Kerry stood and circled the small room. ”Well, it’s not really that bad,” she stated. ”I mean, it could be worse. The linens are fresh and it’s clean in here, so they obviously keep it up.” She glanced up and decided not to mention the huge spider web. ”It’s only for a night or two.” She glanced at Eleanor. ”Look, we’re sort of stuck here and it doesn’t make sense to fight about it now. Let’s wait until we get home, then we can talk about it.”

Eleanor pursed her lips, unable to find a way to argue with Kerry’s logic and she tentatively approached the bunk, touching the fabric with 56

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one finger. ”Well, it is clean.” She pushed the pillow experimentally. ”I suppose I could make a sacrifice.” She looked up at Dar. ”But you’re going to pay for this, Roberts.”

Dar was seated on her bunk, leaning against the wall and staring at her impassively. ”Threats are pointless,” she stated point blank, ”so shut up. I didn’t ask for this. I wasn’t the one who sent the damn email to Alastair and I don’t want to hear that crap for the next two days.”

”Well, he wouldn’t have had to send it if you’d cooperated with him, now would he?” Eleanor shot back.

”I don’t cooperate with unreasonable requests. You should damn well know that by now,” Dar responded. ”I don’t care who makes them, not you, not Alastair, and especially not your little hatchet boy.”

”Ladies.” Mariana held a hand up. ”Can we can it for the evening, please?” she requested. ”We’ve got plenty of time to assign blame and fight with each other when we get back to Miami. Let’s just get this over with.”

Dar sighed. Mariana was right, and besides, she was letting Eleanor get to her. ”Right.” She sat up and unbuckled her overnight bag, tugging out a flannel nightshirt. An awkward silence fell and she glanced up to see everyone just sort of looking at each other. ”C’mon now folks. We’re all girls here,” Dar reminded them drolly as she pulled off her sweatshirt, and tugged her polo from its neat tuck into her jeans.

”Oh no.” Eleanor took her bag and retreated to the bathroom, leaving the rest of them in still uncomfortable silence.

Dar sighed. ”Just shut off the light,” she directed Mary Lou.

”Nobody can see each other in the dark.”

The tall ash blonde nodded appreciatively and did so, plunging the room into inky blackness, broken by conspicuous rustlings and the sounds of bare feet moving on the wood. Next door, ribald male voices were heard and they could see the light under the door.

”See? The boys don’t care,” Dar remarked, tucking her clothes away and seating herself on her bunk, which was raised slightly off the floor.

Mariana snorted. ”Care? They compete. They’re probably measuring themselves as we speak.”

A round of chuckles.

”Not in this weather,” Dar drawled wryly. ”They’d need a caliper.”

Another round of chuckles, this time louder.

A wild scream erupted from the bathroom and after a stunned moment, the door was thrown open disgorging a half clad Eleanor who screamed and bolted for the door of the cabin.

Unfortunately, she forgot to open it and slammed face first into the planks. ”Oh my god, oh my god, help!”

Dar hopped out of bed and headed over, hearing heavy footsteps from next door. She reached Eleanor just as José flung the door open, resplendent in his white silk boxers with red hearts. ”Jesu! What is going on here?”


Hurricane Watch

57

”I have no idea,” Dar snarled. ”Eleanor, what in the hell happened?”

The Marketing executive turned and waved her hands wildly. ”It attacked me! My god. I have to get away!” She pointed at the bathroom.

”In there!”

Kerry had followed Dar across the floor and now she ducked her head into the bathroom, glancing around cautiously. She saw the toilet, one small sink that had Eleanor’s makeup all over it, the shower stall, and a snake. She started to pull her head back out, then froze.

”Oh...Jesus.” Her eyes widened. ”Anyone know the local fauna?” She jumped back as the snake slithered out. ”Look out!”

”Dios Mio!” José yelped, spotting it. He jumped back inside the boys’ room and slammed the door.

The snake, a three foot long green specimen, headed towards Dar.

”Where’s Steve Irwin when you need him?” Dar muttered as she peered at it in the low light. ”I think it’s harmless.”

”You think?” Mariana was standing on her bed. ”Dar, don’t you ‘I think’ me, okay? I am not going to spend all day Monday filling out paperwork because you got bit by an ‘I think.’”

”No, it is.” Dar waited for the snake to crawl up on her foot, then she captured its neck and lifted it up. ”Probably looking for a warm place.” She examined it. ”Yeah, it’s just a garden snake. It’s not dangerous.”

The door to the men’s side cracked open and three sets of eyes peered out. ”Goodness,” Eleanor’s assistant squeaked.

Dar sighed and motioned Eleanor away from the door. ”Move, I’ll put it outside.”

”What?” Steven now stuck his head through the door. ”And let it attack someone else? No way. Kill it!”

”We can’t always kill things that have the potential to annoy us,”

Dar stated looking at him steadily. ”Now get outta my way, Eleanor.”

She moved towards the door and the woman screamed, backing away from her and tripping over the broom left in the cabin for sweeping. She tumbled over it, landing on her butt on the floor and scrambling back, looking like a huge, white skinned spider.

Dar removed the snake from the premises, then dusted her hands off and went back inside.

The boys were behind their door. The girls were clustered back against the wall, behind Kerry’s Tweety clad form.

Everyone was looking at her. ”We voted you Snake Hunter,” Kerry informed her, with a faint grin. ”As in, could you check for more?”

Dar put her hands on her hips. ”I didn’t get a vote,” she protested.

”Besides, in this weather it’s easy. Look where it’s warm.”

As one, five sets of eyes turned towards their bunks. ”Oh my god.”

Eleanor slumped to the floor, in a faint.

”Uh, I think we’d better leave the light on,” Mariana stated 58

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nervously as she and Mary Lou struggled to get Eleanor into her bunk.

Dar sighed and shook her head, going over to her bunk and sitting down on it. ”I’m sure it was just an isolated thing,” she reassured them.

”C’mon, we’ve got to get some sleep. God only knows what Mary Sunshine has in store for us tomorrow.” She stretched herself out on her cot on one side, crossing her ankles and propping her head up on one hand.Kerry slowly did the same, crawling into her bed after she peered around it nervously, then lying down so her head was close to Dar’s. ”I hate snakes,” she muttered.

”Hmm? How do you feel about lizards?” Dar inquired seriously.

”Um, I don’t know. Why?” Kerry asked, hesitantly.

”There’s one on your leg.” Dar pointed.

Kerry yelled and jumped, leaping across the space between their two bunks and landing practically in Dar’s arms. ”Shit!” She watched the tiny lizard scamper away, then exhaled raggedly. ”Damn.”

Then she realized where she was and peeked at Dar’s face. ”Uh, sorry.” She eased away from the taller woman, whose eyes twinkled.

”Dar, this isn’t funny. I hate these things.”

Dar almost told her to stay where she was, that she would protect her, but Mariana and Mary Lou were watching them. ”Look, just relax, lizards are good. They eat bugs.”

Wrong thing to say. In a split second everyone was in the middle of the room, staring at the beds.

Dar sighed and pulled the covers up over her face. It was going to be a very long night.


Chapter

Six

THEY’D FINALLY GOTTEN to sleep. Dar had convinced them, by sheer force of will, that if they’d turn the lights off and pull the covers up over their heads no bugs would get to them, even if there were bugs.

So they had and now she was snuggled down in her own bunk, waiting for her body to relax in this strange environment and listening to the soft breathing around her.

A low, rumbling sound came from next door and Dar smirked quietly, then exhaled, hoping none of her sleeping companions were prone to snoring.

Kerry wasn’t, she knew, unless she was flat on her back and exhausted. Dar suspected she’d be guilty of that in the same state as well. Usually Kerry preferred to curl up on her side, or against Dar’s shoulder, her breath gently warming the taller woman’s neck.

It was incredible, Dar mused, just how good that felt. She turned her head and gazed into the darkness, barely able to distinguish the huddled figure in the bed next to her. Hmm. Dar inched forward, getting as close to the head of her bunk as she could, then she slipped a hand between the rough two by fours that lined the beds and closed her fingers over the hand she could just see curled over Kerry’s head.

A soft gasp, then the blonde head lifted and the faint light reflected off her pupils. ”Oh” she barely whispered, ”you scared the bejezus out of me.”

Dar smiled and chafed her hand. ”Cold?” She murmured in response.

”Mm.” Kerry squirmed closer until her face was within inches of her lover’s. ”Even with the extra padding I’m still shivering; pretty embarrassing for a northerner,” she admitted. ”Camp wasn’t like this for my younger WASP self.”

Dar grinned, then looked around carefully. ”Can’t have that.” She slipped out of her bunk and into Kerry’s, the darkness shrouding them in safety.