“Can’t,” the ex-SEAL stated shortly. “Got me a plane to catch too.

Rain check?”

Steve nodded.

“I know Ceci’d love t’see you.”

Dr. Steve blinked. “She here?”

“Yeap.”

The doctor shook his head. “Unbelievable.” He sighed. “All right.

Give me a call when you get back. It’s a great excuse for a party.” He watched them leave together and then walked out to find his daughter sitting on the counter. “How’d you like that?”

“Wow,” Aliene replied. “That was like, way too cool.”

“Mmhm,” her father agreed.


Chapter

Thirty-one

“WHEW.” KERRY GLANCED appreciatively around at the airport.

“Boy, it’s nice to go out of here instead of Miami.” Her flight had been scheduled to leave from the much smaller Fort Lauderdale International Airport, some twenty minutes north of its larger, more hectic cousin.

“Thank you very much, by the way, for dropping me off.”

“Mmm.” Cecilia held back a smile. “Actually, I was dropping us both off.”

Puzzled green eyes focused on her. “Excuse me?”

“Well, the Woman’s Art Museum asked me to sign off on that collection, so I can have it shipped to the South Beach place we found,” Dar’s mother explained.

“Oh.” Kerry was surprised, but not unhappy. “Wow, that’s great.

Are we on the same flight?”

“Mmhmm.” The silver blonde head nodded. “Hope you don’t mind.”

“Not at all.” Kerry gave her a warm smile. “I’d love the company. It’s not exactly a fun trip for me.” Kerry noted the bag slung casually over Cecilia’s shoulder. “Is that all you’re taking?”

“Yes, it is.” Ceci nodded. “I see a coffee shop over there. We’ve got time before boarding, care to stop?”

Kerry felt a sense of relief that she’d have someone to talk to for at least the trip. “Lead on.” She followed the older woman across the concourse towards the small shop, spotting cinnamon rolls also being sold.

“Mmm. Cinnabons.”

“My daughter’s rubbing off on you, I see.” Ceci smiled to remove any sting from the comment.

But Kerry laughed. “Oh, no. I didn’t need any help there.” She set her bag down, went up to the counter, and ordered two cups of coffee.

“Want one?” She pointed at the rolls.

“Sure.” Ceci took a seat and watched Kerry collect their snack and return. What a nice kid. She couldn’t help but smile at the warm, open face.

“Thanks.” She found herself looking forward to spending a little time with this person who had chosen to live with her daughter, whose personality was so different from Dar’s and so much like the child she’d 288 Melissa Good always wished for.

Smart, social, friendly. A poet brought up in the same general class as she had been.

And her parents had spurned her.

Life just didn’t make sense sometimes.

“What got you interested in computers, Kerry?” she asked lightly, sipping her coffee.

Kerry thought about that for a bit, then propped her chin up on a fist.

“I think…I think mostly it was because they represented something I could totally control.”

A very unexpected answer. “Really?”

The younger woman nodded. “Yeah. They’re like that. Garbage in, garbage out, you know how it is. They’ll do whatever you tell them to do.

I think because my family was always so strict, and so confining, it maybe gave me an opportunity to have this one area of my life that I was totally in charge of.” She paused. “And it was something so different. My major was in English and I took all kinds of general stuff in college, but I was fascinated by the technology, and realized in my sophomore year that all my elective courses were turning out to be programming and electronics.”

Definitely unexpected. “What were you going to do with an English degree?” Ceci asked.

“Teach,” Kerry replied succinctly.

“Is that what you wanted to do?”

“No.” She shook her head. “It’s what my father wanted me to do.

Looks good for a politician, you know? One kid a lawyer, one kid a housewife, one kid a teacher. Very all American.”

Cecilia blinked at her. “Well.” She sipped her coffee and reflected.

“My family had expectations, yes, but at least they let us pick our own poison.” She sighed. “I wondered, for a while, what I’d have done in college.”

“You didn’t go, then?” Kerry asked surprised.

“No,” Ceci replied. “We moved around a lot and I had a little girl to take care of.” She was surprised at the lack of bitterness. “I just read everything I could get my hands on and besides, I’m not sure exactly how much good college does for artists.”

“Maybe if you had gone, you wouldn’t have gone into the art thing,”

Kerry suggested quietly. “What would you have picked if you had?”

What indeed? “Oh, I don’t know. Anthropology, probably.”

“Really?” Kerry smiled in surprise. “I took a few classes in that as part of my social sciences requirement. I had a great professor, who was a practicing anthropologist in the summers. He’d come back in the fall with all kinds of stories and pictures.” She paused. “Hey. If you have a few extra minutes, maybe we could go to the Museum of Natural History in DC.”

“Sounds like an idea.” Ceci smiled and leaned back. She wondered if Kerry’s parents had ever even bothered to talk to her about what she Eye of the Storm 289

found interesting—this intelligent young woman who still somehow had a core of wonder inside her that Ceci could fully appreciate.

What a pair of total idiots.

She was looking forward to meeting them.

IT TURNED OUT better than she expected. Dar adjusted the seat of the rental car she’d wrestled from the terminal and glanced at the tall figure peering alertly out the passenger window. Flying with her father had shortened the trip considerably, and she’d actually had a pretty good time playing a favorite word game with him that brought back memories of a far more innocent period in her life. “Pretty dusty, hmm?”

“Huh.” Andrew relaxed, folding his arms over his chest. “So what do you have to do at this meeting?”

Hmm. Good question. “I don’t know.” Dar put the car into gear. “It depends on what they hit me with.” She gave him a quick glance. “That’s a figure of speech.”

“Who’s gonna be there?”

“The whole board, I guess—except the international members.

They’ll teleconference in, probably.” Dar ran the list through her mind.

“The only one I really count on as a friend is Alastair. The rest are pretty recent acquaintances.” She turned onto the freeway. “Won’t be much sympathy there.”

“What the hell they got against you?”

Dar drove in silence for a few minutes, evaluating the last fifteen years. “I’m not the nicest person to deal with,” she admitted. “I tend to ram issues I think are important through, without much regard for anyone’s feelings or opinions.”

Andrew watched her with quiet interest. “That what the job calls for?”

“Sometimes.”

“Well then?”

“It’s all right when you’re on top, Dad. But if you slip, it’s a hard fall with no allies to cushion it.” Dar sighed. “I worked very hard to always be right, because I knew if I wasn’t, there were a lot of teeth snapping at my heels.” She watched the signs and turned off at the next exit. “What bothers me is the fact that I,” she hesitated, “that they got me on something I…”

“They caught you with yer britches down.”

“Mmm.” Dar had to smile. “Not literally, but yeah.”

“Posterior sphincters.” Andrew shook his head. “Got no more sense than the good Lord gave a grasshopper’s left…um…leg.”

“Dad?” Dar gave him an affectionate look. “I know what assholes and balls are.”

“Watch yer mouth, young lady, before I turn you over mah knee and make you sing Dixie.”

Obligingly, Dar started to sing. “Oh I wish I was in the land of cot-290 Melissa Good ton, old times there, are not forgotten, gone away…gone away…gone away to Dixieland…”

“Smart aleck.” Her father laughed, then joined in. He had a low, growly singing voice that sounded a bit like Dar’s and wasn’t unpleasant at all to listen to. They finished the song just as Dar pulled up to the gates and rolled the window down. She showed her ID to the guard, who gave her a quick respectful nod and allowed them through.

Andrew peered around the huge complex as they drove in. “Holy Jesus.”

Dar chuckled and pulled into the parking area. She selected a spot and turned the car off—now feeling butterflies in her stomach. She picked up her security card and examined it, tracing the familiar features reflected back at her along with the sharp black letters of her name.

Her employee number. Her hire date.

She knew a moment of profound sadness. “Guess I’d better go get this over with.” She exhaled. “C’mon. There’s an area upstairs you can wait in.”

“Ah could just go in there with you,” Andrew suggested, as he got out of the car.

“Daddy.” Dar leaned on the roof of the car as she removed her laptop and shouldered it. “Thank you, but I really can handle this.” She hoped. “And whatever happens, there’s one of the best steak places I’ve ever eaten in down the road. Dinner’s on me.”

They walked into the building and Dar angled her steps towards the security desk. The man behind the counter glanced up at her as she approached and straightened, responding more to her sleek neatly pressed gray suit and black silk shirt than anything else. “Morning.” Dar handed over her identification. “I need to sign in a guest.”