“I love it.” Kerry closed her eyes and buried her face into Dar’s shoulder. “But not nearly as much as I love you.”
Chapter
Seventeen
IT WAS TOO quiet. Dar cocked her head as a tree branch brushed against the window, making a soft scraping noise. She’d forgotten how quiet it really was out here, without the ever-present sound of traffic or airplanes.
Or air conditioning. She glanced at the ceiling in mild amusement.
The AC provided a white noise that most Floridians were subliminally used to. Its absence was almost uncomfortable, as the silence beat down on her ears broken only by Kerry’s soft breathing.
Her soft, adorable breathing, which was warming the skin right above Dar’s heart, since Kerry was nestled against her right side, with her head pillowed on Dar’s shoulder, and one arm wrapped securely around her stomach.
It was nice and cozy, and she’d discovered, much to her own personal amazement, that she really, really enjoyed all this cuddling stuff.
A revelation. Her parents had been anything but physically affectionate, even with each other, Dar had only seen the occasional hug. A pat on the back, sure. A gentle slap on the leg, her father’s favorite attention getter, yes. But hugs?
Hell no. In fact, she honestly couldn’t remember the last time her mother had touched her.
Oh, no, maybe she could. Dar reflected
quietly. Yeah. The first, no, second time she’d broken her arm—the bad one—when the bones had been sticking out of her arm, and had left the thin, straight scars Kerry always liked to trace.
Mom had held her then, while she tried so hard not to scream.
But then her father had come in and she’d bitten her lip almost through to keep the crying inside, her efforts rewarded by a brief pat on her cheek and his approving. ”That’s my tough girl.”
Dar chewed her bottom lip reflectively. It had been an ever-present argument between them, she knew, until her mother had just given up and allowed her to follow in his footsteps as far as she was able.
It couldn’t have been easy to watch, she realized. She hadn’t been a pleasant child. Going through adolescence had been one long string of fights, and trips to the principal’s office, and threats of reform school.
She’d had one principal who wanted her out in the worst way, with only one thing blocking his case - she’d been a straight A student.
Musta driven them all nuts. Honors everything, advanced 230
Melissa Good
placement, the whole nine yards. She’d gotten into college on an academic scholarship and frustrated her friends, what few there were, by her ability to breeze through classes with little studying, and less preparation.
She’d graduated in the top two percent of her class, with honors, but at that point in her life, she hadn’t cared. She’d tossed her rolled up diploma into a basket in her room at her parent’s house, and spent an entire weekend so drunk she still had no recollection of it.
Then she’d gone out into CAS and found the first job that would pay her enough to cover the monthly payments on a car, rather than just her junk food budget, and spent her free hours under water, away from everything.
Alone.
Kerry stirred, shifting a little. She lifted her head and looked up.
”Hey?”
Dar exhaled, and gave her a fond look. ”Hmm?”
”Why are you still up?” Kerry rested her chin on Dar’s breastbone.
”Do you want some hot milk?” Her dreams had nudged her uneasily awake.
A quiet smile, as Dar rubbed her arm lightly. ”No, I was just thinking, that’s all.”
”Mm, ’bout what?”
Dar hesitated, then shrugged, pursing her lips a bit. ”Nothing really concrete, my folks, a little bit about school.” She moved a stray lock of hair out of Kerry’s eyes. ”Go on back to sleep, you looked so peaceful.”
Kerry considered her words. ”I wasn’t really fond of school,” she commented. ”I wasn’t that good at it, except stuff like English,” she admitted. ”I belonged to a lot of clubs, Key club, Young Republicans, that kind of thing.”
Dar smiled. ”You were a Young Republican?” she queried. ”I think the only club I ever joined was um...” She thought. ”Some jock club or other. I was on a lot of sports teams in high school.”
”Oh, gee, there’s a surprise.” Kerry grinned at her, then her expression faltered. ”Not me. I wanted to play softball, but...” She paused in memory, then sighed. ”I probably would have sucked at it anyway.” Her mother had been horrified at the very thought. ”I got stuck with golf.”
”I’m sure you wouldn’t have,” Dar objected, mildly. ”You’ve got good eye hand coordination, and a nice running style. You’d have been fine,” she analyzed. ”I never had the damn patience for golf. How in the hell did you stand it?”
Kerry peered at her in silence, then she let out a quiet breath. ”Do you know something, Dar?” she stated softly. ”Do you want to know when the very first time was that I was told I was capable and intelligent?”
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The blue eyes peered at her in puzzlement. ”Sure.”
”You should know,” Kerry told her. ”You wrote it, in an email.”
Dar stared at her in shocked silence.
”And you hardly knew me. You’d met me for what, a half an hour?” Kerry shifted, propping her head up on her fist. ”Even the bosses at Associated, I mean, sure, I was always spoken of as a hard worker, a nice girl, always on time, but despite what Robert said, the only reason I got that job was because the guy in there before me left with the accountant’s wife in the middle of the night, and they needed someone real fast, and real accessible.”
”That’s not true, Kerry. You were an excellent director. Your personnel record carried the highest recommendations in it,” Dar argued. ”You’re highly skilled, highly motivated, very intelligent, and...and...”
Kerry gazed at her wistfully.
”And adorable,” Dar finished, having run out of professional descriptives. ”Don’t tell me that’s why you decided to come work for me, because I stated the obvious?”
A soft sigh. ”It might have been obvious to you, but it sure wasn’t obvious to me,” Kerry admitted. ”I had a mental note somewhere to say thank you for that, by the way. I think you were the first person in my life who just took me at face value, and didn’t assume I was some fluffball muffinhead who got the job because of my father.”
She reflected. ”Even Robert, who liked me, when he put me in as manager, he told me he didn’t expect much, just that I should try to keep things going until he could find a real director.”
Dar watched her, stunned. ”You’re serious,” she muttered.
A slow nod. ”What did you see in me Dar, that no one else did?”
Kerry wondered aloud.
Dar actually reached up and slapped her own head. ”Okay, for starters, you had guts,” she spluttered. ”And, and you held yourself together in a very stressful situation, and you came up with some very good, and very intelligent plans for the takeover, and, and you told me to go to hell, for chrissake. Do you know how many people have done that and gotten away with it?”
”Not many, huh?” Kerry was guiltily soaking up the praise like a sponge.
”Try one.” Dar hitched herself up and regarded her lover. ”Listen, I know talent when I see it. It’s part of my job, Kerry, and believe me, my talent meter went off the scale when I saw you,” she sighed, perplexed.
”Good grief, Ker. You’d think I hired you because I had the hots for you or something.”
An awkward silence fell, as Kerry’s eyes dropped to the comforter, the sudden strike at her own hidden insecurities going home with a vengeance. ”I...”