by Melissa Good
“’Lo, Andy.”
“Keith.”
“Who’s your pretty lady friend?” The low voice was almost a growl.
Half a grin flickered on and off Andy’s face. “You never did meet mah wife, Cecilia, did you?” He glanced to one side. “Ceci, this is Keith Hawkins, he sorta took care of things here for me.”
The man behind the desk stood, towering over even Andy’s tall height, and stuck a hand the size of a loaf of bread out at her. “No, ma’am, I never did have the pleasure. But I’m damn sure glad I have had it now.” A grin shaped his craggy face. “This damn barnacle didn’t mention he’d met back up with you. Just sent me a note asking for mustering out rags.”
Ceci took his hand gingerly and pressed it, since shaking something that big didn’t seem to be a good idea. “Nice to meet you…and thanks, for helping Andy out.”
The giant took a folder from a tray on his desk and opened it, then reversed its direction and pushed it across the desk surface. “Sign.”
Andy pulled a pen out of his back pocket and sat down on the corner of the desk, blue eyes flicking over the document quickly. Then he looked up at Hawkins in surprise. “Ah didn’t ask fer this.”
The bigger man chuckled softly. “Andy, shut the fuck up and sign it, willya?” Andy gave him a look. “Sorry for the language, ma’am.”
“I’ve been married to a sailor for over thirty years,” Ceci replied dryly. “I’ve heard the term before.”
“I never talked like that in front of you,” Andy protested indignantly.
“No, honey, but all your friends did.” His wife patted him on the knee. “It’s okay.” She leaned over and studied the papers. “What is it?”
“You make it long enough to get retirement benefits, you need to take ’em,” Hawkins replied quietly. “’Specially if you done it the way Andy did. Not spent the time behind some damn desk.” Andrew carefully signed his name to the bottom. “And while you’re at it, gimme a goddamned address for you so I can have the Department of the Navy, which is crawling up my butt, send you all those frigging decorations you refused to go pick up.”
“Ah don’t want them,” Andy said fiercely.
“Too damn bad,” Keith shot back. “Give ’em to your kid, if you don’t like the colors.”
Andrew scowled. “What in the hell would she do with the damn Eye of the Storm 265
things?”
Ceci put a hand on his arm. “Treasure them.” Their eyes locked.
“This is the child who bought and made a scale model of every ship you sailed on, Andy.”
“Aww.” Keith grinned. “He never told me that. Ain’t that cute?”
“Son of a biscuit.” Andy sighed in exaggeration. “Fine, fine. Here.”
He scribbled down Dar’s address on the paper. “Send the damn things there if you have to.” Long, scarred fingers pushed the papers back across the desk. “Lemme go get my kit.” He got up and ambled out the back door, leaving them in silence.
Keith sat back down and regarded her. “So. You’re the missus, huh?”
“Yes.” Cecilia looked around, then glanced back at him. “Bet you didn’t know he had one.”
“Bet you’re wrong.” The man snorted. “Bet I know more about you and that damn kid of his than I do my own mother.” He gave a crooked smile. “Andy’s private’r then hell about himself, but damn, did he mouth off about the two of you.”
Ceci smiled and nodded, and they regarded each other in silence for a bit.
“He’s been through Hell,” Keith finally said quietly. “He lived through something woulda killed just about anybody else I ever knew.”
“I know.”
“Take care of him, ma’am. He’s a special guy.”
“I will,” Cecilia answered softly.
They turned as Andy came back in, with a simple, dark blue duffel bag. “That’s ’bout it,” he stated, holding a hand out to Keith. “Ain’t going far. Be seeing you guys ’round the docks.”
Keith took his hand and shook it with a quiet respect. “Keep in touch, Andy. You know where to find us.”
“Yeap.” With a brisk nod Andrew turned and captured Ceci’s hand, then headed for the door, walking calmly out of a chapter of his life and closing it firmly behind him. They emerged onto the sidewalk, into a wash of colorful sunlight and a blast of salsa music and started off down the street.
Ceci allowed the silence to go on for a while, as they passed trendy hotels and those in the process of becoming trendy. “How does it feel?”
she finally asked, as the marina came into view. “I know they were like a family to you.”
Andy walked along a few paces, visibly thinking. “Yeap,” he mused, as they mounted the steps. “They were that. But I’ll tell you, Cec. Having to choose all the time ’tween going and staying, that about killed me.” He paused, giving her an honest look. “I know you didn’t think so sometimes but climbing that gangplank again was so hard.”
Ceci studied him. “Watching you walk up it just as hard for me.” She held a hand out. “C’mon. Let’s go buy our own this time. We can run up and down it all day long together.”
A slow smile touched his face. “All right.” He took her hand. “But, 266 Melissa Good Cec?”
“Hmm?”
“No pink.”
She pointed a finger at him, and shook it. “Just for that, pink curtains.”
“C’mon now.” He pulled the door open.
“Pink seats on the head.”
“Cecilia Roberts.”
“A pink pennant on the masthead.”
“Oh mah god.”
Ceci chuckled. “So, what are we going to name it?”
“Pepto Bismol, at this rate.”
Chapter
Twenty-nine
“DAMN IT.” DAR thumped the side of the monitor in annoyance for about the twentieth time. “C’mon, you piece of…”
“Hey, Boss. Talking nice gets you more than beating up the stuff,”
Mark commented, from his safe spot across the floor. They were in the operations center, surrounded by mildly humming equipment and the hiss of high-powered air conditioning units. “Honey, vinegar, you know the story.”
“What?” Dar grumbled, as she initiated a command again. “What story?”
“That you can get more bees with honey than vinegar?”
“Why the hell would I want bees?” his boss muttered, engrossed in a startup script. “Ah, there you are, you bastard.” She typed in a set of commands, reviewed the results, and then restarted the unit. “Boot or die.”
Mark worked at his own project, keeping an eye on the tall figure hunched over the console. His mind drifted back a few years, remembering long hours spent in this very room in the company of a younger, much less polished Dar Roberts. A task made easier by the fact that the tall executive had changed into a pair of jeans and an untucked polo before she attacked the stubborn startup issues.
The pose was the same, too. Feet locked around the chair legs, one elbow propped on the desk with her head resting on it, the other hand skimming the mouse over the desktop with quick, precise motions. He could see Dar’s sharp profile, too, very still except for the eyes racing over the screen, small muscles alongside them twitching in response.
A twinge of nostalgia nudged him sharply. “Y’know, Dar. I kinda miss having you in the trenches here with us.” Mark had been a novice system administrator when they’d worked together, when Dar had just been made a local operations manager and took control of the data center.
It had been a shock, to say the least, but since he’d been new, he’d adapted to her style faster than the rest of the staff. “I really do.”
Pale blue irises dilated almost to black turned his way as Dar cocked her head to one side. “Why?” she asked curiously. “I was no picnic to work for.”
268 Melissa Good No, that was true. But one thing about working for Dar—you always knew where you stood. If you did something right, you heard abou
t it. If you screwed up and she was pissed off, you sure as hell knew about it.
You never wondered, unlike some of the people he’d worked for prior to ILS. Now, he regarded the serious, intense face across from him and shook his head. “I dunno. It was always just so comforting to have you come in and take over a problem. I knew it would go away then.”
Dar smiled. “Thanks. I think.”
“I’ve worked for supes who didn’t know jack about what I did. You don’t know how much it rocked to know I had someone there who not only knew what I did, but could do it better than I could.” He added,
“Very cool, Boss. Very cool.”
Dar’s face twitched into a reluctant smile. “Now, that. That’s a compliment coming for you.” She reviewed her console. “Ah, good.” The main routers had finally booted up and they sat, ten green, lonely islands floating in a mess of dark lines that represented the network. “Now, let’s see what we got here.” She accessed the master system and started browsing. “Shit.”
Mark winced. “Now what?”
“Who configured these?”
“Uh…why?”
“They didn’t follow the EWO, for one thing, and they configured the ports ass backwards for another. So who did it?”
“Um…me.”
Dar looked at him and drummed her fingers on her console keyboard.
“I just thought this configuration was better.”
More drumming.
Mark grinned. “Just like old times, huh?”
A grudging smile returned. “Oh yeah. Just like.” Dar typed in a command and hit enter. “Startup dialog. Here we go.”
“Dar! You just dumped that whole router,” Mark protested. “It took me hours to get that thing done.”
“It’s not done the way I want it,” Dar replied, with a scowl. “So I guess I’ve gotta do it myself.” She busied herself typing, glancing at a network configuration to refresh her memory on the different ports and addresses.
It felt guiltily good, she realized, to be doing the hands on again. So much of her job was subjective. Decision making, planning, arguing, pushing…so very little was simple, cut and dry work that having the opportunity to dive back into something as basic as this struck her as almost therapeutic. She checked her watch, then continued typing, glad she’d sent Kerry out to have fun.
More typing.
She was glad, right? No need for both of them to be stuck here in the cold room, doing basic routine stuff that was sure to bore anyone. Kerry deserved time on her own, with her friends, doing the stuff she liked to Eye of the Storm 269
do.
Dar didn’t mind doing that either, in fact, she enjoyed the odd night out with the girls, though she usually felt a little uncomfortable mostly due to the fact that they were by and large all employees of ILS, except for Colleen.
One would think, since she lived with Kerry, that wouldn’t bother her, but it did. She believed in keeping a professional distance, and that extended to social occasions with people who were levels lower than her in the company hierarchy. That was admittedly hypocritical, and Dar readily acknowledged that, but she also knew Kerry’s friends were a little uncomfortable with her for the same reason.
And of course, she wouldn’t be selfish enough to ask Kerry to give up her night to keep her company. That’d be selfish, and self-centered, and mean, and...
Dar sighed. Damn, I wish she was here. She finished reconfiguring a port and wrote the configuration to memory, watching the port come up and wink friendly green lights at her. How juvenile, Dar. Why don’t you ask her to get a teddy bear and spray it with her perfume, so you can carry it around and hug it when you get lonely? her conscience prodded her sarcastically.
“Sorry, Dar. Did you say something?” Mark inquired, as he started running his own task.
“Um.” She looked up. “No. Why, what did you think I said?”
“Something about bears?”
“No, no. I was just thinking about ordering…um…pizza or something. Interested?”
“Sure,” Mark agreed amiably. “I’ll order. Let’s see…” He closed his eyes and concentrated. “Sausage, Pepperoni, beef and pork with extra cheese.” One eye opened and peered hopefully at her. “Am I right?”
Dar chuckled. “Yeah.”
“Wooo, you mean Kerry hasn’t converted you to a veggie pizza yet?”
Mark laughed. “I know she’s not scarfing down that prescription for a heart attack.”
“We get a half and half,” Dar admitted. “I make sure to flick any errant growths over on her side of the pie.” She concentrated on another part of the configuration. “Ah, there.” She cut and pasted, then recycled the screen and reset the equipment. “That’s better.”
“Damn.” Mark peered at the monitor with wry admiration. “Can I be like you when I grow up?” He picked up the phone and dialed. “Want some cheese breadsticks sticks too?”
“Sure.”
“Pepsi?”
“Root beer.”
“They have floats.”
“Bingo.”
“Right.” Mark placed the order and put the phone down, then got up and manually reset a large machine. “We’re going to have to replace this switch, Dar. It’s been giving me fits and they can’t work the kinks out of 270 Melissa Good that Y2K patch.”
Dar grunted and set up a test pattern. “That’s the international DS3’s figures.”
The door opened, revealing Brent’s stocky figure as he rolled an AV
cart into the room. “Hey, Mark. What’s up? I hear we—” His blue eyes went round, “Oh. Sorry, ma’am. Hello.” He paused. “Is your machine not working? Want me to take a look at it?” Blue eyes went a little rounder as he saw Dar manipulating the big console. “Or set you up a new one?”
“Hi, Brent.” Mark chuckled. “Don’t get freaked out. Dar’s router qualified.” He smiled at the look on Brent’s face. “She’s reconfiguring the new network.”
“Got a problem with that?” Dar growled softly.
“No, no, ma’am, of course not. I just…” Brent looked a little perplexed.
“Just what? C’mon, spit it out.”
“Um…well, sure…I,” the tech peered at the seated executive, “I mean, I didn’t think…um…”
Dar looked right up at him, pinning him with an intense gaze.
“Think what?”
He swallowed. “Well, I didn’t think you…what I mean is—well, see, you’re the boss.”
“And?” A dark eyebrow lifted.
“And bosses do bossy things,” he blurted. “Not um…techie things.”
He paused. “You know?”
Mark wisely kept quiet, burying his head into his monitor and typing away furiously. He knew his boss was just playing with the sometimes overly serious Brent, but hoped she didn’t take it too far. Dar could be a little too intense sometimes, especially for the younger crowd who didn’t know her like Mark did.
Dar finished what she was doing and folded her hands on the console. “Are you insinuating that I’m not a nerd?” Her voice took on a dangerous note.
He blinked at her.
“You think that just because they gave me a title, that I don’t know what end of a cable to plug in like the rest of the people on 14?”
“B—” he squeaked, then stared at Mark in desperate appeal.
Dar got up, needing a stretch anyway, stalked over to Bent and put her hands on her denim covered hips. “Are you accusing me of techno turniphood, Brent?” She towered over him, eyeing the tech like a hungry panther.
He stuck his tongue out trying to speak then bit down on it, making his nostrils flare. A blush colored his face brick red and he looked like he was going to faint. “N-n-no, ma’am. No. I’d never do that.”
She leaned forward and lowered her voice to a purr. “Good.”
“Dar?” Mark peeked out from behind his console, realizing his tech was about to burst into spontaneous human combustion.
“Yes?” the s
ame, low, sexy voice answered, rolling the word play-Eye of the Storm 271
fully.
“Unless you want to clean up the piddle, stop scaring the piss out of Brent, willya?” He glanced at the hapless tech. “Relax. Her bark is way, way worse than her bite.”
Slowly, Dar turned and faced him, lowering her head a little and pinning him with an icy, merciless gaze. One eyebrow edged way up. “You have never been bitten,” she reminded him. “So how would you know?”
“Uh.” Mark rubbed his jaw. “I heard stories?” he ventured. “Really, really good ones?”
Dar paused, then laughed. “Yeah, right.” She returned to her seat and resumed her task. “For the record, Brent. I count as a geek.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he replied instantly. “Maybe we can talk some EPROMS sometimes.”
Mark chuckled. “Dar can talk EPROMS. Heck, Dar can burn EPROMS. Matter of fact, Dar designed this ops room,” he commented.
“And about fifty percent of the systems we run on, for that matter.”
“Really?” Brent sounded interested. He rolled his cart in and put it away, then edged around the console desk and settled in a chair near Dar.
“Hey, wait a minute. Back in the cross-patch room there’s a bunch of DR’s stenciled on the punch downs. Is that you?” He was obviously viewing her in a whole new light.
“Yup.” Dar set up another test pattern. “This looks decent. I’m going to try and bring the rest of the subnets online.”
“Wow,” Brent murmured. “Hey. That means you wrote the inven-tory program too, huh?” His eyes brightened. “Your initials are in the code.”
Dar nodded.
“You put in that subroutine that catches the boxes serial number and cross-references it against the original invoice to make sure it’s billed to the right department?”
“Yes.”
“Wicked.” Brent sighed. “I love that subroutine.” His gaze took in Dar’s profile with new, intense interest. “It’s my favorite one.”
Dar looked up at him for a moment, then at Mark, who snickered.
“Thanks.” She leaned back and propped a knee up against the wood of the console, watching her program run. The phone buzzed and Mark picked it up, then stood.