Chino’s admittedly adorable ways.
She put up the satay and some rice and added some fresh green beans to the steamer. ”That’ll do.” She dusted her hands off and retrieved her bag, glancing around the living room with a sense of quiet satisfaction.
At one time it had seemed very sterile to her, but since she’d moved in, she’d coaxed some personal items out of Dar, and added her own stuff to it resulting in a warmer and more cheerful atmosphere.
The room now included some prints they’d picked out at the Grove Art Festival, a colorful native woven blanket that was draped over the central table, and a brass sculpture of dolphins and waves sitting in the middle of it. On the entertainment center, once barren of anything but a little dust, there were pictures of her and of Dar at various ages, and one of them together that always made Kerry smile when she looked at it.
She walked over and picked it up, both of them staring back at her sprawled on the couch pretty much in each other’s laps. “What this picture didn’t kick off.” She shook her head. “Good thing I got it back before I left home.”
Kerry set the picture back down and trotted up the stairs, dropping her laptop off in her office and continuing on to her room.
She still had to run that through her head when she walked in, as the spacious vaulted ceiling and the wide glass doors that opened out onto the Atlantic Ocean hit her eyes. It was the master suite for the Hurricane Watch
25
condo, and though she slept downstairs with Dar in the big waterbed, Kerry had taken pains to carve out her own little space here.
She’d moved most of her things up from her apartment. It still seemed a bit strange to see Pooh holding out his arms for a hug from the comfortable, overstuffed chair perfectly situated for reading as the sunlight came in the room.
She’d hung her pictures on the wall, and it was her quilt on the bed, and the dresser held her things in slight disarray.
Go spend time back in Kendall? Kerry gave her head a faint shake.
No way. This was home now, even if she and Dar hadn’t quite made that formal commitment to each other.
She put her bag down and went to the glass doors, sliding them open. She went out onto the wraparound balcony to just stand and gaze out over the black, rippling water for a long moment, watching the quarter moon send a tiny splash of light over the waves. It smelled of salt, and the rich scent of the freshly fertilized lawn below her, and the hint of hickory smoke from the beach club just down the way.
It was beautiful, and she loved it, even though she had to pinch herself sometimes just to prove it was real, and not just some outlandish dream. Not just the house, but her life. Sometimes she was a little afraid to go to sleep at night, fearing she’d wake up one day and it would all be gone as though it had never existed.
A sigh. ”C'mon, Kerry, get changed, and stop being goofy.” She went back inside, closing the doors. Kerry slipped out of her work clothes, exchanging them for her favorite sleep shirt and hanging her jacket and skirt up in the huge walk in closet.
A tiny whine alerted her, and she looked up as Chino pushed the door open with her nose, and came stumbling in, having laboriously negotiated the stairs. ”Hey, Chino. C'mere honey.” Kerry sat down and let the puppy scramble over her. She played with her for a minute then got to her feet and headed downstairs, with the animal trotting behind her. Dar was in her office, working on something, and she looked up as Kerry poked her head in. For a minute, they just looked at each other, and then Dar leaned back in her comfortable chair. ”That smells great.”
She put her hands behind her head and exhaled, pulling the thin fabric of her worn baseball shirt against her body. ”Ken sprang something on me tonight. He broached the subject of me going back into competition.”
Kerry came forward and perched on the arm of the couch.
”Really?” She watched Dar’s face. ”You think you want to?”
Dar nibbled the inside of her lip. ”I don’t know. When he first mentioned it, I came up with all the reasons why I couldn’t, and they seemed like good ones.” She shrugged. ”I mean, it takes time, a lot of effort and training,” She sighed. ”It's been a long, long time. I don’t know if I could still do it.”
26
Melissa Good
”But?” Kerry saw the indecision in her expression. “You’re thinking about it.”
Both hands lifted, then fell to the arms of the chair. ”Maybe the stuff I’ve been doing with him triggered some stupid adolescent urge or something. I don’t know. I’ve been getting quite a kick out of trying to see how much I could get back.” She looked up. ”What do you think?”
Kerry studied her in silence. ”I think you should go for it.” She grinned. ”I love the classes, but watching you and Ken go at it afterward has been such a blast. You get this incredible look on your face when you get past him.”
Dar scratched her jaw, looking a touch embarrassed. ”I do?”
”Yes, you do.” Kerry held out a hand, as she checked her watch.
”Come on...we’ll talk about it over dinner. It should be ready.”
They settled in front of the large screen television, Dar flipping it on after she set her gently steaming plate down. ”Oh, look, it’s the Crocodile Fanatic,” She peered. ”What’s he after now?”
Kerry observed the screen. ”Snakes.” She took a bite of chicken and then a mouthful of the steamed rice, which she’d put a touch of ginger and spices into. ”Hmm...rattlesnakes.” She shook her head. ”Jesus. He’s picking them up by the...Dar, he’s crawling into a cave of those things.
Isn’t the Discovery Channel afraid they’re going to have a lawsuit on their hands when he gets eaten alive?”
Dar pulled her plate over and took a bite. ”They probably had him sign a document in quintuplet that absolves them of any responsibility for him.” The spicy peanut sauce on the chicken contrasted with the gentle, gingery taste of the rice, and she sighed contentedly. ”Kerry, this is great.”