Red Sky At Morning - DK4

by Melissa Good

  Dar felt sick to her stomach, and the pain in both her shoulder and head seemed to be getting worse. Or maybe it was just a combination of things. “It’s pretty bad,” she agreed. “We’re going to get out of here.”

  “Good idea,” Ceci remarked, noting but not commenting on the stark paleness of her daughter’s face. “I’ll walk out with you.” She exchanged glances with Andrew, who nodded, a sober, very serious look on his face.

  After a moment’s pause, she drew in a breath, then settled a hand firmly on Dar’s back as they made their way slowly to the door.

  Dar glanced to one side, then to the other, a dozen words of protest rising to her lips about this overly solicitous behavior. Then her stomach almost rebelled, making her glad of Kerry’s grip, and she decided to make an exception.

  Just this once.

  258 Melissa Good ANDREW WATCHED HIS family leave, then turned back to his old friend, Steve Drake.

  “So what’s the deal, Big A?” Steve asked, folding his arms across his chest. “Better come up with something good ’fore Ainsbright wakes up and throws you in the brig.” He glanced down. “Gonna be some pissed.”

  “Can’t,” Andrew replied. “I mustered out.” His eyes fell on the still-unconscious form of the base commander. “You got medics coming? Ah think I might have busted something in there.”

  “Yep. On the way,” Steve agreed. “You really retired? No shit?”

  Andrew nodded. “Got me a nice, peaceful job watching out for mah damn kid.” He shook his head. “This ain’t a good day, Steve. We got some bad stuff going on here.”

  The big SEAL snorted. “Here? Nah. Nothin’ ever goes on here, Andy. You know that better than most. It’s so quiet, they picked this place to let us do our urban playpen weekend here.”

  Andrew shook his head, remembering those weekends.

  “So, what are you gonna tell the heat when they get here? You gonna explain why a retired frogman’s holed up inside an official Navy action area, spraying some poor kids with foam and whacking the hell out of the base commander?”

  “No,” Andrew replied. “Ah am not going to explain it.”

  Steve cocked his head in a puzzled fashion.

  There was a rifle lying near the wall. Andrew walked over and crouched next to it, examining the weapon with knowledgeable eyes.

  “C’mere.” He waited for Steve to come over and kneel down. “This what you’re arming with?”

  A blink. “Hell, no,” the SEAL commander said. “You know better.”

  Andrew nodded. “Yep.” The rifle was a standard issue, old style M16 rifle, with a night scope attached. “Trouble is, what made them holes in them there pieces of machinery sure wasn’t this here rifle.” He turned and looked. “12 gauge Remington, I’m thinking.”

  Steve walked over and examined the holes. “Damn.” He straightened. “None of my people were carrying those.” He came back over. “Andrew, what is going on here?”

  Andrew looked from the holes, to his old friend—now starting to groan—then to the rifle he’d taken from Jeff’s hands and slammed against the wall. “Ah wish to hell I knew.”

  KERRY ADJUSTED THE passenger’s seat back a little, watching Dar’s eyes blink slowly in the midday sun. “You okay here, honey?

  Would the back seat be better?”

  “No, this is fine,” Dar murmured. “Feels better to be half sitting. I think if I laid flat, I’d end up chucking my guts all over your pretty new car.”

  Red Sky At Morning 259

  “It’s leather. It cleans.” Kerry let her hand rest on Dar’s thigh as she glanced around. Ceci had gone to get some water, and Mark had already left in Dar’s car with the drive array box. It was sunny now, and peaceful out here in the parking lot, with a nice breeze blowing. Kerry felt a lot better, and she hoped that Dar did as well. “How are you doing?”

  Dar tilted her head to one side and regarded her wryly. “I must be doing horrible.”

  Anxiously, Kerry clasped her fingers in her own. “Why? Does it hurt that bad?”

  “No.” The blue eyes twinkled, just a little. “It’s the seventh time you’ve asked me in ten minutes,” Dar said. “Am I turning green or something?”

  “Psshst.” Kerry had to laugh. “Sorry.” She lifted Dar’s hand and kissed it. “This was just a little too much, I think. My mind’s going in a thousand different directions.”

  “Yeah.” Dar pulled her closer into a hug and laid her cheek against Kerry’s soft hair. She could feel warm breath through the fabric of her shirt as the smaller woman sighed. “You know what?”

  “What?”

  “I love you.” Dar was mildly surprised at how easily that came to her lips now. She felt Kerry smile, and one of her arms snaked around Dar’s waist, giving her a hug.

  “I love you, too,” Kerry murmured.

  They stayed that way, even though Dar could see her mother’s approach through the windshield. “Sorry I was such a raging bitch today,” she said. “This didn’t really go like I planned it.”

  “Oh.” Kerry didn’t budge. “You mean you didn’t expect someone to suspect what we were up to and use a SEAL exercise to cover the destruction of all the evidence?”

  “No.”

  “Tch. Bad Dar. No biscuit.” Kerry squirmed a little closer. “You must be slipping.” She felt the motion under her as Dar chuckled just a bit. “Your tummy’s rumbling.”

  “Not from hunger,” Dar sighed, as her mother rounded the door and paused, watching them bemusedly. “Hi.”

  “Is it ticking?” Ceci hazarded. “Here, drink some of this. I think it’s safe. There’s enough chlorine in it to kill anything nasty.” She handed Dar a bottle she’d filled from the tap.

  “Thanks.” Dar accepted it and took a sip, licking her lips thoughtfully. “Mm. Tastes like home.” She rolled a mouthful around and swallowed it, perversely enjoying the sharp tang of the minerals and chemicals infusing the tap water. “Nothing else tastes like it.”

  Kerry lifted her head and straightened, pulling the bottle over curiously and taking a sip.

  She blinked, then spat it out immediately. “Yahh!”

  260 Melissa Good Ceci and Dar both chuckled.

  “Boy, is that ever an acquired taste.” Kerry looked like she desperately needed something. Like a drink of water. “Good grief, Dar!

  How on earth could you drink that?”

  Dar winced as a wave of nausea hit her. “I’m wondering that myself at the moment,” she said. “Better step back, in case I lose what I just swallowed.”

  Kerry didn’t move an inch. She took the bottle from Dar’s hands and gently rubbed her forearm, caressing the warm, bare skin as she watched Dar close her eyes and lean back. “I think we’d better get going,” she told Ceci. “Go on and get in. I’ll drive over there, then run in and get Dad.”

  Ceci nodded. “Good idea.” She opened the back door and climbed inside. “But you drive, I’ll go fetch him.” She watched Kerry carefully close the passenger side door, then jog around the front of the Lexus.

  Awkwardly, she patted Dar’s arm very lightly. “Hang in there, kiddo.”

  Hang in there. Dar swallowed, uncomfortably aware of the pain in her head and shoulder getting worse. “Do my best.” Even the sound of Kerry’s closing the door hurt. “Did Mark get that box?”

  “He got it, honey.” Kerry backed the car, then put it in gear and headed for the building. “Don’t worry about that.”

  Okay. Dar closed her eyes and concentrated on taking shallow breaths. She didn’t want to throw up. That would hurt. That would make her head hurt a lot worse than it did. It would also, the more ingenious part of her argued, ruin the new-car smell of Kerry’s little blue buggy.

  That would be bad.

  She wouldn’t get a biscuit.

  Dar winced. Right now, the last thing on earth she wanted was a biscuit.

  Chapter

  Sixteen

  KERRY RUBBED HER hands and settled back against the wall, c
rossing her arms as she watched Dr. Steve fussing over Dar. It was cold in the emergency room, and she found herself wishing she had a sweatshirt.

  Actually, she wished she wasn’t here at all, having to watch all the activity around Dar with a heavy, nervous knot in her stomach. Dr.

  Steve had taken one look at her lover and sent them both straight to the hospital, with him driving right behind them.

  What was worse was that Dar hadn’t protested. Even now, she was resting quietly on the padded rolling bed, with her eyes mostly closed as both doctor and nurses poked at her. That made Kerry realize whatever was wrong was serious, because otherwise she knew Dar would be pitching God’s own fit.

  She wondered how Andrew and Ceci were coping out in the waiting room, where they’d reluctantly retired to wait after Andrew had carried Dar inside, an image that had imprinted itself on Kerry’s heart.“Kerry?”

  Kerry jumped, then focused on Dr. Steve’s kindly face. “Oh, God.

  Sorry.” She searched his eyes anxiously. “How’s she doing?”

  “I’m guessing she feels like the turd end of a pig in a bog right about now,” the doctor told her. “She got herself real concussed there, and looks like she did more damage to her shoulder.”

  “Oh.” Kerry’s brow knit. “Is she going to be okay?”

  Dr. Steve patted her cheek. “Eventually, sweetheart,” he told her. “I need to get a CAT scan of that head, though. Would you mind going on in with her, just in case she realizes I’ve gone and stuck her inside a blinking white tube?”

  “Sure.” Kerry felt a little better. “Anything I can do to help.”

  THE CAT SCAN room was a short elevator trip away, and Kerry spent the moments gently rubbing her lover’s fingers as the blue eyes peered muzzily at her. “Hey, sweetie.”

  “Ow,” Dar replied.

  262 Melissa Good

  “I know.” Kerry walked alongside the gurney as they exited the elevator and moved down the hallway. “Dar, honey, they need to take pictures of your head, okay?”

  A groan.

  “Yeah, I know, you hate that, but Dr. Steve really needs to see what’s going on in there,” Kerry told her. “So you just keep your eyes closed, and it won’t be that long, I promise.”

  “Promise?” Dar mumbled.

  “I promise,” Kerry repeated, as they rolled over to the big machine.

  “Just keep your eyes closed, okay?”

  “Okay,” Dar agreed. “Just stay here with me.”

  Ooh. Kerry eyed the plethora of machinery, then her lover’s pale face. “Don’t worry, I will. I promise.” She took hold of Dar’s hand and squeezed into a corner, as much out of the way as she could manage.

  The technician came over and glanced at her. “Ma’am, you can wait over there.” He pointed toward a low bench, giving her a friendly smile.

  Dar’s fingers tightened on hers, and Kerry met the tech’s eyes squarely. “No, I can’t,” she said. “My friend here is extremely claustrophobic and has a concussion. You don’t want her freaking out.”

  The man glanced at Dar, then at Kerry. “Okay,” he agreed cheerfully. “I can buy that. Just try to stay as clear of the machine as you can.”Kerry was pleasantly surprised by the easy capitulation. “Thanks.”

  She relaxed. “I will.”

  The tech, a young blond-haired man about Kerry’s age, expertly arranged Dar on the table and moved the machine to cover her. “Was she in a car accident?”

  “Ah, no,” Kerry replied. “She...um...” Got hit in the head with a rifle?

  No, you can’t say that. “It’s complicated.”

  “Okay.” The tech signaled to his partner, who was behind a console. “Whatever you say. I never argue with a lady wearing two cell phones and three pagers.”

  Kerry glanced down at her belt, then felt herself blushing. “Ah, yeah.” She heard the machine start humming and felt Dar’s grip tighten painfully. “I’m carrying for both of us right now.” She chafed Dar’s fingers. “Easy, Dar, I’m here.”

  The grip lessened, just a trifle. “I’ll always be here,” Kerry whispered.

  “OKAY.” DR. STEVE ENTERED the emergency room alcove they’d been assigned. Andrew and Ceci were standing on one side of Dar’s rolling bed, and Kerry was on the other, all of them attempting to comfort her. “Sweetie pie, you did quite a job on yourself.”

  Dar had her eyes open a little more now, having been pumped full of several syringes of things. “Yeah?”

  Red Sky At Morning 263

  “Yeah.” Dr. Steve walked over and rested his hands on the bed.

  “I’m admitting you.”

  Dar grimaced.

  “Ah, ah, ah.” The doctor shook his finger at her. “It’s all your own fault, young lady. If you’d have stayed at home and rested like I told you do, you’d still be there, and not here.”

  Dar’s lips twitched into a scowl. “I had something I had to do,” she protested tiredly.

  “Uh-huh, and now what you have to do is spend some time in here, letting me fix you,” Dr. Steve replied. “You have a concussion, honey, and there’s some swelling in there because of that. You’re not going anywhere until I’m sure that’s gone.” He touched the side of her head, which was dark with bruising. “And I’m calling in an orthopedic surgeon to look at your shoulder.”

  Dar’s blue eyes popped wide open, but then, so did Kerry’s, Ceci’s and Andrew’s. “What?”

  Dr. Steve put a finger on Dar’s nose. “What part of that wasn’t in American English? Now you relax, and let them take you upstairs and get you comfortable.” He patted his profoundly unhappy-looking patient’s arm. “Don’t give the nurses a hard time. I like the ones here, and you’ll give me a bad name if you do.” With that, he left, after giving Andrew a reassuring pat on the back.

  “Shit,” Dar exhaled.

  “Now, Dardar.” Andrew put a hand on her shoulder. “Just you relax, like Steve said, and get you some rest.”

  “In here?” Dar eyed the white ceiling. “Not likely.”

  Kerry actually smiled. “I never thought I’d be glad to hear you griping,” she admitted. “But I know it means you feel better, so I am glad.”

  Dar eyed her. “Easy for you to say. You get to go home,” she grumbled. “I have to stay here and be poked, prodded, messed with, and put up with God knows what.”

  Kerry exchanged glances with her in-laws. “Honey, I’m going to go give them your insurance card, okay?” she said diplomatically. “I’ll be right back.” She tweaked Dar’s toe, then left, passing through the divider curtains and letting them fall closed behind her.

  DAR CLOSED HER eyes and counted to twenty. Then she counted to twenty again. Then she opened her eyes and found she was still in the hallway, waiting to be shoved into the elevator. She closed her eyes again.

  Dar didn’t like frustration. She usually dealt with it in one of two ways: she got rid of it by getting rid of its source, or she went out and did something physical until the feeling of rage faded. At the moment, neither of those two options was available to her.

  264 Melissa Good If she was being very honest with herself, it wasn’t the hospital she hated. The gurney started into motion with a jerk, and she opened her eyes to see the walls moving past. It was the lack of personal control over what was going on, and the fact that she was forced to allow strangers to invade her personal space and strip away her dignity.

  Not to mention the damn gowns. Dar had let them put one on her, but she’d refused to remove her jeans, even after Dr. Steve had threatened her with a pair of surgical scissors. She still had them on now, providing extra warmth beneath the thin hospital sheet that covered her, smelling of bleach and antiseptic.

  The elevator doors closed, and she listened to the nurse’s tuneless whistling as the car lurched into motion. That made her still-aching head hurt more, and she sighed, biting her tongue to keep from snapping at the man. The nausea had faded, and Dr. Steve had firmly strapped down her arm again, making the pain
bearable; but the various aches and the aggravation were wearing very hard on her temper.

  And Kerry had disappeared. Dar spent a moment glumly wondering if her cranky ill temper had finally pushed one button too many, even with her lover’s usual patience. The thought brought an irrational jolt to her chest as the fatigue wore down her defenses and let her darker insecurities surface.

  Fortunately, she didn’t really have time to dwell on it, as the elevator doors opened and her porter pushed her out onto a relatively quiet hospital floor, with shoe-squeakingly clean floors and weave walls the color of road kill. Dar hated it immediately, especially when she was guided into a half-darkened room midway down the corridor.

  “Here we are,” the man pushing her announced cheerfully. “Let me just swing you over here, and we’ll get you settled into this nice bed.”

  Dar realized she was too tired to even be disgusted. She eyed the bed, then glanced around the room, realizing it was the only bed in it.

  Could she have gotten that lucky? She’d been hoping, at the best, for either no room neighbor or a sleeping one. It was a fairly sizable room, too, with a wide bay window and a sort of padded daybed lounger near that, presumably for the patient to relax in.

  Hmm. Maybe they were out of double rooms. Well, Dar wasn’t going to argue with that. Sharing the space was one thing she’d been truly dreading. She waited until the rolling bed was even with the stationary one and the nurse had lowered the rails, then before he could grab hold of her, she moved herself from one to the other in a single, fluid motion.

  “Hey,” the nurse blurted. “Honey, I was going to help you.”

  “I know,” Dar exhaled. “It’s okay.” The effort had exhausted her, and she lay back against the pillows and allowed the nurse to fuss with the blankets.

  “Are you one of those really independent people?” The man’s voice was sympathetic. “I’m like that, too.”

  Red Sky At Morning 265

  Dar glanced at him. “Yeah, I guess I am,” she admitted.

  “Well, you just take it easy, okay? They’ll take good care of you up here, even if you don’t want them to,” the nurse chuckled. “The floor nurse will be in soon to take your vitals and get your chart started, and then they’ll bring you up some dinner.” He checked a tag on Dar’s arm.