by Melissa Good
Kerry asked, making everyone chuckle. “During dinner the other night, we were watching Braveheart on disc, and boy was I glad we weren’t having steak.”
“Hey!” Dar objected. “It was your pick, remember? Not mine. I wanted to watch The Ancient Secrets of Rome, but no...”
Another laugh went around the table, easy and unforced. Dar dipped her roast into her gravy contentedly, enjoying the banter as Duks and Kerry started arguing over the historical accuracy of the picture. She listened to Kerry’s laugh and watched the smiles go around the table, and it occurred to her quite suddenly that for once she was damned happy with her life.
She paused in mid-bite, just to savor the knowledge. Then she washed her mouthful down with a sip of milk and pretended she didn’t see Kerry stealing a spoonful of her mousse. “Hey.”
Everyone turned to look at her.
“You all interested in going out on the water next weekend? We can do a cookout on the beach, that kinda thing,” Dar said. She’d caught Kerry flat-footed by surprise, she knew, and the way Kerry’s expression 56 Melissa Good read, she half expected her lover to reach over and check her for fever.
Mark accepted instantly. “Sure. Sounds great.”
“Yes, I agree,” Mariana recovered. “Thanks, Dar. What a great idea.”
“Absolutely.” Duks nodded solemnly. “I will bring the beer.”
Dar sucked on her milk, enjoying the sensation she’d caused. It was the first time, she acknowledged, that she’d instigated a party, usually leaving Kerry to do the social arrangements for them. Well, she decided, it was about damn time.
Yeah.
THE COOL BREEZE blew across the patio, ruffling the soft cotton of Dar’s pants leg as she pushed against the stone wall with one bare foot, rocking them gently in the net swing chair they’d recently installed. It was just big enough for two people, providing those two people really liked each other, and a comfortable way to sit and watch the moonlight travel across the water. Kerry was curled up in her arms, and they both held glasses of sweet white wine for sipping.
“You surprised me today,” Kerry murmured.
“With the party?”
“Mm.”
Dar had her eyes closed. “Good surprise or bad surprise?”
“That’s not a serious question, is it?” Kerry asked. “Of course it was a great surprise, and a great idea, by the way.”
“Good.” Dar rested her cheek against Kerry’s head. “I sort of figured anything that involved water, boats, sun, food, and beer would be okay with you.” She felt Kerry’s body shake as she laughed. “I’m just warning you, if you and Mark decide to have a belching competition again, I’m gonna tape it, convert it to an mpeg, and broadcast it companywide on Monday.”
Kerry laughed harder, almost spilling her wine. “You wouldn’t.”
Dar chuckled. “You wanna stake your dignity on that?” She put her glass down on the table next to them and put both her arms around Kerry. “Feeling any better, by the way?”
Kerry let her chuckles wind down into a sigh. “Yeah, thanks for asking.” She put her now empty glass down next to Dar’s and folded her hands over her lover’s. She caught a hint of smoke in the air from the beach club, mixed with the salt tang of the sea, and decided life just couldn’t get too much better than this. “Clarice made an appointment to come see me after Thanksgiving.”
“Mm.”
“She kept making pointed comments, I kept ignoring them.” Kerry yawned a bit. “I think I found her something in product development, though.”
“If she gets too obnoxious, let me know,” Dar rumbled. “I don’t Red Sky At Morning 57
want her taking potshots at you.”
Kerry tilted her head to observe the angular profile above her. “I can handle her, Dar. It’s not her fault she picked my personal property to get a crush on.”
Both of Dar’s eyebrows lifted. “Hmm. Maybe we’d better go back to that leather place and get me a leash and collar,” she suggested with a smile. “I could get your name on it in rhinestones. What do you think?”
“I dare you.” Kerry regretted the words the instant they came out of her mouth. “Oh, no, wait—forget I said that, Dar. Just erase it from your— Don’t you look at me like that!” Kerry reached up and tweaked Dar’s nose. “Stop it! Just don’t you even think about it.”
Dar pouted. “You don’t think I’d look good as a love slave?”
Kerry’s nostrils flared. “Ooh.” She blinked. “Now there’s an image.”
They both started laughing. “Dar, you’re a lot of things, but submissive isn’t one of them,” Kerry told her fondly. “Putting a collar on you would be like tying a bow on the tail of a tiger.” She grinned.
“Pretty, but definitely not functional.”
Dar gave her a little squeeze. “I’d do it for you,” she said. “Because you do own me, body and soul. You know that, right?”
“I do?” Kerry murmured.
Dar nodded.
“What an incredible gift that is.” The words were a mere whisper.
“Especially since I think you know I feel the same way.” Kerry ran a delicate fingertip over Dar’s lips. “I’ll take good care of you, Dar. I promise.”
“Does that mean you’ll get me a leather collar after all?” Dar teased.
“Dar, c’mon.” Kerry had to smile, though. “Maybe you should get me a collar.” She countered. “I should have been spanked with a newspaper for that stunt I pulled in New York.”
Her partner regarded her. “What would you wear it with? Your kickboxing gi?” She pondered, “We could get you one in each color.”
She reached over and tweaked Kerry’s nose. “And would you stop beating yourself over the head about that damned plane flight already?”
Kerry chuckled silently, letting her head rest against Dar’s chest, savoring the salt touched breeze. Then she drew in a breath and bit her lip, stifling a laugh. “Oh, you know, I think I do have something they’d go with.”
“You do?” Dar cocked her head.
“I went shopping while you were gone.”
“Uh oh.” The dark-haired woman chuckled nervously. “I wasn’t gone that long.”
“Hehehe.” Kerry hid her face with one hand. “You ever have one of those spur of the moment fits of insanity?” She sighed. “My inner 58 Melissa Good radical took over and I got…um…”
“Pierced?”
“Blurp.” Kerry bit her tongue as she tried to get her jaw shut without removing it from harms way first. “Dar! Don’t you think you’d have noticed?”
“Mm.” Dar started unbuttoning Kerry’s shirt. “I’d better make sure.
Hold still.” She persevered, despite her partner’s squirming and helpless laughter. “Oo…what’s that in there? Oh, wait. Sorry.”
“Bbrr…” Kerry resorted to biting Dar in the hand, as hers were trapped against her body. “Thifs nof a prisici!”
“Defintely too warm for that. Think of what it would feel like with a…” Dar yelped as the pressure increased against the sensitive space between her thumb and forefinger. “Okay…okay!”
Kerry waited, her teeth poised, gazing up at her partner from between slightly shaggy bangs as they each dared the other to continue.
“I only have fangs for you, Paladar,” Kerry warned, giving Dar as much of a steely glare as she was capable of.
“Okay, I give.” Dar relented, putting her arms around Kerry and hugging her as she settled warily back. They swayed for a brief while in silence, watching as a pair of gulls came in off the beach and circled over the stairs downward, creeling hopefully at them.
Kerry finally sighed. “I’m really an idiot.”
Half in a daze, Dar started. “Huh?”
“I knew I’d feel like squirrel poo if I asked you to bail me out, and I did it anyway.” Kerry admitted. “So now I have to deal with feeling like squirrel poo and having to face Clarice every day.”
“Ker.” Dar tightened her hol
d. “To hell with her. I’ll fire her ass if she bugs you.”
“Dar!” Kerry’s voice sharpened. “You can’t just fire people because they piss me off!”
“Sure I can,” her partner disagreed mildly. “But if you want to spoil my fun, just tell her there isn’t a place for her here. Make her go back to Chicago, or take a hike.”
Kerry sighed again and rested her forehead against her hand.
“Ker.”
“I know. It’s water under the bridge.” With a small shake of her body, Kerry visibly pushed the thought off and gathered herself together. “C’mon. Let’s go inside and I’ll show you the freaky scandalous thing I got.”
Dar didn’t release her. She pulled her closer instead, feeling the tension wound through Kerry’s body. It was one of the ways she and Kerry truly differed. When she had something happen that was not good, she refused to stress over it, resigning it to the past as something she could no longer change. Her partner was just the opposite, fretting over her decisions sometimes to both of their distraction. “Know something?”
Red Sky At Morning 59
Kerry exhaled. “What?”
Dar leaned forward until her lips were nearly touching her partner’s ear. “I love you.”
The magic words had their intended effect, and she felt the tension dissolve as Kerry slumped against her. Logical arguments seldom distracted her, but goopy romanticism always did, and Dar wasn’t in any mood to argue anyway.
She kissed the back of Kerry’s neck. “So now that that’s settled, let me go and be scandalized. That hasn’t happened since I was eight.”
Kerry chuckled softly. She half turned and kissed Dar on the lips, pulling back to meet the pale eyes watching her. “Thanks,” she said.
“Thanks for being here for me even when I’m being a dork.”
Dar nudged her a little. “You’re never a dork.”
“That’s so not true.”
They untangled themselves and headed for the sliding glass door, leaving the disappointed gulls behind them.
“NEED SOME HELP getting that bird out of the oven, Ker?” Dar called into the kitchen, giving the guests seated in their living room a wry grin. “It’s bigger than she is.”
“It is not! ” Kerry yelled back, having heard her.
Everyone chuckled. Dar was in the single leather chair with her father and mother on the couch across from her, Colleen and Ray on the couch, and Duks and Mariana perching on chairs in the dining room.
“Ah’ll go give it a heave,” Dar’s father announced, getting up and stretching out his six-foot-four-inch frame. The ex-SEAL ambled around the end of the couch and headed for the kitchen.
“Andy, no nibbling,” Cecilia Roberts called after him. The diminutive silver-blonde woman gave the rest of the guests a wry look.
“Not that it’ll help. I used to lose halves of whole meatloaves that way.”
Dar chuckled.
“I thought that you were the vegetarian, Mrs. Roberts?” Ray asked.
“I am. That’s why she’s laughing.” Ceci pointed to her daughter.
“She’d take the other half and leave me with a bowl of peas.”
Dar eased one denim-covered knee over the arm of the chair she was in, and cocked her head in agreement as another round of chuckles sounded.
“My da does the same,” Colleen chuckled. “I have to stop by there tonight, or I’ll never be hearing the end of it.” She turned to Dar. “How was your trip to the Big Apple, Dar?”
“Went all right,” the tall, dark-haired woman said. She sniffed the air as the combined scent of turkey and cinnamon penetrated the living room. “New York’s not my favorite town, but the stockholders were happy; and I got in and out fast.”
“Kerry came back with you?” Ceci asked. “I thought she went out 60 Melissa Good to Chicago.”
Dar got up and stretched, the intriguing smells from the kitchen luring her over. “She ran into weather on the flight up...had some plane problems. They landed in Newark.” Her head poked around the corner of the kitchen doorway. “Ready?”
Kerry looked up from removing baked sweet potatoes off a tray, their tops bubbling with toasted marshmallow. She had on a Dilbert apron, and she met Dar’s eyes with a grin. “Why? Are you hungry?”
Pale blue orbs darted to Andrew Roberts, then back to Kerry’s face.
“Yes.”
“Right nice-looking bird,” he drawled. “Never saw one with slippers on before, though.” He fingered the white frilly caps on the turkey’s leg bones. The bird itself was done to a nice golden brown, and a mound of stuffing spilled out over its breastbone and tumbled down onto the plate. “Good job, kumquat.”
“Yeah,” Dar agreed, licking her lips. Chino poked her head between Dar’s knees and investigated as well, wagging her tail hopefully.
Kerry regarded them fondly, a proud grin appearing on her face.
For her first turkey, it sure had turned out better than she’d dreamed.
“Okay, let’s get it to the table, then. I’ll bring this stuff.” She indicated the side dishes.
Andrew took possession of the turkey tray, lifting its bulk with little effort and heading for the dining room. Dar sidled over and took a fingerful of sweet potatoes, sticking it into her mouth before relieving Kerry of the platter. “Mmm.”
“Know what?” Kerry sucked on the end of her spoon. “I am pretty darn impressed with myself here.”
Dar leaned over and gave her partner a kiss on the lips. “I am totally not surprised.”
Kerry leaned against her. “Thanks.” She licked a bit of potato Dar had left behind off her lip and bumped her partner with one hip. “Better get in there before those are all gone.”
“You can make more.” Dar grinned. “But let me tell ya, I’m damn glad we didn’t’ miss out on this. It’s a blast.” She disappeared with the platter, leaving Kerry to divest herself of her apron and wipe her hands.
She could hear the buzz of conversation in the dining area, and the oohs and ahhs as the food arrived made her grin a little, and blush.
“Ah, and I remember all those horror stories everyone told about their first Thanksgiving.” She leaned back against the counter, enjoying the moment.
Traditions were funny. She didn’t remember Thanksgiving being a particularily enjoyable time in her past, save perhaps for her very youngest years. In the latter ones, it had become a photo opportunity for the press, as her father displayed his perfect American family gathered around a typical loaded table.
Red Sky At Morning 61
She half closed her eyes, a memory of being dressed in pristine starched ruffles and standing against a dark, wood wall as flashbulbs popped in her face coming sharply into focus.
Not attending wasn’t an option. Kerry could remember those endless nights surrounded by preening extended family, stilted conversations and critical remarks. “Damn, I hated turkey.” She sighed, shaking her head at the realization she’d just willingly produced a cooked one of her own.
Traditions here had taken on a whole new meaning, somehow.
“Hey, Ker?” Dar’s head popped back into the kitchen. “You coming out here to take your bows?”
Kerry pushed off the wall and headed into the living room, the chill air brushing against her bare legs and shoulders as she emerged to a round of enthusiastic clapping. She felt a blush color her skin as she took in all the smiling faces.
“Kerry, I have to tell you I never expected to be present at an edible Thanksgiving in this family unless Dar paid off Emeril Lagasse to visit,”
Ceci pronounced, with suitable seriousness. “I certainly never managed one.”Everyone chuckled, eyes turning to look at Kerry’s tall partner. Dar half shrugged, grinning rakishly. “Don’t look at me. I ordered in pizza before,” she assured them. “If anyone here thinks I ever thought I’d see a cooked turkey from that kitchen…” She pointed over her shoulder.
“on that table.” She pointed forward. “You’re nuts.”
/>
So totally different. Kerry welcomed Dar’s encircling arm around her shoulders as she joined the others at the table, remembering where she’d been a year ago this time. “Boy.” She leaned against Dar’s tall body. “This sure beats a chicken salad sandwich at the nut farm, huh?”
she muttered under her breath, knowing a moment of dark triumph as everyone started to sit down around the steaming plates of food.
Dar picked up the gleaming carving knife and fork and studied the turkey, giving the rest of the table a wryly speculative look. “This’ll be interesting.” She tapped the edge of the fork against the turkey breast.
“Let’s see if my reputation as a butcher has any legs.”
More laughter. Kerry leaned back in her chair as she watched her partner bravely hack at her creation as everyone else helped themselves from the dishes of vegetables, and Duks poured glasses of rich, red wine.
“Hey, Kerry, heard you ran into some bad weather. How bad was it?” Mariana asked, as she buttered a roll. “Any problems?”
Kerry hesitated a moment, catching Dar looking right at her, the taller woman’s hands still for a moment. “No problems,” she answered briskly. “I lucked out. We had to land in New York, and Dar changed the plan.” She picked up her glass and took a sip of the wine. “To a much better plan…don’t you all agree?” She held up her glass and indicated the dinner.
62 Melissa Good
“Definitely.” Duks held up his own glass, and the others followed suit. “Here is to Dar’s plans. May they always be as successful.” He paused. “And result in delicious meals for us.”
Everyone laughed again, and Kerry joined in, releasing the troubles of the moment to the future with the faintest of shrugs and a much lightened heart. The choice was, as Dar had said, in the past. What ever happened next would happen.
“For a novice, you’re doing a great job carving that breast, Dar,”
Mariana observed.
“There’s a breast novice joke in there somewhere,” Dar replied dryly. “But my parents are here.”
“Dar!”
Chapter
Four
DAR WOKE JUST before the alarm went off and silenced it before it had a chance to ring. It was still dark outside, and by the scant starlight coming in the window, she could just barely make out Kerry’s features, peaceful in sleep.
