Red Sky At Morning - DK4

by Melissa Good

  Chin up, shoulders back. Dar straightened and felt her usual confident attitude drop over her in a comforting sensation. She picked up her slim leather portfolio and headed out the door, hearing it close 14 Melissa Good behind her as she walked down the carpeted hallway, her medium-heeled shoes sinking just slightly into the pile.

  The elevator had many nicely dressed people in it. Most of them glanced at her as she entered, and most of the guys sucked in their guts.

  Dar graced them with a smile, but kept silent, folding her hands over her folder with its distinctive company logo stamped in leather on the outside.

  The trip down seemed to last forever, in that elongated awkwardness that elevators often produce. But they did finally make it, and Dar exited the small space, moving into the lobby toward the convention center, where large groups of men and women were gathered near the double doors.

  “Dar!”

  She turned and waited for Alastair to catch up to her. The CEO was dressed in a dark-blue suit and red tie, and he smiled at Dar as he took her by the elbow. “Morning.”

  “Morning, morning.” Alastair ushered her through the door and up one broad aisle toward the podium. “Sleep well?”

  “Fine,” Dar replied as they moved up to the table set on the elevated stage. “Did we get the—ah.” She laid her portfolio down and took over the keyboard of the laptop on the table, rattling the keys with a sense of comforting familiarity. “Good,” she murmured, reviewing the data flashing across the LED screen. The system was hooked to an overhead projector, which would allow her to show the stockholders real-time data moving across their new network. “Looks good.”

  Alastair glanced at the figures. “You’d know.” He patted her shoulder. “I’m going to get everyone settled, then I’ll introduce you.

  Hey, nice rose.”

  “Thanks.” Dar glanced at it. “And thanks for dinner last night.

  Damn good pasta.”

  “Almost as good as the company.” Alastair returned the compliment courteously. “And speaking of which, don’t let Bob run you ragged tonight, all right? He loves this town and loves to show it off, but he gets a little too enthusiastic about its vices sometimes.”

  Dar looked up from her data and cocked her head. “Is that a warning?” She watched her boss nod. “All right. I’ll keep that in mind.

  Now c’mon, let’s get this show on the road.” She concentrated on setting up the networking monitors and ignored Alastair’s walking over to the podium.

  “Ladies and gentleman?” The CEO laid his hands confidently on the wood surface. “If you’d like to take your seats, we’ll get started.”

  The crowd bustled into place, scrapes and scuffs overwhelming the conversation as people settled into the comfortable chairs. Almost immediately, a young red-haired man stood up and raised his hand.

  “Mr. McLean?”

  Alastair looked over at him. “Yes? Thomas Bantelberg, isn’t it?”

  Red Sky At Morning 15

  The man blinked a moment, obviously not expecting the CEO to recognize him. “Yes. Listen, we’re all really interested in the new network. We don’t want to hear a bunch of corporate BS today, if you don’t mind.” Several people laughed, but more nodded and faced forward.

  “Well,” Alastair leaned on the podium, “you know, I had a feeling everyone was going to feel like that.” He had their attention, and the room settled down, everyone listening to him intently. “These stockholder meetings are usually pretty dry, huh?” A round of polite laughter. “I know how much the industry has been talking about our new infrastructure, and I thought that it would be a strong topic of conversation at this meeting.” He straightened. “You all have questions like is it what it’s advertised to be, and how are we going to use it, right?”

  Nods.

  “Well, good.” Alastair rubbed his hands briskly. “Because I can’t tell you any of that.”

  Silence.

  “So I brought someone here to do the corporate presentation who can.” He glanced over at Dar, who had finished fiddling with her hardware and was quietly waiting. “Ladies and gentlemen, I’d like to present to you our chief information officer and the designer of the new network, Dar Roberts.”

  Dar forced her legs into motion and gave her boss a curt nod as he relinquished the podium.

  Then she wondered what all the noise was. Startled, her eyes lifted to see the entire crowd standing up, yelling and waving at her. She looked at Alastair in alarm, only to see the CEO hiding a smirk behind one hand. Only then did she realize that what she was facing was a standing ovation.

  Jesus. Now what?

  Finally, they shut up and she was able to collect herself, waiting for everyone to sit down before she opened her mouth. Then she shut it again, because she had no idea what to say to the huge, faceless mob, whose attention was now focused on her with fierce intentness.

  Well, she had to say something before they all fell asleep, didn’t she?

  “The agenda requires me to spend some time at this point outlining the basic plan and infrastructure of why we implemented a new network,”

  Dar finally said. “But I’d bet you’d rather just see it, right?”

  There was a moment’s silence, beating against her face, then a laugh. Ah. That was good. “Right.” Dar clicked on the overhead and behind her, a slim gray screen exploded into life. “This is the deal...”

  “OOH, I THOUGHT she was going to choke there.” Kerry had her chin on her fists and her eyes glued to the IDLN broadcast of her lover 16 Melissa Good explaining in terse detail the advantages of their new net.

  “Mm...” Duks was sitting on her desk, and Mark was leaning next to her. “Public speaking is not an easy thing for Dar, I do not think.”

  “Nice suit,” Mark commented. “Crowd likes her.”

  Kerry watched Dar’s body language, which to her seemed almost painfully stiff. After a few minutes, though, her lover relaxed a little.

  “That’s better, she’s loosening up some.”

  “Yeah,” the MIS chief agreed. “Boy, she looks nervous. Never thought I’d see that.”

  “C’mon, honey,” Kerry whispered to the screen, crossing her fingers and willing Dar to calm down. For a brief instant, the blue eyes lifted from the crowd and glanced right at the IDLN transmit camera, and they were eye to eye; then Dar went back to her information, scrolling expertly through a series of benchmarks and displaying a test of the new network’s capabilities. “Atta girl.” She noticed the rose pinned to her boss’s jacket and smiled.

  “What’s she doing now...oh.” Mark leaned forward. “Showing off that new hub. Yeah, lookit that.” They watched Dar shift traffic effortlessly from one port to the other, providing seamless fallback for the accounts on that particular system. “Cool.”

  Dar finished her displays, then turned and laid her hands on the podium, much more at ease now. “Any questions?” The rich, powerful voice rolled out over the crowd. A moment’s silence, then a forest of hands went up. Dar seemed to find this funny, the corners of her mouth twitching as she leaned on the wooden surface. “All right. You first.”

  She pointed, and the questions began.

  “She likes that better.” Kerry nodded. “Questions she can deal with. She has to do that every day.” And certainly, her lover was handling them, becoming more confident as Kerry watched, moving out away from the protection of the podium, illustrating her answers with quick, precise motions of her hands. Kerry sighed. “God, she’s gorgeous.” She became aware of an awkward silence and glanced up to see Mark and Duks making strange faces at her. “Sorry, but she is.”

  “Yeah, I know, but...” Mark scratched his jaw. “It’s just so weird hearing that...um...”

  “From another woman?” Kerry asked wryly.

  “Yeah.”

  “Sorry.”

  “It’s okay.” Mark shrugged and laughed. “I needed some horizon broadening today.”

  They turned back to the screen and watched
as Dar took another step forward, her personality visibly emerging as she fielded tough questions, displaying an impressive knowledge of their industry.

  “Yeah, you go.” Kerry smiled as the crowd applauded. “Rock ’em.”

  Red Sky At Morning 17

  “UGH.” DAR FLOPPED down onto her back and stared up at the ceiling, flexing toes newly freed from their leather entrapment. “Well, that wasn’t so bad, I guess.” Her cell phone rang and she lifted it, stretching as she put it to her ear. “Yes?”

  “You rock.”

  “Oh, I do, do I?” Dar responded with a lazy smile, glad to have the entire affair behind her. “I didn’t sound too much like a walking geek tank?”

  “No way,” Kerry laughed. “We all watched it on IDLN. But my God, Dar, your face when they gave you that ovation...I thought you were going to swallow your pager.”

  “Erf.” Dar threw an arm over her eyes. “Caught me by surprise; but it ended up pretty good. Those West Indies investors are sharp. They had some good questions.”

  “You had some great answers.” Kerry leaned back in her chair and propped a knee up against her desk. “Listen, I did call you to say hi and congratulations and all that...”

  “But?” Dar drawled through the phone.

  “But,” Kerry agreed, “we’ve got a real problem in Chicago, Dar. I think I’m going to have to go out there.” She heard the sigh. “Tonight.”

  Another sigh. “Col said she’d watch Chino, since Mom and Dad are in Bermuda.” They were both silent for a bit. “I don’t think it’ll take long.”

  “You promised me turkey,” Dar protested with a hint of a verbal pout. “Tell Chicago to stuff itself.”

  Kerry gazed fondly at her speakerphone. “We’ve still got two days before Thanksgiving, Dar. C’mon, I’ll be back tomorrow night at the latest. Besides, you’re the one who said you could deal with Egg McMuffins if you had to,” she reminded her boss.

  “That was before you mentioned marshmallow-stuffed sweet potatoes,” Dar retorted, then sighed. “I know, I know. I was reviewing that mess myself. I thought I might have to make a trip out there, but you’re really better at handling those people than I am.”

  “Thank you.” Kerry preened silently, tipping back and enjoying the twilight outside. “What’re your plans for tonight?”

  There was a momentary pause on the other end. “Bob Trancet wants to show me the town,” Dar answered. “But after Alastair warned me off today, I’m not sure I want to be shown.” Another pause. “Hey.”

  “Mm?” Kerry was rolling Dar’s words over in her mind.

  “Thanks for the roses, the chocolate, and the teddy bear.”

  A smile grew. “I saw your jacket; it looked pretty.” Kerry turned her head to one side and regarded the phone. “Hey, isn’t he the guy there was the big scandal about over Fourth of July?” she asked curiously. “Him and a secretary, or something, in the Xerox room?”

  “Yeah,” Dar admitted. “He wears his gonads on his lapel, all right.”

  Kerry almost spit her tonsils out her nose. She clapped a hand over her mouth and reached for her cup of tea, half choking with laughter.

  18 Melissa Good

  “Dar, don’t do that,” she spluttered. “I didn’t need that mental image; I really, really didn’t.”

  Dar chuckled softly. “Sorry. Maybe I’ll just force him into dinner here at the hotel. I’m pretty tired after all that crap today. When’s your flight?”

  “Nine.” Kerry stifled a yawn. “Wish it were landing in LaGuardia.”

  She rolled her head to one side. “God, this is ridiculous.”

  “What is?”

  “Me feeling like a spoiled little brat denied her candy because you’re not here,” Kerry responded wryly. “Dar, this is not normal. I want you to go to Doctor Steve when you get back, so he can figure out what you put out that has me so damned hooked on you.” She paused.

  “Stop smirking.”

  “I wasn’t.”

  “You most certainly were.” Kerry reached out and ran a fingertip along the speakerphone. “Am I embarrassing you?”

  “No.” Dar’s voice dropped a note. “Flattering me.”

  “Mm.” Kerry’s eyes half closed, and she exhaled. “Well, I guess I’d better get going. I want to get to the airport a little early.” She stifled another yawn. “At least I can sleep on the plane. You go and have fun with Mr. Happy Gonads, okay?”

  “Oh yeah. A blast,” Dar mused. “Hey, have a good flight, okay?

  Give me a call when you get to your hotel.”

  “I will,” Kerry promised. “Later, sweetie.”

  “Later.” Dar hung up the phone and set it on her mostly bare chest.

  She’d stripped out of her silk suit almost as fast as the damn shoes, and was in her half-slip and bra, the air conditioning raising tiny goose bumps over her exposed belly. She rubbed her chilled skin, then sat up, using one hand to work a kink out of her neck. She got up and trudged over to the dresser, yanking a shirt out of her bag and tugging it on over her head.

  “Okay.” Dar addressed her now rumpled reflection, blowing a bit of dark hair out of her eyes with a quick puff of air. “Dinner, a drink in the bar, and we’re outta there.” She took off her slip and exchanged it for a pair of jeans, then tucked the shirt in and buckled the belt. “Might as well get some work done while I’m hanging around waiting.”

  Minutes later, she was sitting on the bed with her laptop resting on her legs, reviewing her mail and the two system status reports Mark had sent down. An e-mail opened, and she reviewed it. “Kiss my ass.”

  She typed in a response and sent it back, then opened a second. “Bite me.” Another mail winged its way back. Then she opened the third, reading it several times, then cocking her head to one side to watch the tiny gopher graphic dance along its edge sideways. “Ooh. Cool, you got the toes working,” she praised Kerry in absentia.

  Then she leaned closer and squinted at the small creature, who seemed to have acquired spectacles from somewhere. “Ah.” A Red Sky At Morning 19

  chagrined look crossed her face as Dar nodded in wry acknowledgement. Kerry had been nudging her for a month to get her eyes checked, and so far, she’d found a lot of different excuses not to.

  “Cute, Ker, very cute,” she replied to the e-mail, blithely ignoring the addition.

  Pausing briefly, she grabbed the remote for the room’s television and flicked it on, thumbing through the channels before a graphic caught her eye. She studied the screen with a frown. “Great.”

  Another flick brought the volume up.

  “A winter storm warning has been raised for the Northeast,” the man on the screen was saying. “New York is expecting snow and freezing rain, so tonight’s a good night to be staying inside.”

  Dar snorted. “Thanks, buddy. Now I don’t even have to make up an excuse.” She glanced at her mail. “Glad your flights going the other direction after all.” She finished typing and hit send. “No sense in both of us getting dumped on, huh?”

  Chapter

  Two

  KERRY SETTLED BACK in her seat and debated whether or not to take out her laptop. When she traveled alone, she was always conscious of who was sitting next to her—idle eyes that might take in whatever her laptop screen had on display—and while the chances of her being seated next to a competitor were fairly slim, she never knew.

  Her seatmate this trip was a bookish-looking young man with heavy glasses and an academic air about him. She spared a moment to imagine what his profession might be, a game she often played with herself while traveling. Professor? Probably not old enough. Research scientist? Maybe. The man solved her musings a moment later, when he tugged a pad from a notebook and started scribing lines on it in a familiar programming language.

  Kerry smiled and leaned back. Figures. Another nerd. She lazily eyed the dark window, observing the clearly not twinkling stars outside. She leaned a hand against the glass to shade the light and peered out, amaz
ed as always at the complete explosion of lights spread so thickly across the sky. Below her stretched only dark land, an occasional brief island of light indicating a city. Far off in the horizon they were traveling toward, she could see a line of darkness shot through with lightning that had to be the storm front the Weather Channel had promised.

  A slight clank caught her attention, and she turned her head to see the stewardess standing there, waiting to take her dinner order. “I’ll take the filet, thanks.” Kerry gave the woman a brief smile. “And if you have a beer?”

  “Heineken all right?” The woman wrote down the order. “Be right back. And you, sir?” Kerry’s seatmate ordered the filet as well, with a whiskey and soda. That was interesting, Kerry thought, as she folded her hands over her stomach and stretched her legs out, crossing them at the ankles. Whiskey and soda always sounded like something her father would order, not someone of her own generation or younger.

  “Do...you fly much?” the young man asked diffidently.

  “Unfortunately, more than I’d like to,” Kerry replied politely. “It’s not for pleasure.”

  “Oh.” The man wiped his hand off on his neatly pressed wool pants Red Sky At Morning 21

  leg and held it out. “Josh Abbot. I just started working for Intelsat, and this is my second trip in a week. I’m not sure I like it.”

  Kerry took his hand and returned the grip. “Kerry Stuart. I work for ILS.”

  He brightened. “Really? Wow! So you’re headed to Chicago for the snafu with that new data center, huh?”

  Blonde eyebrows shot up past Kerry’s hairline. “I wasn’t aware we’d released that to the press,” she commented.

  Josh at least had the grace to blush. “No, well, I...um...” He looked up in startlement as the stewardess offered him a hot towel, taking it mechanically and looking at it as if it was a small dead white animal. “I heard my boss talking about it. I’m sorry; I should have watched my mouth.”

  Kerry took her towel and carefully washed each finger with it, considering her options. “Well, it’s a small industry, right?” She gave the man a reassuring smile. “Who’s your boss?”