”I...” Dar thought about it. ”I don’t think so, but I didn’t know her really well, Kerry. We were... It was strange. I wasn’t really ever sure why she left me all this. We weren’t close.” She paused. ”Why? Do you think she was?”

”Mm... This pen meant something to her. Usually you keep the things you use the most, Dar.” Kerry lifted the pen out carefully, and curled her fingers around it, It...fit...comfortably, in the oddest way.

”Oh, what a nice feeling,” she murmured, flexing her hand.

Dar watched her curiously. ”Are you into calligraphy?”

”A little,” Kerry responded. ”I used to write my poetry longhand, until I figured out it was a lot safer to put them in my computer.” She sighed. ”They always seemed more intense when I wrote them out, but I knew my parents, or Kyle couldn’t find their way through my hard drive.”

Dar closed her hand over Kerry’s. ”Why don’t you keep hold of that, then, because if you’ve ever seen my handwriting, you’ll know I will never, ever have use for it.” A wry grin edged her face. ”There’s a reason I type everything, and I have, since grade school.”

Kerry gazed at the pen, then up at her. ”Oh, yeah. I heard Mariana moaning about some evaluations you wrote out. She said she was going to have to call in a Greek scholar to translate,” she teased gently.

”Thank you. I don’t know if I could bear to try and use it, but I like just holding this.”


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Blue eyes glinted suddenly, with an inner light. ”Write me a poem with it.” The low voice took on a momentarily deeper tone.

A warmth traveled up her spine, and Kerry smiled in reflex. ”All right.” She carefully put the antique pen down on the table. ”What’s next?” She reached a hand in, and collided with a large, heavy metal piece. ”Ouch, what the heck is that? A machete? Did she wander the Amazon jungle or something?” Kerry carefully tugged her find free.

”Oh.”It was a rusted, rotting, half disintegrated sword. ”Good grief.”

Kerry got her other hand under the rotted leather of what once might have been a scabbard and lifted it clear. ”Would you look at that?”

Dar had stilled, and now she exhaled a long breath. ”Let me see that,” she asked softly, holding out her hands as Kerry gently placed the ancient artifact in them.

The first thing she felt was a slow, faint wash of sadness, gentle, but profound enough to prick the back of her eyes with tears. ”Bet there’s a story behind this old thing,” she commented to Kerry quietly. ”You can almost feel the history in it.” She gazed down at the ruined sword, noting the plain, worn brass hilt, its surface encrusted in green, and the unraveling tatters of rotted leather that fell away from her fingers as she touched it.

Dar wrapped her fingers around the hilt, and pulled the crumbling leather away from it, revealing a scarred, pitted steel blade, broken halfway down, its remaining length gouged with deep, asymmetrical grooves. She twisted her wrist, closing her eyes and feeling a faint, clear bell of familiarity ring deep down, as the weight of it hit her forearm muscles. ”Damn, this brings back memories,” she murmured, opening her eyes and regarding Kerry thoughtfully.

”It does?” Kerry had been watching her in mild fascination.

”Yeah, we used to study a couple different types of sword handling when I was really into the martial arts.” There are several forms that focus on allowing the artist to become proficient at a lot of different weapons, Dar mused, turning her hand around and letting a faint smile touch her lips. ”I gave it up, mostly because it doesn’t have a lot of practical application in today’s world.”

”Mm, bet you were good at it,” Kerry observed, cupping her chin in one hand.

A shrug. ”I was all right.” Dar gently put the broken sword down.

”I’ll clean that up. It’s a nice conversation piece.”

”Right.” Kerry reached in, and pulled out another small wooden box, this one a heavier, almost petrified looking wood with a brass band around it fastening it shut. ”Care to give a guess? Let’s see...a centuries old brass faucet.”

Dar leaned on the edge of the trunk. ”Okay...um...a petrified dog biscuit,” she hazarded, the word biscuit immediately getting Chino’s attention.


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Green eyes rolled, then Kerry carefully undid the clever latch, and worked the box open, the wooden edges having warped tightly shut.

”Ugh. This is kinda...whoops.” The box fell out of her hands as it popped open, and onto the tile floor, spilling its contents. ”Oh, damn.

Did it break? God, Dar...I...”

”Shh...no.” Slowly, Dar put down her hand, and touched the grayish black stones gingerly. Each was attached to the remains of a silver chain, and she picked one up and examined it. ”What in the hell is that?” She picked up the other stone and looked at it, then she rotated it and gingerly put both stones together. ”Hey, they match.”

Kerry leaned close. ”They fit together.” Her throat felt funny when she said it. ”How unusual.”

Dar’s finger pushed the two stones around in her palm, their edges fitting snugly together. ”They sure do,” she mused thoughtfully. ”Too bad they’re so beat up. It might be kinda fun to...um...”

Kerry gently picked the stones up and separated them. ”Let me see if I can clean them up. I’ve got some jewelry cleaner upstairs.” She glanced up at Dar’s face, which was painted in tones of interest and curiosity. ”Would you wear half if I can?”

A strange, almost dreamy smile crossed Dar’s face. ”Yeah. Would you?”

A laugh bubbled up from deep inside her, and Kerry released it into the air. ”Sure.”

In her palm, the stones nestled together, in obscure, gray contentment.

KERRY TOOK THE small bowl out onto the patio with her, seating herself in the early morning sun and propping her bare feet up against the railing. Dar had left a little while ago, and she’d found herself with some time before her nine a.m. appointment.

So she’d decided to clean the rocks they’d found, before she got dressed and took the short drive over to her doctor’s office. She shifted a little and flexed her thighs, a little heavy feeling still from her running that morning, but she’d made eight laps for the first time, keeping up with Dar in a small piece of personal triumph.

Of course, she suspected her lover had cooperatively kept her pace to something Kerry could handle, but still, eight was eight, and it felt pretty damn good.

Add that to the fact that she’d finally...finally gotten the hang of that over the shoulder throw last night, and had managed to down Dar with it not once, but twice.

Yeah. She could sit here in the sun with her rocks and her solution, and feel darn proud and pleased with herself. ”Heh, heh, heh,” Kerry chortled softly, dipping the rocks carefully in the very mild liquid. She was actually feeling pretty smug, to tell the truth, and she was more 336

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than a little looking forward to going in for her checkup for a change.

What she hadn’t told Dar was that her doctor, Marie Simpson was a gym rat. She’d not only delighted in chastising Kerry for being so skinny, she’d spent thirty minutes during every appointment trying to browbeat her into joining a gym and starting an aerobics program.

She’d also been, to Kerry’s mild discomfort, romantically interested in her. Marie had made it clear that she wasn’t looking for anything serious, just some light hearted fun, and they’d gone out a few times together. Kerry had enjoyed herself, still very tentative in adjusting to her sexuality, but she and Marie just hadn’t had that much in common.

The doctor’s interests tended to violent sports, poker, and frank leering at passing bodies.

Marie also like to drink, which Kerry had deliberately turned away from, and she loved to party.

Kerry had gone with her to one, thrown by a professional women’s group Marie belonged to. She’d been all right, until she was cornered near the bar by a couple of very drunk and very amorous paralegals.

That had been a little ugly. But she’d gotten out of it with the help of a very sweet and very friendly bartender, who let her slip by behind the bar and through the hotel’s kitchen, where she exited and called a cab. It hadn’t been Marie’s fault, though the woman had apologized profusely, but Kerry had decided after that she wasn’t quite the party animal. ”Kerry,” Marie had said. ”You’re sweet, but you need to get a life.”Kerry swished the rocks around in the solution, and looked around her, with a grin. “Guess I found a life, huh?” She watched a seagull float overhead, and savored the sunlight warming her skin in a moment of pure, animal happiness. “Mm.”

”Okay, let’s see what we’ve got here.” She gently fished the first stone out and laid it on a soft cloth, then rubbed it carefully. A layer of the dark surface came off onto the rag, and she examined it, then dipped it again. Three or four more dips, and a careful cleaning with the rag, and she was sitting in some amazement, as the sun poured down and sent fractures of colored light through the pure, clear crystal in the palm of her hand. ”Wow,” she whistled under her breath. ”Check that out.”

An idea occurred to her, and she carefully dried off the two pieces of crystal, untangling the ruined chains from them. ”I think I remember a jeweler close by Marie’s office.”

She grinned, as she stood up and reentered the condo, heading for her bedroom to change.

THE WAITING ROOM was quiet this early in the morning, and Kerry had only been seated for perhaps five minutes before the Hurricane Watch