Anxiously, Kerry clasped her fingers in her own. “Why? Does it hurt that bad?”

“No.” The blue eyes twinkled, just a little. “It’s the seventh time you’ve asked me in ten minutes,” Dar said. “Am I turning green or something?”

“Psshst.” Kerry had to laugh. “Sorry.” She lifted Dar’s hand and kissed it. “This was just a little too much, I think. My mind’s going in a thousand different directions.”

“Yeah.” Dar pulled her closer into a hug and laid her cheek against Kerry’s soft hair. She could feel warm breath through the fabric of her shirt as the smaller woman sighed. “You know what?”

“What?”

“I love you.” Dar was mildly surprised at how easily that came to her lips now. She felt Kerry smile, and one of her arms snaked around Dar’s waist, giving her a hug.

“I love you, too,” Kerry murmured.

They stayed that way, even though Dar could see her mother’s approach through the windshield. “Sorry I was such a raging bitch today,” she said. “This didn’t really go like I planned it.”

“Oh.” Kerry didn’t budge. “You mean you didn’t expect someone to suspect what we were up to and use a SEAL exercise to cover the destruction of all the evidence?”

“No.”

“Tch. Bad Dar. No biscuit.” Kerry squirmed a little closer. “You must be slipping.” She felt the motion under her as Dar chuckled just a bit. “Your tummy’s rumbling.”

“Not from hunger,” Dar sighed, as her mother rounded the door and paused, watching them bemusedly. “Hi.”

“Is it ticking?” Ceci hazarded. “Here, drink some of this. I think it’s safe. There’s enough chlorine in it to kill anything nasty.” She handed Dar a bottle she’d filled from the tap.

“Thanks.” Dar accepted it and took a sip, licking her lips thoughtfully. “Mm. Tastes like home.” She rolled a mouthful around and swallowed it, perversely enjoying the sharp tang of the minerals and chemicals infusing the tap water. “Nothing else tastes like it.”

Kerry lifted her head and straightened, pulling the bottle over curiously and taking a sip.

She blinked, then spat it out immediately. “Yahh!”


260 Melissa Good Ceci and Dar both chuckled.

“Boy, is that ever an acquired taste.” Kerry looked like she desperately needed something. Like a drink of water. “Good grief, Dar!

How on earth could you drink that?”

Dar winced as a wave of nausea hit her. “I’m wondering that myself at the moment,” she said. “Better step back, in case I lose what I just swallowed.”

Kerry didn’t move an inch. She took the bottle from Dar’s hands and gently rubbed her forearm, caressing the warm, bare skin as she watched Dar close her eyes and lean back. “I think we’d better get going,” she told Ceci. “Go on and get in. I’ll drive over there, then run in and get Dad.”

Ceci nodded. “Good idea.” She opened the back door and climbed inside. “But you drive, I’ll go fetch him.” She watched Kerry carefully close the passenger side door, then jog around the front of the Lexus.

Awkwardly, she patted Dar’s arm very lightly. “Hang in there, kiddo.”

Hang in there. Dar swallowed, uncomfortably aware of the pain in her head and shoulder getting worse. “Do my best.” Even the sound of Kerry’s closing the door hurt. “Did Mark get that box?”

“He got it, honey.” Kerry backed the car, then put it in gear and headed for the building. “Don’t worry about that.”

Okay. Dar closed her eyes and concentrated on taking shallow breaths. She didn’t want to throw up. That would hurt. That would make her head hurt a lot worse than it did. It would also, the more ingenious part of her argued, ruin the new-car smell of Kerry’s little blue buggy.

That would be bad.

She wouldn’t get a biscuit.

Dar winced. Right now, the last thing on earth she wanted was a biscuit.


Chapter

Sixteen

KERRY RUBBED HER hands and settled back against the wall, crossing her arms as she watched Dr. Steve fussing over Dar. It was cold in the emergency room, and she found herself wishing she had a sweatshirt.

Actually, she wished she wasn’t here at all, having to watch all the activity around Dar with a heavy, nervous knot in her stomach. Dr.

Steve had taken one look at her lover and sent them both straight to the hospital, with him driving right behind them.

What was worse was that Dar hadn’t protested. Even now, she was resting quietly on the padded rolling bed, with her eyes mostly closed as both doctor and nurses poked at her. That made Kerry realize whatever was wrong was serious, because otherwise she knew Dar would be pitching God’s own fit.

She wondered how Andrew and Ceci were coping out in the waiting room, where they’d reluctantly retired to wait after Andrew had carried Dar inside, an image that had imprinted itself on Kerry’s heart.“Kerry?”

Kerry jumped, then focused on Dr. Steve’s kindly face. “Oh, God.

Sorry.” She searched his eyes anxiously. “How’s she doing?”

“I’m guessing she feels like the turd end of a pig in a bog right about now,” the doctor told her. “She got herself real concussed there, and looks like she did more damage to her shoulder.”

“Oh.” Kerry’s brow knit. “Is she going to be okay?”

Dr. Steve patted her cheek. “Eventually, sweetheart,” he told her. “I need to get a CAT scan of that head, though. Would you mind going on in with her, just in case she realizes I’ve gone and stuck her inside a blinking white tube?”

“Sure.” Kerry felt a little better. “Anything I can do to help.”

THE CAT SCAN room was a short elevator trip away, and Kerry spent the moments gently rubbing her lover’s fingers as the blue eyes peered muzzily at her. “Hey, sweetie.”

“Ow,” Dar replied.


262 Melissa Good

“I know.” Kerry walked alongside the gurney as they exited the elevator and moved down the hallway. “Dar, honey, they need to take pictures of your head, okay?”

A groan.

“Yeah, I know, you hate that, but Dr. Steve really needs to see what’s going on in there,” Kerry told her. “So you just keep your eyes closed, and it won’t be that long, I promise.”

“Promise?” Dar mumbled.

“I promise,” Kerry repeated, as they rolled over to the big machine.

“Just keep your eyes closed, okay?”

“Okay,” Dar agreed. “Just stay here with me.”

Ooh. Kerry eyed the plethora of machinery, then her lover’s pale face. “Don’t worry, I will. I promise.” She took hold of Dar’s hand and squeezed into a corner, as much out of the way as she could manage.

The technician came over and glanced at her. “Ma’am, you can wait over there.” He pointed toward a low bench, giving her a friendly smile.

Dar’s fingers tightened on hers, and Kerry met the tech’s eyes squarely. “No, I can’t,” she said. “My friend here is extremely claustrophobic and has a concussion. You don’t want her freaking out.”

The man glanced at Dar, then at Kerry. “Okay,” he agreed cheerfully. “I can buy that. Just try to stay as clear of the machine as you can.”Kerry was pleasantly surprised by the easy capitulation. “Thanks.”

She relaxed. “I will.”

The tech, a young blond-haired man about Kerry’s age, expertly arranged Dar on the table and moved the machine to cover her. “Was she in a car accident?”

“Ah, no,” Kerry replied. “She...um...” Got hit in the head with a rifle?

No, you can’t say that. “It’s complicated.”

“Okay.” The tech signaled to his partner, who was behind a console. “Whatever you say. I never argue with a lady wearing two cell phones and three pagers.”

Kerry glanced down at her belt, then felt herself blushing. “Ah, yeah.” She heard the machine start humming and felt Dar’s grip tighten painfully. “I’m carrying for both of us right now.” She chafed Dar’s fingers. “Easy, Dar, I’m here.”

The grip lessened, just a trifle. “I’ll always be here,” Kerry whispered.

“OKAY.” DR. STEVE ENTERED the emergency room alcove they’d been assigned. Andrew and Ceci were standing on one side of Dar’s rolling bed, and Kerry was on the other, all of them attempting to comfort her. “Sweetie pie, you did quite a job on yourself.”

Dar had her eyes open a little more now, having been pumped full of several syringes of things. “Yeah?”


Red Sky At Morning 263

“Yeah.” Dr. Steve walked over and rested his hands on the bed.

“I’m admitting you.”

Dar grimaced.

“Ah, ah, ah.” The doctor shook his finger at her. “It’s all your own fault, young lady. If you’d have stayed at home and rested like I told you do, you’d still be there, and not here.”

Dar’s lips twitched into a scowl. “I had something I had to do,” she protested tiredly.

“Uh-huh, and now what you have to do is spend some time in here, letting me fix you,” Dr. Steve replied. “You have a concussion, honey, and there’s some swelling in there because of that. You’re not going anywhere until I’m sure that’s gone.” He touched the side of her head, which was dark with bruising. “And I’m calling in an orthopedic surgeon to look at your shoulder.”

Dar’s blue eyes popped wide open, but then, so did Kerry’s, Ceci’s and Andrew’s. “What?”

Dr. Steve put a finger on Dar’s nose. “What part of that wasn’t in American English? Now you relax, and let them take you upstairs and get you comfortable.” He patted his profoundly unhappy-looking patient’s arm. “Don’t give the nurses a hard time. I like the ones here, and you’ll give me a bad name if you do.” With that, he left, after giving Andrew a reassuring pat on the back.