Part 4 (1/2)

Kerry sipped her chocolate as they listened to the waves for a bit, then she turned to Dar. ”You know, I was just thinking-it's really funny.”

Dar eyed her. ”Yeah?” She waited for the punchline.

”We never really talk to each other.” Kerry watched the expressive face across from her. When Dar blinked and put down her cup, her eyebrows contracting, Kerry nodded. ”See?”

”Huh?” Both eyebrows went up and Dar gave her an unfeigned look of bewilderment. ”Are you saying we have trouble communicating?”

Kerry shook her head. ”No. We communicate perfectly; we just never talk.” She suppressed a grin. ”What I mean is, like when I just said that: you didn't have to say anything to me, I knew what you were thinking.”

Dar relaxed. ”You did?”

”Sure.” Kerry pitched her voice a little lower in mimicry of Dar's. ”'What the h.e.l.l is she talking about?' I can tell by your face, by how you move, almost, what you're feeling.”*29 Dar considered that thoughtfully. ”Well, we do spend a lot of time with each other,” she allowed.

”True. And it's hard to have good, vigorous debates with someone you agree with most of the time,” Kerry said. ”We haven't had a fight in a long time.”

A dark eyebrow crawled up Dar's forehead. ”You want to have a fight?”

”Actually, I was listening to a radio program the other day on the way to the Kendall office. This guy was saying how it is a sign of a healthy relations.h.i.+p when you have fights, because you aren't repressing anything.”

Dar's other eyebrow joined its mate. ”Are you repressing something?”

Kerry pointed at herself. ”Me?”

”Yeah.”

”No. Are you?”

Dar frowned. ”Not that I know of.” She suddenly became aware of the humor in the situation. ”If you really want to test the theory, we could invent something to repress, then have a fight about it.”

”We could do that. Or we could just do this.” Kerry leaned over and kissed Dar. ”Which is a heck of a lot more fun.”

Dar chuckled, and cupped Kerry's cheek as she removed the chocolate from her lips. Then she rested her forehead against Kerry's, and her face grew thoughtful. ”I think people start fighting when they stop communicating,” she said. ”Or if they never could to begin with.”

”Is that what happened to you before?” Kerry asked.

Dar nodded silently.

”I was thinking about that when I was listening to that guy.”

Kerry took a sip of her cocoa and offered her cup to Dar. ”He said it's easy to fall in love with someone, but it's a lot harder to learn to like and live with them.” She reached over and brushed a lock of hair out of Dar's face.

Dar licked her lips. ”I like you.” She smiled. ”I think I said that the first time we had dinner together.”

Kerry smiled back. ”Yes, you did, and so did I.” She studied Dar's face. ”I really liked you, and I wanted to be friends with you long before I figured out I was head over heels in love.”

They looked into each other's eyes for a long moment. Finally, Dar took a breath. ”Kerry?”

”Yes?”

A pucker appeared between Dar's eyebrows. ”Why are we having this conversation?”

”Well,” Kerry squiggled closer, ”I didn't want to save it for a dusty hospital stairwell, and it's late, and I'm wasted, and it beats 30*

me reciting my brother's latest attempt at poetry.” She kissed Dar gently. ”We have to have these angsty, soulful, heart to heart talks sometimes, Dar, else we'll get cootie points in Love Court or something.”

Dar grinned. ”Wanna hear a secret?”

”Sure.”

”I have been repressing something.”

Green eyes opened wider. ”Really?”

”Yeah.” Dar took the mostly empty cup from Kerry and set it down. ”The desire to take you off to bed. C'mon.” She held out her hands and when the blonde took them, pulled Kerry to her feet and into her arms. ”Ker?”

”Mm?” Kerry murmured.

”If you ever think we're not communicating,” Dar looked at her seriously, ”talk to me.”

Kerry blinked, then nodded. ”Ditto,” she replied.

Dar carried the cups to the sink and ran water into them, then accompanied Kerry to the bedroom. Kerry pulled back the down comforter and they crawled into bed, snuggling together as Dar put out the bedside lamp. With the hatches open, they could hear the sea, and a nice breeze puffed around the cabin, reducing the feeling of being enclosed.

The boat creaked a little, and the rocking motion soothed her.

The sounds are different from the ones at home, or even in the cabin, Kerry thought. She felt her eyes closing and let the wave of sleepiness in, already looking forward to the morning. Stifling a yawn, she drew in a breath of warm, Dar scented air, and dropped off to sleep.

Chapter.

Four.

IT WAS MID-AFTERNOON already, and they'd been making good time. After an early morning romp in the sea, Dar fired up the boat's engines and headed southeast, crossing the ruffled blue- green Caribbean as the sun tracked steadily overhead.

Dar pored over the chart clipped to the console in front of her, marking out a route on the plastic sheet with a big purple marker.

She checked the GPS against the chart and grunted, satisfied with their progress and with her navigating skills. She nudged the throttles forward a little and rested her elbows on either side of them, gazing out at the horizon with a slight grin.

Hands-on had always been something she'd enjoyed, right from the very start of her career. It was one thing to sit in some boardroom with a pad of paper and argue about how to do things, but a very different thing to be able to put your hands on the technology and actually do it yourself. It's what had set her apart from the rest of the management at ILS. Dar had worked very hard to keep her skills current, and she was very, very proud of the fact that she could go into their state-of-the-art ops center and run every piece of technology inside it. It wasn't always easy. Her position kept her very busy and the tech changed every day, it seemed. But Dar had decided she never wanted to be in a place where her staff knew more about what they were doing than she did, so she put in the long nights, bought the new manuals, and occasionally even took things home so she could take them apart and play with them.

Being able to captain her s.h.i.+p across the sea had been just another challenge, and again she'd put in the time to brush up on her charting and diesel skills. Her peripheral vision caught a change in the depth meter and she studied it, then altered their course just a little, steering the Dixieland Yankee into a deeper channel.

With no other immediate piloting needs to see to, Dar picked up the pencil next to the notepad and started idly sketching. At first she doodled in the horizon and the boat's bow, but that got boring, so she started looking around for something else to draw. She 32*

leaned back and looked down, then grinned. Ah. Her pencil moved against the paper as she focused on her new inspiration.