"Uhng?"
"I gotta go get something to drink."
Kerry produced a sound somewhere between a whine and a groan.
"You too?"
Kerry lifted her head and observed the pitching deck. She nodded, and eased back so Dar could get up from the couch, waiting until her partner had pulled herself up before she attempted to follow.
"No, stay here. I"ll bring you one," Dar objected.
"Unh uh." Kerry determinedly crawled after her. "Y" need both hands." She held on to the couch and pulled herself along, following Dar into the galley.
It was easier there, because there was so little room they could wedge themselves between the wall and the counter. Dar raked her fingers through her hair and opened the small refrigerator, grabbing hold of the counter as the boat pitched sideways. "d.a.m.n it."
Kerry b.u.mped her impatiently. "Moo."
Dar handed over the milk jug and took a bottle of Yoohoo for herself. She closed the door and braced her foot up against the counter, freeing both hands to open the can and hold it.
Kerry did the same, and they drank in silence together for several moments. Then Kerry wiped the back of her hand across her lips and cleared her throat. "Paladar?"
Dar was caught in mid-gulp. "Mmph?"
"Next time, we call the police."
"Mm?"
"Or the Coast Guard, or the Army, or the Navy, or the Secret Service, or whoever, whatever it takes," Kerry rasped. "Because we"re not going to do that ever again."
Dar put her Yoohoo down in the sink and leaned over, kissing Kerry on the lips for a long, sweet moment. Then she backed off a few inches and looked Kerry in the eye. "Deal."
Kerry licked her lips. Then for good measure, she licked Dar"s, but her face grew serious. "I thought I"d lost you," she whispered.
"I was going insane."
From somewhere inside her, some echo, some inner core rarely tapped, Dar smiled. "Take more than that a.s.shole and his entire crew put together to make me leave you," she replied, resting her head against Kerry"s, the image of the gun, and the click, and the horror already fading. "Way more."
Kerry studied Dar"s face. "Were you scared?" she asked. "I was."
Was I? "I think I was too freaked out to be scared," Dar admitted, then fell silent, her brow creasing.*327 Kerry took another swallow of milk, washing the taste of salt from her mouth with a sense of relief. "We should get dry," she said. "I feel like warmed over puppy poo." She held on as the boat rolled again. "But hey...you know we did it."
"We did it," Dar confirmed softly. "Bud"s okay. We"re all okay." Slowly, she slid one arm around Kerry and hugged her carefully.
Kerry put down the milk jug and returned the hug, pressing her body up against Dar"s despite their mutual dampness. Then she pulled back a little and looked at Dar"s chest. "Oh."
Dar looked down, at the pin. "Yeah. Don"t know why he did that."
The blonde woman looked at it for a long moment, then tipped her head up to look at Dar. "Honey, you saved his life," she said with a little frown. "Don"t you remember?" From the expression on Dar"s face, Kerry knew she didn"t. "You did. When we were in the little boat before you...before that b.a.s.t.a.r.d hit you."
The pale blue eyes shifted and lost focus, then Dar gave her head a little shake. "I don"t remember. I remember getting out of the cabin...those guys were running around..."
"Dad was in the boat. They focused a light on us," Kerry told her. "The guy on the yacht had a gun and he was going to shoot Dad. You tackled him."
"I did?" Dar vaguely remembered being angry, and a lot of yelling, and... "Oh. Yeah." The smell of hot blood came back to her.
"Now I remember," she murmured. "Wow."
Kerry put her arms around her partner and hugged her again, tightly.
"Let"s go change." Dar rocked her back and forth. "Then see if they need any help up there."
Kerry felt a faint laugh shake her body. "With three sailors driving?"
"Yeah." Dar started to move toward the bedroom with Kerry stuck to her like a barnacle. "It"s my name on the captain"s license."
"Little late to be worried about that."
"Mm."
Chapter.
Twenty-seven.
THE MARINA AT St. Thomas was in total chaos. Boats from all over were coming in to shelter there from the storm, and the tossing whitecaps made the possibility of collision a very real danger.
Dar put on her rain slicker and climbed up to the flying bridge to join Andrew as they rumbled at just over idling speed in a holding pattern. "What a mess," she murmured to her father.
"Yeap," Andrew agreed. "Told them dockmasters we had us a problem. They"re getting us a slip," he informed her. "How"s Kerry doing?"
"She"s all right," Dar said.
Andrew studied her. "You doing all right?"
Dar nodded. "I feel like I was. .h.i.t by a bus, but other than that, Mr. Lincoln, I enjoyed the play." She sat down in one of the seats at the console and rested her hands on it.
Her father chuckled. "Tough day."
"h.e.l.l yes." Dar tried to remember the start of it and found she simply couldn"t. "Crazy." She glanced down the pin on her shirt, then looked over at her father. "I... um..." She touched the pin and shrugged one shoulder.
Andrew leaned on the console next to her. "Tell you something," he said in a mild tone. "Ain"t never been nothing you ever done Ah wasn"t proud of."
Dar interrupted him with quiet finality. "You don"t know everything I"ve done."
Her father gazed at her. "That"s all right, Dardar. You ain"t heard everything Ah done, neither."
Their eyes met in a moment of uncommon understanding. Dar nodded slightly and looked away, folding her hands together in an oddly pensive gesture. "Gotcha."
"Anyhow," Andy said, "one thing you can"t teach n.o.body is guts and when to use "em." He studied Dar"s profile. "Ah"m a d.a.m.n lucky feller you got "em and you know."
Dar stared at a droplet of rain trickling down the gas gauge. "I didn"t even think about it," she admitted. "I just..."*329 "Yeap." Andrew patted her on the back.
Unwilling to think about the logical extension of their talk and what she"d ended up doing, she went for a subject change. "I owe you a big one, Dad." Dar leaned her elbows on the console. "I was pretty much out of my depth here."
Andrew shrugged a little. "Happens."
Dar looked out over the harbor chaos. "Yeah," she murmured.
"But where do we go from here?" She glanced sideways. "Who do we tell about this? The cops? The Coast Guard?"
Her father tapped his thumbs together, giving her a surprisingly furtive look. "Let"s see what"s left coming back of those fellers," he said. "Ain"t no point in telling more than you hafta."
Dar"s head dropped forward a little. "Are you saying we should cover this up?" she asked in an incredulous tone. "Dad, they kidnapped Bud, they almost killed us! What the h.e.l.l!"
Andrew stared evenly at her. "Chances are, they already done paid for that," he stated. "Paladar."
Dar stared back. "You think they sank," she said. "And-"
"Ah do," her father agreed. "And Ah do not feel sorry for that, and you shouldn"t neither."
Dar sat back in her chair, her heart thumping erratically in her chest. "Could we have-"
"No, ma"am." Andrew shook his head firmly. "We got lucky to get out of that storm our own selves, and you know that."
She knew. "I called the Coast Guard for them," she admitted.
Andrew"s face wrinkled into a frown. "You done a step more than Ah woulda," he said. "So...wall, let"s see what comes of that then. Ain"t likely they found nothing, neither."
Dar stared at her hands, clenched on the console. "You taught me-"
"Yeah, Ah know." Her father laid a hand on her shoulder. "But that was a long time back, Dar. Learned me about some rules between then and now."
The rain cleared a little in front of them, and Dar could now see some order in the boats being shifted. "Like the difference between what"s right, and what"s legal?" she asked, watching his profile.
He gave a half shrug. "Somethin" like that."
Well. Dar wasn"t sure if she should be relieved, nervous, or disappointed. Maybe she was just too tired to really care all that much about moral issues she couldn"t do anything about at the moment. "Okay." She nodded. "Let"s see what happens, I guess.
Sorry we had to end up in such a d.a.m.n mess."
He relaxed, giving her shoulder a pat. "Seems to me like you done all right," Andy replied. "I figured you two had things covered "til Kerry done sent that last note, about Bud and all." He 330*
shook his head. "Took me one of them there seaplanes over." He paused. "Ah do not like them things."
Dar had to smile. "Me neither." She watched through the rain as the lights seemed to diminish ahead of them. The radio crackled.
"Dixieland Yankee, dockmaster. Come on in."
Dar picked up the mic. "Dockmaster, this is Dixieland. We copy." She set the device down and straightened. "Want me to take her in?"
Andrew eyed her. "You speculating on mah driving, young lady?" he asked. "Ah am not the one who-"
"I"ve gotten better since then," Dar interrupted.
"So Kerry was saying." Andy slid over and offered her the pilot"s seat. "G"wan."
Dar took the controls and settled into the chair, still warm from her father"s body. She curled her fingers around the throttles and adjusted them, focusing her attention on the dark sea before her. On ether side of them, the channel markers bobbled wildly, barely visible in the high surf. Slowly the engines overcame the chop and they were moving forward through the cl.u.s.ter of boats on either side. "Kerry"s got coffee downstairs if you"re interested," Dar remarked, keeping her eyes flicking over the patch of water just in front of them.
Andrew grunted. "Ah"d rather not," he answered. "This here "pears to be more fun watching."
It wasn"t fun doing. Dar concentrated on navigating the obstacles, guiding the big craft through the channel littered with smaller boats. Some were trying to get out of their way or stay out of their way, but others were being tossed by the weather to the point where their pilots had little control.
Dar half stood, her weight coming up onto her thighs as she gave the engines a little more diesel. "d.a.m.n." The rain came down harder, almost obscuring her view and making the surface near indistinguishable. She could feel the wind rising at her back, and a gust fluttered her slicker hard against her body. And yet, she felt no fear. "You ever been scared out in weather like this, Dad?" Dar asked in sudden curiosity.
"Naw," Andrew replied absently. "Part of bein" a seaman is knowin" you"re a part of all that," he said. "Can"t control it; no sense in being scared of it."
Mm. Dar felt the rhythm of the sea under her and understood what he meant. She followed the riffle of the waves, carving a careful path through them.
A sailboat heeled with sickening suddenness. It arced into their path, not a length in front of the bow. Dar reacted, swinging to her right and gunning the engines. The wind shoved the sailboat just shy of their hull, the spar sc.r.a.ping lightly against them before*331 falling free. In the rain, she could just barely see its crew frantically working to regain control of their sheets, and was more than glad to have the secure power of her engines under her. The seawall loomed ahead, and Dar was glad to see most of the boats keeping well clear of it.
"Careful there, Dar," Andrew murmured. "Got a strong riptide coming in."
"I feel it," Dar answered, and did, through her legs. "Hold on."
She turned the boat into the wind and increased the power to the engines, now able to hear their rumble above the weather. The boat surged against the waves, cresting them and fighting against the strong current. She gave the engines full power and they surged past the jetty, heading full on into the cl.u.s.ter of boats beyond it.
Dar heard her father inhale, and she grinned privately as she cut the throttles and swung the bow around. The current picked them up and turned them very neatly into the center of the marina channel. Dar edged the throttles forward again slightly and headed for the concrete docks.
"Son of a biscuit." Andrew chuckled. "d.a.m.ned if you can"t drive this here bus."
Dar approached the docks and swung around to the larger ones. She could see a cl.u.s.ter of people waiting at the empty slip they"d been a.s.signed, and she thought she saw medical personnel.
The waves were rushing up against the docks, breaking over them and dousing the watchers. Ordinarily, she would have let the boat drift gently in, but the tide was running the wrong way. Dar swung the boat into line, then set the engines into reverse, allowing the water to pull them very grudgingly into the slip. The dockmasters had already thrown b.u.mpers over the side, and she skillfully maneuvered into place until her hull just touched them.
Two of the men on the dock hopped on board and grabbed their lines. Dar cut the engines and sat back, c.o.c.king her head and giving her father a questioning look. "Better than when I was ten?"
Andy ruffled her damp hair affectionately. "Good job," he complimented seriously. "You"da made a d.a.m.n good sailor, Dar."
Dar crossed her arms and smiled. "Thanks." She glanced behind her. "Guess we"d better get moving. Kerry and I have a room up at one of the hotels, if it"s still open in this mess. We can probably get you in there." She stood up and eased around the console chair.