Kerry almost snorted soup out of her nostrils as she burst into laughter. Mark started chuckling, too, at the expression on Dar’s face.
“Hey!” Dar gave them an injured look. “I did grow up, remember?”
“Sorry, Dar,” Mark apologized. “I know it’s a different world now, but I miss those days sometimes.” He looked contrite. “I didn’t really mean you look like a teenage punker anymore.”
“Mmph.” Dar appeared mollified. “Yeah, I do, too, sometimes,” she admitted. “Long days, but we had some good parties, didn’t we?”
Mark nodded, sucking on the end of his chopstick. “The night you guys were stuck in that hospital, we had the television in here. Sixteen of us crammed in here most of the night watching.”
Dar fell silent, concentrating on her container. Kerry watched her face for a moment, then picked up the conversational ball where it had Red Sky At Morning 323
fallen and rolled between her feet. “That was a pretty scary night,” she said. “I don’t remember a lot of it; the details are really blurry.”
“You had a concussion,” Dar stated quietly. “It’s probably best you don’t remember most of it.” She picked out more chicken bits and ate them. “Just a lot of smoke, and loud noises, and heat.”
They ate in silence for a moment. “Were you scared, boss?” Mark asked suddenly.
“You bet your ass I was,” Dar replied without hesitation. “Anyone with half a brain cell would have been.” She glanced up at him. “Why?”
He shrugged. “Just curious. I know I was scared pissless just watching the coverage,” he replied. “You guys pretty much just got to that room, then busted out, though, right?”
“Right.”
“No.”
Dar looked at Kerry, who had replied negatively. One eyebrow lifted. “No?”
“Well...” Kerry leaned her head back against the wall, “I remember the explosion.” She looked off into the distance. “I remember waking up and hurting.”
“Dislocated shoulder, right?” Mark commented.
“Yeah,” Kerry nodded. “Dar put that back all right, then we had to crawl out of where we were and through this little tunnel.” She looked at Dar, who was busily decimating her chicken and studiously avoiding everyone’s gaze. “It collapsed on us, and we almost died.”
Mark stared at her. “No shit?”
Dar looked up. “Thought you didn’t remember details,” she remarked wryly.
“I just remembered that,” Kerry murmured. “Jesus Christ, Dar. You saved us.” She stared at her lover in bemusement. “How in the hell could I have forgotten that?”
The pause was awkward this time. Mark cleared his throat. “Shit like that happens with concussions, I guess. That’s what I’ve always heard.”
Kerry felt her arm hairs lift as the memory cleared and she pictured the image of that tiny space with its smell of concrete dust and their sweat and blood as the wall pressed in on them. She could almost feel the labored heaving of Dar’s back under her weight as her lover struggled to breathe and the sudden, distinct surge as her body had arched, ready to break them out of their prison.
And in that moment, Kerry remembered with eerie clarity now, she’d had no shred of doubt that Dar would do just that. “Yeah,” she agreed with Mark’s comment. “I guess it does. Glad I finally shook that memory loose, though,” she said with a conscious lightening of her tone, on seeing the tenseness in Dar’s shoulders. “Anyway, it was an experience I never want to repeat. I was never so glad of anything as I was to put my feet on the ground after they rescued us.”
324 Melissa Good
“I bet,” Mark chuckled, getting up from his seat. “Hey, I’m going to grab a Coke, want one?”
“Sure,” Kerry agreed. “Dar?”
Dar nodded. “Sure.”
Mark slipped out the door, leaving so quickly it almost seemed like an escape.
Kerry waited a moment, then stood up and walked over to where Dar was seated. “Hey.”
Dar looked up at her from under dark brows and slightly shaggy bangs.
Kerry knelt. “He’s not very subtle, is he?”
It was the right approach. Dar’s lips tensed, then curled into a wry smile. “No,” she drawled softly. “He’s not.” She put her food container on the desk and rested her chopsticks on top of it. Then she leaned on her chair arm and gave her lover her undivided attention. “So.”
“You didn’t tell me about that.” Kerry put a hand on Dar’s arm and rubbed her thumb against the skin of it. “You told me about the wall, and the window, and the children, but not that. Why?”
Dark eyelashes fluttered closed over Dar’s eyes. “Maybe I didn’t want to remember it,” she said.
Kerry thought about that as she watched Dar’s face. “Okay.” She leaned forward and brushed her lips against her lover’s. “I can buy that,” she readily agreed, saving her thoughts for a later time. “But thanks.”
“Anytime,” Dar replied with a smile. “Now go back and finish your dinner so Mark can skulk back in here safely.”
Kerry stuck out the tip of her tongue, but got up and resumed her perch. “What’s the next step,” she consciously raised her voice a little,
“on the data restoral?”
Dar laughed silently. “Once I finish the structural rebuilding, we have to run data patterns to make sure the damn thing actually works and I didn’t put a piece back in wrong.”
Like a genie, Mark appeared in the doorway, carrying three cans of soda. “Hi.” He gave them a cheerful look. “I’m back.” He handed around the cans. “Damn AC’s going goofy again, Ker. I think they need to change those filters.”
Kerry sniffed. The air held a distinctly musty scent. “Son of a— ”
She sighed. “What is that, the fourth time this year? Where did they get the AC plant for this building, Dar, Sam’s Club?”
Dar sighed. “You can’t lay that one on my doorstep.” She resumed eating her chicken. “One of Alastair’s fishing buddies’ long-lost fourth cousins twice removed got the contract on this building, and I’ve had nothing but trouble with it since we moved in.”
Mark shifted. “You thinking of going somewhere else when the lease is up? I heard rumors.”
“Maybe,” Dar admitted. “I’ve got a couple of proposals on my Red Sky At Morning 325
desk. West Broward’s got the best one, and they’re promising me everything, including a private elevator and my own alligator.”
“With a view of the Everglades?” Kerry teased. “I thought you liked the one you have.”
“Gotta be a down side,” Dar admitted. “And yeah, I do, but I’d be willing to give it up for someplace I don’t have to have maintenance on three days a week.”
“West Broward? I like it,” Mark approved.
Kerry pointed a chopstick at him. “You live there.”
“Gotta catch a break sometime.”
“Maybe the rest of us don’t like dodging possums on the way to work.”
Dar rolled her eyes. “Can we wait until I pick a spot to start this debate?”
DAR PEERED AT the screen and studied the algorithm. “Okay.”
She typed in a command and viewed the results. “I think that does it.”
Kerry leaned on the back of her boss’s chair and looked. “It’s done?”
“Yeah.” Dar rubbed her eyes wearily. “What time is it?”
“Two,” Kerry supplied, shifting as she reached around and started a gentle massage of Dar’s shoulders. She’d tried to get her lover to quit for the night some four or five hours before, but had no luck. “Dar, your neck feels like a suspension bridge.”
“I bet.” Everything ached. Dar wished she could sneak in another round of painkillers, but it had only been two hours since the last set, and her stomach was already queasy from the medication. The throbbing in her arm was so bad she almost couldn’t feel the pressure from Kerry’s hands, though the warmth was definitely noticeable through the fabric of her shirt. “Mark!”