"Ouch." Dar winced, as the small body hit the bar, then the mat. She got up immediately, but she was obviously stunned, and wavered as she tried to get back on the bar. "Hey! Stop her, you creep!" she instructed the girl's coach, visible just on the side of the floor exhorting her.

The girl put her hands on the bar and boosted herself up, getting her feet under her and standing up. But as she started to walk, she lost her balance again and fell in a heap on the mat, this time staying there.

Dar was surprised at the outrage she felt as the coach yelled, faintly audible, for the girl to get up. "Stupid son of a..." she barked at the television. "Go help her!"

The coach did not. However, as though hearing Dar, one of the other competitors, a taller girl with dark hair did rush over and kneel next to the fallen gymnast even though her costume indicated she was on a different team.

The coach yelled again, but the dark haired girl looked up and yelled back angrily, and then people began rushing onto the floor and surrounding them both.

"Mm." Dar returned her attention to her mail. "That's better. You go, kid." She typed in silence for a moment, then the irony of the situation struck her. She looked back up at the screen in time to see the tall gymnast helping the shorter one off the mat, their arms wrapped around one other.

Dar chewed her inner lip and then she smiled, making a mental note to check the ESPN website later and find out who the kids were. There was, she suspected, a story in there somewhere. Her eyes shifted to the table, suspecting there was a story inside the box too.

With a sigh, she went back to her typing. As she finished one mail and found herself checking the television before going to the next, she recalled something Kerry had said. "Restless," Dar murmured under her breath. "Yeah. More like scatterbrained."

KERRY WALKED UP in back of Mr. Slimy, giving him a smile as he sensed her presence and turned to face her. "Hi."

"Oh! Hi...um..." The man's eyes dropped to her corporate badge. "Kerry wasn't it...ah."

'That's right," Kerry replied. "And you can do me a big favor by cutting the crap out and stop wasting my people's time."

He actually took a step back. "Hey, wait a minute..."

"No, you wait a minute." Kerry squared her shoulders and gave him a direct stare. "They're too smart to do anything but laugh at someone who would go behind their boss's back and approach them like that. If you'd do it to me, you'd do it to them. None of my people like stupid games."

The man blinked. "Look, it was nothing more than business as usual, Ms. Stuart. Don't tell me you don't do it."

"I don't do it," Kerry shot right back at him. "And if you do it again, you're going to have to explain to my boss why you're annoying my staff."

He held up both hands. "Okay, lady. Okay." He took a step backwards into Telegenic's booth. "No problem...I get the message."

Michelle Graver suddenly appeared around the other side of the booth. "What message?" She glanced at Kerry, one ginger eyebrow lifting at the blond woman's aggressive stance. "Problem, ah... Kerry?"

Of the two of them, Kerry found it much easier to tolerate Michelle, for some probably not too noble reasons. "You have slime bags working for you," she informed her. "I'm over it. He doesn't know how to take no for an answer."

Michelle gave her manager a look, and he ducked away, disappearing into the interior of the booth. Then she turned back to her visitor. "Ah. Tried a little poaching, huh?"

Kerry put one hand on her hip. "He tried to recruit me and Dar."

Both of Michelle's eyebrows hit her hairline with an almost audible crack. "Ambitious," she murmured under her breath.

"Not really. He had no idea who we were."

"Ah." Michelle cleared her throat. "Sorry." She grinned slightly. "We are pretty aggressive. I won't apologize for that." Her eyes drifted, then went back to Kerry. "Breakfast was fun."

For a moment Kerry didn't answer, as she wavered, deciding how to respond. Then she relaxed her stance a trifle. "What did you really expect?" she asked.

Graver exhaled, and half shrugged. "Damned if I know," she said, giving her head a slight toss to take the edge off the comment. "Let's see if I can start over. Buy you a cup of coffee?"

Good cop, bad cop. Kerry almost smiled. "Sure," she agreed,

Michelle turned and led the way toward the snack bar on one side of the convention hall. "Nice turnout. Didn't expect that with the rain."

"We did." Kerry let her arms drop to her sides and lengthened her steps, secretly enjoying the sensation of having someone shorter than she was have to keep up with her. Dar was such a beast that way--she didn't do it on purpose, but her legs were so much longer than Kerry's she always felt like she was having to take a little hop to keep up.

"Did you?"

"Orlando is full of distractions." Kerry arrived at the snack bar and pointed at the coffee, then held up two fingers. "However, most of them are outdoors. We're not." She leaned on the counter and faced Michelle. "I'm glad I got my fun in yesterday."

Michelle took one of the cups the server offered them and indicated a small table nearby. She led the way over and sat down, waiting for Kerry to take the seat opposite her before she spoke. "Listen." She leaned on one elbow. "This is a...touchy...kind of situation, I know that."

Kerry's eyebrows twitched.

"We really didn't want this to turn into a war."

"Sure you did." Kerry cut her off, but in a remarkably mild tone. "You came in here setting the stage for us to clash."

Michelle sighed.

"Well, you did. It's not my fault," Kerry said. "I wasn't the one who tried to pay off the convention staff not to help set the place up, and I wasn't the one who sent my lackeys around trying to steal other company's employees."

Michelle eyed her. "You're not as nice as you used to be," she remarked. "Dar must be rubbing off on you."

Far from taking offense, Kerry produced a sunny grin at that. "Thank you." She sat back and sipped at her coffee, waiting for Michelle's next salvo. In the mean time, she let her eyes scan the room casually, spotting ILS's marketing team doing their thing in the aisles. Eleanor had the vice president of technology of one of their biggest clients by the lapel, and she made a point of making eye contact with Kerry as she cruised along with him. "Ah. Sorry to cut this short, but my services are required."

Michelle was nothing if not tenacious. "Okay. Can we try all this again at dinner tonight? Call me a stinkweed, but I still want to try and make this work. We can all learn from each other."

Kerry crumpled her cup and tossed it into the nearby wastepaper basket. "Thanks." She stood up and braced her hands on the table, leaning on them a little. "But no thanks. We've got plans for tonight and I promised Dar she wouldn't have to deal with any more indigestion from you guys." She straightened and turned, walking away without a backward glance.

Michelle got up and dropped the half unfinished cup into the garbage can. "Well, I think I've wasted enough time for one day," she commented to the receptacle. "Don't you?" With a snort, she followed Kerry out onto the floor.

DAR HAD TRADED her unorthodox loungewear for a pair of cutoff overalls and a polo shirt, and left her laptop behind as she investigated the hotel. She'd answered all her mail that she felt needed answering, and ditched the rest of it, losing interest in the weightlifting that had been showing on ESPN as well.

So here she was, sauntering around the lobby in her bare feet, watching the tourists mill around giving the still stormy weather evil looks. The interior of the hotel was a pristine white, and the whole décor was one of lightness and elegance.

Dar found a comfortable and mostly empty corner and selected a seat in it, leaning back against the cool fabric as she watched the world go by for a few minutes. There were families here, but she saw a lot of couples, too, walking together or sitting and talking around her.

Her own visits here in her youth had been very different. Dar propped her leg up with one ankle on her knee and rubbed the prominent bone with her thumb. They hadn't been rich. Far from it, in fact. The best her father could manage was one of the ratty little motels on the strip in Kissimmee or, memorably, the camping ground inside the park itself.

Fort Wilderness. Dar smiled to herself. She'd loved that place. It had been full of pine scent and horses, and she had spent hours with her father swimming in the manufactured swimming hole on the side of the lake.

It had been one of the best vacations ever. Only four days, a long weekend leave before his next deployment. Yet it was one of the few times Dar could remember where they'd all been just...happy together.

They'd slept in the back of Dad's truck, under the nylon tent and sweated like pigs. It had made the lake that much sweeter.

"Excuse me."

Dar looked up to find a man standing next to her, peering down. "Yes?"

"Are you Dar Roberts?"

A prickle of surprise rippled up and down her spine. "Yes," Dar replied briefly. "Why?"

The man sat down and extended a hand, which Dar ignored until he awkwardly withdrew it. "My name is Peter Quest. You don't know me."

"You're right. I don't. What do you want?" Dar gave him a direct look.

"I'm looking to do a little business, Ms. Roberts. I was told you would be someone I could talk to," Quest replied. "I was at the trade show this morning looking for you, but they told me you weren't around."