Not now. Kerry could see only the faintest motion of her eyes under their lids and wondered what her lover was dreaming of. She gazed down for another moment, then she walked over to the heavy visitor’s chair and picked it up, putting it down right next to the bed. Okay. She lowered the guard rails, then sat down and rested her arm on the bed, putting her chin down on it and reaching up to circle Dar’s slack fingers with her own.

They were clasped instinctively, a welcome warmth that made her smile. She decided to just rest here a minute, then get up and try to get comfortable on her torture couch. Kerry closed her eyes, smiling a little when she felt Dar’s breath warming the skin on her forearm. Mm. That felt nice.

Yeah.


Red Sky At Morning 271

DAR WAS CHIEFLY aware of a lot of things aching as she hauled herself out of a deep sleep and responded to her body’s nagging crankiness.

Ow. She had a headache that would have felled a bison in its tracks, and her arm and shoulder felt like they’d been forced into a bad position for several days. Grumpily, she opened one eye, blinking as the fuzzy surroundings very slowly came into focus.

Ah. Dar had to smile despite the discomfort. Kerry was slumped against the bed, holding her hand, fast asleep. In the room, the first pale light of dawn was starting to show through the windows, but otherwise it was dark, save for the dim night-light above them.

But there was enough light for Dar to distinguish the curve of Kerry’s cheek, covered in fine, soft down. Light enough for her to see the delicate gold eyelashes. Light enough to catch the faintest hint of a smile tugging at one corner of her mouth.

What an amazing thing love was, Dar thought. It even drove you to do really dumb things like sleep leaning against a set of metal railings.

Oh, she’s gonna regret this when she wakes up. “Ker?” Dar squeezed the fingers clasped in her own. “Hey, chipmunk.”

“Uh?” Kerry murmured. “Dar?” She stirred, then shifted. “Ow.”

Her eyes opened in surprised displeasure. “What in...augh. I can’t believe I did that,” she hissed. “Jesus!”

“Easy, sweetie,” Dar laughed softly. “Stand up slowly.” She released Kerry’s hand and eased over onto her back, grabbing hold of her lover’s shoulder as she tried to straighten up. “Easy.”

“Son of a...” Kerry managed to get upright, her legs and back cramping like all get-out. “Oh my God, how stupid was that.” She leaned on the bed and groaned. “And wouldn’t the nurses have just loved walking in here.”

Dar ruffled her hair, then rubbed the parts of her within reach. “Ah, they’d live,” she disagreed. “Now, if they found you in bed with me...”

She grinned.

Kerry looked up, grinning back rakishly from between very disordered bangs. “Oh, I was tempted,” she admitted. “That’s how I ended up over here. I just came over to, um...” She met Dar’s eyes and felt suddenly shy. “Anyway, I sat down for a minute, and whammo.”

She fell silent, and her gaze dropped to the mussed sheets.

Dar watched her. “Ker?”

“Mm?”

“Thanks for staying,” Dar said. “It would have been such a nightmare for me if you hadn’t.” She waited for Kerry to look up.

“Literally.”

Kerry gazed at her. “Why?” she asked. “No one likes being in the hospital, Dar, but they’re not that bad, really.”

Dar shifted and settled her arm in a less uncomfortable position.

She found herself studying the ceiling, its tiled surface bearing tiny 272 Melissa Good pockmarks, barely visible to her. “I fell out of a tree when I was little.”

Her tone was quiet and casual. “They thought I’d cracked something, so they took me up to Baptist and had my head X-rayed.”

Kerry put a hand on Dar’s arm in silent comfort.

“They decided to keep me overnight, and they put me in a room with a real nice gal, an older woman,” Dar went on. “She was funny.

Decided to spend the night telling me stories; had grandkids of her own, I guess.” She paused and thought, then went on. “I woke up in the middle of the night, and looked over, and I—” Dar stopped, staring off into the distance.

Kerry waited.

“I knew something was wrong,” the quiet voice went on finally. “I got out of bed and went over, and I realized she was dead.”

It was like getting hit in the gut, hard. Kerry hadn’t expected this, hadn’t expected an answer to her question that even remotely resembled this. “Sweetheart.” She barely whispered the word.

“I think I started screaming,” Dar murmured.

Kerry didn’t give a damn about the nurses. She hauled herself up onto the bed and put her arms around Dar, pulling her close and hugging her. “Lord.”

Dar let her head lay against Kerry’s chest, reliving the moment.

Even all these years later, she could still feel the terror, the unreasoning fear that had haunted her dreams for a very long time after.

She remembered the nights she’d been afraid to go to sleep, terrified that she’d wake in the middle of the night and go in search of her parents, only to find them cold and stiff and staring. Dar drew in a shaky breath. It still shook her, even now. “Guess it made an impression.”

Kerry stroked her hair gently. “How old were you?”

“Five or six,” Dar replied, blinking. She was surprised to feel a tear roll down her face. “Silly, I guess, to even think about it now.”

“No.” Kerry closed her eyes and held on, kissing Dar’s head, then laying her cheek against the spot. “Not silly.” She felt her throat closing up, her entire body hurting for the child Dar had been, wanting to go back in time and be in that place, at that time, to hold Dar just as she was now and chase the fear away.

Dar allowed herself to accept the safety of that embrace. The ghost of that night lurking inside her loosened its hold, and as she reached up and clasped Kerry’s arm, she felt the terror unwind and drift away into the dawn’s breaking.

Silence settled peacefully over them.

They did, in fact, surprise the nurses.

ANDREW ROBERTS WALKED down the hallway, dodging sleepy interns pushing carts of equipment at a far slower pace than Red Sky At Morning 273

his rolling stride.

It was early, he reckoned, before the visiting hours of the hospital; but if there was one thing Andrew had learned in all his years of service it was that if you acted like you knew what you were doing, folks tended to leave you be.

Since he knew where he was, and knew where he was going, sure

’nough, nobody did ask him what he was doing in the hospital so early.

Exchanging gruff nods with a security guard, he went past the nurses’

station and down the next corridor toward one specific door set among many up and down the hall.

As to why he was there? Andrew circled around a laundry cart.

Well, it wasn’t that he didn’t trust Kerry to keep an eye on his daughter—he surely did; it was just that he knew how Dar felt about being inside these damn places and it never hurt to make sure.

Did it?

At the doorway he’d identified as Dar’s, there were two nurses standing and staring inside the room, and Andrew found his heart starting to go double time as he came up behind them. “Somethin’ not right here?”

The women jumped, and one simply turned and left. The other looked up at Andrew’s towering height. “Oh, sir, visitors are not allowed now.” She started to take his arm to lead him away, glancing over her shoulder into the room. “Excuse me now—”

“Ah, ah.” Andrew simply stood still, knowing the petite nurse wasn’t going to be pulling his six-foot-four-inch bulk anywhere. He glanced into the room anxiously, then let out a chuff of relief when he spotted the two figures snuggled together on the bed. “Would you just lookit that.”

“Sir.” The nurse pulled on his arm with complete ineffectiveness.

“Please.”

“Chill yer jets.” Andrew turned his head and regarded her. “You got something you need doing, g’wan. I can wake these here kids up.”

The woman stopped tugging. “You can?” she asked. “Oh. Would you? This is a situation we’re just not willing to get involved in.”

One of Andrew’s grizzled eyebrows lifted. “Waking folks up?” he queried. “Damndest thing I ever heard. That malpractice stuff must be hitting you all pretty fierce.”

“M—ah, no, no.” The nurse gave up. “Excuse me.” She turned and left, quickly walking away toward a door marked “Nurses Lounge.”

Andrew watched her go, then he scratched his jaw thoughtfully before shrugging and returning his attention to the room. He stepped inside with utmost quiet and padded over to the bed, spending several moments just watching his children sleep.

Then, with a rakish grin, he pulled a camera out of the pocket of his pullover and opened it, examining the controls carefully before he put it to his eye and allowed the gizmo to focus. When he had the scene 274 Melissa Good properly adjusted, he released the shutter and heard the click and whirr of the camera operating. After a second, he pulled it down and reviewed the LCD screen on the back, examining the digital image.

“Huh.”

He shook his head, then closed the camera up and tucked it away before moving closer to the bedside. His daughter was curled half onto her side, with her head pillowed against Kerry’s chest, with both of Kerry’s arms wrapped around her.

Andrew felt a smile pull at the skin on his face, still stiff after all the scarring and the surgery. Hospitals weren’t his favorite place, either, but to be honest, he’d spent more time in them than Dar had. Even now, after all the work they’d done, he knew the scars were still damn ugly to look at, and he was conscious of that even with Ceci.