Alastair coaxed. “C’mon, Dar, I promise I won’t talk football at you.”
Just hearing Kerry’s name brought a smile to Dar’s face. Her friend, lover, and roommate was stuck back in Miami, consolidating a large deal with one of their major clients. “All right,” she finally replied.
“You’re not bringing the whole board, are you?”
A snort. “No, I wouldn’t waste the clam sauce. Just you and me, Dar,” Alastair reassured her. “I’ll drop by your room at six, all right?”
Dar eyed the clock. It was barely four, and that gave her time to shower and relax a little. “Sounds good.” She let a smile cross her face.
“See you then, Alastair.” She closed the phone and relaxed a little, stifling a yawn with the back of her hand. “Damn.” The hand lifted and rubbed her eyes. “I need some coffee.” The hotel phone was nearby, but her body resisted moving, content to remain nestled in the leather chair, now nicely warmed and comfortable.
She slumped there limply for a moment, then lifted her cell phone and thumbed a number into it without looking. Dar lifted the instrument to her ear and listened to its buzzing ring. Once, twice...then the noise stopped and a soft grunt issued down the line, bringing a smile to Dar’s face.
“Hello?” Kerry’s voice sounded almost breathless.
“Avoiding the elevators?” Dar queried.
4 Melissa Good
“Oh.” Kerry exhaled, then apparently stopped moving. “How’d you guess? They just called me down to the tenth floor, and I thought I’d jog back up.” The sound of a door opening and closing, then the echo of the stairwell vanished, replaced with a soft hum. “Where are you? Did you just get there? How was the flight?”
Dar pictured her lover striding down the hall, with that distinctive, sexy walk, and her nose wrinkled in pleasure. “Hotel, yes, pain in my ass,” she replied succinctly. “Just thought I’d check in. We hit weather over Virginia.”
“I know,” Kerry answered over the sound of a door closing. Now the hum was gone, and it was quiet. “I, um...tracked your flight.”
Dar stretched out her long legs and felt her muscles relax. “Oh, you did, huh?”
“Yes, I did.” Kerry’s voice dropped a little, taking on a hint of huskiness. “I worry about you, y’know.”
Mmm. Dar smiled at the ceiling. “Well, I made it here. Alastair’s taking me out to dinner, then I’m gonna get some sleep. The meeting starts at eight tomorrow.”
“Ew,” Kerry replied. “I’ve got that group meeting at the church tonight, then Colleen and Ray are meeting me and we’re going to walk down the beach and see what trouble we can get into.”
Uh-oh. Dar imagined the possible results. “Be careful, okay?” she advised her lover.
“You too.” Kerry replied seriously. “That city can be a scary place.”
Dar smiled. “I will. Talk to you tomorrow, okay?”
“Okay.” Kerry was smiling too, easily heard in her voice. “I love you.”
“I love you, too.” Dar exhaled contentedly. “Night.”
“NIGHT.” KERRY LISTENED until the call ended with a slight click, then regarded the phone for a moment before she leaned back in her comfortable desk chair and tapped her pen on her notepad. Her desk was neat and clean, the LCD screen and her phone on one side, her inbox, notepad, and the small wood-framed picture on the other. Idly, she reached out and lifted the picture, smiling at the beautiful face gazing out at her. “Don’t you be getting lost down any subway tunnels, cutie pie,” she instructed the picture. “We’ve got holiday plans in a few days.”
Thanksgiving. Kerry set the picture down and started straightening out her things in preparation for leaving. Her very first real Thanksgiving, where she was in charge and had decided what they’d do and who they’d invite. She’d decided on a turkey and a party, and Dar had amiably agreed, having never experienced the occasion as a host herself. She’d gotten her turkey—an enormous, frozen thing—and all the trimmings, and Colleen had volunteered to come over early that Red Sky At Morning 5
morning and help with the cooking.
Dar’s parents would be there. Kerry smiled as she picked up her laptop, slipped it into the leather shoulder bag she carried, and clipped her cell phone to her belt. She heard a light knock and looked up as the door opened and her secretary Mayte peeked in. “Hey.”
The slim young Latina girl smiled at her. “You go home, yes?”
“Not exactly,” Kerry answered easily. “I’ve got a meeting to go to, then some socializing to do. What about you?”
“I have my group tonight,” Mayte replied. “I was going to ask, if it is not too much trouble, if I could get a ride with you just passed the bus stop.”
“Absolutely.” Kerry circled the desk. “C’mon, we’ll beat the traffic.” She motioned the girl out before her and they left the office, walking together down the hall. They were both dressed with casual elegance, and Kerry was amused to note that Mayte had taken to carefully studying Kerry’s own choices of silk shirts and well-tailored slacks and had chosen items as close as she could without copying Kerry’s selections outright.
As they entered the elevator, Kerry straightened her shoulders in reflex, drawing the eyes of the occupants already inside, her wine-colored shirt with its tiny embroidered flowers contrasting neatly with her pale hair and fair complexion. “Evening.” Kerry returned the quiet murmurs with a brief smile, acknowledging the slightly uncomfortable silence from the marketing clerks who were years older than she was and probably aggravated beyond words that someone who looked just about Mayte’s age of low twenty-something had been promoted to vice president, regardless of what her qualifications were.
Or, she admitted wryly, they could also be fundamentalists who disapproved of her very publicly known alternative lifestyle. The doors opened on the bottom floor and the other women moved out quickly, heading across the huge brass and marble lobby toward the front doors of the building.
“Ms. Kerry?” Mayte murmured as they followed more slowly. “I do not think those ladies like you.”
“Nope.” Kerry gave the security guard a smile and received one in return as they exited the building. “There are people out there that don’t.” She led Mayte over to the dark green Mustang convertible and unlocked the doors, popping her hatch to set her laptop bag down inside. Then she got in and fastened her seat belt, watching her assistant do the same. “You know how it is.”
Mayte was quiet as Kerry started the car and backed it from its spot. The space next to her was conspicuously empty in the full lot, having been filled with Dar’s Lexus until the CIO had left for the airport. An irrational desire to have left right along with her flared suddenly, but Kerry suppressed it and turned her attention to the traffic as she pulled out of the parking lot.
6 Melissa Good
“Did la jefa get to New York all right?” Mayte inquired shyly.
“Mamá was worried; she said there was a big storm somewhere.”
“Yeah.” Kerry nodded. “She called me just before we left. It took them forever to land, but she’s there, safe and sound.” Her brow contracted. “I should have called your mother and told her. I know she was concerned.” She turned west, and winced as the sun invaded the car. “Whoops.” One hand fished into the center console and emerged with her sunglasses, which she put on, cutting the brilliance and restoring her vision.
“I will tell her when I get home,” Mayte reassured her. “I think you were worried too...you did not eat your lunch.”
Hmm. Kerry’s nose wrinkled. Busted. “Well, everything turned out okay, so I’ll just make up for it at dinner.” She chuckled, then considered her choice of streets. “Listen, I have to go downtown anyway—why don’t I just drop you off at home?” she offered. “No sense in you having to grab a bus at this hour.” Normally, Mayte rode home with her mother, María, who was Dar’s assistant, but the older woman had left early for a doctor’s appointment after Dar had gone to the airport.