“How do they look?”
“Lovely. I knew you would object to something... Let’s just say they had a genuine stone version and that’s not what you’re wearing.”
Kip laughed, knew she was blushing and didn’t care. “They’re perfect. Thank you.”
“My pleasure.”
They agreed to walk off dinner with a stroll around the deck.
The foredeck seemed the best place to go, and was well worth the stairs. Above them the sky was a dark bowl studded with stars.
As they stood in the protection of the windbreaks, the air was still and refreshingly cool.
Kip found herself at a loss for words. She wanted to say so many things, none of which she could, and they crowded out every other thought in her head.
She didn’t object when Tam pulled her close. She nestled her ear to Tam’s chest. So comfortable and warm, so familiar, like home.
Tam said softly, “I was thinking that if I kissed you now I wouldn’t be tempted later.”
Kip had to look up at her. “Seriously?”
Her face was in shadow, but she could see lights reflected in Tam’s eyes. “No, I’m lying through my teeth. I’ll want to kiss you later.”
“Please now,” Kip whispered.
Their lips met with the quiet sizzle of starlight, both of them almost still. Then Kip put her hands in Tam’s hair, felt Tam grasping her hips possessively, and the kiss deepened into exploration, not gentle, but not harsh. Intentional, careful and focused. With a shared gasp, there were more caresses in a leaping fever, opening layers of aching in Kip for something she had never known before.
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When they parted Kip again put her ear to Tam’s chest, as much for steadiness as for the pleasure of the pounding she heard. She was frightened by how much she wanted to give Tam, and Tam’s racing heart told her that she had some power over Tam as well.
“I think,” Tam said in a low voice, “that it would be best if we said good night now and you went to bed. I’ll wait and join you in a bit.”
Kip nodded and caught herself before she rubbed her cheek against Tam’s breast. All she would have to do was turn her head slightly.
Instead she stepped back. “Good night, Tam.”
“Good night...Pippa.”
It did make Kip laugh and she retreated to the cabin, more than a little dizzy and parts of her sodden beyond any experience in her life.
She brushed her teeth, changed into a T-shirt and put her beautiful new earrings on the bedside table. She tried to only take a third of the bed, but her body felt swollen and awkward.
Sleep was impossible.
Tam doubted she would sleep a wink. She was tempted to find a chair in one of the lounges to see if she could doze. Maybe a shot of whiskey would calm her nerves. Or eight or nine. In the end it was weariness and the hope of at least a few hours of rest that made her decide to see if Kip was asleep.
She moved about the cabin stealthily, leaving the bathroom light on because without it the room was almost pitch-black. She quickly changed into a T-shirt, brushed her teeth, washed her face, hung up her clothes, and couldn’t think of another thing to do. So she switched off the light and managed to crawl into bed without stubbing her toe in the dark or making contact with Kip’s body.
Kip’s breathing was steady. She hadn’t moved at all. Tam 209
suspected she was awake. The ship’s motion rocked the bed gently from side-to-side, and that ought to have lulled her into at least some kind of calm.
Instead, the dark was her undoing.
“Kip...” She said it softly. She simply meant to say “It’ll be okay. You can sleep.” It started out that way, but she only got as far as, “It’ll be...”
Kip stirred.
Crossroads, Tam realized. Rules only mean something if you follow them, even when no one is looking. Kip was a capable, honest, principled woman and if she touched Kip right now they’d be officially lovers in thirty seconds. It would cost Kip twice over—her self-respect and the respect she held for the woman Tam no longer recognized, Tamara Sterling, CEO. That it would cost her her own self-respect didn’t matter as much to her. This was bad for Kip.
“Are you okay?” Kip’s whisper held concern, but was at a pitch that Tam didn’t think Kip realized was a tantalizing half-purr.
Her fingers twitched. She wanted to feel the velvet of Kip on her hands, her lips. Anything was preferable to hurting Kip and that’s what her touch would do.
She had a diversion to offer and so she asked, “You’ve heard of David Koresh, right?”
Kip wasn’t sure she’d heard Tam correctly. “Who hasn’t?”
“Koresh was another of those breed-my-own-cult, not the first, not the last, unfortunately. But I bet you’ve never heard of David Halley...hang on.”
Tam sat up and the bedside lamp came on, leaving Kip blinking.
“I’ve never told anyone about this,” Tam said slowly. “I don’t really know how to go about it. It seems a ridiculous thing to hide but honestly, it was a good idea then, and I think is still a good idea. Thing is, you found holes in my citizenship paperwork.
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Those holes used to be filled. I presume the hacker did that.
But if it had been left alone, you’d have never known there were questions to ask. I doubt I would have ever told you.”
“Why is it such a secret? So you were born in Germany. So maybe you don’t know who your parents are—”
“I wasn’t born in Germany. That’s the cover. I was born in a wide space in the road in Pueblo County, Colorado. At the time, it was known as House of Zion City. Long gone—never really was a real place on the map.”
Kip brushed hair out of her eyes. She’d listened to Tam getting ready for bed and steeled herself to feign sleep for however long it took. She hadn’t really expected Tam to decide that it was the right time to fill her in on those mysterious blanks in her background. Now she pieced together what she knew, which wasn’t much. “I guess I assumed that you were being hidden. I don’t know from what, but the timeframe was when the Berlin Wall fell. I guessed it was political or something.”
“There was so much confusion over records after the consolidation of the two countries that I think they took advantage of that. But we—me, Nadia, about twenty-five children in all—
were moved out of Colorado after David Halley’s family had the tent town destroyed. That was his parents and two brothers who did that—the real family and apparently one with a lot of money.
We weren’t real family, but we surely were an embarrassment.”
Kip scooted back so she could lean on the pillows, the sheets pulled up over her breasts. Tam was so calm about it and yet if she was talking about what Kip thought she was, it was weird and terrible. “Halley—had he died?”
“Killed himself before the local sheriff could haul him in for child abuse, tax evasion, welfare fraud, bigamy... I only remember that police cars pulled up and all the mothers were scared.”
“And that left a lot of children with no...father?”
“A lot of children with no father and a bunch of brainwashed women all claiming to be his wife. My mother was fourteen when I was born. She died in the process, or that’s what I was told.
Nadia’s was twenty-four or twenty-five at the time of the raid.
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They’ve never located each other again. Like I said, there was money. Lots of it. The mothers signed us away in what I’m sure wasn’t any kind of legal agreement and they probably got a nice chunk of change to start a new life. But we were all too young to protest or even be sure what was happening. Life wasn’t great, then it got a lot better. I was grateful.”