Dar propped her chin up on a fist and regarded her. “I see.”
“My turn.” Kerry took a sip of the iced tea their server put down and blinked at the tray of appetizers. “Mmm.” She picked up a piece of coconut chicken and nibbled it before she continued. “Why me?”
“Hmm?” Dar had taken a stuffed egg roll and was chewing it. Now she looked up and into Kerry’s eyes with slightly raised eyebrows.
A shrug. “A hundred and ten thousand people to choose from, why me?”
Dar stopped eating and flashed her a smile. “I like you.” A hint of humor appeared. “Not one of the other hundred and ten thousand would have had the guts to call me a son of a bitch or tell me to go to hell.”
“Oh.” Kerry blushed. “So that was a plus?”
“I think you’ve got potential, and you aren’t dragging around a lot of baggage I have to get rid of before you’ll be useful,” Dar continued, in a reflective tone. “Besides, you’re probably good with people, which is something I’m lousy at.” She bit into the egg roll and munched it.
“Mmm. Not always,” Kerry replied quietly.
Dar glanced up. “You’re not good with people?” Her voice was surprised.
“You’re not always bad with them,” the blonde corrected, smiling a little at the momentary break in her new boss’s composure. “But I know what you mean. I do get along with people most of the time. I like working out problems, finding different solutions without going head to head, that kind of thing.”
Dar chuckled. “I’d rather break the heads and have done with it.”
Kerry gently touched the bruised hand laying on the table. “So I see.” She removed her fingers when she saw Dar’s flinch at the touch. “Sorry, is it sore?”
“A little.” Dar flexed her hand a bit. “Must have banged it on the car.”
Tropical Storm 79
Kerry just looked at her, a hint of a smile playing around her lips. “I had to pay extra for the screaming Mustang model, too. It makes a great car alarm,” she drawled. “I especially like the option that makes it holler ‘Jesus Christ’ in Spanish.”
Dar held her blank look for a moment more, then surrendered, relaxing into a smile that took five years off her age. “Ah. So my cover is blown, is that it?” She gave her hand a sheepish glance. “I was trying to figure out what horse’s-ass tale I was going to tell the office tomorrow.”
Kerry laughed. “To be honest, I didn’t even realize what was going on until I thought about it last night. I was too shook up before that.” She took a chicken wing and dipped it into a small dish of blue cheese dressing. “It was kind of like living the movie of the week, you know? Here I am, trapped in the bowels of Miami, getting attacked by street punks, when along comes this hero, beating them all up and chasing them away like dogs with their tails caught betw…” She’d looked up and found pale blue eyes staring at her from a very serious face as a hand covered hers with startling warmth. “What?”
Dar leaned forward. “Don’t call me that. I’ve known far too many people who really were.” Her voice went a touch deeper. “They just didn’t want any witnesses, so they took off.”
Kerry gazed at her. “Well, you might know many heroes, but I only know one.” Her chin lifted a trifle. “But I won’t mention it if it bothers you.” The dim lighting made it hard to tell, but the blonde woman thought it was possible her new boss was blushing, just a little.
The waitress arrived, much to both of their relief. “Um, the spicy pasta.”
Kerry didn’t try to pronounce the actual name of it.
Dar cleared her throat. “I’ll have the salmon steak.”
The waitress scribbled. “Vegetables or garlic mashed potatoes?”
“Potatoes, please,” Dar replied. “And some more tea.”
They were both silent after she left, and Kerry took the opportunity to sample some of the rest of the appetizers. She waited until her companion did the same, then finally looked up. “So, tell me about those contracts. I’d at least like to give the TCP/IP group a heads up. I know you said it was the IRS, but…”
Dar seemed relieved at the change in subject. “Oh, right. Well, it’s their master website. They set up a consumer site to provide tax help and all the forms support. It gets about forty thousand hits a day. The concerns involve mostly bandwidth issues and doc server glitches.”
“Mmm.” Kerry absorbed this.
“The contract specifies hardware and software. You’ll have resources in the local area to dispatch for the hardware. I think we contract out to NCR in that area.”
“Sounds good.” The blonde woman looked intrigued. “What about the other one?”
“Um…” Dar’s brow creased. “Oh yeah. The ATM contract for transmission services for the Navy.” She paused. “And the network support for that and for their ship-to-shore microwave network transmissions.”
Kerry blinked. “Wow. The WAN guys are going to freak out.” She laughed a little. “They were telling me only last month they were getting 80 Melissa Good bored.” She relaxed a little and so did Dar. “That’ll mean some extra training.”
Dar nodded. “I’ll give you the number of the training division in Houston. Give them a call and set up what you need. Depending on how many people you have, either they’ll go out there, or Houston will send a trainer down here.” They continued discussing details until dinner arrived, then talk slowed down as they paid attention to their food.
Kerry enjoyed her pasta and watched curiously as her companion methodically decimated the large salmon steak into neat squares, pairing each square with a forkful of mashed potatoes as she ate it. “That smells great.”
“It is,” Dar replied, after swallowing. “It’s honey and brown sugar glazed.” She hesitated, then casually dropped a square on Kerry’s plate.
“Here.”
Kerry obligingly tried it. “Wow, that is good.” She nudged a bit of the chicken from her pasta over on to her companion’s dish. “Fair is fair.”
She chewed the offering. “Wow.” Dar chuckled. “ You like stuff spicy, huh?”
“Mmm-hmm,” Kerry agreed. “It’s what I like best about living here.
Everything tastes different, it’s not all the same.” She took a sip of tea. “Do you like Thai food?”
“Anything with peanuts,” the executive replied with a grin. “There’s a good Thai restaurant right off US 1 near Dadeland. They make really good chicken curry.”
Kerry’s eyes lit up. “Really? And I never found it? W—” The “we” almost escaped, but she clamped her jaw shut on it. We should go there? What the heck was I thinking? This is my new boss, who certainly had better things to do than roam around Miami finding new Thai restaurants for me. “Thanks for telling me about it.”
“Sure.” Dar smiled at her. “How’d it go with your window?”
“Oh, fine. Fine. It’s done already,” Kerry assured her, then she dug in a pocket. “Oh yeah. Jerry found this when he was cleaning the glass up. Is it yours?” She held up a woodgrain-cased pen.
Dar blinked. “Didn’t even realize I lost that.” She reached over and claimed it. “Thanks.” She looked up as the waitress returned. “We’re done, yes. I’d like a large cappuccino, and, um…” Her eyes went to Kerry’s face, watching the blonde woman’s brows lift as a dessert tray went by. “Hey, share a cheesecake with me?”
Kerry’s eyes widened, then she sighed, and patted her stomach. “I shouldn’t.”
Dar just waited, sure of her quarry. She was beginning to gather an understanding about her new associate. It was a habit of hers, to try and figure out all the angles, and predict what people would do, and so far, Kerry Stuart was proving quite a challenge.