Dar snorted. "Well," she got up and walked to the door, "good luck." Her eyes searched the dimming horizon, streaked with gentle orange light. "You're gonna need it."

Bob stood up and peered out the window toward the west. "I know I can do it," he said. "I just need the time to look. If I could only get that b.a.s.t.a.r.d DeSalliers off my back for a few days." He straightened up and turned. "Well, anyway, thanks again. I know you didn't mean to rescue me for the second time, but boy, I appreciate it."

Dar remained staring out at the sunset.

"I'm glad we were in the right place at the right time." Kerry gracefully picked up the ball. "Where are you going now? You can't try the wreck again. He'll get you next time."

Bob sighed. "Yeah," he said. "I don't know. Maybe I can check out the drift shops on the islands. Maybe what I'm looking for has already been picked up, and it's there."

"Hm." Kerry made a noncommittal sound.

"Hey, maybe I'll ask those buddies of yours. They're pretty savvy," Bob suddenly added. "Bet they've been around...a while, haven't they?"

Kerry frowned. "Well, I guess. I just met them. They're old friends of Dar's, really. Probably they know where to start looking, though."

"Yeah," Bob answered briefly.

"Don't you think DeSalliers has thought of that?" Dar asked from the doorway. "I bet his little gumshoes are looking right now."

Bob smiled. "He would, if he knew what he was looking for."

He eased past Dar, then turned with a faint, half-crooked smile.

"But he doesn't." He picked up his gear and stepped off the boat onto the dock. "Thanks again," he said to Dar. "Hope Kerry feels better soon."

He turned and started walking up the dock, slinging his gear over one shoulder as he carried his tanks in the other.

Dar turned and went back inside the cabin. She found Kerry waiting, one leg slung over the arm of her chair as she finished her juice. "He'll never find it," she said. "Whatever it is."*185 Kerry wiggled her toes. "Probably not," she agreed. "You think there's anything to his story?"

Dar sat down on the couch and extended a hand out to her.

"C'mere." She wrapped her arms around Kerry when she complied, pulling her down into her lap and leaning back on the couch. "I don't know," she answered. "Right now, I don't really care."

Kerry put her arms around Dar's neck and nuzzled her cheek.

"What a mess." She found Dar's ear invitingly close by, and despite the fact that she still felt like heck, she gently suckled the tasty looking earlobe. Dar's arms tightened around her and she laughed softly.

"Mmm," Dar hummed. "Feeling better?"

Kerry gave her a kiss on the cheek. "How could I not feel better?" Her lashes brushed Dar's skin, tickling it and making the dark-haired woman smile. "How about you?" she whispered into Dar's ear. "You sounded kinda torked before."

Dar hesitated, then sighed. "Yeah, I'm okay," she said. "Just too much going on at once, I guess," she admitted.

Kerry nuzzled her cheek again. "I think we're due a vacation from our vacation, Dixiecup."

"Mm." Dar thought about the trials of the day, then decided dismissing them and simply immersing herself in Kerry's presence was a much better idea. There was really no point in dwelling on it all anyway. It was over, and in the past. Things had worked out all right. Kerry was okay. She was okay. They knew what was going on. Now they could take off and leave it all behind. They were out of it. Kerry suckled on her earlobe again, blowing gently into her ear. Dar closed her eyes and smiled. Yeah. Everything is all right.

Chapter.

Sixteen.

DAR WOKE TO the soft clang of the buoy sea bell at the edge of the harbor. She blinked the sleep out of her eyes and looked around in slight confusion, taking a moment to recognize the dim interior of the boat around her. She and Kerry were lying together on the small couch, limbs entangled. Dar had no idea what time it was or how long they'd been sleeping, and she found herself quite willing to let her eyes close and drift back into peaceful oblivion.

Not that she could have gotten up even if she'd wanted to. Dar observed the slow, rhythmic rise and fall of Kerry's chest up close and personal, since she was pinned under her lover's st.u.r.dy form.

Luckily for her, it wasn't nearly as uncomfortable as one might expect, and after she stretched her body out a little, she settled back down and amiably resigned herself to pillow duty. However, after a few quiet minutes, Kerry stirred and made a tiny grumbling sound.

Dar scratched the back of her neck gently. "Shh...go back to sleep."

Kerry opened one eye and peeked at her. "Thirsty," she muttered with a hoa.r.s.e edge to her voice. "d.a.m.n pills."

"I'd get up and get you some water, but, um..." Dar reviewed their tangled bodies.

"But I'm squashing you." Kerry got her hands on the couch and pushed herself upward, awkwardly getting to her feet. "Ooof." She wavered a minute, then sat down again, putting her hand to her head. "Whoa."

Dar immediately sat up. "Hey."

"Just a little dizzy," Kerry muttered. "I got up too fast," she added. "I think."

"And you also haven't eaten anything since that soup and crackers at lunch," Dar realized.

"Neither have you." Kerry got to her feet a little more cautiously, then she held a hand out to Dar. "C'mon. Let's go raid the fridge together." She looked around. "What time is it?"

Dar picked up her cell phone as she stood to join her partner.

"Eleven thirty." Her eyes lifted to the cabin door. "Huh. Bud was*187 supposed to send Charlie down when he got home. Guess he got caught up." She tossed the cell to the table, then reached up to put her hand across Kerry's forehead. "Ah."

"No chills," Kerry acknowledged. "Now I just feel like a dishrag."

"Maybe we should call you terrycloth, then, instead of Kerry,"

Dar teased, relieved at feeling no fever in her partner. "C'mon."

They walked together to the galley. Kerry slipped inside first and retrieved a water bottle from the fridge, popping it open and sucking several mouthfuls from it. She turned to find Dar rummaging the shelves, and put a hand on her partner's shoulder.

"Nothing exotic, honey. Just some yogurt, if it's there."

Dar retrieved a container and handed it up. "How about some toast to go with that."

Kerry cleared her throat experimentally, feeling an ominous scratchiness. "I think my bug is migrating," she informed Dar mournfully. "Ice cream would work better."

"Ah." Dar stood and gave her a sympathetic look. "How about some soup?"

"Mmph." Kerry had popped the top on the yogurt and spooned up a mouthful. It was plain and cool, and it made her throat feel better. "Only if you're having some too,"she replied, b.u.mping Dar lightly with her hip.

Dar felt her stomach growl at the thought. "Deal," she agreed, searching in the cupboards for the appropriate cans.

Kerry took her water and yogurt and retreated to the table, sliding behind it and sitting cross-legged on the bench seat. She nudged the indirect light on and sat there quietly munching. "If we both get sick, this is going to so suck, Dar."

"Eh." Dar shrugged, busy emptying things into one of the pots.

"In that case, I vote we just find an empty beach, stake it out, and let the sun take care of it."

Kerry sighed.

"Relax. At worst, we spend a couple days in bed together." Dar chuckled softly. "Is that so bad?" Taking a small oil candle from the cabinet, she lit it and walked over to set it down in front of Kerry. It made a friendly, warm flicker between the two of them, and Dar watched it a moment before she went back to her task.

"If you put it like that, no." Kerry played with her yogurt, making small mounds of it with her spoon as she consumed it. Out of the corner of her eye, she watched Dar in the galley, her profile quiet and somewhat somber as she heated up the soup. Absently, she lifted a hand and pushed a bit of hair behind one ear, then fiddled with it, a sure sign Dar was preoccupied with something.

"This has sure been a day, huh?" Kerry asked.

Dar glanced over with a half smile. "Yeah."

188*

"Those pirates had me a little spooked," Kerry said. "Glad you knew how to handle them." Her ears detected a hitch in Dar's breathing and a soft clank as her spoon whapped against the side of the pot. "I know they didn't hurt those other people, but getting tossed off the boat the way I was feeling...wow."

Dar eased past the galley entrance and came over with two bowls of something steaming in her hands. She set one down in front of Kerry, then took the seat next to her.

"Mm." Kerry sniffed. "Chicken noodle."

Dar dabbled her spoon in her soup, propping her head up on her fist. "I wasn't gonna let them take the boat," she said. "But what was more important to me was protecting you."

Kerry took a spoonful of the hot soup and swallowed it, feeling a blessed sense of relief as it soothed her cranky throat. "You did."

She ate a small bit of carrot. "Protect me, that is."

"Mmhm." Dar nodded. "And anyway, you know how much I hate having anyone tell me what to do. I wasn't going to let those scrungy b.a.s.t.a.r.ds do it."

"Aaabsolutely not." Kerry smiled. "Not my Dar."

That got a smile from Dar, and she stopped twiddling her spoon.

"So...why is that bothering you?" Kerry asked softly.

Dar looked up at her. "Did I say it was?" she asked in a deceptively mild tone. Kerry just looked her in the eye without saying anything. After a moment, Dar's lips tensed into a wry half grin, and she ate a spoonful of soup to give herself time to think about her answer.

It wasn't something she wanted to talk about, but if she couldn't talk to Kerry about it, then who? There was no one on Earth closer to her than her partner, not even her father. Andrew, though, might well understand what she'd felt; Kerry surely wouldn't.

Kerry simply waited, and ate her soup. Dar would either tell her, or she wouldn't-further probing didn't seem like a good idea.

Dar started to speak, then stopped, a mildly bemused expression on her face. She shook her head. "It's actually pretty stupid."

A blonde eyebrow lifted. Stupid wasn't a description Dar usually applied to herself. "Hm?" Kerry made a small encouraging noise.

"When that guy on the boat pointed that gun at me, I almost shot him."

Kerry waited, but when nothing else seemed to be forthcoming, she leaned on her elbows. "Okay," she accepted. "And?"

Dar was sucking on her spoon. "For a minute there, I wanted to." Her eyes fixed on something past Kerry's head with a pained,*189 almost lost expression. "I wanted to kill that guy."

"He was pointing a gun at you, sweetie," Kerry answered matter-of-factly. "For that matter, I wanted to kill him too. It's a good thing for him you were holding the shotgun." She gazed at her lover. "Because if I saw anyone threaten you with a gun like that, I would kill them."

That wasn't quite the response Dar had been expecting. She regarded her adorable soulmate with bemused eyes, watching her slurp her soup. "So, you don't think that was a strange reaction, I take it?"

"To someone pointing a lethal weapon at you? No!" Kerry snorted. "Do you?"

Dar reconsidered. "It just surprised me, I guess," she admitted, remembering that moment of dark joy, and the fire that had seemed to fill her from within. Maybe it was normal, or at least the alternative to dissolving into a puddle of fear. With Kerry's obvious acceptance of the subject, the tension inside her eased and she attacked her soup with greater gusto.

Kerry grinned to herself and picked up her bowl, drinking from the side of it. "Now this, on the other hand," she commented, after swallowing a mouthful, "is guaranteed to send you straight to h.e.l.l, if you believe my family." She drained the bowl, then licked her lips. "Heh."

Dar chuckled, a great deal more easily this time.

Kerry offered her a carrot. Dar's eyes narrowed and she bared her teeth. They both laughed as Kerry relented and ate the vegetable herself. "You know, I like this."

"Carrots? I know," Dar replied, slurping a noodle.

"No, this." Kerry indicated the flickering oil lamp. "It's romantic. Almost like being around a campfire."

Dar eyed the tiny flame, then looked at Kerry. One eyebrow lifted.

"Okay, so it's a campfire for gerbils," Kerry admitted. "I still like it."

Her eyes went to the clock on the wall, then she remembered something. "Be right back." Kerry slid out from behind the table and disappeared into the bedroom. After a minute, she returned, her hands behind her back, and walked over to where Dar was seated and rested her chin on Dar's shoulder. "Hi."

Dar turned her head so they were nose to nose. "Hi," she replied.

Kerry removed her hands from behind her back and set a small box down in front of Dar. "Happy birthday, my love." She leaned in and gave the shocked Dar a kiss on the lips. "You forgot, didn't you?"

Dar stared at the box. She had completely forgotten that it was 190*

her birthday the next day. She and Kerry had agreed to exchange Christmas presents when they got home, so she'd figured... "Yeah, I did," she answered softly. "Kerry, you didn't have to-"

"Ah ah ah ah ah." Kerry put her fingers over Dar's mouth. "Just open it. Humor me; I'm a sick woman." She slid back into her seat and watched as Dar examined the box, turning it over in her hands before she started to unravel the thin, lacy ribbon around it.

Dar's face was a study in concentration as she carefully untied the knots and laid the ribbon open on either side of the box. Then she held the bottom steady with one hand and lifted the top with the other, setting it down before she removed the light layer of cotton batting just under it.

Kerry waited. She saw the motion as Dar's jaw muscles relaxed and the sudden reflection of the dim light on her widened eyes.