Stormy Waters: Book 10 in The Dar & Kerry Series (47 page)

"Yeah."

"Heck yeah."

"For sure!"

Satisfied, Dar lifted her hand in acknowledgement and then walked back toward the office. She discovered Kerry inside, sprawled in the desk chair, spinning it idly. "We all set?"

"Uh huh." Kerry agreed. "We got the back room, and they're throwing in dessert free as long as everyone orders an entrée."

"No problem." Dar caught the back of the chair and stopped her partner's revolutions. "Not with this bunch. They're not the ice tea and carrot appetizer crowd."

Kerry gazed up at her with a wry expression. "Dar, I used to be one of the ice tea and carrot appetizer crowd."

"Nah." Dar looked fondly down at her. "You were a poser."

"A poser?"

"A poser." Dar leaned on the chair back. "I knew that the first time we had dinner together."

Kerry's face crinkled up into a grin. "Rats. Outed by a slab of cheesecake and a chicken wing."

Dar gently scratched the top of Kerry's head with her fingertips. "Did you check with the office? Everything calm there?"

Kerry gave the trackball on the desk a roll, exposing her email inbox when the screen saver cleared. "Couple of things. Three of those leads we got out of your hacker challenge turned into requests for pricing." She pointed. "Not really huge accounts but look...this one's in an area we haven't been involved in yet."

"Hmm." Dar studied the screen.

"I'm assigning someone to put together a design," Kerry said. "And I got a note from our friends in New York..." She clicked over. "They're opening another office in Hong Kong. They want pricing for infrastructure."

"Yeah?" Dar sounded quite surprised. "You got a note from Meyer?"

Kerry cocked her head. "Um...no, matter of fact. Hang on. "She rolled back a page. "Here...new name. Ellen Durst. Maybe he got an assistant?" She scrolled through the message until she reached the signature line. "Oh. No, I guess she's the VP now."

"Huh." Dar sniffed. "Hope Stewart didn't get booted. We're in deep kimchee if he did."

"Would she be asking us for pricing if Meyer took his place?"

Dar perched on the desk, getting her weight off her injured foot. "We're their current vendor." She mused. "So stands to reason... I don't know, let's find out." She pulled out her cell phone and dialed a number. "Hi. Stewart Godson, please."

Kerry leaned an elbow on the desk and watched Dar's face as she waited. She put her other hand on her partner's knee, rubbing gently in a circle with her thumb. It would be chilly in the restaurant, she suddenly remembered. They'd have to stop and get Dar something with more sleeves.

"Yes, thanks. It's Dar Roberts, from ILS." Dar supplied the secretary who intercepted the call. Now, either she'd be put off, or...

"One moment, ma'am, I'll put you right through." The secretary came back on the line, then bland hold music replaced her for a second, before a click sounded and a voice came through.

"Hello, there, Dar!"

Dar exhaled in relief. "Afternoon, Stewart." She glanced at Kerry, who gave her a thumbs up.

"What do I owe the pleasure of a call to?" Godson asked. "I was about to close up shop here and get on home. Don't tell me we've got problems!"

"No, no, not at all," Dar reassured him. "I just..." She hesitated. "Just was wondering how things were doing, with your program. It's been a week, now."

"Oh!" Godson cleared his throat, and apparently sat back in his chair based on the squeaks coming through the phone. "Everything's great! You have no idea how happy everyone is. It's been wonderful. First week in a month I've been able to get anything done without getting a phone call every ten minutes complaining," he said. "So rest assured, everything looks great from this end. How's it with you?"

Dar blinked. "Me? Oh, it's just been a typical week here, you know, Stewart," she replied. "Usual problems, usual weather...the odd pile of crap hitting the...um...fan." A smile appeared, as she watched Kerry first cover her eyes, then throw the back of her arm across them in a very theatrical gesture. "Glad things are going well. Listen, Kerry tells me you're putting in a new office in the Far East?"

"Yep." Godson sounded very, very smug. "Business has increased so much, partially due to my new system I might add, that we're branching out. Good stuff huh? Oh!" He ended the sentence with an exclamation. "Hey! You remember that guy of mine, Jason?"

Ah. "Sure." Dar drawled.

"You know that fella up and left last Friday? No notice at all, just picked up his papers and walked out. Said he had a better offer. What do you know? You were right! Shoulda listened to you right then, Dar!"

Kerry's eyes widened and she leaned forward a little as she listened. "Holy pooters!" She mouthed.

"Ahhh...yeah, he was a stinker," Dar remarked, her eyebrows hiked up to her hairline. "Any idea where he went? Not that I care."

"Nah." Godson said. "Didn't ask, he didn't tell, good riddance! I took a page from your book and decided maybe a gal would work better for me in there, and you know, it's been a week but Ellen's just been crackerjack. Good people! Matter of fact, can't wait for her to meet you. We were talking about you just yesterday."

Dar relaxed, one nagging problem taken off her conscience. "Well, that's good to hear, Stewart. Glad you got someone in there who we can work with. I wasn't looking forward to renegotiating our contract with Mr. Meyer. Hope whoever he went to work for fully appreciates...his...ah...style."

Godson chuckled. "Ellen's sharp, and would you know? She's a fan of yours. So you've got no worries, right? Anyhoo, time for me to head off to the little missus. Anything else you need to talk about, Dar?"

"Nope, just checking in. We'll get you those prices by end of the week, Stewart. Good luck on the new space, and congratulations."

"Thanks!" Godson replied. "Life's good! Take care, Dar! Give Ms. Stuart my hellos too, willya? Bye!"

Dar folded the phone up and tossed it, reversing her hand and grabbing it out of mid air as it fell. "Well, that's good news," she said. "I really thought we were going to get bit in the ass by my cantankerousness this time. Guess we got lucky."

Kerry patted her on the leg. "We have to sometimes." She got up, leaning over to log out of the computer. "Wonder where that little bugger went? Hope it's not to another of our customers."

Dar shrugged, getting up off the desk and waiting as Kerry turned the PC off. "I'll do a search later and see if he joined another public company." She put her hand on her partner's back as they walked out of the office, flipping the lights and closing the door behind them.

KERRY PUT HER MUG down and leaned back, chuckling a little at Mark's joke from across the table. She was on her second beer, and her plate held the scattered remnants of a relatively decent rack of spare ribs. Dar was sprawled in the chair next to her, long legs extended under the table as she nodded in agreement to what Mark was saying.

"I remember that," Dar said. "The entire building was overrun by red ants, and everyone ended up sitting on top of the network racks to get away from them." She reminisced. "Damned glad I missed that one."

Everyone chuckled.

"Yeah, you'd just gotten kicked upstairs," Mark said. "We sure missed you."

Kerry watched her partner from the corner of her eye, seeing the look of muted glee appear in her eyes, as her lips twitched into a grin. "I bet you did." She leaned on her chair arm. "There's nothing as comforting to have on a tough project as this thing." She indicated Dar with her thumb. "I can attest to that."

"Thing?" Dar leaned on her own chair arm and gave Kerry a raised eyebrow look.

"Ms. Roberts?" One of the techs spoke up shyly. "Is it true the fellow in charge on the boat is your father?"

Dar tore her attention from her partner, and picked up her glass of wine for a sip. "It's true," she said. "Some of you guys have met him before."

"Absolutely," Mark agreed. "He's a great guy, and he tells the funniest st--"

Dar looked at him.

"Stories about boats." Mark redirected his speech. "Really funny."

Nervous grins all around. "I think some of those contractors are scared of him," the first tech commented. "I heard them talking about him when they were out in back of the building using the pay phones."

Dar felt a little uncertain, unused to talking about her family in front of her staff. "Well, he doesn't take much crap."

"Gee." Mark took a swallow of his beer. "Wonder who that sounds like."

The tableful of techs chuckled again, this time a little less nervously when Dar joined in, lifting a hand in silent self deprecation. "Yeah, I come by it honestly," she assented. "But he's also retired Navy...he was a SEAL...that takes it to a different level sometimes."

"A SEAL?" One of the techs whistled. "Wow."

"That's pretty cool," another said. "I was in for six years. Those guys are tough."

"I was helping check off those switches that came in yesterday," one of the female techs spoke up shyly. "I was a little creeped out with those guys in there. They were making all kinds of comments, but then he came into the loading area and shut them all up." She looked over at Dar. "That was really cool."

Dar smiled.

"Dad's got a lot of old fashioned chivalry in him," Kerry spoke up. "One of those guys who's totally not embarrassed to open doors for women, or give them seats on a bus, you know?"

The men all looked a little embarrassed, themselves. "I, um..." The tech next to Mark cleared his throat. "Don't think girls like that stuff anymore. It's like, chauvinism, isn't it?"

Everyone looked at Kerry, to see what her answer would be. She took a sip of her beer, giving herself a moment to think about it. "Hmm." She pondered the complex ideas behind the question. "Opening a door for someone really isn't anything but a courtesy. I think--"

"I open doors for you," Dar commented.

"I think it depends how you were brought up," the woman tech spoke up suddenly. "It's like your parents teach you one way or the other. My mother was a big time radical feminist, and she always said it was condescending when men treated her like that."

"Yeah, my mom said the same thing," Mark agreed. "You open a door for her and she'd slam it in your face."

Everyone chuckled. "Well, I come from a very traditional family," Kerry said. "Though I think my father would have paid someone to be chivalrous for him if he could have gotten away with it. We were always treated like ladies, and let me tell you...it gave me a hive."

Everyone peeked at Dar next. "My mother's a pagan," She supplied agreeably.

Silence. Everyone looked at Dar in surprise, except Kerry. "Well, she is." Dar shrugged. "She's about as nontraditional as you can get, but she loves it when my dad does stuff like that for her."

"Really?" Mark asked.

"Yeah." Dar drained her wine glass and set it on the table. "But then, my dad doesn't do it for show. It's just how he is."

"And just how you are." Kerry gave her partner a fond look. "Daddy's girl."

Dar blushed slightly, almost invisibly in the reddish lamplight. Her eyebrows twitched, and she glanced at the rest of the table before looking back at Kerry.

"Well, my old man didn't give me anything but a hairy back." Mark broke the silence, drawing attention back to himself. "And probably a bum ticker," he added. "So it's a crap shoot, but like, you really can't win because if you do nice stuff like that, you got a fifty-fifty shot at best that the girl likes it, you know?"

Two of the guy techs nodded. "Yeah," one said. "My girlfriend is like this independent chick, yeah? She's pre-law, works in a woman lawyer's office, pro abortion, all that stuff, and I find out last week she really wants to get married, stop working, and have kids."

"Oh, god." The taller, blond female tech covered her eyes. "My husband hinted to me last night he'd like to have kids."

"So let him, Barb," Dar drawled. "He can stay home and take care of 'em."

Everyone laughed. Barb leaned forward, resting an elbow on the table. "That's really something women in our industry have to deal with that you guys don't," she said. "I've been turned down for jobs because I might start breeding. You know, that sucks. If you're a guy, that doesn't happen."

"Hey, we breed." Mark protested. "I've had to give plenty of guys' time off to go take care of their kids."

"Three months?" Barb asked him.

"Well..."

"It's hard enough to keep even in this business as it is, being female," Barb said. "Nobody thinks women belong in technical fields, even today." Her eyes tracked briefly to Dar and Kerry. "I have to tell you, you guys were the reason I even applied here."

"We take flack," Kerry responded quietly. "There are a lot of people out there that don't think Dar and I should be doing what we're doing, and it takes a lot more effort than you think to get past that."

Mark looked between them. "You guys are making me feel like a jerk, just because I got a Y in the big ol' chromo-dice throw." He protested. "Hey, it's not our fault! I hire most of the women who apply. They are just really, really few and far between!"

Barb leaned back, and nodded. "Mark, I know that. You should see the looks I get from other women when I tell them what I do. You'd think I was telling them I was a car mechanic."

Dar chuckled wryly. "Well, given what my other choice of profession was, my family is very glad I picked this one," she said. "But I'd have made a lousy sailor anyway."

Mark leaned back. "No offense, DR, but that would have been a big waste of brain cells."

"Yeah," Barb agreed. "That's for sure."

Dar shrugged modestly.

Someone approached, and cleared their throat gently. Dar looked up to see their reporter friend Elecia standing there, hands behind her back and a diffident expression on her face. "Ah. Evening."

"Hi," the woman said. "I know you probably think I'm stalking you all, but I happened to be having dinner over there." She pointed to a corner of the restaurant. "Mind if I ask your group here a few questions?"

Dar studied her briefly, then shrugged and turned back to the table. "You guys mind talking to a reporter?"