The women jumped, and one simply turned and left. The other looked up at Andrew’s towering height. “Oh, sir, visitors are not allowed now.” She started to take his arm to lead him away, glancing over her shoulder into the room. “Excuse me now—”
“Ah, ah.” Andrew simply stood still, knowing the petite nurse wasn’t going to be pulling his six-foot-four-inch bulk anywhere. He glanced into the room anxiously, then let out a chuff of relief when he spotted the two figures snuggled together on the bed. “Would you just lookit that.”
“Sir.” The nurse pulled on his arm with complete ineffectiveness.
“Please.”
“Chill yer jets.” Andrew turned his head and regarded her. “You got something you need doing, g’wan. I can wake these here kids up.”
The woman stopped tugging. “You can?” she asked. “Oh. Would you? This is a situation we’re just not willing to get involved in.”
One of Andrew’s grizzled eyebrows lifted. “Waking folks up?” he queried. “Damndest thing I ever heard. That malpractice stuff must be hitting you all pretty fierce.”
“M—ah, no, no.” The nurse gave up. “Excuse me.” She turned and left, quickly walking away toward a door marked “Nurses Lounge.”
Andrew watched her go, then he scratched his jaw thoughtfully before shrugging and returning his attention to the room. He stepped inside with utmost quiet and padded over to the bed, spending several moments just watching his children sleep.
Then, with a rakish grin, he pulled a camera out of the pocket of his pullover and opened it, examining the controls carefully before he put it to his eye and allowed the gizmo to focus. When he had the scene 274 Melissa Good properly adjusted, he released the shutter and heard the click and whirr of the camera operating. After a second, he pulled it down and reviewed the LCD screen on the back, examining the digital image.
“Huh.”
He shook his head, then closed the camera up and tucked it away before moving closer to the bedside. His daughter was curled half onto her side, with her head pillowed against Kerry’s chest, with both of Kerry’s arms wrapped around her.
Andrew felt a smile pull at the skin on his face, still stiff after all the scarring and the surgery. Hospitals weren’t his favorite place, either, but to be honest, he’d spent more time in them than Dar had. Even now, after all the work they’d done, he knew the scars were still damn ugly to look at, and he was conscious of that even with Ceci.
God bless her, she never so much as flinched, even at the worst of it, but it didn’t stop Andrew from remembering the averted eyes or open stares of others.
Like them nurses had been staring, only they’d been looking inside this here room. Andrew laid his big hands on the railing. Looking at something so beautiful made his heart ache, having seen so much hate in his lifetime that love could only be exquisitely beautiful to him.
Very gently, he put a hand on Dar’s shoulder. He kept his voice low. “Paladar.”
Dar’s eyes quivered, then blinked open, the dark brows over them contracting as she tried to place where and when she was. She turned her head and peered up at him, then realized why it was so nice and warm, and promptly turned the heat up by blushing a deep, vivid crimson. “D—”
Andrew had to chuckle. “Dardar, I ain’t seen you turn that color since I done caught you skinny-dipping out at that waterhole when you were ten.”
“Erk.” Dar’s throat issued an adolescent squeak.
It was enough to wake Kerry up, though, and she also gazed at Andrew with sleepy eyes for a few seconds before her brain booted and nearly caused her to fall off the bed. “Uh...Hi, Dad,” she managed to cough out.
“Hi there, kumquat,” Andrew responded amiably. “You look right comfortable.”
Kerry looked at Dar, who was still doing her best McIntosh apple imitation. “Sorry, honey,” she apologized weakly. “Didn’t mean to do that.”Dar sighed and rubbed her heated face with her good hand. “S’all right,” she said. “Could have been worse.” She glanced at her father.
“Morning.”
“Morning, Dardar,” Andrew said. “I’d ask how y’all were feeling,
’cept I figure you look pretty good to me just now.”
A weak laugh forced its way out of Dar’s throat as she untangled Red Sky At Morning 275
herself from Kerry’s embrace. She rolled over onto her back as her lover slid out of bed and straightened her T-shirt with as much dignity as she could muster.
Which, to be honest, wasn’t much.
“What was your question again?” Dar finally asked, running her fingers through her mussed hair. “Oh, right. How do I feel.” Slowly, she straightened out her body and flexed her arm. The results mildly surprised her. “Better than yesterday,” she said, lifting a hand to touch the lump on the back of her head. It seemed to have gone down some.
“Yeah, headache’s not so bad, and my arm hurts less.”
Andrew gave her an approving look. “Good to hear.” Kerry had snuck into the restroom with her overnight bag and was apparently utilizing the sink there with a good amount of vigor. “Had me a little worried yesterday.”
Dar tensed her lips, then shrugged. “What a botched event that was,” she exhaled. “A total screw-up, and it was my fault.”
Andrew rolled his eyes. “Git yer head out of that there bucket of whup, Paladar,” he scolded. “You ain’t responsible for them folks, and you know it.”
Dar shook her head. “I should have found out more about what was going on. One of our people could have really gotten hurt in there.” She pulled herself up a little straighter. “I should have checked first.”
Andrew looked around, then leaned over and smoothed the dark hair out of his daughter’s eyes with a gentle hand. “Don’t beat yourself up, Dar. Y’all are gonna make me start beating up my mah own head,
’cause sure as the day is long, I should have figgured what was up when we got there, don’t you think?”
Dar looked at him thoughtfully.
“Them people just knew how to use a diversion when they had one, all right?” Andrew went on. “Now we got to get them pieces back together so none of them dirty dogs gets off.” He waited for Dar to nod, and she finally did. “Good girl. I’m going to take a ride down there and see what I can figure out.”
Dar lodged what she knew was a futile protest. “You don’t have to.
Let me have Gerry handle it, Dad.”
“You saying I ain’t up to this?” Andrew asked.
“No.” Dar felt very off center. “I’m not saying that.”
“Good.” Andrew patted her arm. “You take it easy now, Dardar.
Keep an eye on that kumquat of yours. Make sure she gets some breakfast, all right?” He waved and started out before Dar could say a word, disappearing around the corner of the door with stealthy speed.
Dar stared at her bare feet, sticking out from under the mussed covers, and wiggled her toes. It was not starting out to be a very organized day.
Chapter
Seventeen
KERRY FLEXED HER hands and peered at her laptop screen. Her report was almost done, the data cataloged neatly into columns that laid out in black and white the discrepancies she’d found. It wasn’t a smoking gun, she realized, more a pattern of carelessness and lack of accountability in moving funds from one account to the other, but the pattern was there, and if they got nothing else, would provide the government auditors a place to start.
If nothing else. Kerry rubbed her lower lip. Mark had taken the data storage cube back and secured it at the office, but the information they may or may not have gotten from there would have to wait for Dar’s inspection. Only Dar had the algorithms to unlock the tracks they’d copied, and those were tucked inside her head and nowhere else.