“Mm.” Ceci climbed aboard their vessel and felt the boat move as Dar followed her. She entered the cabin but stopped just inside, forcing Dar to stop as well. “One thing.” She turned and faced her daughter. “I want you to promise me something.”
Dar felt very off balance. She was a little buzzed, and she’d been in the sun all day; her brain wasn’t working nearly as well as it usually did. “Huh?”
“Promise me something,” Ceci repeated patiently. “It’s not that hard, honest.”
“Okay. What?”
“Promise me you won’t ask me how or where I got this from,”
Ceci said, feeling more than a bit nervous. “Okay?”
Dar leaned against the doorway, feeling the warm teak wood against the skin of her shoulder. “Okay,” she agreed, completely Thicker Than Water 219
at sea. “I won’t. Why would I, anyway? You don’t usually ask people where they…”
Ceci had opened a trunk just inside the door as Dar was speaking, and now she lifted something and held it out.
Dar’s voice trailed off as she stared at the object, then slowly she reached out and took it. Her eyes absorbed the contrast of slate gray against still vivid color, details meticulously etched by a careful and very patient hand. Her careful and very patient hands, which had first built, then painted the model aircraft carrier many years before.
Ceci just watched her. There was so very much about their shared past she could not change, but this one little thing she’d been bound and determined to. It had taken a while, but she’d persisted in gaining back one of the largest bones of contention there had ever been between them. Even Andy had been shocked and angered at her when she’d gotten rid of Dar’s models.
Dar finally drew in a deep breath and looked up and away from the ship, her gaze open and wondering. “Wh—”
“Ah ah ah.” Ceci shook her head. “You promised.” She covered the intense emotion she felt by indicating the chest. “The rest of them are in here. I don’t know if you even have room for them, but I…” She heard a slight scraping sound as Dar put the model on the table, then felt the warmth as she approached. “…thought you might…” A hand gripped her shoulder and she felt herself being turned.
Having little choice, she went along with the prodding and found herself facing her daughter, and in the moment their eyes met, Ceci felt like a mother again. But she didn’t really get a chance to absorb that before Dar did something very unexpected.
She stepped forward and put her arms around Ceci and hugged her.
Good goddess. Ceci managed to respond in kind, wrapping her arms around Dar’s strong body and giving her a healthy squeeze.
The last time I did this… She let out a small breath. The last time I did this, she was ten years old. “Dar, I’m sorry. I wish it’d been different for us.”
“I don’t care.” Dar closed her eyes and just hugged harder.
“It’s different now. That’s all that matters.”
Ceci was lifted up a little, and she gained a new perspective on why Kerry took such care to remain strong and fit: you could get a little bent otherwise. But it felt good. She hugged her daughter and smiled in relief, thoroughly enjoying the moment.
DAR STUCK HER hands in her pockets and stretched, feeling 220 Melissa Good a tiny cloud of wonder following her around as she made her way off the bridge. It lasted just long enough for her to get across the sand and realize what everyone was looking at. She could feel the slow burn of embarrassment heat her skin as she heard the laughter and slowed her steps.
Kerry was kneeling beside her father, one arm draped over his shoulders, pointing out something on the page with one finger. As the laughter rose again, she glanced up and their eyes met.
In a twinkling instant, the amusement vanished from her face. She stood, gave Andrew a pat on the shoulder and pushed through the crowd towards Dar.
It took all of Dar’s considerable self-discipline to not simply turn and leave.
“Hey.” Kerry sounded like she was walking on verbal egg-shells.
“I didn’t realize I was the party entertainment,” Dar replied in a clipped tone. Another spurt of laughter and her whole body jerked, stilling when Kerry touched her stomach in a reflex action.
It was hard to believe just how angry she was.
“Dar.” Kerry frantically sorted through her thoughts for a way to prevent the explosion she could feel about to take place.
“Honey, please listen to me, okay? Before you go off the deep end?”
Dar remained completely silent.
“We’re your friends and family, and we love you,” Kerry whispered. “Your mom and dad are so proud of you, and they want to share their memories of you with your friends. Don’t be upset, please?”
Dar stared over her shoulder at the crowd, who hadn’t noticed her presence in the twilight shadows. Her face was still and closed, her pale blue eyes remote and very cold. Then, as though a switch had been flipped, she relaxed and sighed.
“I hate those pictures,” Dar muttered. “I look like such an idiot.”
She shoots, she scores! Kerry wrapped an arm around Dar.
“You do not. You were such an adorable baby, Dar. I wanted to just squeeze you.” She did so, getting a soft grunt out of Dar.
“Especially that one picture with you in the bunny suit.”
“Eemph.” Dar grimaced. “I’m gonna go wait on the boat.”
“No, no, no.” Kerry kept hold of her and dug her heels into the sand with a remarkable lack of success in stopping Dar’s progress. “C’mon...c’mon, Dar, please?” Her voice broke on the last word, and it actually made Dar stop and turn and put her arms around Kerry.
Oo. Have to remember that. “Come over and look at them,”
Thicker Than Water 221
Kerry pleaded gently. “Please?”
Dar exhaled unhappily. The very last thing in the world she wanted to do was go look at ugly old baby pictures of herself. On the other hand, it would make Kerry happy. Was she willing to do something she really, really didn’t want to do to gain that result?
Dar tilted her head and regarded the serious, mist green eyes looking back at her. “I’m not comfortable with people getting this close to me. It’s crossing a line I’m not sure I want crossed.”
Kerry absorbed that, her lips pursing as she considered the statement. “My life was lived so much in the public view, I didn’t even think of that with you. I apologize, Dar. I should have stopped your father.” She looked into Dar’s eyes. “Forgive me?”
Like I have a choice? A smile pulled at Dar’s lips as she surrendered her dignity and simply wrapped her arms around Kerry and started towards the group circling her father. What the hell.
She endured the sudden glances and grins with wry stoicism. “All right, which one of the seven thousand bad baby shots is he showing you now?”
“Aw, Dar, you were such a sweet baby.” Maria smiled at her boss. “So cute.”
“Mm,” Ceci agreed with a nod, catching up to them as they reached the rock. “I was going to pitch her as a baby model but she bit the photographer.”
Everyone looked at Dar, who grinned, then they made room as Kerry and Dar settled at Andy’s side. Kerry put an arm around Dar’s waist and rested her chin on her shoulder. “What on earth were you doing there?” She pointed at a small, square Polaroid of a perhaps five or six year old Paladar in denim overalls on a very fuzzy, very unhappy looking animal.
“Riding a llama.” Dar sighed, remembering the Pirate World Adventure during one of Andy’s infrequent leaves. “Neither of us enjoyed the experience, if I recall.”