Dilara nodded somberly, then turned and looked at her family. “They all know Damia was very psychic. She knew things. Many things. And her husband, Bulent, listened closely to her wise counsel. And because of her, Artemis Shipping became the largest shipping company on earth. She was a powerful woman, Dara, but then, so are you. And how interesting that her name starts with a ‘D’ and so does yours. There is synchronicity here. Amazing.”
“Oh,” Dara said, holding up her hand, “I’m hardly psychic. I’m intuitive about babies and children, but this is something else.” She turned to Matt, smiling up at him. “You have your great-grandmother’s gift of sight, don’t you?” She saw Matt’s cheeks redden instantly and he dodged her gaze.
Uncle Ihsan spoke up and said, “Matthew has the Sight. And how astute of you to see that, sweet Dara.”
Dara became serious. “Uncle Ihsan, I saw him using it when we were running for our lives to escape the Taliban. He was sensing, and I could feel it. At the time, I didn’t understand it, but later, I figured it out.”
“It’s nothing,” Matt muttered, trying to tamp down everyone’s acclaim over his abilities. “I’ve always had a strong sixth sense. It’s saved me and my men so many times I’ve lost count.”
Dilara gave her son a raised eyebrow that spoke volumes. “There is a very good reason why your middle name is Aslan. There is a line of warriors in our family who fought like lions to protect our Turkish family from the Golden Horde. You come from that line, Matthew. And their spirit guardian, that courageous lion, watches over you.” She gestured toward Dara. “And so it will be for Dara and all the children you have. It is a blessing that is woven into the more mystic part of our great family.” She smiled knowingly.
There was silence in the room for the first time. Dara saw the three Turkish uncles and aunts gravely nodding their heads. This was a very complex family, with so many layers that Dara knew it would take her years, maybe decades, to discover, decipher, and understand who they were.
“See?” Dara said, prodding him with her elbow. “Own it, Culver.”
The room broke into giggles and titters.
“Well, I’m not the only one who has inherited that sixth sense,” Matt said, hoping to move the spotlight off himself. “Tal has it too. Don’t you, big sis?”
Tal was sitting with Wyatt on the couch. “Sure I do. I was good at being a sniper. I could always sense things, and I used it. That’s why I’m sitting here today.”
“Well,” Dilara said proudly, pointing at Alexa, who sat with her cousins, “she also has the gift.”
Alexa, who had red hair like Dilara and Uncle Berk’s hazel eyes, said, “Guilty as charged,” and she grinned at Matt. “I think all the kids got that gift from Great-grandma Damia, don’t you?”
Matt nodded. “Let’s not leave out our telepathic mother, huh?” He pointed to Dilara.
“Oh, pooh! You accuse me of being a mind reader and I’m not! I’m just very good at having deep insight into people. Often I’m able to know what they are thinking or what they’ll do next.”
Robert chuckled, his arm around his wife’s proud shoulders. “And you can take that to the bank.”
John and his wife, Candy, and Pete and his wife, Trish, all laughed with knowing nods. John said, “As if Dilara hasn’t helped you in the stock and bond market, Robert? Give credit where credit’s due, huh?”
Robert said, “You’re right, John. She’s scary intuitive about what stocks I should buy and sell.”
“And so far,” Dilara said archly, “you are quite well-off financially as a result of listening to your wife, are you not, husband?”
“Indeed I am,” Robert admitted, smiling over at his wife. “I’m the luckiest man in the world to have you in my life.”
Dara felt her heart swell. Now she knew where Matt had gotten that ability to be vulnerable: from his powerful father. It was unusual that a father could be emotionally available with his children, but clearly, the three siblings were very much like him in that regard. It was a good thing in Dara’s opinion.
“Well,” Maria gushed to Dara, “you must allow me to help you with all the wedding plans when you and Matt decide to set a date!”
Instantly, there was a cry from the Turkish camp, all three aunts standing up loudly protesting in Turkish, urging Dara and Matt to allow them to help in the planning, too.
Matt held up his hand. “Hold on, hold on,” he pleaded in three languages. Grinning, he cocked his head in Dara’s direction. “They all want to help in planning our wedding, whenever you want to get married.”
Dara smiled warmly at all of them. And then she looked up at Matt. “Would it be too wild and crazy an idea for us to be married in Kuşadası? You love that place so much, and you were born there. I’ve never been there, but from what you said, it sounds so beautiful, sitting on the Aegean Sea.”
Maria pouted, giving Dara a hurt look.
The Turkish aunts yelled, screamed, jumped up and down, and grabbed one another, dancing in a circle, celebrating Dara’s decision.
Matt smiled. “I’d really like that, thanks.” And then, being the diplomat he was, he said, “What do you think of spending our honeymoon in Greece? We could stay at Cousin Angelo and Maria’s villa on the slopes of Mount Olympus, home of the gods and goddesses.”
Maria swooned with joy, leaping to her feet, coming over and giving Matt a huge bear hug, and then hugging Dara, thanking them.
“Oh, we would love that,” Maria cried, jubilant. “Why, we could have the wedding in Kuşadası and then we could fly you back to Athens with us!” Her light brown eyes sparkled with excitement. Gripping Dara’s hand, she said, “Wouldn’t that be wonderful? We have a lovely villa in the mountains. It’s where we go to escape the blisteringly hot summers in Athens. It’s so beautiful! You would love it, Dara. Please say yes?”
“Yes,” Dara said, laughing and hugging Maria, who then burst into tears of joy and relief that they would not be left out on this important and momentous occasion within the family.
Matt smiled and handed Maria a handkerchief from his back pocket.
Cousin Angelo came up, embraced his sobbing wife, and beamed at them, thanking them. Then he guided Maria back to the couch.
“Now everyone’s happy,” Tal called, chortling. “Well played, you two grand strategists!”
Matt looked at Dara. “What will your folks think?”
“Oh,” Maria shouted, waving her hand, “no worries! We will fly them into Kuşadası!”
“No, no,” Uncle Berk thundered, “the wedding is taking place in Greece! We will fly Dara’s family in for it! That is only right and just!”
Dara laughed and held up her hands. She knew Uncle Berk was an international lawyer of great repute. “I think we can talk about this at a later date, and I’m sure my folks will want to be there for our wedding. We can work out the details some other time, okay? We’ll include all of you on any email about our wedding plans.”
Clearly, this highly emotional family might go to war over such a detail, and it was, after all, Christmas Day—a day of peace and love. She heard Matt chuckle and he slid her a congratulatory glance for demonstrating her own brand of statesmanship.
“It’s a good thing you’re a born diplomat, because now you see how the three of us got tugged around here and there between America, Turkey and Greece,” Matt said wryly, smiling at his happy family.
Her smile blossomed. “Yes, but you are all so well loved.” And to Dara, that was the most important thing a family could share among them. There was so much love here, she felt clothed in it. There was no fighting. No hard feelings. Everyone got along with one another. They all had very defined personalities, big ones, but they didn’t step on one another. There was natural respect and equality shared among them. If only they could bottle that and give it to the world, there would be peace and love instead of the wars that now littered earth.
Dara squeezed Matt’s hand and said, “Now you’re really going to
have to get me started on speaking and understanding Turkish and Greek.”
“Don’t worry,” he promised, “I will. It’s a necessity. When they get excited, they drop into their home language, and then all bets are off.”
*
Dara awoke slowly the day after Christmas. It was a picture postcard outside her window. Big, fat snowflakes twirled lazily through the gray sky and landed on the white-coated earth below. She lay at Matt’s side and could feel him sleeping deeply. The last thing they had talked about before going to bed last night was taking his last week of leave and going over to the Hawaiian Islands. Dara had never been to them. Matt had suggested that after they visited her family, Callie, and Beau in Montana, they could fly to Honolulu, on the island of Oahu. He told her he’d been to the Kaneohe Bay Marine Corps Air Station near the capital many times, on jungle training missions. He thought she might like to stay there for a week. Nothing sounded more exciting to her. She had vacation coming from the hospital and would put in for it. This was like an extra Christmas present to Dara and she looked forward to spending quality one-on-one time with Matt.
She didn’t want to disturb him as she rested her head on his shoulder and closed her eyes, simply absorbing his warmth, that latent strength that reminded her of a beautiful male lion in repose.
Her hand was lying against his chest, and his breath was slow and steady. They had made love twice and her body glowed in molten memory, fully satiated. Matt’s ability to love her left her floating even now. Never had she met a man so focused on giving his partner all the satisfaction she could handle.
Matt stirred, his arm tightening momentarily around her naked shoulders. He wiped his opening eyes.
Dara lifted her head away just enough to meet those cloudy gold eyes.
“What woke you?” she asked, her voice low and husky sounding with sleep.
“I don’t know,” he muttered thickly, turning on his side, pulling her fully against him, his hand lingering over her hips, caressing her cheeks. “But I sure as hell like waking up with you in my arms every morning. This is something I want to get used to.” The corners of his mouth hooked upward as he placed a kiss on her brow.
“Me too,” Dara sighed, nuzzling his neck and jaw, placing small kisses here and there. As Matt slid his fingers through her mussed hair, he made a growling sound of satisfaction in his throat.
Her skin skittered with heated sensations as his fingers began to slowly massage her scalp.
“Umm,” she said, “that feels wonderful. You really know how to spoil me.” Dara heard that lionlike rumble in his chest.
“I’m going to spoil you rotten, guaranteed,” Matt promised, kissing her temple.
She lay there beneath his slow, light ministrations, her whole body glowing with pleasure wherever he slid his fingers across her. “I don’t want us to ever end,” she whispered, moving her hand to his right shoulder, skimming his taut flesh, feeling it respond to her.
“I’ll be home soon enough,” Matt promised her, his voice deep with emotion. “Then we can start a life together.”
“You’ll be busy getting Artemis online. And I’ll be finishing up my residency.”
“Yes,” he said, holding her gaze as he moved up on his elbow, “but we’ll be home every night. I won’t be any busier than you, doc.” He gave her a teasing look. “You just worked two eight-hour shifts. I won’t be doing that. But you might, sweetheart, until you finish your residency.”
He slid his fingers through her hair, easing it away from her cheek. “And bullets aren’t going to be thrown at me, either. That’s the best news ever.” Matt grinned.
She smiled and nodded, drowning in the heat of his gaze. “The very best,” she agreed.
He lifted his chin, studying the clock on the dresser. “Hey, we slept late. It’s nine a.m.”
“Late for us, for sure,” Dara agreed. She still didn’t feel like moving out of this man’s arms. Was it possible to get too much sex? Dara didn’t think so and smiled to herself.
“We’re going to be busy today,” he said. “We’ve got to pack and get ready to go to Montana, to fly up to your folks’ ranch.” He smiled a little, studying her in the gray light. “You and Callie need time together.”
She sighed. “I miss her so much. And I want to be there for her, Matt. I know she’s going through a lot. I can feel it.”
“I know you do,” he rasped, kissing her lips gently, cupping her cheek, drawing her more deeply into the melding of their mouths.
How Dara loved this man’s kisses. As he slowly lifted his mouth away from hers, she held his hooded gaze, her whole body humming now with further need of him. “I’ll call her after breakfast and just touch base with her.”
“Yes, and find out if we can get from the airport to their ranch, or if they had ten feet of snow overnight,” he chuckled.
“No worries there,” she said. “My grandfather Graham has a grader, and believe me, he knows how to push serious snow off our dirt road to get us in and out of the ranch.”
“You need to wrap Callie’s Christmas gift,” he reminded her.
Nodding, she said, “I’ll knit Beau a pair of slippers today. It won’t take me long. He should have some kind of Christmas gift from us, even if it’s a late one.”
Matt drank in her softly shadowed face, drinking in the beauty of her blue eyes. “That’s one of the many things I love about you, Dara. Your care and thoughtfulness for others. You’re a natural.”
“Is there any other way to be?”
Matt slowly sat up and leaned against the headboard, bringing her across him so she could rest her head on his right shoulder. “Sure. There are lots of selfish, narcissistic people in the world who never give a thought to anyone else but themselves. You and Callie aren’t like that at all.”
“Neither is your big, noisy, happy family,” she teased, laughing a little as she smoothed her palm against his chest.
“Yeah, they are all of that,” Matt agreed warmly, smiling, cradling her in his arms. “I think Uncle Ihsan has a crush on you. He has good taste, I have to admit.”
She shrugged. “He’s a doll. All I find myself wanting to do is hug him forever. He reminds me so much of Rumi. The Persian poet? I read Rumi when I was in premed at the university and fell in love with his poetry. It was all about love, in all its facets.”
“Rumi was a Sufi Muslim,” Matt said.
“I know. And I think of all your Turkish relatives, Uncle Ihsan personifies Rumi, his love, his care, and his compassion for everyone and everything.”
“You should see him at a board meeting,” Matt said, giving her a wry look. “Don’t forget, they run the largest shipping line in the world. Uncle Ihsan can get pretty locked into a meeting where the fur is flying.” He grinned as he recalled those times.
“Have you attended those meetings?”
“Yes, when we’d go over every summer to stay with them, Uncle Berk, who is the no-nonsense lawyer and businessman, insisted that the three of us attend them. He said we couldn’t talk, just listen, and we’d learn a lot. We sure did.”
“Why did they do that? You were only children.”
“Because someday, I think Uncle Berk wants us on the board, and he wanted us to learn what it’s like to run a multibillion-dollar shipping company.”
“But don’t each of the uncles have children?”
“Uncle Ihsan doesn’t, but Uncle Berk and Serkan do. Some of them, like Tay, who is Uncle Serkan’s oldest son, work every day in the shipping company.”
“What about the rest of the kids?”
Matt’s mouth quirked. “You’d think all the kids would be into shipping because it’s a family legacy, but they aren’t. Uncle Serkan’s daughter, Dilan, is a world-famous model. Uncle Berk’s son Kagan owns a polo stable and rides in polo matches around the world. Kagan’s younger brother, Turan, helps his mother, Pinar, run the Delos charities. His heart is in helping others.” He smiled down at her. “Like you. When you meet him, yo
u’ll like him right away. He’s an introvert, very devoted to the charities.”
“Are the children all married with children of their own?”
“No, none of them are. They’re all single.”
“That’s odd.”
“Not really,” Matt said. “They’re Turkish, and although divorces are allowed in that country, they were all taught that you’d better make sure you’re not only in love with the person you want to marry, but that you remain married to them the rest of your life. These five-minute marriages are not popular in Turkey or the Muslim community.”
“Did that mind-set rub off on you?” Dara asked.
“You’d better believe it did. But as an operator, I knew I didn’t want to have a family while still in the Army. My wife would worry endlessly about me, plus I wouldn’t be around to be a father to any children we’d have. That wouldn’t be fair to any of them. Or to me.”
“I’m glad I met you when I did,” Dara whispered, reaching up, her lips caressing his. She held his golden gaze. “Because I want to carry your baby, Matthew Culver …”
He groaned, taking her mouth, holding her tightly, all the love he held for this brave woman in his kiss. There was nothing else in this world as important as Dara. She had danced into his life in the most unexpected way and the most godforsaken, remote place in the world. Now Dara enriched his life, fed his heart and soul, made him dream of having a family, knowing they would be so well loved by his global relations. It would take time, but they had time. His world was changing dramatically, but it was in a direction he’d yearned to go in for so many years. He had earned a happy ending, and he intended to enjoy his life with a loving family that made it worth living.
The End
Don’t miss Lindsay McKenna’s next DELOS series novel
Broken Dreams,
Coming to you in January 2016!
Excerpt:
Broken Dreams, Book 4, Delos Series
Alexa didn’t want the night to end as Gage parked the Humvee and turned off the engine. They sat quietly in the vehicle, neither speaking. For two hours, they’d eaten, stuffed themselves, and talked intimately about her family. She kept plying him with stories that made him smile. One time, he’d actually laughed, and it had made her heart beat fast because Gage’s entire expression changed, taking her breath away.
Forged in Fire (Delos Series Book 3) Page 31
