Tropical Convergence (7 page)

"Yeah? Takes one to know one!" Dar grappled with her, the fabric tangling around them and winding them tighter together. "Auarrgguhhh!!"

"Ooooo...gotcha!" Kerry wrapped her arm around Dar's calf and attacked the inside of her knee, feeling the powerful limb jerk in response to her tickling. "Ahahahahahah!!!!"

Buzz.

Dar's head popped out from under its wrapping of cotton. She glared so intently at her cell phone the leather cover nearly shriveled.

Buzzz.

One long arm snaked out and snatched the instrument, but then paused as Dar took a moment to catch her breath before she opened the phone. "What?" She snarled into it.

"Oo." Kerry wiggled up and poked her head out into the open to listen. "Rambunctious interruptus. How rude."

"Well, good morning to you too, Dar. Always such a pleasure to talk to you." Eleanor's voice held equal parts sarcasm and amusement. "Were you up?"

Dar's pale blue eyes slitted. "Yes," she said. "You get assigned wake-up call duty this week? I thought Alastair was gonna invest in software to do that."

The VP of Marketing chuckled. "Oh, there're parts of you that never change, aren't there? It's a relief really...like death, taxes...you know?"

"Eleanor, what the hell do you want?"

"Is Kerry there?" Eleanor asked, giving up on her torment.

Dar gave her cell phone another evil look. "It's a quarter to seven in the morning, I'm in my hotel room, and I'm not dressed. What do you think?"

A pause. "Well wouldja put her on the phone, please? She's at least civil before coffee."

Kerry fell forward against Dar's chest, laughing helplessly, covering her mouth to keep Eleanor from hearing.

"She's occupied at the moment." Dar gazed down at the blond woman draped over her. "What do you want?"

Eleanor sighed audibly. "Okay, okay--there are a lot of really ticked off people here, Dar," she said. "I'm about to head into a meeting with ten of our fellow exhibitors."

"And?" Dar nuzzled Kerry's hair, nibbling its softness. "If the hall's screwed up, what do you want from me? It's not my fault." She leaned back against the bed, sliding her free hand around Kerry's now still form. "And it sure as hell isn't Kerry's fault."

"No...Jesus, all right! I'm coming!" Eleanor sounded more than exasperated. "Listen, Dar...bottom line, these guys want to know who you paid off to get our booth up. Nothing fancy. They're frustrated, and out of time, and they want to get it all done so...who gets the check?"

Dar grinned at her cell phone. "Me."

"What?"

Dar smirked. "I didn't pay anyone off, Eleanor. I went...sorry...we went in there last night and made it happen."

"You?"

"Me," Dar confirmed. "Tell them I take credit cards. What do you think, three, four thousand a minute? What's my time worth?" She chuckled. "I tell you what, it's gonna take them the whole goddamned day to pull the circuits, because the nitwits who installed them didn't label the damn things. I had to check them one by one and let me tell you, I was raising the roof in that Telco room cursing."

"Oh, my god." Eleanor muffled a laugh. "Everyone thinks you bribed the management company."

"Hah." Dar looked down into Kerry's expressive eyes. "We don't need to bribe anyone to execute the technology we're responsible for implementing."

"Can I quote you?" Eleanor sounded gleeful. "Please?"

"Sure." Dar lowered her head and brushed Kerry's lips with her own. "Just don't raffle me off. I'm busy."

"Rats. I could have recouped the outlay for the damn convention," Eleanor mock sighed. "When are you coming over?"

"We're not." Dar moved her head up a little, so their combined breathing wouldn't echo over the phone. "I have other things to do today. I put my time in last night."

"Oh. Well, okay." Eleanor sounded a little off-balance. "I thought you'd want to be here to see the fun."

"I make my own fun." Dar watched Kerry bite the inside of her lip to stop from laughing. "Call me if you need me, but you better the hell really need me."

"Okay," Eleanor sighed. "I'll call you later. "

"Bye."

Kerry closed the cell and tossed it on the bed. "C'mon nerdmeister. I hear a banana calling my name." She got a last tickle in, laughing as Dar rocked backwards with her in her arms. "Score one for the geek squad."

The sun poured into the room, painting it silver, splashing across the carpet and catching on tan skin and tangled dark and light hair.

Dar broke off for air, rubbing Kerry's nose gently with her own. "Score two."

"Was Eleanor upset?" Kerry asked, after a moment. "About us not being there?"

Dar shrugged. "I don't care if she was," she said. "It's not my job to set up the full color hand outs and fluff the stress balls." She kissed Kerry. "I wasn't supposed to be there this soon anyway."

"True." Kerry returned the kiss, sliding her hands up along Dar's sides. "But with Telegenics there, not to mention our friends, maybe she thinks every opportunity counts."

"Maybe she does." Dar paused and gazed down into Kerry's eyes. "Then she should do her job, and promote the company to everyone in the building, right?"

Kerry hesitated, and then nodded. "Right."

KERRY CLIPPED HER cell phone to the waistband of her shorts, and slid her sunglasses next to it. She studied the result in the mirror and decided that, plus the tucked in tropical fish T-shirt, was acceptable.

She had the bathing suit she'd purchased the week before, a relatively sedate aqua green one-piece, with a racing neckline, on underneath her clothing.

Shopping for bathing suits had gotten a lot more fun since she'd started living with Dar, that was for sure. She'd always been nervous about what she looked like in them before, so many years of her family's criticism stuck in her head making her shy about putting them on in public.

But Dar lived in the water, practically. If she wasn't on the boat, she was in the pool, or on the beach and Kerry realized after they'd started going out that she was going to have to get over it if she wanted to share that lifestyle.

She remembered the first time she'd gone shopping for the beach with her mother, after she'd gotten old enough to really be conscious of her body, and her figure. She'd wanted a two piece like all her friends, and she'd been treated to an hour of critique on why she couldn't possibly wear one because of what the press would say about her not quite shed layer of baby fat.

Jesus. Kerry met her own eyes in the mirror and winked at herself wryly. What a horror show that had been.

So she stayed away from bikinis, even though she knew, with her new, buff physique and her tan, she could now wear a bikini in rather grand style.

Dar said she looked sexier in the sleek, one-piece solid color functional ones she tended to wear, so who needed a bikini anyway? Dar only laughed when she suggested to her partner than she wear one herself.

Ah well.

"Right." She gave herself a nod, and then looked up as Dar appeared behind her in the mirror, already decked out in her wraparound shades and sleeveless cotton shirt and shorts. "Would you mind?" Kerry handed Dar the sunscreen.

"Never." Dar sprayed some of the tanning lotion on her hands and started working it into the exposed portion of Kerry's skin. "Want to pull your hair back?"

Kerry moved her pale locks out of the way, so Dar could get the oil all the way up the back of her neck. "You think it'll stick?"

"For a while." Dar glanced at the bottle. "Theoretically waterproof, but we'll take it with us. I don't want to get toasted, and I know you don't either."

"Nuh uh." Kerry simply stood in place, enjoying the strong hands giving her a massage in the process of protecting her hide. "Dar, can I ask you something?"

"Sure."

"Aren't you at all curious as to what those two are up to?"

"No."

Kerry looked up into the mirror, watching her partner's face as she worked. Dar's expression was relaxed and calm, and when the blue eyes lifted and met hers, there was no evasiveness in them. "Really?"

"Nah." Dar shook her head. Then she half shrugged one shoulder. "I mean, I guess I don't want to see them run us out of town, and I guess we're going to have to sit down and really analyze what they're doing...what their plan is...if they've really got something different that we can't compete with, that sort of thing."

"But you don't care that it's them?"

"No."

"Hm."

"Do you?" Dar studied her for a moment. Kerry's face twitched a little, her jaw muscles bunching as she considered. "You think it's personal?"

Kerry took the oil and capped it. She gestured for Dar to turn and precede her from the bathroom, and didn't speak until she'd tucked the bottle into the small pack she'd planned on carrying and fastened it around her. "I think it might be, yeah," she admitted, as they walked to the door and exited into the hallway. "But maybe that's only my green eyes talking."

Dar touched the button for the elevator, maintaining a thoughtful silence.

They walked through the lobby, and out to the bus stop. Kerry removed her sunglasses from her waistband and settled them firmly onto her nose. They took a seat together to wait for the correct bus, wincing a little as their bodies had to adapt from the air conditioned comfort of the hotel to the sauna-like heat outside.

"I think I just realized somewhere along the way this past year I grew up," Dar said, out of the blue. "Maybe they do have personal motives, but I don't give a crap. I don't have time in my life for their dramas."

Kerry flicked an adventurous love bug away from her bare knee. She could already feel sweat gathering under her light clothing, and she was looking forward to the cool kiss of the water at their current destination.

She'd realized the past year that though she chose to live in the subtropics, she didn't much like breathing swamp air most of the time and saved her excursions in the summer for the early morning and late evening hours. "That's an interesting point of view."

Dar shrugged. "Would you rather go to the convention center and mess with them?" she asked bluntly. "You having second thoughts about our being out today?"

"No." Kerry shook her head. "That's not it at all, Dar."

"Then what's the problem?"

Did she have a problem?
Kerry frowned, feeling the edges of her own temper prickle. "Did I say I had a problem?" she asked, half turning to face her partner.

Dar merely raised her eyebrows, folding her arms across her chest in mute eloquence.

Kerry exhaled, looking up as their bus approached. "I don't have a problem. I want to make sure my job is covered." She got up and started for the door. "We get paid a lot of money to do what we do. I don't want to think I'm blowing that responsibility off."

"Blowing what responsibility off?" Dar asked. "You weren't supposed to be here today, remember?"

"I know," Kerry admitted. "I guess maybe finding out what we found out last night...what if they start something?"

Dar climbed up after her, and they took seats near the middle of the bus. Dar stretched her legs out and studied the neatly folded half socks peeking over the edge of her sneakers. "Hmph."

Several other guests filed in behind them including a family with three or four children, all wide-eyed and excited as their parents corralled them in the back. Dar watched them for a few minutes, and then she glanced at Kerry's profile.

Kerry looked back at her at the same time. "If it is personal, and they are gunning for us, it's going to sting them like hell if we don't show up."

Dar grinned like a pirate, her eyes twinkling. "You think?"

"It's like we don't consider them a worthwhile threat," Kerry went on, giving her taller companion a poke in the shoulder. "You're too freaking smart for your own good, Paladar."

"You're not so bad yourself." Dar leaned back. "If it makes you feel any better, yeah, my gut instincts were to go over there and just run roughshod over everyone, micro-managing every detail like a concierge on steroids," she admitted. "But strategically, since we're already a jump ahead of them, it makes sense to steer clear and let them all scramble."

"Mm."

Dar gazed at the roof of the bus. "And it's a great rationalization for me to just do what I want to do anyway." She cleared her throat. "Which is spend the day having fun with you."

"Ah." Kerry surrendered with a wry chuckle. "Is this a case of the action plan having two parallel goals?" she asked. "Or are we simply coming up with good excuses for ourselves?" After reviewing her words, and the stillness of Dar's face, she held a hand up. "Okay, truce. Scratch that."

The bus trundled over a myriad of bumps in the road, and eventually pulled into the water park. The door opened, and through the heat Kerry caught a whiff of sun warmed concrete and chlorine. She followed Dar down the steps and stayed behind her a step as they walked toward the entrance.

Well, screw it. With a shake of her head, Kerry increased the length of her strides and caught up to her partner, deliberately bumping her with her shoulder.

Dar looked at her, then bumped her back. "Done wrestling with your conscience?"

"Mm." Kerry patted her cell phone. "If they need us, we're here," she concluded. "Besides, what the heck could happen at a trade show before it even opens?"

They showed their passes at the gate and were admitted, the sounds of splashing and laughter already beginning to surround them much as the scent of the water did. They secured a locker and Kerry stripped off her shirt and shorts, stuffing them and the rest of her gear into the small space. Save the phone, which she snapped into a waterproof housing before looping the lanyard on the case around her neck. Then she picked up her towel, and joined her now swimsuit-clad companion as they headed out into the sun.

DAR HOISTED HERSELF out of the wave pool for the nth time, shaking herself free of a spray of chlorinated water as she waited for Kerry to join her. Kerry was heading her way, towing a body board behind her with a big grin on her face. "Nice one," Dar complimented her.