“Oh, I did that too when we went fishing,” Kerry admitted. “It got everyone so mad at me. I’d catch these nice big fish, and the guys would fight them for an hour, finally drag them onboard, and I’d let them go.” She lingered over the photo for a moment more, then went on to the next.
“You have a big family?” Dar asked gently.
Kerry kept her focus on the pictures. “Oh well, not really. My mother and father, of course, and I have a younger brother, Michael, he’s in law school, and a younger sister Angela, who’s married and has one child and another on the way.”
“What’s it like having siblings?”
Kerry felt her chest tighten. “It’s…all right, I guess. There’s always some competition.” She glanced aside. “You don’t have any?”
“No, I always wondered what it would be like. Thought it would be nice to have a sister, or something.” She paused. “Is it?”
Kerry pondered the question. “I can’t really remember not having any,”
she confessed, “so it’s hard to say. We fought like kids do, but I love my 130 Melissa Good brother and sister.” She frowned. “I miss seeing them.”
Dar studied her profile. “Your father’s a senator, huh?”
The blonde head inclined once. “Yes.” Kerry’s jaw almost clicked shut audibly.
Hmm. Dar’s curiosity was sparked. “That must be a little strange.
Everything’s kind of public record, huh?”
Kerry’s eyes fastened on her hands, clenched lightly around the folder.
“More or less, yeah.”
A silence fell, lasting until Dar cleared her throat. “You…want to talk about it?”
Green eyes jerked up and met hers, startled, and a little afraid. The flickering candlelight threw her shadow against the far wall with menacing size, and she studied Dar’s face for an endless moment, before letting her gaze drop to the desk. “Not really, no.”
A little stung, Dar shrugged quietly. “All right.”
Kerry dragged her eyes back up at the words, her jaw working a little. “I, um, I guess that sounds harsh, coming from someone who was asking you to do the same thing just a little while ago, huh?”
“It’s your life,” Dar replied evenly. “You have the right to keep it to yourself.”
The silence settled again, and went on longer. Kerry closed her eyes, and listened to the wind whipping the surf outside, and the trees which slapped against the outer wall. “My parents are very…they have very high expectations of us.” She slipped off the desk and went back to the couch, curling up into a ball against one end of it “They want a certain life for me.”
Dar remained silent, keeping her opinion of both the policy and Kerry’s father to herself. ILS had run headlong into the senator more than once, and he was currently trying to oust them from several government contracts in favor of his own choice, a competitor who was, in all likelihood, paying him off. “That’s a tough thing to deal with,” she said very quietly. “But surely he shouldn’t have any complaint about you.”
A short, bitter laugh. “I’m not married and barefoot in the kitchen with two kids.” Kerry stared at the wall. “I had to pretend to be majoring in something…‘fit for me’ in college. They didn’t want to hear the word ‘career’
at all.”
A realization clicked. “So that explains the English double major,” Dar commented softly.
Kerry glanced at her, surprised, then she rubbed her temples. “I forgot you had my résumé.” She managed a thin smile. “Yes, by the time I graduated, it was too late for them to protest, and I had my degree.” She took a breath. “I took an entry level job with Sperry. God, how they hated that. It was a fight just about every day. The only thing that saved me was that Brian was still going to school.”
Knowing that Kerry had spent some years in the IS field, Dar was puzzled. “What happened?”
A wry, cynical smile crossed the younger woman’s face. “Bill Clinton happened. Or, more specifically, Al Gore happened.” She lifted her chin. “All of a sudden, it was a ‘prudent precaution’ to have someone in the family who Tropical Storm 131
‘knew how those people thought’ and was into the technology end.”
“Ah.” Dar digested that. “But they still give you a hard time,” she hazarded.
“Yeah.” Kerry sighed, resting her chin on her arm.
“Who’s Brian?”
Green eyes lifted to hers. “My theoretical fiancé.”
Both of Dar’s dark brows shot up to her hairline, giving the taller woman almost a comical air of astonishment. After a moment, she schooled her face into a more casual expression. “I…um…huh?”
Kerry sighed. “We grew up together. We’ve been friends forever, since we were in strollers, practically. He’s a really sweet guy, nice looking, just graduating from law school. He likes me…”
“But?”
“But when I look at him, he’s just a friend,” Kerry replied ruefully.
“Ah, no skipping of the heart?” Dar joked gently. “No getting swallowed up in his eyes. That kind of thing?”
Kerry stared at her in silence for a few heartbeats. “N-no,” she finally stammered. “Not… It’s not like that with him…at…at all.” She paused. “What do you mean, skipping of the heart?”
Dar examined her interlaced fingers. “I wouldn’t know personally,” she glanced up with a wry grin, “but I’m told that when you meet your true love, something like that happens.” She chuckled. “You know, um, all that romantic stuff.”
“Mmm. Oh, yeah, right. I’ve heard of that.” Kerry pushed her hair back behind an ear. “God, you were right. It is getting pretty warm in here, isn’t it?” She glanced up to find hooded blue eyes watching her and a slight, almost puzzled little smile on Dar’s face. “So, that’s my story I guess. My folks give me a hard time over living down here. They think it’s decadent and licentious.” She sighed. “When I go home for Christmas, all I hear is plans for the wedding, and where I’ll live, and…”
Dar got up and circled the desk, then crouched down next to her, her features almost wholly in shadow as she blocked the light from the candle.
“You don’t have to do what they want, you know that, right?”
Kerry’s eyes held a quiet, shuttered sorrow. “It’s easy for you to say that.”
She laid her cheek against her forearm. “It’s a lot harder for me to live it.” She blinked a few times. “I feel like I have a responsibility to them.”
Dar sat down and leaned back against the couch, facing away from her younger companion. “I used to believe that, too,” she murmured. “After my father died, I thought my responsibility was taking care of my mother. I was going to give up this job, move to Richmond…”
Kerry gazed at the dark, sleek head inches from her face. Almost hypnotized, she watched her fingers reach out and tangle themselves in an errant lock. “Why didn’t you?” she asked softly.
“She told me she didn’t want anything to do with me.” Dar’s voice was quiet but matter-of-fact. “I reminded her too much of what she’d lost.” Feeling a slight tug on her hair, she turned her head and glanced at Kerry. “That’s when I figured out the only person I was ever going to be responsible for was myself.” She held the younger woman’s eyes. “Follow your heart, Kerry, don’t 132 Melissa Good live for someone else’s dreams.”
It was the closest they’d ever been to each other, mere inches separating them, so close they were breathing the same air. So close Kerry could see the faint, almost invisible scar just above Dar’s right eye, and the crystal clarity—
even in the low light—of her pale blue irises. She became aware of a sound that she only later realized was her own heartbeat, hammering in her ears in irregular rhythm. “I-I’ll try to…to keep that in mind,” she stuttered.