Part 4 (2/2)
KERRY PUT HER pen down for the nth time and let her head rest against the chair. She was ostensibly working on poetry, but the sun, the mild drone of the engines, and the sweet sea air were combining to subvert her creative intentions in favor of some lazy daydreaming.
She wiggled her bare toes contentedly. Dar had promised a twilight dive when they neared the Virgin Islands, then dinner at a small place she'd last visited just before they'd met. ”Fresh conch chowder.” Kerry licked her lips thoughtfully. ”Sounds great, just so long as you don't think too much about what a conch actually looks like.”
”You say something?” Dar called down from the bridge.
”No, sweetie,” Kerry replied. ”Just mumbling to myself.” She worried a grape off its stem from the bowl next to her and popped it into her mouth. ”Whatcha doing?”
”Driving the boat.”
”That all?” Kerry asked, tipping her head back and looking up, one hand shading her eyes.
”Doodling.”
”Yeah? What this time?”
”Nothing you'd wanna see,” Dar remarked with an easy grin.
”How's the writing coming?”
Intrigued, Kerry tucked her book into the side pocket of the deck chair and put down her fruit bowl. ”It's not,” she admitted, getting up and walking to the ladder, stretching out her body as she did. ”Sad to say, I'm too lazy to even write today.” She climbed up onto the bridge and put her arms around Dar, gazing down at the pad in front of her. Then she blinked. ”Yikes.”
Dar snickered. ”Toldja.”
”That's me.”
”Sort of, yeah,” Dar agreed.
Kerry eyed the sketch, which showed a reasonable rendering of the boat's stern, with her sprawled in the chair. ”You're getting pretty good at this, you know that?”
”Depends on what I'm drawing,” Dar said with a shrug.
Kerry gave her a kiss on the top of her head. ”I'll take that as a compliment,” she told Dar, as a memory floated into her mind's eye.
Another day, another meeting. Kerry carried her notes into the big conference room and paused; most of the table was already full up. That left the end seat, which was always Dar's, and an empty one on either side*33 of it. Hm . Kerry walked around to the left hand side and sat down in the chair beside Dar's. I should come late more often . Then she had an excuse to sit next to her boss and not have anyone think it was strange.
Dar entered, and as she circled the table, she raised her eyebrow just a trifle at Kerry's choice of seats, but her lips quirked into a tiny grin at the same time, making Kerry's insides warm as their eyes met.
Kerry felt herself blush and she studied her notes, trying not to show the unsteady confusion pulsing through her body, reacting to Dar's very near presence as the woman sat down and their forearms brushed.
Dar leaned back in her chair and balanced her pad on her denim clad knee as she asked for the weekly report.
They were in casual wear, and Kerry found herself wanting to reach over and touch the soft cotton Dar was wearing. She folded her hands together and sternly told her body to behave, hardly believing how out of control she felt around her new lover. Especially since the more experienced Dar was seemingly quite unaffected by it all, breezing through their workday as though nothing at all had changed between them.
Kerry, on the other hand, felt like she had ”I'm with her” tattooed on her forehead. She sighed and picked up her water gla.s.s, taking a long sip as the operations staff started their recitations. The water didn't help much. She was almost hyper sensitively aware of Dar's every motion, every sound- from the faint s.h.i.+fts of her clothing on the leather chair when she moved, to the light sc.r.a.pe of the pencil lead with which she was doodling.
Lucky Dar . Kerry snuck a look at her boss, who looked relaxed as she glanced up from her doodling as each staff member spoke. Dar seemed almost bored, or a least borderline inattentive, giving the speakers a brief nod as she accepted their reports.
”Next.” Dar kept her eyes on her pad. ”Did you get those servers?”
Mark had to report in the negative. ”Not yet, boss. Two more days.”
Kerry looked at him, seeing the wince as he waited for Dar's reaction, along with the rest of the staff.
”Okay.” Dar nodded. ”What else?”
Everyone around the table looked at one another in surprise.
”Um.” Mark wasn't one to look a gift horse in the mouth.
”We've...uh...got some problems in Canada two big pipes down and they're complaining.”
”And?” Dar continued her sketching, c.o.c.king her head to one side.
”Can we fix them?”
”Not without digging up some fiber.”
”Guess they'll have to wait then,” Dar replied. ”Tell our fiber contractor up there to call me with an estimate when he gets a chance.”
Another round of puzzled looks circled the table.
”Uh...okay,” Mark said. ”That's all for me.”
”Anyone else?” Dar's gaze sharpened and she scoured the group with 34*
ice blue eyes. ”No? Good.” She stood up, casually ripped off the top sheet of her pad, and tossed it over to Kerry before she picked up her coffee cup and headed for the door. ”Budgets are due next week. Don't be late.”
The door closed behind her, and everyone relaxed. ”Whoo.” Mark wiped his brow in exaggerated relief. ”Got off lucky this week!”
”Yeah. I thought she was going to roast your b.u.t.t. How'd you do that, Mark?”
”Right time, right place. Caught her in a good mood.”
”The one time this year. Go figure.” Charlene rolled her eyes. ”What caused that, I wonder? She get to fire someone this week?”
Kerry didn't hear any of it. Her eyes were on the casually tossed sheet in her hands as she stared at the neatly shaded sketch in the center of it. Her own image looked back at her, a very creditable rendering outlined in a roughly shaped heart, with Dar's initials on the bottom.
”Maybe it was because she got to cancel that planning contract.
She's always hated that guy's guts. ”
”Nah. I bet she denied that Sales request again.”
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