“I’m an artist,” Ceci remarked dryly. “It’s what I do.” But she seemed pleased with the reaction.
The painting was a jungle scene, deep greens and blues of the grass surrounding its two subjects, a large black panther, reclining regally on the mossy ground, its paws outstretched. Between them sat a russet and gold fox, peering coyly out at the watchers, its fluffy tail neatly tucked around its small feet. A cheerful red apple rested nearby.
It was the eyes that got them. Ceci had somehow captured, in the panther’s clear blue gaze, her daughter’s wild spirit, and the fox’s pale 462 Melissa Good green eyes reflected Kerry’s sweet intelligence.
A chord rang, deep and somewhat wistful in Dar’s memory as she studied the images, a whisper of a past she didn’t remember, the ghost of a gentle clasp on her shoulder that almost made her turn around.
“It’s amazing.” Kerry’s laugh bubbled up. “Thank you so much.”
Dar smiled. “Thanks, Mom.”
“You’re welcome,” Ceci remarked briskly. “Now, since I have the three of you together and where is that dog?”
Chino, curled up near the door where Dar had ordered her to stay, looked up. “Gruff.”
“Excellent. I need a picture of you all.” Ceci shooed them all together. “C’mon now. It’ll take a second.”
“Dressed like this?” Dar questioned, plucking her shirt. “For what?’
“Shh.” Her mother waited for Chino to get into the picture, then snapped it. “You think only you computer people can manipulate images? I can dress you however I want once I paint the picture.”
“Picture?”
“Paint?” Kerry chimed in. “You’re doing one of us?”
“Gruff!”
Andrew chuckled. “You wanna go for a ride? I had them tuck a few extra ponies in this here thing and we got enough chow on board for a sunrise gig.”
Oh boy. Work would be hell after that. “Sure.” Dar grinned. “Let her rip, Dad.”
“Dar.”
“Uh.”
“Heh.”
Another Melissa Good book available from
<HOORZ 5RVH %RRNV
Red Sky At Morning
Continuing from where Eye of the Storm leaves off, this fourth chronicle in the Tropical Storm series has Dar Roberts and Kerry Stuart’s lives seeming to get more complex rather than moving toward the simpler lifestyle they both dream of.
This story begins with Dar presenting the quarterly earn-ings for the company. Meanwhile, Kerry encounters plane problems on her way to Chicago to solve a problem, and her flight diverts to New York. Sensing Kerry is in trouble, Dar leaves right in the middle of a stockholder cocktail party leading a colleague to question Dar’s commitment to the company.
Dar and Kerry return to Miami to begin a Navy contract and they encounter a cover-up of the worse kind. They end up in Washington to confront the military brass and expose Dar’s old friends and in a sense, leave her childhood completely behind.
**Originally part of the story posted as Tropical High.**
ISBN 1-930928-81-5
(To be released in a Second Edition in 2004,
ISBN 1-932300-21-X)
Coming in 2004 from
Melissa Good and
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Thicker Than Water
This sequel to Red Sky at Morning is the fifth entry in the continuing saga of Dar Roberts and Kerry Stuart. It begins with Kerry involved in a church group of girls. A teenager from the group gets jailed because her parents tossed her out onto the streets when they found out she is gay. As she and Dar assist the girl, Kerry is forced to acknowledge her own feelings toward and experience with her folks. While trying to help the teenagers adjust to real world situations, Kerry gets a call concerning her father’s health. She flies to her family’s side as her father dies, putting the family in crisis. Caught up in an international problem, Dar abandons the issue to go to Michigan, determined to support Kerry in the face of grief and hatred.
Dar and Kerry face down Kerry’s extended family with a little help from their own, and return home, where they decide to leave work and the world behind for a while for some time to themselves.
**Originally part of the story posted as Tropical High.**
ISBN 1-932300-24-4
Another Melissa Good title
coming in 2005 from
<HOORZ 5RVH %RRNV
Terrors of the High Seas
After the stress of a long Navy project and Kerry’s father’s death, Dar and Kerry decide to take their first long vacation together. A cruise in the eastern Caribbean is just the nice, peaceful time they need—until they get involved in a family feud, an old murder, and come face to face with pirates as their vacation turns into a race to find the key to a decades old puzzle.