“Thanks for chatting, Ms. Roberts. Have a good night,” the reporter replied courteously. “Sir.” He gave Andrew a nod, before he turned and rejoined the milling crowd.
“Pansy ass,” Andrew grunted.
“Shh.” Dar muffled a short laugh. “C’mon.” She turned and walked up the stairs, shaking her head.
Dar was glad to get away from the noise and the crowd. She didn’t like them to begin with, and the pain was shortening her already ragged temper. “Damn, I wish I was home.” She sighed as she reached the door to the green room.
“Ah bet.” Andrew opened it for her. “Let me take a look at that there arm of yours.”
Dar’s brow edged up.
”Don’t you give me that look.” Her father scowled at her.
“Git.”
“Yes, sir.” Dar entered the room with Andy and closed the door. The room was dark, as they’d left only one lamp on, and she let out a silent sigh as she absorbed the quiet, dim peace. She kicked her shoes off first, then pulled her jacket off and froze in mid motion, clenching her jaw against a gasp.
“Easy there, Dardar.” Her father caught up to her and gently eased the jacket off her shoulders. “Lemme see that…Good Lord.”
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Dar glanced at her arm. “Looks worse than it feels,” she lied.
Andrew turned her into the light and touched the bruised skin with gentle fingers. “Looks a sight worse than it did back down south. Thought you been taking it easy.” He lifted his eyes and studied her face. “That does not look good to me, young lady.”
Dar managed a rakish grin. “Yeah, well, it’s your fault.”
Andrew blinked at her in astonishment and pointed a finger at his own, medal bedecked chest. “Mah fault?”
“Yep.” Dar walked to her bag and dug out her bottle of pills, then opened it and spilled one out onto her palm. “I did something yesterday I shouldn’t have.”
Her father snorted. “Are you telling me ah taught you to be a dumbass?”
Dar swallowed the pill and washed it down with a little of the bottled water she kept in her overnight bag. “Nope.” She put the bottle down and faced him. “You taught me chivalry. Kerry was sick as a dog and couldn’t stand up, so I picked her up and carried her to the bed.”
Andrew covered his eyes. “Lord.”
“Yeah, well.” Dar trudged back to him and turned. “Mind unzipping me?” She felt a light touch, then the fabric around her shoulders relaxed. “Thanks.” She glanced back at him. “And you would have done the same damn thing, so there.”
“Huh.”
Dar picked up her nightshirt and ducked into the bathroom.
She peered at her reflection and grimaced at the spreading extent of her injury. No wonder they freaked. Damn, that looks almost as bad as it feels. With a sigh, she slid her dress off and carefully got into her nightshirt, trying not to lift her arm more than she had to. “I’ll be damn glad when this is over,” she called out.
“You and me both, Dardar,” Andrew answered.
Dar went back into the room and sat on the bed. Andrew sat in the chair facing her. They regarded each other in silence for a moment, then Dar exhaled. “I hate what this is doing to Kerry.”
She hesitated. “And I hate that it’s because of us, because of our relationship that it’s so bad for her.”
Andrew mulled that over for a bit. “Yeap,” he finally exhaled.
“It was like that for your ma and me too. Her folks, my folks…Hurts like hell sometimes.”
They both thought about that in companionable quiet.
“Dar?” Andrew finally looked up at her, the dim light glint-ing off his pale eyes. “What’d that feller do to Kerry?”
Dar studied his face. “Kyle?”
“Hm.”
150 Melissa Good
“Just a lot of things. Why?”
Andy shifted. “’Cause that young lady ain’t afraid of much, and she’s scared of him; and I want to know why that is. And
’cause he makes mah eyeballs itch.”
How should I answer that? Dar wondered. So much Kerry had told her was so very private, and she knew her lover had kept it that way for a reason. Would she want anyone else to know?
Would she want anyone else to hear the things she’d finally told Dar, getting past that one last barrier before she committed herself to their relationship?
Maybe not.
There had been shame in Kerry’s eyes when she’d told her. It was a secret she’d held inside for a long time, and something she’d offered up to Dar in a trembling voice, as though somehow it might have made her feel differently about Kerry. Instead, it had just made her angry she hadn’t been there to stop it.
As she considered, Dar peered down at her hands, clenched together and tensed. Her mind went over Kyle’s vaguely threaten-ing manner. Would he try to hurt Kerry further? Her brow creased, then she nodded a tiny bit. He’d try to make her as miserable as he could, wouldn’t he?
She lifted her eyes and found her father patiently watching her. “I think…I think the worst thing he did to her…” She paused, trying to find the right way to phrase her thoughts. “I think the worst thing he did was he forced Kerry to see just how little she counted as a person with her own parents.”
“Mm.” Andrew considered that. Then he glanced sharply at her. “How?”
Her father sensed something, Dar realized suddenly.
“He…did something to her, and when she told her parents, they didn’t believe her.” She hesitated. “They believed him and made her apologize to him, and he laughed at her.”
Andrew got up and sat on the bed next to Dar. He looked into her eyes with a serious expression. “Paladar, did that man hit her?”
“No.” Dar felt suddenly back in adolescence, facing the one person she had never lied to, and had always trusted more completely than anything or anyone else in her life. “He raped her, Daddy.”
Andrew went very, very still, not even breathing for a long, long moment.
Dar blinked and was surprised to feel the warmth of tears rolling down her cheeks. She wiped them away with an irritated swipe of the back of her hand. “How could they not believe her?
Damn! I could never understand that.”
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Andrew remained very quiet for a moment, then he exhaled and took Dar’s hand, carefully folding his fingers around hers. “I thank the good Lord that you cannot understand that.” His voice was low and a touch hoarse.
Dar studied the scarred hands holding hers. “Dad?”
Andrew looked up at her. “Hm?”
“Sorry I gave you such a hard time when I was a kid,” Dar said. “I didn’t realize how lucky I was.”
Andrew shifted, then circled her with one long arm and gently hugged her and brushed his lips over her hair as she tucked her head against his shoulder.
“KERRISON, A MOMENT, if you please?”
For a long beat, Kerry almost said no. Then she exhaled and walked to her mother. The press had disassembled their equipment, and the hall was almost empty, and she wanted nothing more than to escape and find Dar and just get a hug. “Yes?”
Cynthia glanced around, then looked at her. “I know this evening was terribly upsetting for you.”
Kerry shrugged. “It was more or less what I was expecting. I don’t think we’ll be staying for the service tomorrow.”
Cynthia’s lips compressed. “Oh dear.” She sighed. “Perhaps if I speak with them—”
“No.” Kerry lifted a hand. “Don’t bother. I’ve paid my respects and said my good-byes.” She paused, considering her words. “Anything more is just a farce, and we all know it.”
“But—”