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Dar shrugged. “She’s always been stubborn.”

Kerry’s ears perked. “Have you known her long? You never talked about her before.”

Something occurred to Dar. It made her sit up straight and open her eyes wide as she remembered what had precipitated Clarice’s transfer to the Midwest. Slowly she turned and regarded Kerry, nibbling the inside of her lip. “Um...there’s something you’d better know about before you meet Clarice.”

Kerry looked up from reading the emergency card in her seat pocket. “Hmm? What?” She studied Dar’s face closely. “Don’t tell me she’s a phobe.”

I wish. Dar shook her head. “She shares our lifestyle,” she admitted.

“Pretty openly.”

“Ah.” Kerry frowned, then she glanced back at Dar. There was a distinct hint of “uh-oh” right around her lover’s pretty blue eyes, and it made her pause and think hard. She knew Dar had been involved several times before they’d met, but... “Um...you two weren’t...”

“No.”

Kerry exhaled in relief. That kind of complication wasn’t something she’d bargained for.

“But she really, really wanted to be,” Dar added, lowering her voice and looking around. “And she was pretty persistent.”

Kerry leaned closer, intrigued. “And?”

“Wasn’t my type.”

48 Melissa Good

“Ah.” The blonde woman nodded. “So...what’s the problem?”

Dar assumed a sheepish expression. “I pulled the old ‘no relationships in the department’ rule on her to get her to leave me alone.”

Kerry stared at her for a minute, then let her face drop into her hand. “Oh, Jesus,” she muttered.

Dar cleared her throat, giving the flight attendant a wan smile.

“Sorry,” she whispered into Kerry’s ear. “I’m sure you’ll be able to handle it.”

Kerry looked up at her from between her fingers, then covered her eyes again and sighed. “Paybacks,” she uttered. “They always getcha.”

KERRY LEANED AGAINST the wall in the copy room and tried to ignore just how much the machine’s whining noise was annoying her.

She wondered what would happen if she gave in and kicked the thing, but the presence of two of the more gossip-prone marketing assistants made her cross her ankles instead.

Okay, Kerry. Take a deep breath and pretend you don’t have cramps from hell, woke up late, and have an ex-admirer of Dar’s to deal with in twenty minutes.

“Okay, all yours.” Candy gave Kerry one of her sweeter smiles and took her papers with her as she and her crony sauntered out.

“Thanks,” Kerry muttered, pushing off from the wall and putting her agenda on the machine before starting it up. She could have asked Mayte to do this, of course, but her assistant was busy getting the conference room ready and pulling down network diagrams to the transparency printer. Besides, walking around usually got her cranky body to loosen up a little, something she fervently hoped happened before she had to start her meeting.

Sometimes, she reflected, being female and fertile sucks large piggy wonks. The machine finished its work, and she removed her still-warm copies from the sorter and stapled them, then tucked them under her arm as she made her way back to her office.

Mayte was still gone, so she left the collated papers on her assistant’s desk before she went into her office, closing the door behind her as she entered the sunlit space. Her brows lifted as she spotted a small cluster of items she was sure she hadn’t left on her desk surrounding her favorite cup, which was now gently steaming.

“Oho...what have we here?”

She circled the desk and sat down in her leather chair, tucking one leg up under her to try and ease the cramping. Resting on the desk were several things, each with a note. First, her cup, scented with a hint of spicy raspberry, then four wrapped chocolates, then a bottle. “Try this first...” She took a sip of the tea. “Then try these...” She unwrapped a chocolate and popped it into her mouth. “Then this.” She held up the Red Sky At Morning 49

bottle of powerful painkillers. “If all that fails, call me.”

Kerry chuckled around her mouthful and took a swallow of the tea to wash it down. “Thank you, Doctor Dar.” She didn’t really expect either tea or candy to work, and she’d already taken a handful of painkillers, but the thought of Dar in here, meticulously arranging her action plan and writing her notes, brought a smile to Kerry’s face and allowed her to forget her misery for a short while.

A very short while.

Her intercom buzzed. “Ms. Kerry? They are waiting for you in the conference,” Mayte’s soft voice floated into the air.

Kerry sighed and unwrapped another chocolate. “I’ll be right there, Mayte.”

“DAR?”

“YES?”

“COMMANDER Albert is here to see you,” María replied quietly.

“Send him in.” Dar finished signing the last of a stack of requests and closed the folder, tossing it in her out bin and putting the top back onto her fountain pen. Kerry had given her the elegant teakwood instrument, and she played with it for a minute, admiring the fine grain before she set it down and folded her hands.

María opened the door and stood back, allowing her guest to enter.

In walked a tall, muscular man in his mid thirties, every crease in his uniform razor sharp and precise. Dar had about ten or fifteen seconds as he crossed the room to decide how to play her side of the encounter and decided, as she stood and took the offered hand, to let the commander make the first move. “Commander. Thank you for coming down here.”

“That would be up, ma’am,” the man answered crisply. “I did as I was ordered to do.”

Oh boy. Dar resumed her seat. “Please, sit down.” She waited for her guest to comply. “I understand you’re going to be the Navy’s liaison officer for this new project, and I wanted to have a word with you before we got started.”

“Ma’am, I don’t know what you’ve been told, but in my opinion, this project is a waste of both our times,” Commander Albert stated flatly. “I’d just as soon it stopped right here, to save us all the hassle.”

“Commander, that’s not your decision to make,” Dar replied mildly. “Nor is it mine, for that matter. The government, for its own reasons, has decided to contract us to do this, and if you want it stopped, you’re going to have to appeal up your chain of command to do it.”

“With all due respect, ma’am, we do not need a civilian efficiency expert coming in and telling us how to run the Navy.”

“With all due respect, Commander, that’s not what your government hired,” Dar said. “I’m a systems analyst. I couldn’t give a 50 Melissa Good crap how you run the Navy. What they asked me to do is analyze your systems and controls structures and recommend technological enhancements.”

“Our systems work just fine.” Albert’s jaw twitched.

Dar sat back. “Then it’ll be a very short project, won’t it?” She felt almost a sense of amusement as she studied the sharp profile. “Listen, Commander, you’re making three assumptions that are going to get you into trouble, so you might want to just reverse your course right now.”

“Excuse me, ma’am?” he replied stiffly.

“One, you’re assuming I don’t know an obstructionist when I meet one. Two, you’re assuming I need your cooperation to do this little job; and three, you’re assuming I’m a stranger to the Navy.” Dar stood up. “I’ll meet you out at the base Friday morning. I think we’ve wasted enough of each other’s time today.”

Commander Albert stood and gave her a short nod. “Ma’am.” He turned and walked to the door, opening it and slipping through without ever looking back at her.