She loved this room. Kerry unfastened her jeans and slipped out of them, folding them neatly and putting them on the shelf inside the closet. She put her hiking boots next to them, and then removed her shirt, hanging it up as she traded it for a shirt of Dar's that hung down halfway to her kneecaps.
Chino trotted in to find her, tail wagging as she spotted Kerry and rushed over to bump her knees. "Hi, sweetie. Did mommy Dar send you in here after me?"
"Growf."
"Okay, well here I am." Kerry reached down to pat the dog's head. "Are you glad we're here too?"
Chino wagged her tail even more furiously. The Labrador enjoyed the cabin almost as much as her owners. Her favorite activity was chasing the crabs down the beach just outside.
Kerry gave the soft ears one more scratch, then she patted her leg and headed back out into the living room. Dar was just coming out of the kitchen with the coffee cups, and she paused to put them down on the counter as Kerry passed her. "Ker?"
Willingly, Kerry detoured, swinging around and coming nose to nose with her partner. "Yes?"
Dar leaned forward and kissed her gently on the lips. Then she rubbed noses with her. "I love you." She rested her forehead against Kerry's. "Do you care if it rains tomorrow?"
"Hell no."
"Me either."
Kerry leaned in for another kiss, then reluctantly backed off and ducked into the kitchen. "How do you feel about milk chocolate and caramel?" she asked, removing a package of popping corn from the refrigerator.
One of Dar's eyebrows waggled. "Lose the corn, shorty." She drawled, in her sexiest voice.
Kerry started laughing.
"Wasn't the reaction I was going for," Dar complained.
"Harumph." Dar took a sip of her coffee.
Kerry looked at her and left her corn to pop as she climbed up onto the counter and leaned across it, capturing Dar's lips just as she managed to swallow. "You can drizzle me whenever you want, my love." She leaned even closer, whispering in Dar's ear, "But caramel hardens in really, really awkward places."
Now it was Dar's turn to laugh, almost making her coffee spill.
Satisfied with the reaction, Kerry got down off the counter and retrieved the small containers of sweets, sticking them in the microwave to heat up as the corn started popping in the popper. "You know, I'd love it if it rained tomorrow. I would absolutely adore a day to just lie around and be a complete bum."
"You can do that if it's sunny." Dar walked around the counter, handing Kerry her coffee.
"Nah. If it's sunny, I just have to be outside messing around on the beach, or in the water, or on the bike..." Kerry demurred. "I feel so guilty being a couch potato when it's pretty out."
"Eh." Dar had no such problem, having learned to take her slothdom where she found it. "Well, if it's nice out, I'll fish for dinner. How's that?"
Hmm. Kerry removed the corn from the popper, putting it in a huge round bowl. She drizzled her additives over it and tossed the corn. "I think that sounds spectacular." She looked over her shoulder at Dar and grinned.
Dar grinned back. They took the corn and the coffee and curled up together on the couch. Kerry leaned back and felt the aggravation of the week dissolve as Dar wrapped both arms around her. Even the tension of the ship, where the wiring had slipped behind schedule, eased into that place she reserved for things she had limited control over.
John was going as fast as he could. The conditions in the ship were hellacious; there was intermittent power and no air, and even Dar had come off the vessel shaking her head.
Kerry could not change the conditions. All she could do was press John to meet his commitment because time was running short and she had a deadline herself.
Here, she could release all that, putting it aside until Monday. Even in the condo that was hard to do because all she needed was to walk outside and she could see the ship from there. In the cabin, there was only peace, the sea, and the warmth of Dar's body pressing against hers.
She picked up a piece of popcorn and offered it to Dar, who accepted it, licking the chocolate drizzle off her fingers as she took it between her teeth. "Can I ask you something?" She looked away from the opening credits of the hack and slash movie her beloved partner had selected and peered back over her shoulder.
"Sure." Dar opened her mouth and poked her tongue out, looking inquiringly at the bowl.
Kerry placed another corn on her tongue and watched it disappear. "I was a lot more pissed off about all the bullshit talk at the office than you were."
"Was that a question?"
"Erm...no. I guess I was just..." Kerry paused. "I guess you're just used to it, huh?"
Dar's hold tightened. "No." She gazed reflectively past Kerry's shoulder. "I just knew none of it was true, so I didn't care."
Kerry's brow creased.
"The last time I heard stuff like that, it was," Dar clarified quietly, "And the time before that, and etc." Her shoulders moved in a faint shrug. "All I felt was just this sense of relief, honestly. As long as you know the truth, nothing else matters."
There were faint reflections in the depths of Dar's eyes. Kerry disregarded the movie and the popcorn, half turning to lay her hand gently on Dar's cheek. "Nothing else does matter," she said. "I never thought about that, you know? About how it was before for you."
"Mm." Dar blinked peacefully at her. "It sucked," she said, "especially the last time. Everyone took a..." She paused a second, "certain glee in our very, very public breakup."
Kerry rubbed the side of her thumb against Dar's skin. "Well, if I'd been there..."
"If you'd been there, it'd have been a moot point."
"Okay, well, if I'd been there and we hadn't been together..." Kerry restarted.
"You think that's really likely??"
Kerry shifted her hand to cover Dar's mouth. "Let me finish my over the top declaration, please," she scolded. "If I'd been there, and we hadn't been together, and we were just friends, I would have taken the biggest mallet I could find, and gone around whacking all those bastards on the head like moles." She removed her hand and leaned closer. "Do you believe that?"
"Oh yeah," Dar agreed instantly. "You have the staff scared spitless. They'd rather spill gossip to me than dare to tell you about it."
Kerry's eyebrow cocked. "Really?"
"Really." Dar kissed her. "So yes, Kerrison, I believe that with all my heart."
"Oo." Kerry nibbled a piece of corn. "I feel like such a mercenary." She let her head rest against her partner's. "Grr. You bring out the beast in me."
Dar eyed her, a grin surfacing immediately. "I'd buy that a lot faster if you didn't have that cute smile, Ker."
Kerry solemnly stuck her tongue out, then licked Dar's nose with it.
Dar reveled in their closeness, feeling a simple happiness not only in having Kerry in her arms, but in being here in this place that was so much a part of both of them. The troubles at work niggled at the very periphery of her conscience, but she ignored that, leaving the potential issues for the daylight.
Tonight didn't belong to work, it belonged to them. Dar poked her tongue out for more popcorn, and they then settled in to watch the mayhem.
AS IT HAPPENED, it did rain the next day. Kerry was in her glory, lounging in her pajamas on the couch watching luridly violent, yet curiously satisfying, cartoons. Dar was stretched out facing her, the length of the furniture explicitly planned so they both could relax on it at the same time.
"Mm." Kerry wiggled her toes against Dar's, grinning as she responded. While purchasing leather furniture didn't usually involve measuring for footsies, in their case they'd decided to make everything in the cabin fit them--even the chairs on the porch. Hers was a little smaller with a shorter seat, and Dar's was long enough to fit her legs perfectly. A bit pretentious, perhaps, but as Dar had said at the time, they could afford it and it lasted longer than an ice cream cone so why not?
At least they hadn't had the towels embroidered with Hers and Hers. "
Find anything yet?" Kerry asked.
"Nope." Dar had her laptop balanced on her thighs. "So far, nada. That MCI router exists, but they swear nothing in it has got our IP."
"Uh huh." Kerry put her head down on the plush leather couch arm. "You think they're covering up, or just clueless?"
"Eh. Let me threaten more people. I'll let you know."
Sounded like a fine idea to Kerry. She stifled a yawn as she watched the animated characters thrash and dance their way across the screen, reminded suddenly of her little friend Gopher Dar. "Are you messing with that program a lot more?"
Dar's fingers stopped moving, and she peered at Kerry over the top of her laptop screen. "That program." She repeated. "You mean..." She made a face, and chattered.
"Yeah."
Dar continued typing for a bit in silence, thinking about the question.
"I thought maybe you were getting a little bored," Kerry suggested. "So you were using that to keep yourself interested."
"No." Dar shook her head. "Actually, I think I've just been lonely."
Kerry rolled over and looked at her in surprise.
"That's my way of hanging out with you when we're both busy." Dar had most of her concentration focused on her screen, and was unaware of Kerry's rapt attention. "I'd be sitting in my office-- c'mon, you bastard--and I'd be on this stupid, pointless conference call wishing I was out on the boat with you instead, and all of a sudden some new idea for the damn thing would occur to me. New t-shirt, new dance...I finally got the vocal program working the other day."
"I noticed," Kerry replied quietly, now understanding the message it had conveyed.
"Anyway, it's more interesting than listening to people bicker about their budgets."
Kerry studied Dar's angular face, watching the pale eyes flick over the screen with restless energy. "Dar?"
"Hmm?" Dar looked up.
"Do you...not like what you're doing now?"
Dar's brow creased. She thought for a moment, and then cleared her throat a little. "I don't know, really. It's not so bad most of the time."
Kerry got to her knees and scrambled forward, sprawling over Dar's legs to get closer to her. "You liked what you were doing before though, right?"
Dar shrugged. "Yeah, I guess."
"I took your job."
Dar chuckled easily. "No you didn't. I horse-wrangled you into the position over your protest, if I recall correctly." She set the laptop aside. "Besides, you do it better than I did."
Kerry crawled up further. "That's not the point, Dar." She objected. "Not if you're not happy because of it."
"Happy?" Dar took hold of her and pulled her up further until Kerry was half lying on top of her, their limbs tangled in a warm mess. "I have never in my life been happier."
Kerry rested her chin on Dar's shoulder. "That's not what I..."
"I know. But it's the truth." Dar nuzzled her hair.
Perplexed, Kerry fell silent, not really sure what to say next. Maybe, as Dar had hinted, it was time for her to change and move on to do something else. The thought made her anxious, though, and she had to admit, if only privately, that the last thing she wanted from a professional standpoint was Dar leaving the company.
Maybe they should both leave. Kerry liked that idea better. They'd talked around the idea of forming their own business for the longest time. Maybe it was really time to get off their butts and do something about it.
She put her arm over Dar's stomach and squiggled down between her and the couch, liking the view from this end better anyway. She thought for a bit about her own job, and whether or not she liked it as much as she had when she'd started.
It was okay, she finally decided. The one big problem with it was that it never really allowed a sense of completion of anything. It was always one situation after another, after another, after another. There was never really any time when she could sit back and feel satisfied with where she, and by extension the company, was.
Would that ever change? Kerry doubted it. She was about to mention her revelation to Dar, when her cell phone rang, as though punctuating her thoughts with eerie precision. With a sigh, she took the phone from Dar, and opened it. "Hello?"
"Ms. Stuart?"
"Yes?"
"This is Justin in operations, ma'am," the voice replied. "I'm sorry to bother you on the weekend, but I had note in the log about a file transfer on the financial lines?"
Kerry glanced up at Dar, who was now listening. "Yes. Is it happening again?"
"Well, I'm not sure, ma'am. I'm just seeing a lot of traffic on that line, and it's sort of unusual for a Saturday, you know?"
Dar picked up her laptop as Kerry straightened to give her room.
"Yes, I understand," Kerry said. "Okay, we'll take a look at it, Justin. Thanks for calling me. Did anyone from the bank contact you?"
The tech sounded surprised at the question. "On a Saturday? No, ma'am. They sure didn't," he said. "I've notified my boss, and he's checking it out too, but he thought maybe you'd be interested in hearing it also."
Dar switched off the program she'd been using and opened up her network systems instead. "Got that right."
"Your boss is spot on," Kerry told the tech. "Thanks for calling me, and let me know if anything changes, okay?"
"Yes ma'am, I sure will." Justin promised.
Kerry hung up and squirmed around so she could see the laptop screen. "I am getting really freaking annoyed at all this crap, Dar."
"Mm. Sorry." Dar was typing quickly. "My stupid fault." She accessed the circuit in question and reviewed it. "Damn it, he's right."
She sighed. "Same crap as before. I'm going to just cut it off."
"Don't you want to try and trace it?"
Dar's fingers hesitated. "I don't think we can risk it," she admitted. "I don't know what this is, Ker. It's too dangerous on the bank lines." She typed in another command. "I'll grab what I can, then dump the connection."
Kerry watched in silence as she completed the action, and the activity in the monitors fell to normal levels. "Why didn't Mark do that?" She asked, curiously. "Was he trying to track it down?"
Good question. Dar keyed up her messaging program and typed in a question, then hit send. She reviewed the logs of the router, checking the address sources still held in its memory. "Hmm." She frowned and reviewed them again, then copied and pasted them to her desktop. "Ker?"
"Yeah?" Kerry peered at them. The list of addresses was mostly of no interest to her, save one. "Isn't that one of ours? Is that you or maybe Mark coming in remote?"
Dar checked her laptop's configuration. "Nope not me." She probed further. "I don't think it's Mark."
"Another spoof?" Kerry leaned even closer. "But wait, that's from..."
"Inside our network." Dar completed the sentence unhappily. "Now I hope it's Mark. It's gone already." She searched, but found no trace of the offending station. Her machine beeped, and an answer came back from Mark.
I was trying to get a dump. Got a partial.
Dar typed back a question.
No, that's not me, I'm on the protected security range. Mark typed back. That's one of the pool addy's.
"Shit." Dar sighed again. She typed back. Then we need to find out why one of those pool addresses was inside the bank router. Because it's one of the sources of that data parse.
The screen was briefly silent. That sucks.
"No kidding." Kerry felt a sick sensation in her guts. "Someone inside the company is doing this? Is that what we're looking at, Dar?"
"Maybe."
Well, ulterior motives didn't usually show up on the security checks. Kerry thought back over the recent new hires in their division. "Dar, we haven't hired anyone for three months. Are you saying someone might have been here for that long, just lying low?"
"Doubt it." Dar put a series of controls in place. "If it's a pool, it might not be from IT." She debated a moment, then exhaled. "I'm going to put my program in all the border routers."
Ke
rry winced. "Is it ready?"
"No. But it's better than nothing." Dar called up the utility and started transferring it from her laptop to the remote devices. "Worst it will do is crash the whole net."
"Dar..."
"I know, hon, but we've got very few options." Dar replied gently. "I'll take responsibility for it."
"That's not my issue." Kerry protested. "It's just really hard to fathom having to explain to a zillion customers that they're down because you crashed us."
Dar chuckled without humor. "I'll take the calls if it happens." She finished transferring the program to the first router, then activated it. "I built the network, I can wreck it, I guess."
Kerry hid her face in Dar's shirt. "Can you program it to scream if it crashes? At least we'll get warning--"
"Hopefully..." Dar finished her work. "Okay, it's in the number one pair." She monitored the devices with some anxiety, despite the confidence she had in her own skills. You just never did know when something you never anticipated would interact with a program, and send everything all to hell. "I think it's okay."
Kerry peeked at the screen. The gauges were steady, but with the same odd flutter she'd seen the last time Dar's program had run. "Can you dump the warnings here?"
Dar drummed her fingers. "Yeah, I better. Ops has nothing set up to receive them." She keyed in the programming change carefully. "Okay...let me get that on the rest of them."
Dar!
"Whoops...should'a warned him." Dar glanced at the message. Sorry. I'm putting my new code in.
Hey, that address was from inside the office! The server issued it at 2pm. I'm calling security to find out who's in.
Kerry reached across Dar's forearms to type on the keyboard. I want to see that list! KS
Dar glanced at her, a grin twitching at her lips. "Should I get the mallet?"
"This is not funny." Kerry growled. "Dar, if someone inside the office is responsible for that, we need to call the police."
Stormy Waters: Book 10 in The Dar & Kerry Series Page 23