CHAPTER 6
Matt curbed his smile as director Alani Phillips, a Hawaiian woman of fifty, led Dara down the highly polished, white-tile hall toward the medical examination room located near the rear of the Safe House building. The call an hour earlier had made Alani shriek with pleasure. A pediatrician coming? Oh! They had fifty mothers with children and all could use her services! He didn’t know who was smiling more: Dara, dressed in her white lab coat over her white linen pants and pink tee, the stethoscope looped around her slender neck, or Alani, whose black hair was up in a tight knot on top of her head. She was dressed in a colorful Hawaiian muumuu that came to her knees. She was about five feet seven inches tall, around a hundred and eighty pounds, apple-cheeked, just bursting with compassion and energy. Saying she was a human dynamo would be understating Alani’s enthusiasm and the caring that radiated around her like sunlight.
Matt loitered out near her office, which was located a few steps from the main reception area. Safe House was a place for abused women who had left their live-in mates or their husbands. The children came with them. There was a three-story barracks-like building out in back of the office complex that had apartments within it where the families lived. There was a large nursery near the medical examination room and beyond that, an airy dining room where the mothers and children had three square meals a day, plus snacks. He was impressed with this Safe House, having seen many of them around the world. His mother, Dilara, made a point of traveling to at least fifty of the eighteen-hundred Delos charities every year. And from age twelve onward, her children had often accompanied her on her travels. She wanted to show them the suffering in the world and that something positive could be done to help alleviate it. His mother always brought an entourage of people who could be resources and provide help for each director.
Looking around the bright, white-painted walls of the glass-enclosed office where Alani worked tirelessly, Matt was pleased to see everything was spotless and organized. His mother insisted upon a high level of cleanliness, wanting everything to be sanitary within the buildings as well as outside them. He had met the receptionist, Halia Parker, who had just graduated from college with a degree in social work. She was twenty-five, her smile shy, a true introvert, but her heart was open and she was very kind. Halia was the perfect person to greet a harried, threatened, beaten woman who came through that teak door carved with the Delos rising sun. The logo was a symbol of hope: light for a new day.
The place was busy, all the employees women. This was a safe haven for beaten and abused women who needed to be protected from the men who were abusing them, whether it was someone they lived with, someone they were married to, or a male family member, such as an uncle, grandfather, or cousin. Not only did the Safe House Foundation keep women and children here until they could get back on their feet, they also trained the mothers and gave them skills with which to make a living. Many abused women had no marketable skills in today’s highly computerized society, and Safe House gave them experience and education to close that divide.
Matt moved down the hall, and on the left was an L-shaped room that held twenty-five computer stations. There were large windows on one side, with black, wrought-iron bars across them, telling Matt that this place might not be as “safe” as it appeared. He wondered obliquely if Safe House was in a poor neighborhood or near one. Usually, Delos charities were placed in economically depressed neighborhoods to help the poor and needy. And often, that meant they could become a target of theft—or worse, which is why Artemis Security had been created, to deal with the threats that existed in today’s brutal world.
The educational center was impressive. It was neat and organized as well, and all manuals and anything else that would be needed by students were available to the women being trained to operate a computer and use business software.
“Ah, there you are!” Alani said, pushing the door open. “I thought I might find you in here, Matt.”
He smiled, turning toward the energetic woman. “This is a really nice setup, Alani. You’re doing a great job here.”
She walked up to him and gestured toward the bank of windows. “Only problem is, we have gangs around here.” Her lips thinned. “There’s a local gang, and the leader’s name is Mano—that’s ‘shark’ in Hawaiian. Two-and-a-half years ago, he and his boys, young men in their teens and twenties, broke the windows one night and took all twenty-five of our Apple computers from this room. I was devastated.”
“You didn’t have bars across the windows at that time?”
Shaking her head, she sighed. “No. Our Safe House is on the edge of an impoverished area, but these local gangs usually hit tourist cars on the beaches. But because of a police crackdown, the gangs started moving inland, across the city. They began looking for opportunities to commit theft other than just breaking windows on cars. They hit us.” She pushed her bangs off her forehead, frowning. “We have twenty-four-hour-a-day video cameras in every room, for many good reasons. The video captured all the thieves, and I recognized Mano. The police were able to round up the whole gang. As director of this Safe House, I testified in court against them. They put Mano away for two years in the nearby federal prison. That was two years without constant break-ins happening in the surrounding area.”
Grimly, Matt said, “He’s out now?”
“Yes, unfortunately. There was a turf war when he was released.” She gestured around the room. “He and the Shark gang own about ten city blocks of what they consider their turf, and they defend it against three other rival gangs who are in the town as well.”
“Then how are you doing for security?” He looked around, his Delta Force operator’s experience telling him that this place needed a serious upgrade. He was glad Artemis was being created. They could provide the directors of Delos facilities just like this one with another layer of protection.
Shrugging, she said, “The police said I needed more. They gave me information. To be honest, I can’t handle it with the present budget I’m given. I’ll feed my people first before putting up a ten-foot-high cyclone fence around our property here.”
Matt nodded. “Do you mind if I take a walk with you around the premises sometime? Look at it through security eyes?” Alani had never met any of his family. His mother had not visited this charity yet. And he was sure the director did not know he was presently in military black ops and knew a lot more about security than most people. She didn’t have to know, either; since he was the son of the owner, he was sure Alani would give him anything he asked for.
“I can use all the help I can get. Any security suggestions you have, I’m open to. It’s just a question of whether or not I can afford to install them. Now, just to warn you, our housing barracks are for our women and children. That’s off-limits to any men. That includes you. These women and children have been abused or threatened by men. I can’t have a stranger, unescorted, going into the barracks alone. And I like to give the families there at least twenty-four hours’ advance notice that a man they don’t know will be in their building, so they don’t think you’re a lone wolf in a herd of sheep working to hunt down one of the women who is living there.”
He smiled faintly and nodded. “Yeah, no problem, Alani. Why don’t you go ahead and put out that info to them? Maybe you can assist me tomorrow or the next day, when your schedule permits? Then I can go through the barracks and see what kind of security upgrade they need, too.”
“Sure, that would work. By any chance, could your fiancée, Dr. McKinley, come back tomorrow, too? Word has flown like wildfire through the barracks, and I’ve already got thirty-five women and children begging to see her.”
Matt curbed a smile. “Let me talk to Dara. It’s her decision.”
“Well, if she says yes,” Alani said, a hopeful look on her face, “while Dara is here with us tomorrow, you and I could go through not only the barracks but all the other buildings, compile a list of security needs, and maybe you could pass them on to your mother?”
“I’ll do exactly that,” Matt promised. “But let me go talk with Dara to see if she wants to come back tomorrow.”
*
Matt ambled down the busy hall. There was nothing but women here, and he liked the low-key, warm, nurturing energy that pervaded the place. All of the people he saw were women working under Alani’s direction. Running this place took a lot of paperwork, a lot of people who knew the law enforcement and other governmental systems that were in place to help women who were trying to escape abuse. He located the examination room and saw ten women with squirming babies or toddlers in hand, waiting patiently in line.
They gave him a wary look, and Matt felt bad for them. He was male and a stranger to them. Therefore, a potential menace and threat. He saw the door to the examination room open as a mother with a six-month-old baby in her arms left, smiling, relief in her expression. Matt smiled and nodded hello in her direction as he came and stood in the doorway. It looked like Dara had a girl of twelve whom she was teaching how to be her assistant. The young, curly-haired redhead was pulling the paper over the examination table, preparing it for the next patient.
“Hey,” Matt called softly, seeing Dara lift her head from the form she had been filling out on her last patient. “Got two minutes?”
She smiled. “Sure.” She turned to the carrot-topped preteen girl.
“Stacy? Can you tell our next patient I’ll be ready in just two minutes for her? See if she needs anything while she waits.”
Stacy gave Matt a very distrustful look and edged warily toward the door near where he stood. “Sure, Dr. McKinley.”
“Thanks,” Dara called, giving her a smile. She pointed toward Matt. “This is my fiancé, Matt Culver. His family owns Delos. He’s a friend, he won’t bite . . .”
That information erased the fear in Stacy’s large green eyes.
Matt could literally see the girl’s slender shoulders drop, and she instantly relaxed. He held out his hand toward her. “Hi, Stacy. I’m Matt. Nice to meet you.” She appeared to be around twelve, with bright copper freckles across her nose and cheeks. He felt her trepidation over shaking his hand. He was going to withdraw it, but suddenly, she gave a little cry and threw her arms around his waist, hugging him with all her child’s strength.
“Thank you! Oh, thank you!” she sobbed into his belly. “You saved my mama, my brother, and me!” She broke into a gale of tears, clinging to him.
Matt swallowed his surprise and he curved his arms around her, patting her gently. “We’re here to help you all,” he murmured, running his hand over her tousled red hair. It needed to be cut. She looked like little more than a ragamuffin, her feet bare, the muumuu she wore thin, in some places torn and in need of mending. Her little body shook as she cried in relief. Matt was glad the door was shut. This little girl had gone through and probably seen too much. Casting a glance over at Dara, who sat there, tears in her eyes, he fought back his own. A child’s crying always ripped him up the most. He’d seen too much of it in broken Afghan villages that had been raided by Taliban. Smoothing her hair with his hand, he eased her arms from around him. Crouching down, he offered her a tissue from a nearby box. “It’s going to be okay, Stacy,” he murmured, looking into her tear-filled eyes, watching her wipe them and then blow her nose.
“W-we were so scared,” she whispered brokenly, clutching the damp, destroyed tissue. “My daddy hurt my mommy. He hurt me. He was going to hurt my baby brother. We were so scared. We had nowhere to go. But Mama came here and Mrs. Alani took us in.” She wiped her reddened eyes, whispering, “We thought Daddy was going to kill us. We’re afraid he will if he ever finds us.”
“You’re safe here, Stacy. You, your brother, and your mom. How long have you been here?” He eased a few strands of hair sticking to her damp cheek behind her ear, trying to give her some comfort.
“T-two weeks. I-I never slept at night. Here, I sleep. It’s wonderful.” She shyly reached out, touching his shoulder. “Thank you for saving us . . . thank you . . .”
“You’re more than welcome,” he said gruffly, trying to stuff his own emotions back down deep within himself. “Listen, I need to talk to the woman I love and am going to marry this coming June. Could you let us have a few minutes? And then I’ll leave and you can come back in here and help Dr. McKinley?”
“S-sure,” she snuffled. “Just . . . thank you . . .” She turned, quickly exiting the room and closing the door quietly behind her.
Slowly rising, Matt saw Dara watching him. “Is it like this with every patient?” he asked her quietly, moving to the desk and sitting on one corner of it, searching her glistening blue gaze. He could feel how deeply Dara had been touched by Stacy’s admittances. Matt hoped he was a better male role model than Stacy had ever dealt with, to let her know there were men out there who would not harm her or her mother.
Dara reached out, sliding her hand down his cheek. “Yes. You don’t hear the worst cases.” She motioned to the six boxes of tissues stacked up on her desk. “By the end of this day, they’ll all be used up.”
“How do you take it?” he asked gruffly, searching her softened expression, loving her so fiercely it felt like his heart would burst wide open. He saw her lips move into a compassionate pucker.
“Crying is healing. Sometimes a mother comes in with her baby or toddler, and she just needs to talk it out. Talking is strong, healing medicine, Matt. And so are tears.” She looked fondly at those six boxes of tissues. “One of the best investments for a place like this? Getting tons of boxes of tissues in house.” She smiled tenderly, giving him a look of pure love.
Leaning over, he caressed her lips lightly, wishing they were alone so he could kiss her until they shared one another’s breath, not coming up for air at all. Easing away, he rasped thickly, “You’re the best guardian angel these women, children, and babies could have. What would you think of coming over here all day tomorrow, too? Alani and I are going to do some serious security checking around the property and get this place protected so there are no more break-ins.”
“I’d love to do that,” she said, her voice quavering. “But are you sure, Matt? I mean . . . this is your vacation, too.”
He slid his fingers through her hair, moving heavy, glinting strands of it across one of her shoulders. “I’m positive. How late do you want to go tonight?”
“Six? There’s so many women and babies who need to be examined, Matt. Some have some serious issues that need addressing by a specialist.”
“Yeah, no problem. I’ll meet you at the reception desk at six, then?”
“I’ll be there,” she promised, her voice low with emotion.
Matt felt her joy, felt her gratefulness for his understanding. If this wasn’t love, what was? He gave her a quick kiss, rose, and said, “See you later, angel of mercy . . .”
*
As they ate Chinese takeout that Matt had picked up on the way to their rental house, he was amazed by the energy around Dara. He thought she’d be worn out from seeing twenty patients in one day, but she wasn’t. Coming home, she’d taken a quick shower and changed into a pair of sexy white shorts and a bright-red tube top that outlined her breasts to perfection. Her hair gathered up behind her head with two huge red plastic clips, Dara looked like a young college-aged woman, not the pediatrician who wore her heart on her sleeve.
“Mmm,” Dara said. “This is so good, Matt. Brilliant idea to grab takeout on the way home.”
“I know you love Chinese.”
“I love you more. Does that count, big guy?”
He grinned over at her, absorbing that wicked glint in her eyes. “You’re feeling pretty frisky tonight, Dr. McKinley.”
“It was all those babies,” she sighed, sitting back in the chair, taking a moment for her gobbled food to digest. “They are all so cute! Every last one of them. I just love picking them up, smelling that sweet baby smell they all have, hearing them gurgle, seeing them smile.”
“That’s why you’re high.”
Nodding, she scooped more of the brown rice from the cardboard box and onto her plate. “I can’t explain it, Matt. When I get around a baby or child, my heart just turns into a puddle of love for them. They are all innocent. Little blank slates to be written upon. And they trust without being wary.” She shared a warm smile with him. “I got my baby love today. That’s why I’m feeling so frisky.”
“Yes, and you get another ten hours of it tomorrow,” he reminded her drily, watching her lips draw into a happy smile, eyes glinting with excitement. Nothing made Dara more happy, he thought, than being with her babies and children. She was bred to the bone for motherhood, for caring for and loving these little tykes. He didn’t feel jealous. Instead, he felt so damned proud of Dara for having the raw courage to live her life through her heart’s passion. He was sure, after seeing how tight-knit and loving the McKinley family was, that Dara had been given full support by her parents and grandparents to simply be who she had become. There weren’t too many parents who did that with their children. In his own family, his mother and father had followed that same philosophy. They allowed their three children to grow, bud, and then blossom into whatever they were destined to become. Dara was lucky enough to come from just such a family herself.
“Well,” she murmured, giving him a quick look to see how he felt about her hours, “Alani said their budget allowed for a physician to come for only so many hours a month, and they always need more than that time. That means that the survivors and their children have no medical attention for usually two weeks out of every month.”
“What would they do if there was a baby or mother who was seriously ill?”
“They’d call an ambulance and take her or the toddler to the hospital. Then”—Dara shrugged—“it becomes a medical paper chase for Alani.”
“What if they had a doctor on call more often?”
“Some of the cases I saw today? They’re totally preventable. For example, a child with a sore throat? If care isn’t taken to find out if it’s strep throat or not with just one swab, that child might have strep, and it’s missed. And then that cascades into some life-threatening condition later on down the line. I always carry strep swabs in my physician’s case. And I’m sure two little ones, a tiny girl of four and a young boy of seven, both have strep. I’ll find out tomorrow when the hospital lab calls over the results.”
“So, that’s why you want to go back?” Matt smiled to himself. It wasn’t that Dara was trying to hide her real reasons for wanting to spend a second day of her vacation doctoring those who needed it. It was really about getting lab results and going from there. Being responsible and following through, taking care of her patients.
He saw her eyes sparkle as she glanced up at him, mouth full of rice.
“That’s okay, I get it.” He laughed, shaking his head. “I’ll bet you give your attending doctors special hell with all your tricks.”
Swallowing, she took a sip of her white wine, wrinkling her nose. “Oh, come on, Matt! There are just different work-arounds with some of the attendings, is all. I got in trouble with some of them because I showed my emotions. I figured out ways to hide them but still share them with my patients later, just out of earshot. Heck, you’re black ops. You more than anyone else in this world are an ace at that kind of thing.” Giving him an evil look, she muttered defiantly, “I’ll bet you’d make my choices look like kindergarten compared to what you Delta Force boys pull off routinely.”
“Guilty,” he admitted, holding up his hands, looking into her laughter-filled eyes. “What I love about you—one of the many things—is that you never apologize for what you have to do to help a sick person. I saw you doing it at the Hope Charity in Kabul. I’m seeing it here.”
“Well,” she murmured, her lips tugging into an unwilling smile, “just don’t ever let on to my attending physicians about what I’m doing. When they see me coming, they turn on their heel and find the nearest door and run into the office, locking it behind them so they don’t have to talk to me. They don’t even want to deal with me.”
“Your fame precedes you.”
“Or something like that, yeah.” And then Dara frowned, scooping more rice onto her plate. “I’ll tell you, I will never let anyone—not an agency, not law enforcement or anyone else—put one of my patients in medical jeopardy. I just won’t listen. I’ll figure out a way to get what I want for that child.”
“Do they call you Superwoman in the hospital?”
Nearly choking, she admitted, “Well, I wouldn’t go that far. The attendings have pet names for me I can’t reveal or repeat. They’re not exactly glowing adjectives I’d want anyone to hear.”
“But your patients,” he said, sliding his hand down her arm, “love you. They worship the ground you walk on.”
“I want nothing more in life, Matt, than to be able to ease someone’s suffering. That’s my endgame. And I can guarantee you that I’ll move heaven and hell to get whatever I need for that little baby or suffering child, in order to ease his or her pain.”
“I believe you.” He almost wanted to say that she was truly a copy of Artemis. The ancient goddess who was the fierce mother bear, caring for children, babies, and families and protecting them. Matt’s heart warmed at that parallel. He’d met a modern-day Artemis. And she was his. And she was going to be his wife. There was nothing else he wanted in his life but her. And the children she would carry would be formed out of their love for one another. Matt had never felt more blessed or more grateful for his life, for having met Dara.