“Thanks.” She leaned back and propped a knee up against the wood of the console, watching her program run. The phone buzzed and Mark picked it up, then stood.

“Pizza’s here. That was fast,” he remarked. “Be right back.” The MIS

chief slipped out of the door and let it close behind him, leaving the two of them alone.

There was a bit of silence. Dar remained deep in thought, memories cascading gently over her of the hours spent administering this small cog in the company. She’d been happy doing that, she realized. Probably it had been the last time she’d been able to simply go home at night and forget about her job.

Gone home and escaped to the clubs, spending her time drinking and trading bullshit stories with a group of like minded friends, dabbling 272 Melissa Good in shallow attractions and losing herself in long weekends of bumming around on the beach.

Going nowhere in particular and finding herself satisfied with that as the pleasures of the moment absorbed her interest and she let a lot of things slide—ambition chief among them.

Then there’d been Shari.

And everything had changed.

Nothing was fun anymore. She’d learned to judge herself by a different set of rules and left behind the comfort zone of the ops center to push herself into the stark challenge of project management. Proving she was everything Shari said she wasn’t. Driving herself to higher and higher levels until she’d broken through the glass ceiling and landed her butt in a plush office with a business card that said Vice President on it and everyone who ever said she was a loser could just chew that and swallow.

And you know what? No one had cared. No one had been left close enough to pat her on the back and say, “Good job, Dar. You did it. We’re proud of you.”

No one. The night she’d gotten her promotion she’d taken a bottle of champagne down to the beach and shared it with the night crabs and the hiss of the waves, feeling nothing but a sense of empty relief. So she’d decided to just allow the achievement to become its own end and convinced herself that it made her happy.

Until one damn fall day when she’d taken over a consolidation gone bad and walked into a small, boxy office to deliver a pile of bad news to some ordinary company manager she never expected to see again.

And lost her heart, her soul, and her carefully constructed self-deception all in less time than it took to think about it.

“Ma’am?”

Dar jumped a little. “Oh, sorry. Yes?”

Brent moved a little closer, the flush visible on his pale skin. “Do you mind if I ask you something?”

She shook herself, dispelling the memories and turned in her chair.

“No. Go ahead, Brent.” She issued him a brief smile. “I wasn’t upset before. I was just tweaking you a little.”

“Yeah, I figured. Um.” His nostrils flared. “You and Ms. Kerry are pretty good friends, right?” He looked around and lowered his voice.

Wild, ringing alarms went off in Dar’s head, so loud she was surprised Brent couldn’t hear them. “Yes,” she answered cautiously. “Why?”

What now? A thousand situations ran through her head, and Ankow was at the bottom of most of them. Did he have different information? Had Brent heard him hunting down facts? What was he up to? What trouble…

“Uh.” The man rubbed his jaw. “Well it’s just…”

“What is it, Brent?” Dar asked, her interest sharpening.

“Do you…um…I know this is a weird question…but d’you know…um…”

Uh oh. “Yes?”

“Is she seeing anyone?”


Eye of the Storm 273

Total silence. Dar sucked in a breath and clamped her jaw shut to keep the nervous giggle from emerging. She waited a beat. “Yes.” She gave a grave, considered reply. “She is.” Goddamn it. Is he the last person in the whole bloody company to get the bleeping memo?

“Oh.” He looked crestfallen. “Okay. Well, I kinda thought so. I mean, she’s so nice, and so pretty. But I figured it was worth asking. Thanks, ma’am. I know it’s a real personal question and I do appreciate you answering it.” He was still brick red.

“No problem.”

“She’s probably not my type anyway. Huh?” he asked in a wistful voice.

Dar stared at him. “Um…Brent…”

“It’s okay.” He dropped his eyes. “It’s probably some real smart guy with a nice car.” He exhaled and shrugged. “Kind of a stupid question.”

“Um.” The executive rummaged around, trying to come up with something intelligent to say. “I’m sure you’re…ah… There’s nothing wrong with you, Brent. She’s just…um…”

“Hey, ma’am. It’s okay, really. I understand. You don’t have to go any further.” Brent sighed. “Must be some lucky guy.”

“B—” Dar was sure her brains were leaking out her ear by now. “N–”

The door opened and Mark walked in with two boxes full of pizza.

“Hey. Look what I found.” He opened the door further and a familiar blonde figure came in behind him.

“Hi,” Dar croaked gratefully.

Kerry trudged in, circled the console, put her arms around Dar’s neck and kissed her head. “My transmission gave up just outside the office and I got roped into Country line dancing Karaoke charades. I’m trashed. Can we go home?” She let her cheek rest against her lover’s dark hair. “Hey, Brent.” Gentle green eyes regarded him wearily.

There was a tiny little silence, until Brent shuffled his feet. “Guess I had the smart and the car right,” he muttered, flushing an even deeper red as he stood up and scurried out of sight behind a couple of mainframes.

“Huh?” Kerry cocked her head. “What’s up with Brent?” She looked at Dar and her brows creased, then she glanced up at Mark, who shrugged in honest puzzlement.

Dar sighed. “A clue just bit him in the ass.”

“Ow.” Kerry peered into the gloom behind the consoles. “About what?”

Dar scratched her jaw. “Tell ya later.” She patted Kerry’s calf, absorbing the warmth pressing against her back as the smaller woman leaned against her. “Siddown. I’ve just got to finish this setup.” She turned and pulled the keyboard closer as Kerry settled in the chair next to her, watching with interest.

Dar glanced at the monitor, bemused to see her reflection faintly echoing back at her from the glare, a smile shaping her lips completely without her permission. Kerry’s hand casually rested on her knee under 274 Melissa Good the desk, and the smile widened.

A thought suddenly crossed her mind. Would Kerry care if she was just a mid level ops manager? She turned her head slightly and studied the intelligent profile next to her. She liked the perks of their respective positions, Dar was sure, but…hadn’t she said she’d be content to wander around selling poetry for food if she had to?

Was she serious?

Am I serious thinking about this? Didn’t I work my tail off for years getting to where I am? Would I really want to go back to where I was then, and just settle for being good at something, content with a steady job with decent pay and benefits?

Dar regarded the diagram on the screen, its spider web of tracings indicating the elegantly designed network’s far flung reach. Finished, it would change the way the company did business and toss them into the twenty-first century as one of the few corporations capable of projecting the last few year’s explosion of data services into the future.

The smile in the monitor grew and became a trifle ironic. With a flourish, Dar brought the rest of the system on line and dark gray web-bing came alive with the colors of the test patterns she was running.

“What do you think?” she asked the avidly watching Kerry.

Mark got up and leaned over her shoulder, peering at the screen.

“Jesus. Complete redundancy.” He deliberately deactivated one of the big ports, and they watched as the test traffic smoothly rerouted itself. “Holy shit.”

“Wow.” Kerry was running an analyzer on another console. “Would you look at that bandwidth? I couldn’t bottleneck this if I tried.”

They both looked up at Dar with something close to nerd awe.

Dar smiled, enjoying the moment completely. It was almost better than chocolate ice cream.

Almost.


Chapter

Thirty

DAR TUCKED THE edge of the towel more firmly under her arm as she poured two tall glasses of peach ice tea. Chino waited patiently at her heels, giving her leg an occasional lick. “Watch your tail, Chino,” the tall woman warned, as she returned the carafe to the refrigerator and picked up the glasses. “C’mon. Let’s go get mommy Kerry.”

“Gruff.” Chino trotted out the open glass doors and stood up on the lower step of the hot tub, looking up expectantly.

“Hey. Don’t fall asleep in there,” Dar warned as she shed her towel and entered the tub. Kerry was sprawled out in the warm water, her damp head resting against the tub back and her arms outstretched on the sides.

“Uh?” She opened one eye to regard Dar. “Oh, it’s you.”

“You were expecting…”

Kerry lifted her head and scooted up a little, reaching for her glass.

“Sorry. I am so wiped. You ran my butt ragged tonight, Dar.” She gave her lover a pathetic look. “Can I get Colleen to come over when we do that so we can double team you?”

“Mmm.” Dar wasn’t displeased at the compliment, though. They’d left the gym and Kerry’s class earlier, then taken up the routines in the workout room on the island. She felt a little sore, a little tired, but in a good way. “You did great, though. I think we’re going to have to move you up a belt.”