Dar visibly pulled herself together, rubbing her face with one hand and straightening. “Okay,” she sighed. “We’ll see what we can come up with to fix this cluster.” She shook her head. “God knows it could have been worse.” She moved to stand up.

Kerry moved with her. “How’s that?”

One hand on the console, Dar paused, and then she looked at Kerry. “He could have taken you.” She eased past her lover and pulled her head close as she did, kissing it. “Let’s go.”


Terrors of the High Seas 255

Jesus. As she turned to follow Dar mechanically, Kerry sucked in a shocked breath. She’s right. She stopped me from coming down here alone to check the boat.

She tried to imagine what that would have been like, a flash of her time in the mental hospital appearing stark and vivid in her mind’s eye. How angry she’d been. How ashamed at being taken like that, by her own father. What would Dar have done if it had been her? Kerry watched Dar carefully lock the cabin door. “Hey, Dar?”

Dar turned, apparently having recovered her composure for the time being. “Yes?”

Kerry took her arm as they crossed onto the dock and started the long uphill walk to the hospital. “I was just thinking about what you said.” She folded her fingers around Dar’s. “I was thinking about what I would have done, if it’d been you DeSalliers took instead of poor Bud.”

Dar looked at her. “And?”

“And I think I would have gone after his ugly ass with that shotgun,” Kerry admitted with a wry, brief smile. “I can see me doing a Rambo and getting my fool head blown off.”

Dar squeezed her hand. “Nah.”

“Yeah,” Kerry said seriously. “So, I know this really sucks, and it’s going to be tough on both of us, but I’m selfish enough to be glad I don’t have to be thinking about you locked up someplace in that guy’s clutches.”

“Well,” Dar kicked a pebble out of the way, watching it skitter down the docks past two men working near one of the boats, “I think you know that goes double for me.” She squared her shoulders. “I guess we need to figure out what our assets are, what advantages we have, and decide what to do.”

Kerry felt a tiny sense of relief. “Right.”

They walked along in silence, passing the other boats and collecting a few curious glances from the men working on them.

They left the dock and headed up the road. “Kerry?” Dar finally said when they’d passed the marina and mounted the first of the steps up the hill.

“Mm?”

Dar paused and put a hand on Kerry’s shoulder. “I wouldn’t have gone after him with that shotgun.”

“Oh?” Green eyes searched her face.

“I would have just used my bare hands.” Dar spoke the words with eerie calm. “And ripped his heart out of his chest.”

“Ah.”

They resumed walking.

“We’ll find a way to fix this,” Kerry stated firmly. “I know we will.”


256 Melissa Good Dar grunted softly in response, her eyes fastened on the hospital on the slope above.

CHARLIE REMAINED SILENT for a while after Kerry finished speaking, a look of shock on his face. His eyes slowly went from her to Dar, who was sitting in the chair on one side of the hospital room.

The dark-haired woman had her elbows resting on her knees, her clasped hands resting against her chin. She lowered her gaze to the floor, tacitly accepting responsibility for the situation in which they found themselves. “So, our plan was to get you out of here, then figure out what the hell we’re going to do.”

“Son of a bitch.” Charlie sighed deeply.

Dar’s shoulders hunched just slightly. This was a failure of self that was eating a hole inside her, and she knew it. There had been very few times in her life when she’d known down deep that she’d committed an unfixable error, but this surely seemed to be one of them. Even Kerry’s gentle reassurance wasn’t helping.

She heard Kerry’s footsteps approach and then felt a hand come to rest on her back. Between her shoulder blades, Kerry’s thumb moved slightly, giving her a comforting rub. She would never blame Dar, but she also knew the truth about what had caused Bud’s abduction, and knowing that Kerry knew, that made Dar feel hollow inside. Hollow and empty and sick to her stomach.

Dar could hear Kerry continuing to speak, but the words just seemed to slip past her and without really realizing it, she rested her head against Kerry’s hip and let her eyes close, shutting out the sight of all that disappointment.

“I know this is pretty tough to hear,” Kerry said. “Believe me, I wish I wasn’t here saying it.”

Charlie glanced at the silent figure next to Kerry. His lips twitched slightly. “Y’know, I told that damn fool he shoulda listened to you in the first place, Dar,” he said, with a sigh. “Too damn stubborn, that’s what his problem is; always was.”

Kerry could feel Dar’s breath warm against the skin of her leg.

“About the loan, you mean?”

Charlie nodded. “Don’t blame yourself, Dar. We got ourselves into this mess. We went after that kid’s offer instead of doing the smart thing and accepting the hand of a friend,” he said. “We never’da been here otherwise.”

Kerry scratched Dar’s back, running her fingertips over the tense surface. She could almost feel how upset Dar was. It was like a gray baseball sitting in the pit of her stomach, and she really wanted her lover to shake off the darkness so obviously clouding her mind. “Honey?”


Terrors of the High Seas 257

The truth was too much to shrug off. Dar looked up reluctantly and inhaled. “I know,” she muttered. “What ifs, what ifs. What if Kerry and I had just gone to another island, or picked a different damn wreck to dive…”

“Look.” Charlie collected himself and eased off the edge of the bed onto his newly restored prosthesis. “Bud’s a big boy. I ain’t sure they don’t have themselves a bigger problem than they started out with, grabbing him.”

“Mm.” Dar straightened up a little. “They ready to cut you loose?” she asked. “We figured we’d head on back to the boat and regroup.”

“Good idea.” Charlie nodded. “After what you told me about what happened at that inn, I don’t trust them people further than I can pitch ’em off the cliff.”

Dar stood up, feeling very tired. “All right. I’ll go downstairs and get us a cab.” She gave Kerry a simple, brief hug, then left them to collect Charlie’s things.

Kerry exhaled.

“Dar’s taking it pretty hard, huh?” Charlie asked.

“Yeah.” Kerry glanced at him shyly. “She hates being caught by surprise.” Her eyebrows contracted together. “So do I, actually.”

“Life does that.” Charlie stuffed the last shirt into the small, battered canvas bag and slung it over his shoulder. “She done all right. Guy’s nutters.” He limped slowly toward the door. “Whole thing’s nutters.”

“Well, I thought so.” Kerry opened the door for him and followed him out. “But Dar’s pretty big into situational responsibility.”

Charlie grunted. “Just like her daddy.”

Kerry thought about that. “That’s true,” she mused. “Dad does like to make sure everything’s just so.” She looked up to see Charlie glancing back at her. “I appreciate that about him. I’m glad Dar inherited it.”

“He put up with you calling him that?” The ex-sailor seemed amused.

“What?” Kerry asked. “Dad?”

Charlie nodded.

“Sure.” Kerry walked slowly next to him. “I don’t have a very good relationship with my own family. Dar’s folks treat me more like a daughter than my parents ever did, and they know I love them for that.” She found a surprising lump in her throat and had to take a moment to swallow it. “Besides, I never got the feeling he minded being a daddy.”

“No.” The older man smiled briefly. “Andy wore one of Dar’s nappy pins on his gear for years, and nobody dared say boo to him about it.”


258 Melissa Good Kerry had to smile at the vision. “She’ll be all right,” she assured him. “She just has to finish kicking herself, and then we can figure out what the heck we’re going to do about this mess.” Her hand curled around the door handle at the end of the corridor and she pulled it open. “I’ll feel a lot better when we’re back on the boat, though.”

“You and me both, Kerry.” Charlie limped toward the front door of the hospital. Dar’s distinctive form was visible through the half glass. “Me and Bud have some friends out here. Maybe we can get some help from them.”

They emerged into the warmth. Dar was standing with her hands in her pockets, her sunglasses effectively hiding her eyes. A battered cab was waiting nearby.

Kerry followed Dar over to the cab and got in, while Dar held the door open so Charlie could ease gingerly into the front seat.

Dar joined Kerry in the back and they drove off, navigating the winding streets in silence.

DAR WENT BEHIND the galley counter and poured herself a glass of milk, then went into the bathroom and took a couple of aspirin from the bottle in the medicine chest. She swallowed them as she emerged to rejoin Kerry and Charlie in the living space of the boat. Kerry patted the seat next to her on the couch, and Dar detoured from the chair she’d been aiming for and settled next to her partner instead. Now that the shock had worn off a bit, and despite the headache she’d developed, her problem-solving instincts were beginning to kick in again. Facts were starting to sort themselves out from the chaos.

“Okay.” Dar took a sip of milk. “First off, Wharton’s got no home base here in the islands, right?”

“Not that we know of, no.” Kerry had the laptop fired up and had been doing some quick data searches. “Not that he couldn’t be anywhere,” she added with a sigh.