CHAPTER 22
Teren loved Nolan’s two-story, mid-nineteenth-century Virginia farmhouse. They stood together on the redbrick walk, which had a herringbone pattern, looking at it with appreciation. The fall afternoon was warm and the smell of decaying leaves permeated her senses. She was jet-lagged but couldn’t deny how appealing the white farmhouse with dark brown shutters was—it felt like home to her. Leaning wearily against Nolan, his arm across her shoulders, she whispered, “It’s beautiful, Nolan. Did you know? I love antiques and anything from another era?”
“No I didn’t, but that’s good to hear. This place is old all right, and it needs a lot of TLC. I think after I roll up my sleeves and get to repairing it, it’ll be a home you can love even more.” He gazed over at Teren, seeing her tender glance toward him.
She knew how much he’d gone through for her, but she didn’t know that he’d feared their love might not weather the storm that surrounded her. Looking at her now, Nolan knew it was his fear from the past that was eating at him. Teren loved him. Period. That wasn’t going to change.
“I love the wraparound porch,” she said, gesturing to it. “And the swing. I love swings.”
“You never told me that.”
She smiled faintly, drowning in his eyes, absorbing his quiet stability, the effortless way his care embraced her and made her feel as if everything was going to be all right. “We never had time to talk about things like this, did we?”
“Well,” he said gruffly, “we will now.”
Nodding, Teren’s gaze moved across the railing around the porch. At one time, it had been a screened-in porch, but that was now gone. “Are the mosquitoes in Virginia like the ones in Kentucky, always pests during the summer months?”
“Yep,” he said. “Which is why I’m going to put up new screens next spring. I’d like us to use that swing on the porch and not be constantly batting at them.”
The trees surrounding the farmhouse formed a palette of orange, yellow, and red colors against the backdrop of the green pasture behind the home. There was a red barn, two stories high, with paint peeling off the sides; the roof was rounded and the shingles looked worn.
Still, Teren felt a new surge of hope slowly moving through her. The place was in a cul-de-sac at the end of a narrow asphalt road. The wooden rail fencing needed a lot of TLC, too. “I wonder,” she murmured, resting her head against Nolan’s shoulder, “if the former owners loved this place as much as you do.”
“I’m sure they did. But it’s fallen into disrepair over the last twenty-five years.”
“Was it abandoned?”
“No. The last surviving family member died two years ago, and there were no heirs, so it was put on the market by the family attorney and it finally found a new owner: me.”
“I’m sure that house rang with happiness and laughter, tears and loss, and now holds many memories,” she whispered, gazing at it.
He pressed a kiss to her hair. “I’d like to make new memories in it with you, Teren,” he said, and saw her love for him reflected in the depths of her eyes. “How do you feel about that?” Inwardly, Nolan held his breath. He knew Teren was jet-lagged and emotionally strung out, but he needed to give her a foundation for her new life. “This will be a place where we can create new memories. Where we can dream together, and you can envision the colors you’d like to have in each of the rooms. The outside of the house can be any color you like. You can put antiques you’ve chosen in them and make this a real home for us.”
“Yes . . . yes, that sounds wonderful, Nolan. I don’t want a life without you in it. I know it’s too soon, but now we have the time. Here,” she moved her chin in the direction of the farmhouse, “we aren’t under threat. We’re safe here. We can relax, be ourselves, and have a real chance to explore one another.”
She slid her fingers across his jaw, which needed to be shaved. “This farmhouse sort of looks like both of us right now: in a state of becoming. I love the symbolism, the overlay of how it looks and how each of us was abandoned in one way or another. But now, here we are, together. We have each other.”
Teren watched his eyes grow dark with emotion, narrowing hungrily as he gazed at her. She went on, “Things happen for reasons, I’ve seen that in my own life. I’ve had time to think and feel my way through the stages of my life, and so far, I’m a better person now than before. My own family doesn’t accept who I am, but Uncle Ayman and the people of Kitra welcomed me with open arms. They loved me just the way I am. They didn’t try to change me.” She cupped Nolan’s cheek, a fierce love tunneling through her. “You welcomed me the same way. I feel like I’m growing, I’m opening up, blooming. I’ve been moved from one family I love in Sudan to this new family here, with you.”
He slid his hands across her shoulders, feeling no tension in them. The way she languidly leaned against him made Nolan’s heart soar. “We’ll make a family, Teren. That’s my promise to you. Whatever you want…I want it for you. I want you happy. I like hearing your laugh. I love holding you in my arms at night, holding you close to me in bed. I like hearing you think out loud, how you see life around you, how it touches and affects you.” He leaned down, taking her lips, feeling her instant response, that happy sound vibrating in her slender throat as he deepened the kiss with her.
His world melted and dissolved beneath her mouth, her lips gliding against his; he felt her arms tighten around his shoulders, her fingers sliding through his short hair at the nape of his neck. She smelled so good to him, felt so alive and soft within his tight embrace, and Nolan absorbed the joy surrounding them.
As Teren eased her lips from his, he stared down and saw desire in her stormy gray eyes. “And now I’m going to carry you over the threshold,” he growled, and he swept her up into his arms. Teren gave a surprised, happy laugh, her arms around his neck, her brow pressed against his jaw as he walked to the porch and climbed the creaking wooden stairs. Nolan unlocked the door and pushed it open with the toe of his boot. Light poured in through the curtained windows, flooding the foyer. He carried her to the right, into a high-ceilinged, formal living room. It was one of two places he’d already been working on to bring back to its original nineteenth-century charm.
Easing her down but keeping his arm around her waist, Nolan watched Teren take in the warm, bright room. He’d chosen American rococo revival antiques and a rosewood sofa with a small bird pattern of blue silk. There was an armchair, plus two sitting chairs with it. The huge redbrick fireplace went from floor to ceiling. There was a sideboard along one wall from the same period, and the wallpaper matched the period as well—pale cream with small lavender buds of roses and green leaves here and there. The matching cream-colored curtains were filmy, drawn back to allow the afternoon light to flood the room. They, too, were designed with plants and flowers throughout the texture of the fabric.
“This,” Teren breathed in amazement, “is gorgeous, Nolan.” She looked up at him. “Was it like this when you bought it? Or did you decorate it?”
“No, it was a gutted empty room,” he said. “The floor was in bad shape and I replaced it with a light-colored oak that had originally been installed in it. The carpet beneath the sofa and chairs I bought from an antique dealer in Alexandria, which I think you’ll love to explore. This is a hand-woven striped eighteenth-century rug. The rosewood furniture I got at an estate sale in the Shenandoah Valley, west of here.”
“So,” she said, “you used your weekends to hunt for just the right pieces?”
“Yep,” he said, looking at the joy shining in her eyes. “Do you like what I’ve done so far?”
“I love it! I love the color of the rosewood, the light in here. The striped blue, green, and gray rug just pulls it all together. And that fireplace is awesome.”
“So?” Nolan murmured, bringing her into his arms. “You think you might want to stay with me and help me restore this old farmhouse and make it our own?”
Teren reached up, claiming his smiling mouth, drowning in the dark blue of his eyes, which held heat, promise, and love for her alone. She pressed her hips against his, holding him tightly, kissing him with everything she felt for him. She wasn’t disappointed as Nolan gave a low groan, hungrily plundering her mouth, sliding his hands down her torso, capturing her hips, holding her tight against his pelvis, letting her know he wanted her in other ways, too.
Her whole lower body flared to life, despite the jet lag. The warmth of the room, the light, and his male fragrance all combined to make Teren deliriously happy. As they broke their kiss, breathing faster, staring at one another, Teren whispered, “I love you, Nolan Steele. That’s never going to change, no matter where in the world we live.”
He tunneled his fingers through her hair at her temple, kissing her brow, her nose, and then her lips. “Good, because I feel the same way about you, sweetheart. Are you ready for a tour of the rest of our home?”
His eager words brought tears to her eyes. Our home. How wonderful that sounded. Nolan led her across the foyer and down the hall a little way to the left, where she found a huge L-shaped kitchen. It was badly in need of loving work and care, but she saw the bones of the huge double sink and wooden counter. The rows of windows made the place feel light and airy. An old iron woodstove was in the room, along with a modern refrigerator and gas-fed cook stove. The cupboards made her gasp. Each one had colorful stained glass on its front. The white painted wood only made the ancient stained glass look more colorful. “I love this,” she exclaimed, touching the glass in wonderment.
“It’s original from when the first owners built this house,” Nolan told her. “I’ve been working with a museum expert on this, and she’s helping to clean and refurbish the glass so it will last another hundred and fifty years.”
“It’s just so beautiful.” Teren turned, absorbing the huge area. “This kitchen has so much potential, Nolan.”
“Sort of like us?” He grinned and saw her lips curve and a sparkle come to her eyes for the first time. It was as if he could sense life flooding back into her, returning, much like the Nile flooded the land surrounding it, making it fertile and abundant once more.
“Yes,” she whispered. “Just like us.”
“Well,” he teased, “if there’s hope for this farmhouse, then there’s hope for us!”
She kissed him for a long, long time, languishing against him. “Yes, there’s lots and lots of hope for us, Nolan.”
*
At Artemis headquarters, Teren tried to tamp down her nervousness as she was led into one of the large mission planning rooms deep below the ground to a secret, well-protected part of the security company. Nolan had her hand and was leading her into a room where the door had been slid open. They’d had a week together with no demands other than living together in the farmhouse, and Teren hadn’t known how desperately she’d needed those fulfilling seven days with Nolan until now.
As lonely as she was for her friends in Kitra, he had filled her days with laughter as they worked on the farmhouse together, sharing stories with her. They’d filled their nights, hungrily seeking each other in bed, their lovemaking reaching new levels of passion. Her body still pulsed with the memory of Nolan loving her earlier this morning, long before this nine a.m. meeting. She was to meet the Culver family and then take a tour of the huge security facility. After the tour, she would talk at length with Alexa Culver and her team, who worked with the Home School portion of Delos. At one time Alexa had headed up another division, but later, had made a lateral move to this one.
Entering the room, Teren saw many people standing and chatting with one another. Matt Culver had driven down to the house to see Nolan, a fellow Delta Force buddy, midweek. Teren recognized him and felt better at least knowing one person in the room. Matt was the first to come forward, a smile of welcome on his face, his hand offered to Teren.
“Hey, welcome aboard our little ship, camouflaged by the surrounding farmhouse. Do you like how we hid Artemis?”
Smiling, Teren took his hand and shook it. “It’s incredible. It’s absolutely invisible to the outside world. From the road it looks like an old, still-functioning farmhouse.”
A woman with shining black hair curled around her shoulders, wearing a gray pantsuit, her green eyes sparkling, came up beside Matt. “Teren? I’m Tal Culver-Lockwood. Welcome! We’re really glad to see you.”
Teren started to shake her hand, but Tal’s smile deepened and she stepped forward, lightly hugging her ‘hello’ instead. It was unexpected, but the gesture warmed Teren, and she felt already accepted.
As Tal stepped back, releasing her, she became more serious. “Even more important, welcome to our family. You have a new home now, Teren, and we’re really eager to have you with us as a part of it.”
She couldn’t have heard more welcoming words. “Thanks, Tal. You have no idea how much that means to me.”
Matt threw his arm around his big sister. “Tal here is the big, broody mother hen of Artemis. You gotta watch her, or she’ll start calling you one of her peeps.” He gave his sister a great big, warm grin, squeezing her shoulders and then releasing her.
Tal snorted. “I’m broody all right. Especially with you and Alexa.”
“Someone call my name?”
Teren saw a shorter woman wearing an emerald-green pantsuit, her red hair gathered back into a single braid, slip between Tal and Matt. Her hazel eyes danced with mischief.
“Teren? I’m Alexa Culver-Hunter. I’ve been dying to meet you!” She threw her arms around Teren, hugging her enthusiastically.
Laughing a little, Teren hugged Alexa back. “Same here. It’s so nice to meet you.” And it was, because now Tal, Matt, and Alexa were surrounding her, almost in an embrace. She was struck by their sincerity and warmth, and it was obvious they were family members, given the resemblances and the loving looks they exchanged. Matt mercilessly teased them, and she saw their love for one another dancing in their eyes. Just this one vignette made some of her grief over leaving Kitra melt away. These three people were confident, vulnerable, and friendly, hoping she’d accept them as they’d accepted her.
“Come on,” Tal urged, touching Teren’s elbow. “Would you like to sit down?” She guided her to the front of the long, oval mahogany table.
“Yes, thank you.” Teren was impressed that one half of it was a surface computer, state-of-the-art with two huge viewing screens on two different walls of the room.
Nolan followed, falling into a conversation with Matt. As Teren sat down, Nolan took the seat to her right, Alexa to her left. There was coffee, tea, and doughnuts for everyone. The air was festive, with a lot of laughter and smiles, Teren noted. The door to the planning room remained open, other members coming in shortly.
In no time, she’d met Gage Hunter, Alexa’s husband, and Wyatt Lockwood, Tal’s other half. Matt said his wife, Dr. Dara McKinley-Culver, was inviting Teren and Nolan over to dinner that night at their condo. There were other individuals in the room as well. Soon, with so many new names and faces, Teren said laughing, that she’d need a few days to remember all their names. That brought collective grins with nods of agreement from everyone.
Tal sat at the other end of the table, her coffee in hand, opposite Teren. As the room quieted, everyone looked to Tal.
“Teren, as you can see, we’re kind of a big, warm, sloppy family of sorts.” She smiled. “And it’s like this around here all the time. We do very, very serious work here at Artemis, but we also play as hard as we work. Matt, especially, is a culprit and plays jokes on all of us from time to time, just to keep us from getting too serious.”
“That’s just good mental health,” Matt piped up, smiling smugly, sipping his coffee.
“You’ll have to watch him, Teren, if he comes into your office,” Alexa warned with a giggle. “He’s well-known for planting tiny cameras around and then showing the video to all of us at a Mission Planning meeting later on the big wall screen.”
“Well,” Matt drawled, “I am, after all, Delta Force. We’re black ops to the bone, sis.”
Teren smiled. “Looks like I need to keep Nolan nearby.”
“Oh,” Tal said, “he’s going to be closer to you than you think, Teren.”
Teren gave Nolan a questioning look. He shrugged and looked over at Tal. “Ask her,” he said to her, a slight smile on his face.
“We’re such a black-ops group, Teren. You don’t know about my background, but I was an officer in the Marine Corps and the head of a sniper unit at Bagram. Matt was Delta Force. Alexa here flew A-10 Warthogs and risked her life from the air to bomb and strafe the Taliban to keep our men and women safe on the ground in Afghanistan. And here, most of what we do is undercover as well. We’ve offered Nolan a job at Artemis. We want him to become part of our Africa Consulting Team, so when we pull a mission anywhere on that continent, we have people who are boots on the ground in a particular country. That way we can utilize their knowledge and experiences.”
“And,” Alexa said to Teren, “I want you on my team, but you need to see our facility first and understand what your job entails with me in the Home School Foundation Department.”
Teren looked at Nolan. “Did you know about this?”
He gave her an apologetic look. “Remember when Matt came out last week?”
“Yes.”
“He offered me this new job here at HQ, which would take me off being assigned to missions around the world, but I didn’t want to say anything or make a decision on it until you came here, Teren. I needed to see if you felt like a fit with Artemis. If you want the job, then I’m taking the job here at the security company and we’ll be together.”
She colored a little, all eyes on them. It was as if all of them knew that they were already a couple deeply in love with one another. “That’s fair,” she murmured. Gazing over at Alexa, she said, “I’d love to sit down with you about the job you want to offer me.”
“No worries. You and I are going to spend the rest of the morning together as soon as we get out of here,” Alexa promised her. “And then Tal, Matt, and I have lunch at a nearby inn.”
“And,” Matt said, “don’t forget, you and Nolan are going to have dinner with Dara and me tonight. She’s been cooking all day. It’s her day off and she wants to really welcome you home with us.”
“That sounds wonderful,” Teren said, overwhelmed by the energy, warmth, and cozy atmosphere in the room. “I’d love to meet Dara.”
“Yes,” Tal intoned, “she’s the better half of my jokester brother.”
Everyone chuckled, nodding their heads in unison.
“As you can see,” Matt said, pretending to be wounded by his big sister’s words, “I’m crucified here daily.”
“Only because you’re nailing all of us in our offices with the Instagram videos you’re taking of us when we don’t know about it,” Wyatt drawled, an easy Texas grin spreading across his face.
Nolan reached over, touching Teren’s hand. “Don’t worry, Matt won’t pick on you.”
“Pooh!” Alexa said. “How’s that?”
Nolan arched an eyebrow at her. “Matt is my Delta Force brother. Teren’s my gal, and he’s not gonna pick on her because she’s part of our Delta Force family. Okay?”
Wrinkling her nose, Alexa muttered in Teren’s direction, “You’re getting off easy.”
“Well, her office will be an official safe zone,” Matt proclaimed to everyone. “Because she belongs to a Delta operator. We do take care of our own.”
Nolan gave Teren a pleased look. “See?”
Teren smiled and shook her head. “There are all kinds of families here at Artemis, aren’t there?”
Everyone nodded simultaneously, as if they’d trained for this moment.
Alexa reached over and tapped Teren’s hand. “We are family. We’re not some big, heartless corporation. You’ll find that out right away. We are people with passion and we love what we do, and we’re good at it. But there are also bad days, Teren, when things go sideways. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve come down here to an empty planning room to scream out my fury, or cry, or do both. These rooms are soundproofed and have the latest composite materials in the walls to stop any kind of electronic or other type of snooping into our facility.”
Tal lifted her chin, looking at Teren’s soft expression. “And just like family, when there’s a bad day we circle the wagons. We’re there for that person or department. We know that we deal in life-and-death issues every day. And as much as we want a mission to go right and to help, sometimes it doesn’t. So, while you may see us as a pretty loosey-goosey kind of organization right now, on a tight mission where lives are in the balance, we get damned serious, damned fast. There’s a lot of intensity in Artemis. Not in every department, but Mission Planning is usually a pretty tightly strung area.”
“Which is why,” Wyatt drawled, leaning his elbows on the table, holding Teren’s gaze, “they have me leading this group of sorry-looking characters. I’m very laid-back, and I don’t get my knickers in a twist when things go south. It’s a SEAL thing. But,” he continued, looking up and down the table with a sly grin, “not everyone here is from Texas. Pity, because if they were, they wouldn’t get uptight like Tal has noted.”
“I’m glad I don’t have to work with you,” Teren admitted, giving him an apologetic look. “It’s nothing personal, Wyatt, but I don’t work well in that kind of high-stress environment.”
“Most of us don’t,” Alexa huffed. “You’ll find my department just the opposite of Wyatt’s. We’re a happy group, doing happy things for others. There’s a lot of laughter and super-creative people who love education and know the value of our kids all over the world.”
“That really sounds lovely,” Teren admitted, absorbing Alexa’s ebullience. She was like a sun glowing in the room, so alive and caring. Alexa was just the type of person she wanted to work with. Nolan hadn’t been wrong in his assessment of the three Culvers; they truly were genuine, sincere, and family-oriented—everything that she needed to thrive.
“Speaking of that,” Tal said as the table quieted, “I’ve been studying what you’ve created online for Kitra. Matt, Alexa, and I have looked at the numbers and the sales on the clothing that your Sudanese women are making on their treadle machines. They’re impressive, Teren. Having that Internet store has allowed you to sell their goods around the world, and not just to African countries.”
“Right,” Teren murmured. “I wanted to expand the type of goods they sewed. For example, an apron is a European and North American item of clothing that can be added. I did a lot of research on the different types of fabrics that are worn by men and women in a particular continent and country. Over the years, I’ve expanded their sewing into many different areas and as a result, it makes Kitra more money. We have high sales in Scandinavia for our crocheted and knitted cap and scarf sets.”
“I particularly love what you do for the children,” Alexa said, gushing with enthusiasm. “You make those silly little sock monkeys that are coming back in fashion here in the U.S. Only you make them for Africa, Europe, and South America, each a little different so the colors appeal to that particular region and group of people. They’re your best seller right now.”
“It’s nothing short of brilliant,” Tal complimented Teren. “You’re far more than a software designer. You’re truly a visionary, and you have a global grasp of what’s popular or common on every continent. There aren’t many people who have that capacity, Teren. That’s why we wanted to hire you. And you will have your own department. You’ll be able to hire others who are like you and you’ll have the final say on such things. We want you to feel like you’re a part of a huge family, with your own little family in your department. Sort of like those Russian dolls where, when you open one up, there’s another, slightly smaller doll contained in it. And when you open that one up, there’s another.”
Teren shrugged a little. “I guess I’ve never seen myself like that, Tal.”
Alexa made a soft sound in her throat. “Teren, let us see your potential, your skills. Trust us to place you in your own department, to do what you do best: help women learn how to sew, learn how to market their clothing online, and then sell those wares to the world.”
“Which,” Matt said, giving Teren a kind look, “is what you’ve been doing at Kitra for the last seven years. And look how Kitra has prospered. Look at how many more women and children we’re able to take in and help because of the money made from your vision.”
Teren sat there, absorbing all their sincere, passionate compliments and their admiration and respect for her. She felt Nolan nearby, felt his pride in her, and briefly glanced over at him. She saw, radiating from him, not only pride but the depth of his love shining in his eyes, there for all to see.