Winds of Change Pt 1 (Dar and Kerry Series Book 12)

by Melissa Good

  Kerry smiled. “You should have seen your face when she said that stuff about someone in the family dying. I almost got up and hugged you.”

  Dar blushed, blinking a little as she typed.

  “It would make me feel good to see you feel good about seeing all those people,” Kerry went on. “I want to see them all hugging you. Promise me you won’t wig out.”

  “No promises,” Dar muttered, but a smile tugged at her lips.

  “Okay, I have a bunch of software downloading.” Kerry got up. “Let’s go start dinner. Gerry’s going to be here at six?”

  “Uh huh. He’s a steak and potato guy, by the way.”

  Kerry paused at the entry to the cobalt and white kitchen, and regarded her. “Oh my gosh, what I am going to do? I’ve never ever had to deal with one of those before.” She parked her hand on her hip. “Guess I’ve got to throw away all those soy burgers and alfalfa sprouts.”

  Dar looked up and grinned, lifting both hands off her keyboard and turning them upward, and then letting them drop. “That was a dumbass thing to say, huh? Sorry about that. I didn’t really think you’d feed him rabbit food.”

  Kerry chuckled and retreated into the kitchen, thinking a little about how their relationship seemed to have morphed these last couple months. She wasn’t sure if it was the trials they’d been through, or just the process of their growing up and into each other, but she’d gotten the feeling that they had gained stability in each other that hadn’t been so evident before.

  She felt like she could say anything to Dar now.

  Humming lightly under her breath, she opened the refrigerator and removed three T-bone steaks from the meat compartment, already dusted lightly with spices. She set them on the counter top and went back for the small, thin-skinned golden potatoes, dumping them into the little basket in the sink and running water over them.

  “Yap!”

  Kerry paused in scrubbing the taters as she got a visitor. “Yes?” She watched Mocha’s tail wiggle furiously. “What can I do for you, little man?”

  Mocha sat down and looked up at her. “Yap!”

  “Oh my gosh, you’re so cute.” Kerry grinned at him. She got a little puppy kibble and put it in his dish, watching him inhale it, tail wagging almost continuously.

  “Ah. He’s got you trained already.” Dar came in, sliding a little in her socks. “Good boy! I figured he might be hungry since he just tried to get milk out of Chino.”

  Kerry eyed her. “Really?”

  “Well, she does look like Alabaster.” Dar walked away with her mug of milk, giving Kerry a wink.

  Kerry went back to her scrubbing, ending up with a bowlful of potatoes she set aside and covered with a paper towel. “Let’s see. String beans will be pretty safe, huh?”

  “Yap!”

  “Not for you.” Kerry shook a bean at him. “Has Chino taught you how to use the doggy door yet?”

  Chino appeared in the doorway and looked at Kerry with a quizzical expression.

  “Go on, show him how to go outside,” Kerry instructed Chino, who had now attracted Mocha’s attention. The puppy pattered over to her and walked between her legs, coming out from between her front ones and sitting down. Chino soberly licked the top of his head, then she walked over to the dog door and pushed her nose through it.

  Mocha looked astonished. Then he bolted forward and tried to get through the door with her, ending up tumbling outside with a startled yelp.

  Chino barked, pulling her head inside to give Kerry a look before she continued out the dog door in pursuit of the puppy. “Growf!”

  Kerry chuckled. “Sorry, Cheebles.” She went back to preparing her fresh string beans, cutting the ends off and enjoying the scent of the vegetables, one of the few Dar would eat willingly. She did manage to get her to try others in stir-fry, when they were either covered in sauce or wok fried and therefore not vegetable tasting.

  Carrots were also successful, along with baby spinach, especially when she folded the latter into cheese omelets. Dar amiably tolerated this adjustment of her ingestibles, understanding that Kerry had her best interests in mind and she’d really gotten pretty good about trying new things.

  But there was nothing new today. Kerry nibbled on a raw bean as she reviewed her ingredients, satisfied that she’d produce something completely acceptable, especially considering she had, hidden in the refrigerator, one of the Death by Chocolate cakes Dar was so fond of.

  She heard barking outside and peered out the kitchen window that overlooked the garden, spotting Chino down on her front legs as Mocha charged her with puppy enthusiasm. They had a rope toy between them and they both grabbed it, tails wagging.

  Too cute. Kerry leaned on the counter and idly watched. The sun had started to go down behind them, and it lit the oceanfront with a golden glow that was very different than the light they got in the summertime. Less moisture, she reasoned, letting her eyes track a circling gull.

  She opened the window, letting in the rush of the surf and the distinctive scent of the winter air and tasted a hint of salt on the back of her tongue.

  She heard the sound of the sliding glass door and then spotted Dar going to sit down on the swing with her new laptop, tucking one long leg under her as she concentrated on the screen. The breeze was tangling her hair, and as she watched, Dar pushed it behind her ear, displaying a brief flash of her blue eyes.

  Then another flash, as if sensing the attention, Dar looked up and right into her eyes, a smile appearing along with a gentle twinkle.

  Kerry leaned her chin on her hand and savored the moment. “What a lucky son of a bitch I am.”

  Dar crooked a finger at her, and Kerry abandoned her preparations, picking up a bottle of ice tea from the refrigerator as she made her way outside, feeling the breeze as it blew in through the open glass doors. “Yes?”

  “C’mere.” Dar patted the seat next to her. “Let’s try the photo booth.”

  “The what?” Kerry sat down anyway, leaning an elbow on Dar’s thigh.

  “Photo booth.” Dar clicked in something, then a moment later Kerry was looking at herself on the screen. “C’mere.” She pulled Kerry closer and they were both in the frame, and a click later their slightly skeptical and bewildered looks were frozen in perpetuity. “Heh.”

  Kerry stared at it. “What’s that for? Is it an application just to take pictures of people sitting in front of your laptop?”

  “Yep.” Dar looked fondly at it. The resolution wasn’t great, but the picture made her smile, and she saved it. “I like this thing,” she said. “I got my repository mounted to it, and I just compiled Gopher Dar.” She sounded satisfied. “This keyboard’s comfortable to type on, too.”

  “And it has crazy little apps that let you take pictures of yourself,” Kerry mused. “I’m glad you like it, sweetie.” She patted Dar’s belly. “I’m going to start dinner. I’ll cook the steaks medium rare.”

  DAR FELT THE swing move as Kerry got up and she paused to watch her head back inside the house, leaving the sliding glass doors open as she disappeared back into the kitchen.

  Mocha scrambled through the dog door and raced around into the patio with Chino close behind him, a bit of cloth trailing from his teeth.

  “Whatcha got there?” Dar grabbed him as he ran past, picking him up onto the swing and inspecting his prize. She rescued the fabric.

  “Hey, Ker? We need to buy an underwear hamper.”

  “Yeah?” Kerry called from the kitchen.

  “Yeah. With a top that locks.”

  Dar heard the footsteps and looked up to find Kerry with her hands on either side of the sliding glass door, leaning out to look at her. She held up the fabric and grinned.

  “Good grief.” Kerry rolled her eyes, and retreated again.

  Dar balled up the underwear and stuffed it in her pocket, then put the puppy back down on the floor. “Now, where did you find that, huh? I hope you didn’t find that out in the garden.” She inspected one of Mocha’s paws, a
lready a healthy size and promised a lot of further growth. “C’mon, let’s go see if there are any more out there.”

  She picked up the laptop and brought it back inside, dropping off the machine on the counter before she opened the back door and went down into the little garden. There was a flight of stairs down from the house, terracotta stone with a forty-five degree turn in the middle that ended up at ground level.

  It was quiet there, the area surrounded by a stuccoed wall around a space of about thirty square feet, filled with grass, and little beds of flowers and herbs in raised crates and baskets that Kerry puttered with in her spare time.

  The grass was trimmed and tended, and high tech. It was planted over a filtration and irrigation system that drained to the sewer and was sprayed down at night to rid the turf of both salt and dog piddle. There was a door in the middle back of the wall, a wrought iron gate that allowed the gardening staff to come inside, and tidy up on weekday mornings.

  Dar pulled out one of the biodegradable bags and attached it to the neatly hanging scooper, roaming around the yard and cleaning up while she searched for more clothing. There were big river rocks outlining the flower beds and in one corner, a little fountain that Kerry had made from a slew of the stones piled up was sedately splashing water out that ended up in a bowl Chino headed right over and drank from.

  Dar liked it. Before her relationship with Kerry, the place was very plastic and boring, with ficus hedges and sea grapes planted around a central area that had a stone table in it. Now, there were metal flat sculptures fastened to the walls, and two hanging chairs that were fastened to the underside of the kitchen, and dog toys in various states of shred scattered around.

  There was even an installed speaker system so they could play tunes outside, and fans that they would turn on when it was muggy to stir the air around.

  If they’d lived a little further north, she figured they could swing a fire pit. Dar sat down in one of the swing chairs and regarded the space, deciding maybe she would get one to surprise Kerry anyway. It would be nice to sit out here and have some hot cider in the couple of months they had of winter weather outside.

  Birds fluttered overhead, and she heard a peacock off in the distance.

  The phone rang inside, and she heard Kerry answer it, supposing it was the ferry terminal telling them of Gerry’s arrival.

  She watched the dogs play, and took a breath, and when she let it out, the sense of odd surrealism she’d felt since the prior weekend dissipated and this new reality took its place.

  It didn’t feel so weird anymore. She could think about being fired, and it no longer felt embarrassing, or made the pit of her stomach tense up.

  Chino came over and nuzzled her knee and she stroked her head, watching Mocha attack a leaf that had the temerity to float into the garden and land near him.

  She thought about the get-together next weekend and smiled.

  Kerry trotted down the steps and joined her, wiping her hands off on one of her kitchen towels. “You’ll never guess who that was.” She dropped into the other chair and swiveled around in a circle. “My mother.”

  “She coming to dinner, too? At least she eats steak, unlike mine,” Dar said.

  “She was just coming out of an intelligence committee meeting. Apparently they were being briefed on this new Internet counter terrorism system the president’s commissioning.”

  “Ahh.”

  “And apparently some of my father’s old friends said they’d never support it if ILS were involved.”

  “Hoisted on their own petard, I’m guessing.”

  “Mom admitted she had a hard time keeping a straight face, especially when Bridges reluctantly agreed to remove them from any consideration,” Kerry said. “It’s going to be hilarious when they find out it’s us doing it.”

  “Let’s hope I can,” Dar said. “Gerry on the way? I thought I heard a car outside.”

  “Yep.” Kerry got up. “She said she liked being the only one in the room who had all the facts, for a change.” She held out her hand to Dar, and they walked up the steps together, with the dogs rambling after them. “But she said the whole privacy thing was freaking them out.”

  “Points for them.”

  “They wanted to know if the system could identify people specifically who were going to sites like—”

  “Like porn,” Dar said. “All of them were imagining their next campaign having to explain why they were glued to www.poledancinggirls.com.”

  “Might make politics more popular then, huh? I can picture those debates on TV.”

  “OKAY.” KERRY CAME into the conference room with a small box. “I’ve got us some communication until we get a phone system in here.”

  Mayte and Maria were going through papers with the employment agency, and Mark was opening some boxes on the other side of the table, sorting through cables and packing peanuts. All of them were visibly tanned, and equally visibly in a good mood, dancing a little to the music from the radio Kerry had plugged in.

  They were all in jeans or cargo pants, and Maria was even wearing a pair of Ugg boots she would never have worn in the staid ILS offices.

  She could almost sense the lightness in the room. “One for each of you.” She handed out boxes. “It’s this new thing from Handspring. Dar and I were testing it and we like them.”

  “Cool!” Mark broke off from his unpacking and opened the box. “Hey, I saw these on Tech TV the other day.” He glanced up. “We going to set up personal mail on them?”

  “Until Dar gets the mail server compiled,” Kerry said. “She’s been working on that today.”

  “Saw her. Got a Mac, huh?” Mark chuckled. “Freaked me out.”

  “She likes it.” Kerry looked up as the door opened, and Dar stuck her head in. “We were just talking about you.”

  Dar grinned. “Mark, give me a hand will ya? They delivered the racks.”

  Mark put his hands on his hips. “So when heavy stuff has to be lifted, I’m the guy around here?”

  Dar looked at him, then looked down at herself, then back at him, both eyebrows lifting. “What?”

  “You don’t count, boss.” Mark nevertheless stuck his new gizmo in his cargo pants pocket and headed for the door. “You’ve got bigger biceps than I do.”

  Kerry snickered.

  “Don’t you start,” Dar said to her. “I’ve got the accounting module running. Colleen’s looking at the table structure.” She winked at Maria, then disappeared after Mark and the door swung shut.

  “Okay.” Kerry finished handing out the gizmos. “How are we doing here?”

  “I think we’re set,” the woman from the agency said. “My gosh you people know how to fast track!”

  “Of course,” Maria said. “Did I not say we were the bomb?”

  Kerry sat down at the table, which was actually a table now, the furniture van having arrived about an hour ago. “Great. The personnel office is pretty much set up down the hall, and I think the office supply truck just showed up outside, so we’ll have clipboards and pencils and all that stuff coming in.”

  “Does that mean our things are here too, Kerry?” Mayte asked, looking up from examining her new phone. “We can get all of our desks settled.”

  “Yep,” Kerry said. “So we can abandon our little cave here and get rolling.” She led the way out and down the hall to the room they’d set aside on the first floor for personnel, across from the suite of newly repainted offices that would be the accounting department.

  Colleen, having heard them approach, popped out of her inside wall office that had huge windows opening into the garden space in the middle. “Ah, I’ve got me some neighbors do I? Hello there!”

  “Colleen, this is Mary Jo Bensen, she’s from the staffing company,” Kerry said. “She’ll be bringing in candidates for us, including your startup group.”

  “Comin’ thru!” Mark interrupted them, pushing a cart in front of him that had computers and monitors. “Got your PCs here.”
<
br />   “Hey, flat screens!” Colleen looked approvingly at them. “Nice.”

  “Yup.” Mark started to pick up the screen. “A lot less workman’s comp with these things. They weigh like nothing.” He entered Colleen’s office and disappeared.

  “Great. I’ll leave you here to get settled.” Kerry pointed at the office set aside for the staffing company. “Mark’ll get you set up with a machine and a printer.”

  “Great.” Mary Jo stuck her head inside. “Nice space.” She shouldered her big case full of papers and went inside.

  “Okay, now back up to our offices,” Kerry said. “All the office supplies are there.” She led the way up the steps. “Lot of progress today.”

  “Yes,” Maria agreed. “And, Kerrisita, it’s so much fun.”

  “A lot of fun,” Mayte chimed in.

  “Starting from scratch, you mean?” Kerry asked. “That’s what’s so cool for me. Everything we’re doing we decide on. We don’t have to put up with anyone else’s ideas.”

  “Exactly, yes,” Maria said, as they reached the top step and entered the big office suite on the corner. “I am so glad there is no gray, and no moron.”

  “Maroon, Mama.” Mayte grinned. “Yes, it is nice.” She looked around the outer office, which was bigger than her space was at ILS by far, and had steel and glass furniture that was sleek and modern looking. “Let me go unpack those boxes.” She went over and picked up the first one, opening it and peering inside.

  Maria smiled, and folded her hands, with a contented expression. “It is good,” she said to Kerry. “We make the rules, yes?”

  “Yes.” Kerry half turned to face her. “You know, Maria, Dar and I were talking and we really thought that for this new office, we should have someone in the position of office manager, don’t you think? To be in charge of all the arrangements and things.”

  Maria considered. “Yes, I think that is a good idea. Someone who everyone can call to get correct answers.” She nodded, then looked up at Kerry, who was smiling at her. “Is that not correct, Kerrisita?”

  “Will you be our office manager, Maria?” Kerry asked, after a slight pause. “We’re only bringing people to work here as managers we really love and trust, and you were on the top of the list. We don’t want you to be an admin, or Mayte either.”