“Crabs?” Dar looked over at them, then up at her father. “Crabs?”
Her voice perked up considerably.
“Oh no,” Ceci groaned. “Not those damn things.”
Andrew chuckled. “Yes, ma’am. You did send this here young lady out for takeaway, and we done did that.” He looked quite pleased with himself. “Got us three kinds, too, and them taters you like, Dardar.”
“Heh.” Dar eased upright. “All right.”
Kerry winced. “Honey, you’re not going to tell me you actually eat those things, are you?”
Ceci sighed and covered her eyes. “Hope you got some corn. Kerry and I can at least share that.” She got up and walked around the couch to the table to investigate the packages. “Oh, goddess, Andrew. Did you have to get the hot pepper ones?”
314 Melissa Good
“Heh.” Andrew chuckled, moving across the tile floor to join his wife at the table. “Yep, I surely did.”
Dar swung her legs off the couch and sat up. “You have to try them, Ker. They’re great.”
Her lover crouched down between her knees, resting a hand on either one, and grimaced. “Dar, they look like big old bugs,” she whispered. “I can’t eat those.”
“Sure you can,” Dar whispered back, leaning forward. “C’mon, I’ll show ya.”
“Daaaarrrr...” Kerry bit her lip. “Eeeeewwww.”
“Don’t be a chicken,” Dar chided her. “Trust me.”
Easy for her to say. Kerry sighed and gave her partner a hand up, keeping hold of it as she joined Dar and they walked over to where Andrew and Ceci were unpacking the bags and buckets.
“Ooh.” Dar pried the cover off one and peered inside. “Yum.”
Kerry peeked over her shoulder at the pile of red-hued, spice-speckled marine insects, complete with beady little eyes looking back at her. “Oh,” she moaned softly, and leaned against Dar’s arm. “I’m going to have nightmares.”
Dar picked up a crab and examined it. “Sure you are.” She deftly removed a claw, exposing some white flesh. “Here. Suck on this.”
Big round pale green eyes looked up past the curve of her breast. A tiny squeak issued from Kerry’s throat.
“Go on,” Dar laughed.
Kerry glanced over at her in-laws, who were bent almost double with silent laughter. “Dar, I can’t suck on that leg. It looks like a grasshopper leg. I’m going to throw up.”
Dar sighed, removed a bit of the crabmeat, and held it out. “There.
Can you suck on my fingers?”
A sigh. “Oh, God, if you insist.” Kerry closed her eyes and leaned forward, opening her mouth and closing her teeth gingerly on the bit of white substance. She closed her lips and carefully tasted it, then opened her eyes. “Hmm.” It wasn’t at all like lobster or shrimp. It was much more tender, and... Kerry licked her lips. “Mm.” The spices stung her tongue pleasantly. “Okay, that’s not bad.”
“See?” Dar sounded triumphant. “Told you.” She sat down and pulled out a chair for Kerry next to her. “Now, c’mon. Grab a hammer.”
Her lover, who had been heading for the kitchen for a pitcher of something cold, stopped dead in her tracks. “Hammer?”
Chapter
Nineteen
ANDREW RELAXED, STRETCHING his long frame as he settled more comfortably in the large leather chair. “So, that’s what that old bag of wind told me,” he drawled. “All ’bout how he’d been gotten to some years back, and he just didn’t want to say no.”
The television played softly in the background as the two couples shared coffee and each other’s company.
Dar shook her head sadly. She was lying on the couch with Kerry curled up against her, and she had her injured arm draped over her lover’s body. “Hard to believe.”
Ceci snorted from her perch on the loveseat. “No, it isn’t. He always was a pompous asshole.” She ignored her husband’s round-eyed look. “You know it’s true, Andy. He was always wanting to be in charge. Remember that bowling team he hornswoggled you on to? He had to be the captain.”
Andrew grunted.
“Bowling?” Kerry opened one eye lazily, so completely stuffed she wouldn’t have moved even for a fire drill. “I didn’t know you bowled, Dad.”
“Ah most certainly do not,” Andrew replied. “Damn fool just would not listen.”
“Andy is so good at everything, Jeff just assumed he’d be a good bowler,” Ceci told, blithely ignoring another outraged look.
“Unfortunately, Jeff loved to stand behind his team and make comments.”
“Ah,” Kerry noted sagely.
“That lasted all of one time.” Ceci gave her husband a look. “Until Andy threw the ball backward.”
“Heh.” Andrew produced a rakish grin, amazingly like his daughter’s. “Never did hear a man make a sound like that one before.”
“Ow,” Kerry winced. “So you guys were rivals?” she asked curiously.
Andrew shrugged. “Naw.”
“Yes,” Ceci corrected him. “Don’t look at me like that, Andrew.
You know you were.” She picked up her cup of coffee and sipped it.
“Jeff always had to be first. His family had to be first. His kid had to be 316 Melissa Good first,” she said. “I think that’s what busted his chops so bad. He tried so hard, and pushed Chuck so hard, and neither one of you ever had to try hardly at all.”
Andrew and Dar exchanged glances. “Now, Cec,” Andrew rumbled, “wasn’t really like that.”
Ceci rolled her eyes. “Yes, it was. The two of you just never noticed,” she informed her husband and child. “Andy, you made your grades before he did, got the jobs he wanted, and copped the medals he coveted, and you never gave two whoops about it.”
Andrew folded his arms across his chest and gave her a sober look.
“And you,” Ceci gazed over at Dar with a half smile. “I’ll never forget the night Jeff and Sue were over, talking about how Chuck was going to enlist so he could save some cash for vocational school, remember?”
Dar nodded. “I remember.”
Kerry turned her head and looked at her. “What happened?”
Dark lashes fluttered as Dar blinked. “It was just a coincidence,”
she murmured. “I’d gotten my acceptance letters that day.”
Kerry studied her profile. “For college?”
Dar nodded silently.
“How many?”
She shrugged. “A couple.”
“Seven,” Ceci corrected her.
Dar rolled her eyes.
Kerry returned her attention to Dar’s mother. “Seven?”
“Mm-hmm,” Ceci agreed. “All full scholarship.” She folded her hands across her stomach and gazed at her child.
“That was a damn proud day for me,” Andrew said suddenly.
Everyone now looked at Dar, who looked back pensively. “I didn’t even think about it,” she admitted honestly. “That’s why I dropped them on the dinner table while they were there and told you.” Her thumb rubbed idly against Kerry’s side. “I thought it was pretty cool.”
“So did we.” Ceci smiled. “But you didn’t see Jeff’s face,” she sighed. “He and Sue were so jealous. I’m not surprised, Andy, if he went along with whatever those crooks wanted, if it finally got him the good life he’d always craved.”
Andrew shook his head a little. “Don’t make sense. He never did that poorly, Cec,” he protested. “Collected him plenty of rank, and pretty good jobs, I figure. He just never wanted to have to work hard for it.” It was a long sentence for him. “Dardar, you figure you got something on them people? Jeff thinks there ain’t much chance you do.”
Dar shifted a little, her eyes unfocused in thought. She felt Kerry twine her fingers around the hand she had draped over her partner’s body, and she breathed in Kerry’s distinctive scent as the thoughts tumbled over in her head. “I don’t know,” she replied truthfully. “If we got everything, and I can reconstruct it, yes.” Her eyes flicked up and Red Sky At Morning 317