Ah, Kerrison. Dar sighed silently. What in the hell would I do without you? She’d been thumping herself over her reaction to Chief Daniel, but now she sat back and considered it more objectively. The woman had locked them into a closed place and come at her in a threatening manner, aggressively shoving her back against a bulkhead.
What was the chief expecting to happen? Had she really expected Dar to break down and blubber or something? Dar folded her arms Red Sky At Morning 111
across her chest. Maybe that’s what Daniel had been looking for, to see how far she could push Dar before Dar pushed back.
Or.
Maybe she’d been hoping Dar would take a swing at her, and give her grounds to force the base commander to take action.
Hmm. In that case, her response had been appropriate, with just enough force to prove her point and not enough aggression to get her in trouble. Hey. Dar rubbed her jaw and had to laugh. Only took thirty years for you to figure out how to balance that act. Way to go, Dardar!
With a sigh, she stood up and grabbed her bottle of peach iced tea, draining it before she made her way back through the small door and into the corner cul-de-sac that it opened onto. Once upon a time it had been a larger suite, and the porch a perk of some big shot’s corner office, but time, and changing needs, had forced the Navy to throw up wood and plasterboard walls to divide up the space.
Dar put a hand on one of the worn wooden doorways and gazed down the hall, debating over what to do next. Her decision was made, however, when Chief Daniel swung out of Operations Center and spotted her, turning on her heel and heading toward Dar with a determined look.
Dar chose to remain where she was, and she leaned against the doorframe, folding her arms and watching the other woman approach.
“Interested in round two?” she asked as Daniel came within close earshot. A ghostly Kerry poked at her and she squirmed. “Or would you rather just go have lunch?”
Chief Daniel opened her mouth to answer, held it open for a moment, then closed it and released her breath with a sigh.
“C’mon. I’ll buy.” Dar straightened up. “We’re both grownups.
Let’s act like it.”
Clearly, the chief had been caught by surprise. She hesitated for a long beat, then lifted both hands a little and let them fall. “What the hell. All right, Ms. Roberts. You’re giving me a pain the size of an aircraft carrier, so I might as well get a meal out of it. Lead on.”
They found a table in the back of the mess and sat down with trays of open-faced turkey sandwiches. Dar opened her carton of milk and drank directly from it, watching her reluctant lunch partner mess with a pile of lettuce and tomatoes.
“So.” Chief Daniel neatly sliced her salad into manageable chunks.
“You’re Big Andy’s kid.”
Dar cocked her head to one side. “Yes, I am.”
The Chief looked up, meeting her eyes. “You could have said that right off.”
“Why?” Dar shot back. “Shouldn’t make a damn bit of a difference.”
Daniel snorted and shook her head. “Can the bullshit, lady. It matters, and you know it does. Did you think you’d have an advantage 112 Melissa Good by acting like a clueless outsider?” She picked up her glass of iced tea and took a sip. “Here I think I’ve got some dumb civ making my life miserable, and it turns out I’ve been hauling around some damn smartass Navy brat.”
“Oh. You mean I could have skipped the howitzer-up-the-ass attitude if I’d told you up front I grew up here?” Dar inquired. “Maybe you should have done your homework, Chief. I have a file on you an inch thick.”
The chief stopped eating and put her silverware down, staring at Dar with a look completely devoid of humor. “What in the hell do you mean by that?”
Dar merely watched her, sucking idly on her milk. She waited for the veins to start emerging on the ginger-haired woman’s temples, then she finally replied. “Relax. There’s nothing outstandingly scary in it.”
She actually didn’t have that much, but the reaction she’d gotten from the comment made her itch to have Mark search further.
Daniel sat there, breathing hard for a moment. “You’re a real son of a bitch, aren’t you?”
A charming smile appeared on Dar’s face. “I can be.” She paused.
“If I’m forced into it.” One finger pointed at the sailor. “So be smart, and don’t.” She set the milk down and picked up her fork, spearing a bit of mashed potatoes and tasting them.
“Sure you weren’t adopted?” the chief shot back.
The corner of Dar’s lips quirked. “I’ve looked in a mirror enough times to know I wasn’t.” She took a bite of turkey. “But feel free to ask my dad if you want.”
Hazel eyes narrowed, and the chief bit down on her fork with a vicious scrape of teeth on metal. Then her face relaxed, and she snorted softly. “No, thanks. I don’t want my fingers pulled off if he hears I laid one of them on his precious offspring.” Her eyes searched the angular, intense features across the table, strange and familiar at the same time.
She felt like kicking herself for not realizing who this bitch was before, then she felt like kicking the damn commander for not telling her.
Bastard. She bet he and Perkins were laughing their asses off at her.
And what was in that file? The chief was uncomfortably aware of the sharp intelligence behind those blue-tinted ice chips that were watching her. Evaluating her. Daniel swallowed and reviewed her options. She knew Andrew Roberts and had a healthy respect for him, but she now realized his often spoken of only child was a danger of a much higher degree.
What the hell was she going to do?
The loudspeaker’s crackle almost made her jump, and she looked up at the speaker just as Dar did, the younger woman’s head tilting to one side as she listened.
“Attention, attention all personnel. We have just received notification that flooding has closed both Card Sound Road and US 1.
Red Sky At Morning 113
Be advised that all deliveries to and from the mainland have been canceled until further notice. If you were scheduled to be transported north today, please see your unit commander immediately.”
Groans rose around them. Daniel snorted and recovered a bit of her balance at the perceptible annoyance in Dar’s expression. “Guess you’re stuck here. Just our luck.” Possibilities, though, started occurring to her.
Dar sighed, ignoring her sarcasm. “I knew I should have stayed in bed this morning.” She removed her cell phone from its clip and dialed a number, holding the phone to her ear and turning away slightly.
Yeah, Chief Daniel mused. Maybe you should have.
Chapter
Seven
“UGH.” KERRY DROPPED into her chair and leaned back, releasing a huge sigh and closing her eyes briefly. Very briefly, since her intercom buzzed a second later. “Yes?”
“Ms. Kerry, my mother says to tell you that they have closed the roads that are going to the Keys.” Mayte’s voice held a hint of anxiety.
“She is worried about Ms. Roberts.”
Oh, crap, Kerry cursed to herself. “She said she was trying to get out of there early, Mayte. I’ll call her. I hope she’s almost back here by now.” She reached for her phone and almost dropped it as it rang at the same moment. “Gah—whoops. Hello?”