Kerry laughed with her, and savored the touch of Dar's bare skin. She loved how Dar felt, loved the silky texture of her skin, and the light twitches of her reactions as Kerry's hands explored her.

She loved the low hum of approval when it tickled her ear, and the pressure as Dar slid her thigh between Kerry's and tugged off her shorts.

And you know, sometimes life just rocked.

TWO HOURS LATER, they were sitting side by side in Dar's Lexus, tooling down the Florida turnpike as the last of the sun disappeared behind the pines bordering the road. Kerry had the passenger seat pushed all the way back, and her bare feet propped up against the dashboard while Dar leaned back in a relaxed attitude with one hand on the wheel.

"Y'know, I think this really is a good idea," Kerry commented. After they'd been companionably silent for a few minutes, she chose a new CD to listen to. "We need a car up there anyway, and with all the time getting to the airport in Miami, and from the airport up there, it's probably a wash."

"Uh huh." Dar reached behind her, and removed a bottle of YooHoo from the cooler in the back seat. "And we've got better in-flight refreshments."

Kerry slid the CD into the drive and leaned back, circling one knee with her arms. She watched the passing scenery, and decided most of the state of Florida had a lot in common with parts of the state of Michigan in terms of flat terrain and boring horticulture. "Is it like this all the way up?"

Dar glanced around in the twilight. "Pretty much," she admitted. "We used to leave at 4:00 a.m. to get up here. Dad always said there wasn't nothing to look at, no sense in wasting sunlight on it," she recalled, shifting the car into the left lane to pass a dawdling truck. "You go on road trips much?"

Kerry laid her head back against the seat. "Not with my family, no," she replied, in a quiet tone. "But when we went to camp in the summer, yeah. All of us in the bus. That was kinda fun." A brief flash of civilization whipped by, a lone white house facing the road with an old, half-rusted bus in front of it. "It wasn't really a wild and crazy camp--it was from my school. But Angie and I counted the days till we went there and we were always sorry to leave."

Dar moved to the right again, and settled back. "Where was it?"

"Up in the mountains," her partner replied. "We had these precious little cabins with maid service twice a day, and a valet to do our laundry. You know." Her eyes slid sideways. "Well, no, you don't know, but I look back on it now, and realize how bloody damn pretentious it all was."

"Eh." Dar chuckled a little. "I went to the Y camp one or two summers, but when I got old enough, I went to the summer programs on base."

Kerry's lips twitched. "No valets, huh?"

"No." Dar shook her head. "You had kids who grew up on a military base, who had that mindset to begin with, and who lived in that culture. We did war games, camping, hunting..." A smile appeared. "I had a blast. It was one of the few times I remember just being really..." She paused.

"Happy?" Kerry guessed.

"Content," Dar amended. "Accepted, maybe." She moved to the left again to bypass a Lincoln Town car. "I was so damn sure that was the world I wanted."

"Well." Kerry swiped the bottle of YooHoo and took a swig. "I never felt that way at camp. I was just glad to be out from under my parents' eyes. It was all so damn fake. They had comportment classes, for Pete's sake."

"What?"

"How to walk, talk, and greet people without tripping and dumping your bad white wine on them," Kerry translated. "That and lanyard making. Jesus, do you know how many lanyards I made? Every damn color in the rainbow and let's not talk about the potholders."

Dar snickered. "You and I come from such different planets," she said. "Only thing I made in camp was a belt from old ammo cartridges I collected on the base and rifle webbing someone had thrown away." She glanced at Kerry, watching the corners of her mouth curve up in a smile. "I'd have taken a potholder and used it to wipe my..."

"Dar!"

"Hey, you know what choices you have out in the bush?" Dar said. "Now you know where I got my dislike of camping from."

Kerry burst out laughing. "Oh my god, you have no idea how funny that is. In our camp, one summer, they got the wrong toilet paper delivered. It was that brown craft paper kind of stuff they usually have in really bad rest stops?"

"Ow."

"Yeah." Kerry nodded, still chuckling. "Well, me, the little rebel that I was, stole a case of it, and led the rest of my cabin in TPing the lead counselor's house so badly you couldn't even see the door." She did a little dance in her seat. "Oo...oo...the little bitch turned red as a tomato and didn't talk to us for a week!"

"Troublemaker."

"Angie was so pissed at me." Kerry snickered. "But that woman already hated my guts so..."

"Why?" Dar asked, curiously.

Her partner paused in mid-thought. "I have no idea. She made me really uncomfortable. I figured she was trying to get something from my parents," Kerry said. "She gave me the creeps."

Dar watched the Lexus' powerful headlights carve up the road ahead of them for a long moment, and then she turned her head toward Kerry. "How old were you?"

"High school," Kerry replied. "Why?"

"Hm." Dar tapped her thumb against the steering wheel. "Ever think maybe she was interested in you?"

Kerry's brow creased. "Well, yeah--I mean, I said she was, Dar," she replied, then paused when she watched Dar's eyebrow hike up expressively. Realization hit, and she inhaled in slight surprise. "Oh. You mean...that kind of interested? Like...romantically?"

"Uh huh." Dar returned her attention to the road, flicking her eyes to the passing sign and noting its contents. "Wouldn't surprise me. You were cute in high school," she drawled, with a slight smile. "I've seen pictures."

Kerry remained absolutely silent for a few minutes, sucking absently on the neck of the YooHoo bottle as she watched the shadowed trees flash by. Finally, she snorted a little, half surprised and half disgusted. "Never would have crossed my mind," she admitted. "I think I...Brian and I had just started going out. I wouldn't even call it dating. It wasn't that serious. I probably would have freaked out if she'd..."

"Tried to seduce you?" Dar stretched out her free arm and laid it over Kerry's shoulders. "She'd have been an idiot, given your folks, but..." She scratched Kerry's neck with her fingertips. "You were really an adorable kid."

Kerry blushed slightly. "You know, I really never even thought anything like that. By that time, I'd learned just how far people would go to get in with my father, I just..." She exhaled. "Assumed she was more of the same."

"Well, maybe she was." Dar sensed her partner's discomfort. "I was only presenting another point of view." She tugged on Kerry's earlobe. "Want a pit stop?" She pointed to a sign indicating a rest stop ahead. "It's all commercial now, but I can show you where they used to sell the tackiest Florida souvenirs this side of Key Largo."

Kerry relaxed, and finished off the chocolate soda. "Sure," she agreed. "We've got plenty of time."

Dar signaled and pulled to the left, preparing to leave the highway.

After a second, she glanced at Kerry, not surprised to find herself being studied by those sea green eyes. She winked at her partner and was rewarded by a grin, which she returned.

The ride was turning out to be a darn sight more interesting than she'd remembered it.

PEOPLE WERE SO funny. Kerry leaned against the wall and watched some of their fellow travelers walk by. They were pretty much oblivious to everything on their way to get food, or drinks, or relieve themselves, and yet virtually every other one of them paused to look at the figure studying the turnpike map on the wall.

Of course, Kerry was doing the same thing, but she felt she had an innate right to, since the sleek body wrapped in faded denim and cotton tank top belonged to her partner. Dar's jeans were the old, ripped ones Kerry had found way back when for their biker school reunion. She had her tank top tucked in them and boy, she looked good.

She'd recently gotten her second summer haircut, and it left most of her shoulders bare. The last few months of their life had been a lot of work, true, but almost every weekend spent down at the cabin and their new gym classes had given Dar a deeper tan and added a little more muscle to her tall frame.

Mm.

The rest stop was an interesting combination of retail outlet and tourist hard pitch. Kerry wandered around in the main lobby, examining the racks of leaflets as she sucked on a cone full of frozen strawberry yogurt. Florida was definitely both tourist driven, and eclectic, and she riffled through advertisements for things as varied as a mystery house where things ran uphill, to Monkey Jungle, to Weeki Watchee. "Paladar?"

"Yes?" Dar's voice erupted from right behind her, even after all this time making Kerry jump. "You rang?"

"What the heck is a Weeki Watchee?" Kerry selected the lurid pamphlet from the rack and held it up. "It looks like a mermaid farm."

"Sorta," Dar agreed. "It's a place where mermaids give shows, and sell trinkets."

"Mermaids?" Her partner eyed her. "Not manatees?"

"Mermaids," Dar assured her, pointing at the colorful page. "Women in fish tail costumes with big breasts."

Kerry stared at the advertisement. "And people go there? Really?"

"Well." Her partner examined the ad. "They have nice gardens, too, and I think a snack bar."