Red Sky At Morning - DK4

by Melissa Good

  “All right.” Charles hesitated. “Alone, Ceci.”

  Andrew straightened in outrage and almost grabbed for the phone.

  Ceci put a finger against his lips and held it out of range. “You’re joking, right?” she told her brother. “Did you really think I’d subject Andy to you two? Get real.” Her hand folded the phone shut, and she dropped it on the towel next to her. “Into every life, a little bird crap must fall, hmm?”

  Andrew scowled. “Ah could go with you.”

  “Nah.” Ceci ruffled his drying close-cropped hair affectionately.

  “I’ll be safe. Charles is an idiot, but the last I checked, he wasn’t suicidal.” She tilted his chin up and kissed him. “Let me go toss on some scandalous clothing and find out what his problem is.”

  Andrew watched her leave. He collected the tubes and other painting gear and tucked them away in the plastic bucket Ceci used and Red Sky At Morning 175

  tidied the area, then stood and made his way aft to rid himself of his scuba equipment.

  “A TIKI BAR.” Charles loosened his collar and glanced around.

  “Figures.” He gave his twin sister a disgusted look. “I hate this place.

  Always have.”

  Candice fiddled with the table tent before her. She was of medium height, with reddish bronze hair and green eyes, like her brother, though his hair was thinning almost to invisibility. “Yes, well, what the hell did you expect, Charles? You knew what it would be like.”

  He snorted and took a sip of his whiskey, his eyes wandering over the scantily clad bodies and diverse ethnicity of the bar. Candice poked him. “What?”

  “Here she comes,” Candice told him. They both turned to watch as their younger sister made her way up the wooden boardwalk toward them. “Well, she looks healthy.”

  Charles didn’t answer. His eyes studied the relaxed, self-assured person approaching, unable to refute the positive changes since the last time he’d seen Ceci. She’d let her hair grow out a little, and it was bleached even lighter from the sun, contrasting with the sun-darkened shade of her previously very pale skin.

  She was no longer a ghost, eyes tensed in a remembered pain that never left her.

  No longer lost.

  She’d come home, and even Charles, who hated this place—and hated her choice—had to admit the truth of that. “Ceci.” He stood and greeted her as she joined their table. “Thanks for coming over.”

  “Charles.” Ceci greeted him with wary cordiality. “Hello, Candy.”

  Her sister smiled. “Hi, Cec. You look great.” She leaned forward.

  “Did you color your hair, or is that a new lipstick or..?”

  “No.” Ceci took a seat next to her older sister. “I’ve just been outside more than inside and put on ten pounds since you last saw me.

  But thanks for noticing.” She caught the eye of the waiter. “Kahlua milkshake, please.”

  “That’s different for you,” Candy commented.

  “I picked up some new bad habits from Dar.” Ceci assumed a pleasant smile. “What do you two want?”

  Her siblings exchanged glances. “Can’t we just want to see you?”

  Charles asked.

  “No.” Ceci looked directly at him. “Andrew told me what you did, Charles.” She referred to her brother’s refusal to pass on the Navy’s notification of Andrew’s rescue to her. “It’s a good thing you waited this long to contact me, because otherwise I’d have killed you for that.”

  “Cecilia.”

  “How dare you.” Ceci slapped the table with her hand, making the 176 Melissa Good silverware jump. Her brother and sister jerked in startled surprise. “You pretentious little son of a bitch.”

  Charles took a breath, clearly caught off guard. “I did what I thought was best for you,” he finally answered stiffly.

  “Bullshit,” Ceci snapped, looking up as the waiter brought her milkshake and hurriedly left, seeing the angry faces. “Do you have any idea how badly I was hurting, Charles? How many days of pain you could have taken away from me with that damn piece of paper?” She slapped the table again. “Do you know just how ironic it is that my estranged daughter had to come back into my life to bring me back my Andy?”

  Candy leaned forward and took her hand. “Cec, what Charles did was wrong. But he didn’t do it to hurt you.” She searched her sister’s angry eyes.

  “There is no way you can convince me of that,” Ceci said, after a moment. “As much as you both hate Andrew, you knew how I felt about him.”

  A silence fell. Charles looked down at his hands, his fingers twisted together. Candice took several slow, even breaths. “Yes, we knew,” she finally said. “We never understood why, but we...” She glanced at her twin. “I knew.” Another breath. “I’m sorry, Ceci.”

  Charles refused to look up.

  “I don’t want it to be like it was,” Candice continued, filling the awkward silence. “I don’t want to lose my sister and not have you be part of my life.”

  “This is ridiculous.” Charles suddenly looked up. “We shouldn’t have to sit here and beg.”

  “Charles!” Candice cut him off.

  “No, I’m not going to shut up.” He stood angrily, then paused as someone gently cleared their throat next to him.

  “Hi.” Kerry folded her hands in front of her. “Thought I recognized you. Mr. Bannersley, wasn’t it?”

  Ceci let her chin rest on her fist, watching her daughter-in-law in action. Kerry had a sweet, engaging smile that totally didn’t match the fiery sparks visible in her pale green eyes. Her sense of presence was almost as significant as Dar’s, and it was obvious Kerry had been taking lessons from Ceci’s tempestuous and intimidating offspring.

  Charles gave her a cursory stare. “What?”

  “Kerrison Stuart.” Kerry stuck her hand out. “Dar’s partner? We met at the funeral.”

  Charles gave her hand a perfunctory press. “Yes, well, you’ll excuse us, please. I’m having a discussion with my sister, and I suggest you leave us alone.”

  Candice opened her mouth in outrage.

  “You’re yelling at my mother-in-law, and I suggest you sit down and lower your voice before I shove you into Biscayne Bay,” Kerry told Red Sky At Morning 177

  him in a mild, kind tone. She folded her arms, and in her snug tank top, her toned muscles looked healthily imposing. “Mind if I sit down?”

  DAR CORNERED THE petty officer after he’d taken the new recruits to their barracks and gotten them assigned to bunks. “Do you assess them?”

  “What?” The officer stared at her. “Not my job, lady. They do that at intake.”

  “So where are their scores?”

  “Scores? Who the hell cares?”

  Dar felt like she was swimming through peanut butter. “How do you figure out where to place them if you don’t have scores?” She forced patience into her voice. “Or skill assessments?”

  “Are you some kinda idiot?” the man spluttered. “These dorks don’t have skills, you moron. They’re nothing but bodies with empty heads. They’ll do whatever we train them to do. No one cares what their scores are.”

  The sheet of white-hot rage hit her before she could defend against it. One moment she was standing with her Palm Pilot out, the next she’d grabbed the petty officer and slammed him against the wall, her hands reaching for automatic holds and a growl of pure animal emotion erupting from her throat. For a split second, she teetered on the edge of madness, and then her rational mind savagely ripped back control and forced her to merely push the man back against the wall.

  Damn.

  Dar waited for her throat to unclench, and then she took a breath.

  “I don’t appreciate being called a moron.” Even she heard the rough touch to her tone. “Especially by someone whose mental power rates lower than a watch’s battery.”

  The petty officer was breathing hard, his hands clenching and unclenching, barely in control. “Who in the hell do you think you are?”
/>
  he spat out.

  For some reason, the question calmed Dar. She got herself under control, feeling the rage subside, leaving her knees trembling. What in the hell’s wrong with me? she wondered uneasily. A pounding headache followed her return to sanity, and she had to swallow before she answered. “I think I’m the person your bosses hired to find out why this place isn’t working.” She leaned forward. “Maybe I just have.”

  Now it was the petty officer’s turn to swallow. “Now hold on.”

  They were alone in the room, and the man looked around quickly before he returned his attention to Dar. “I didn’t do a damn thing. Just what I was told.”

  Dar stepped back and let her hands drop, feeling exhausted. “I’ve heard that before.” She found the stool near the computer console and sat down on it. “Something’s going on here, and I’m gonna find it.”

  178 Melissa Good The man hesitated, then walked over and leaned on the computer console table. “Hey, look, you really from Washington?” His voice had lowered considerably.

  Dar lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “I was hired by the Joint Chiefs, yes.”

  “All right, look...” The man shifted, and straightened suddenly, cutting off his speech as the door opened. “Sir.”

  Dar lifted her eyes to see the base commander enter. “Morning.”

  “Howdy, tadpole.” Jeff Ainsbright gave her a big smile. “We all set for dinner tonight?”

  The petty officer edged away from her, his eyes taking on a wary look.

  “I think so, yes,” Dar agreed. “Seven, you said? You want to meet at the steakhouse?”

  The older man nodded briskly. “Right you are, tadpole. Chuckie tells me you’re sweet on someone—you made the invite to him, too, right? Love to meet ’im.”

  The complication of the situation almost made Dar wince. “They’ll be here,” she quietly affirmed. “Mom and Dad, too.”

  “Great.” The commander slapped her on the back. “Carry on, didn’t want to interrupt anything. You find any holes yet I need to be plugging?”

  Dar looked up at his weathered face, open and interested as it was.

  His smile indicated he expected no startling revelations from her, and at the moment, she wasn’t sure if she had any.

  Right? “Nothing concrete yet, Uncle Jeff,” she said. “I’m still working through the data.”

  Maybe it was the way she’d said it. The base commander straightened a little, then glanced at the petty officer who was pressed against the wall doing his best imitation of a strip of wall weave.

  “Dismissed.” He waited for the man to leave and the door to close, then he turned back to Dar, his face now mildly concerned. “What’s the poop, tadpole? You really find something?”

  Dar’s lips tensed as she found herself caught between conflicting loyalties. She felt a mild sense of confusion for the first time in her life, and she had to stop and collect her thoughts for a moment before she could answer. “I don’t know yet,” she finally answered honestly. “I might have...there’s something I don’t like in the numbers, but I haven’t fully analyzed it.”

  The CO put a large hand on her shoulder. “Tadpole, whatever you find, you bring it to me, hear? I don’t care what it is, I wanna know.”

  Dar searched his face, seeing nothing but rock-solid resolve in his eyes. “All right,” she agreed quietly. “When I have something for sure, you’ll know it.”

  He patted her cheek. “Atta girl. You doing okay, tadpole? You look a little pale t’day.”

  Red Sky At Morning 179

  Dar winced, lifting a hand to rub the back of her neck. “Headache,”

  she explained with a light shrug. “Think I’ll go take a walk outside for a few minutes.”

  “Right you are, my friend.” Commander Ainsbright slung an arm over her shoulders and tugged her toward the door. “Fresh air’s just the ticket. I’d send you out on a boat if I had one leaving; get you some salt in those lungs.” He opened the door and they walked outside into the sunlight. “How ’bout a cup of java? That usually puts a patch on my noggin bangers.”

  Dar thought back to the petty officer, then realized the man was probably long gone, chasing after the new recruits. “Sure,” she agreed.

  “Then I’ll go catch up with the swabs.”

  “QUITE THE LITTLE Lone Ranger, aren’t you?” Ceci commented as she and Kerry watched her siblings retreat into the golden rays of sun. They’d lasted through all of ten minutes of Kerry’s pointedly polite chatter, then decided to give up and leave them alone. Ceci hadn’t minded, but she suspected her sister, at least, wasn’t giving up and would be back in touch.

  That was all right. She’d never really minded Candice, who generally just went along with Charles in some kind of twin-like Zen mode. This time, however, Candy had spoken for herself, using the unusual “I” instead of “we,” and Ceci had almost warmed back up to her.

  A little.

  Very little. But if Candy was, at this late stage in her life, attempting to develop a mind of her own, who was she to get in the way? “I feel well and thoroughly rescued.”

  Kerry leaned back and propped her feet up on the chair Charles had hastily vacated. “Who, me?” She smiled a trifle sheepishly. “Dar’s rubbing off on me a little, maybe.”

  Ceci chuckled and nudged her glass over. “Want some?”

  Kerry’s brow contracted a bit. “No…my stomach’s acting up.” She exhaled, putting a hand over the afflicted area. “Or maybe it was just too many stressful meetings. It’s been in a...knot all day.” She finished the sentence softly.

  Ceci watched her face, seeing the expression change as Kerry’s focus turned inward. “Kerry?”

  After a moment, the green eyes flicked up to meet hers. “Yeah, sorry. I was just thinking about something.” Her fingers twitched as she resisted the urge to pull out her cell phone and call Dar. She’s not a baby, and you’re not her sitter, Kerry. You can’t call her to find out if she’s okay every time you get a cramp.

  Ceci hazarded a guess. “About my daughter?”

  Kerry’s eyebrows hiked up. “Um...”

  180 Melissa Good

  “She gets the same expression on her face when she’s wondering about you,” Ceci remarked mildly. “I think it’s an indication of her fondness for you.”

  A faint blush darkened Kerry’s already tanned skin. “It’s mutual.”

  She played with the napkin from Ceci’s drink. She recalled Dar’s half-forgotten “fit” before Thanksgiving and decided here, at least, was a person she could broach the subject with who wouldn’t think she was weird.

  Well, not too weird, anyway. “Can I ask a question?”

  Ceci looked around, then pointed at her own chest. “Of me?”

  Kerry nodded.

  “Sure,” the older woman agreed, more than a little apprehensive.

  “It’s not about motherhood, is it?”

  Kerry’s eyebrows went straight up. “Um...no.” She put a hand on her stomach. “Why, do I look pregnant or something? I know I put on some more weight lately, but...”

  Ceci chuckled and relaxed. “Not at all...I just used to have nightmares about having ‘that talk’ with Dar.” She cocked her head.

  “What’s on your mind, Kerry?”

  What was on her mind. Interesting way of putting it. “It’s kind of a weird question,” she replied slowly. “But...did you ever...” Kerry paused, frowning. “This sounds so crazy,” she apologized.

  “Not yet, it doesn’t, except you don’t usually beat around in the bushes,” her mother-in-law remarked mildly.

  “No, I know.” Kerry circled her knee with both hands. “Okay, well...before Thanksgiving, when Dar and I were both traveling?”

  “Hmm.”

  “My plane had some real problems during the flight, and I have to tell you, I was scared senseless,” Kerry said.

  “Perfectly reasonable,” the older woman stated. “Nothing crazy about that, Kerry.”

 
“Dar felt it,” Kerry admitted. “She knew something was wrong.”

  She stopped speaking and watched her mother-in-law’s face for a reaction.

  It wasn’t the one she expected. Ceci cocked her head to one side and then smiled. “And?” she asked with a curious grin. “You want to know if that’s normal?”

  Kerry nodded slightly.

  “Of course not,” Ceci informed her.

  “Oh.”

  “But I’ve felt it. I know Andrew has,” the older woman went on.

  “When you’re very close to someone, I think it just works that way. You just...know.”

  Kerry thought about that for a few minutes in silence while Ceci sucked on her milkshake. “It’s weird,” she finally said. “It’s like...I haven’t felt right all day, and if I call Dar, I bet something is making her upset.”

  Red Sky At Morning 181

  “Really?”

  “Yeah,” Kerry answered. “I think about that and I feel like I’m reading a copy of the National Enquirer,” she admitted, plucking lightly at the seam on her denims. “But I know what I feel, so...”

  Ceci chuckled softly. “Must have freaked my daughter out.”

  “Uh-huh.” Kerry looked up and smiled. “She thought she was going nuts. I can’t blame her, though. If she felt half as scared as I did, I would have thought I was going nuts too,” she added. “But it’s also sort of nice.”

  “That you care enough about someone to feel that?” Ceci asked.

  A light blush appeared on Kerry’s face, making her pale brows stand out suddenly. “Well, it’s mutual, I think.”

  “No, really?” Ceci chuckled. “I’d never have guessed. You two keep it hidden so well.”

  Kerry’s blush deepened. “That brings me to another problem, if you don’t mind. I need to get your advice on something.”

  Uh-oh. Ceci straightened, feeling a mild sense of alarm. During her years on the base, speeches like that usually presaged breakups and divorces, and she wasn’t ready to hear that coming from Kerry. “What’s wrong?”

  Kerry caught the tension in her voice and looked up, her brows contracting a little. “Wrong? No, I don’t think it’s wrong...it’s just something I’m worried about.”

  Little alarm bells, the really annoying ones like the ones the Salvation Army collectors used at Christmas time, started going off.