CHAPTER 9
“I don’t want this vacation to end,” Dara admitted, lying on top of Matt, luxuriating in him after they’d made love. She threaded her fingers through his damp hair, drowning in his hooded, lion-like eyes.
“Why? Because we won’t be drinking Hawaiian water and we’ll lose that great sex we’ve enjoyed here?” He chuckled, skating his fingertips down her long, sleek back. His heart swelled as she laughed with him.
“That’s crossed my mind,” Dara giggled, pressing a kiss on his dark-haired chest. She lifted her head, resting her chin on the top of her folded hands, holding his amused gaze. “What if it’s true? What if we go back to Virginia and our sex life is dull in comparison? Will we have to visit Hawaii a lot more often, then?” Her lips drew away from her teeth.
Caressing the crown of her head, Matt growled, “If this vacation had done nothing else but give us this incredible new breakthrough with one another, it would be worth every second over here. I don’t think we’ll go back to the old ways. We like what we discovered way too much. It suits us for where we’re at right now.” He shrugged. “Nothing stands still, sweetheart. Everything is organic in our life, and it’s always going to be changing.” He saw a shadow briefly come to her eyes, and she quickly tried to hide it from him, to no avail. “Come here,” Matt said gruffly, easing her off him. He fluffed some pillows behind his back, sitting up and leaning against the heavy bamboo headboard. Reaching out, he drew Dara easily across his thighs. Matt was bothered by that fleeting look in her eyes. Settling her comfortably across him, guiding her head to his right shoulder, he slanted a look down at her, imprisoning her with his arms and body. She made that humming sound of pleasure, closing her eyes, surrendering to him in every way.
“I love cuddling with you,” she whispered. “I feel so safe, as if I’m suddenly wrapped in a huge cocoon of your care.”
A sound of pleasure moved through his chest and Matt kissed her smiling lips, tasting her unique sweetness. “I always want to make you feel safe, my lovely woman.” He moved his roughened palm down from the side of her hip, appreciating her long, curved thigh, hearing her sigh of satisfaction as he caressed and continued to please her.
“You are definitely my big, bad guard dog,” Dara admitted. “I’ve always been so independent, a wild cowgirl from the rough country of Montana. But since I met you?” She absorbed the gleam and arousal in his gold eyes, for her alone. “I realize now that sometimes, I want to be held. To feel protected. And it doesn’t make me a wimp or whiner or anything.”
Matt became serious with her. “When you were little, was there ever an incident in your life that triggered the worry you have nowadays?”
He saw Dara become solemn, her lashes dropping for a moment. “Yes . . . there was an incident . . .”
“Can you share it with me?”
“Sure. I was five years old and I was out with my family in the woods. We gathered firewood in the fall before the snows came. My grandfather Graham would drive the tractor with the flatbed on it, and my father, mother, and grandmother would cut up the trees that had fallen during the year and fill up the flatbed. It was a weeklong event, and we’d go out after breakfast and return just before nightfall. My father and grandfather would then stack the wood in a nearby woodshed near our ranch home.
“I had wandered off into the woods and no one saw me. I was following my nose and pretty soon, I realized I was alone. It scared me, Matt.”
“At five? Sure it would,” he said. “What did you do?”
“I started crying and calling for them. And no one came. Then I started to run, but I wasn’t sure where they were. The trees were thick, the brush heavy, and I got disoriented and lost. I was so scared. I worried about the grizzly bears, because we had a lot of them in the area. I knew they ate little children like me because I had a high, squeaky voice like a baby elk or fawn who was trying to hide and not be discovered by a hungry bear.”
“That had to scare the hell out of you, then,” Matt said, caressing her cheek, seeing that time branded into her eyes.
“Oh,” she said wryly, “it did. I was never so scared. I was so lost. I couldn’t hear my parents, and I kept crying out for them.”
“They must have found you.”
“Yes, near dusk, half a day later.” Dara grimaced. “I was dirty, my face, arms, and hands scratched, freezing and shivering from the cold temperature. It was my grandfather who located me. He tracked me through some pretty awful backcountry. Luckily, it had snowed a week before but then melted. He followed my footprints in the mud. It was only many years later that he told me he’d been a sniper in the Marine Corps. I didn’t know what that meant, but I do now. Those men and women know how to track, and he’d used that skill to find me.” She smiled a little, her voice growing fond. “I had half a day of worry about being eaten alive by a grizzly bear. I was terrified.” She gave him a dark look. “Until, that is, that ambush we survived in Afghanistan. It’s number one in my book now.”
He grunted, considering her story, moving his fingers lightly across her shoulder. “Still, you probably felt abandoned by your parents.”
“Oh, I sure did. But I was only five, and I wasn’t mature enough to think about doing anything but running and trying to hide. That’s when my worry was triggered.” She shrugged. “My mom’s a worrier, too. And so is my grandmother. The worry gene runs in the women on that side of my family, I guess.”
“Yes, and that incident triggered yours, big-time,” Matt guessed.
“It did. After that, I couldn’t stop worrying about anything that stressed me. My mom and grandmother saw it, recognized it for what it was, and began to work with me on it, to get me to understand worry didn’t resolve anything. After I graduated from high school, I had it pretty much in hand. It would only surface in very serious situations.”
“But going through medical school? Residency?” he asked, because that was highly stressful.
Shrugging, she said, “I never worried about that. It never triggered it, Matt. The trigger is when I feel like I’m threatened, or feel my life is going to end.”
Mouth thinning, Matt began to understand the depth of her anxiety and its originating point. “I didn’t see your worry surface the day we got hit by that ambush,” Matt said, using his index finger to coax a few gold strands away from the corner of her soft mouth. “You were strong. And you never whined. Even when you sliced your knee open, I didn’t even know it had happened until we managed to find a cave to hide in that night. You’ll never be a whiner, Dr. McKinley.” He tapped the end of her nose gently. “Which brings me to the next topic of conversation that I want to discuss with you tonight.”
Her lips curved ruefully and she gave a breathy laugh. “Now you sound like Dr. Phil.”
Matt laughed with her and shook his head. “No, I don’t have his psychological expertise, I’m afraid.”
She curved her palm against his jaw. “What did you want to talk about?”
Looking into her slumberous blue eyes, which were saturated with pleasure, he said, “You worrying yourself to death while I’m back over in Afghanistan for a month and a half. I think you’re afraid I’ll die over there and you’ll lose me.” He felt her tense, her eyes suddenly reflecting that concern he’d seen in them before. She tried to hide it from him, but he growled, “Don’t dodge me on this, Dara. We have to talk about it. We have to get it out so that you don’t kill yourself with anxiety while I’m in country.” Dara sobered instantly. He felt bad about bringing her down like that, but avoiding the issue wasn’t going to help anyone. Especially her.
“I’m not worrying.”
“Right. Even your voice tells me you’re fibbing, Dara.”
Her mouth flexed, brows dipping, and she looked away from him momentarily.
“It’s less than two months,” he said, making light of it. “I’ve told you, in the winter, things wind down. We don’t do missions. We’re all snowed in. And so is the enemy.”
“Sure, just like Callie was telling me that Afghan village we were going to was safe, Matt.” Dara stared up at him, seeing the calm and strength in his shadowed features. She loved him so much, so deeply, that she couldn’t imagine her life without his being a part of it.
“Sweetheart,” he sighed, sliding his hand soothingly across her naked shoulder, “we need to figure out how best for you to avoid the worry that keeps you on tenterhooks. I can email you nearly every day. We each get a turn on Skype about every five days so we can talk to our loved ones back home. You’ll actually see that I’m alive and kicking.” He added a slight, half-cocked smile to go with it, hoping she’d buy his version of life in Afghanistan. Matt knew he had a chance. Callie, her sister, had spent half the year there for five straight years and knew the country’s inherent dangers, but Dara did not. Callie knew the rhythm of the black-ops teams and she wouldn’t have been fooled at all by what he was saying. He watched Dara’s expression, felt her emotions, and it pained him because he knew she’d suffer no matter how logically he reasoned with her.
“What does your family do when you’re gone?” she asked.
“My mother worries,” he admitted. “Her way of dealing with it is to keep busy. Plus, since my dad is an Air Force general, he can get updates on me and where I’m at when no one else can. There are days when Mom becomes really edgy. She’s very psychic, and that doesn’t help, either. Some days she senses I’m in a lot of danger. And she’s usually right, but I’m not dead. I’m just on an op, that’s all. On those days, my dad makes a few discreet requests through certain unnamed back channels, and he finds out more or less what I’m doing and how I am.”
“Can I use that back channel?”
He laughed. “I knew you were going to go for that.”
She gave him a dark look. “Well, wouldn’t you if it was available?”
“Yes,” he cautioned her heavily, “but my CO doesn’t like an Air Force general butting his nose into his business, so you can’t just use it whenever you feel like it, Dara.”
“I hate the nights alone, without you next to me. I get horrible dreams. I wake up screaming sometimes. In fact, I wake myself up because I’m screaming. Not something I like admitting to you, Matt.” Dara gave him a pained, apologetic look.
Bringing her against him, holding her solidly, feeling her arm wind around his neck, her brow pressed against his jaw, Matt whispered, “I’m coming home to you, Dara. That’s all there is to it. I have so much to look forward to with you. No enemy bullet is taking me out. I promise you.” Wincing inwardly, Matt knew he had no way to back up that promise. But if he didn’t alleviate her worry, it would eat her up inside while he was gone.
“Look at it this way: you finish your residency on March first. On that very day, I’m leaving Afghanistan and the Army. I’ll be home in two or three days after that, depending on the flight schedule out of Bagram. You’ll not only be a fully-accredited pediatrician, you’ll be putting plans into place for your clinic. I would think that between the two, you are going to be very, very busy. Don’t you?” He gave her a wry look, challenging her.
“All that’s true,” Dara admitted. Tracing an invisible heart on his chest with her fingertip, she said, “I’ve also been thinking about something else, Matt.”
“What?” He picked up her index finger, kissing the tip of it, watching the tension shed from her face.
“I found out from Alani that all the Safe House branches, wherever they are located, have an agreement for a medical practitioner to come in for a visit once a month to see those who need medical attention. It’s funded by a stipend. And after it’s used up, there’s no more money available to pay a doctor. There’s got to be a better system put into play to deal with this kind of situation. I’ve got some ideas, and I want to bend Dilara’s ear about them when we get home.” Her lips puckered and then she added, “And if she likes my idea, then I want her to hire me as a part-time consultant to be the director of this new medical initiative and get it put into action for all the Safe House charities.”
“What about the clinic you want to open for the poor in Washington, D.C.?”
“Oh, I’d do that, too. I’d spend four days a week at the clinic and a day at Delos advising, consulting, and directing the people out in the field once the idea is approved. I’ll handle the in-house paperwork.”
“Okay,” he murmured, “then you’re going to be a lot busier than I realized. Don’t you feel that all this will keep you so occupied that you’ll worry less?”
“No.”
Matt bit back a chuckle. Dara was honest, if nothing else. “What can I do to ease your anxiety?”
“Can’t you leave the Army early?”
“No, sweetheart. An officer can get away with doing that by turning in his or her commission, but I can’t do that without facing a court martial, and I’m not going there.”
“But I was talking to your father one day, and he mentioned a hardship discharge.”
Matt stopped himself from rolling his eyes. Dara had been creative in uncovering possible routes to get him out of Afghanistan sooner, not later. “Sweet,” he murmured, cupping her chin, forcing her to hold his gaze, “a hardship discharge really does mean exactly that. For example, if I were the only son and my father died, leaving my mother destitute, I could request such a discharge and receive it so I could leave the military to go home, get a civilian job, and take care of my mother.”
“But I’m not destitute.”
“Not by any stretch of anyone’s imagination. I’m sorry.” Matt meant it, because she was going to be on the razor’s edge while he was back in that damned dangerous country. He saw the banked terror in her eyes, and he spread his large, golden tanned hand across her belly. “What about,” he rasped, watching her carefully, “the possibility that I’ve gotten you pregnant while over here? How would that change you, Dara? What would you be focusing on instead?”
Matt knew the answer to all those questions, because in some respects he understood Dara better than she did herself at times. He’d gone through a life-and-death experience with her in Afghanistan.
“I-I’ve thought about that, too.”
All that worry in her eyes dissolved. He intuitively sensed that if she was pregnant, it would short-circuit a lot of her anxiety. She would focus on the baby she carried in her body. “Is there any way you can tell that you might be pregnant?” Because he felt she was, but that was his intuition, his gut call. And he wasn’t about to say anything about it. Dara was a doctor. She’d need medical tests to prove it one way or another.
“Yes,” she whispered. “When we fly home, I can go to the hospital and have one of my friends at the lab draw blood. She’ll be able to tell immediately if the pregnancy hormone is in my blood or not.”
“Then why don’t we do that? I don’t leave for Afghanistan until the day after that. It would be nice to know before I left.” He saw her eyes flood with unshed tears, her lower lip quiver, her hand tightening around his neck, holding his gaze. Matt knew how much being a mother would mean to Dara. He knew her secret dream of having as many children as they wanted. She planned to continue her career as a pediatrician and be a mother, too. It would serve her well, and he slid his hand across her belly. “Let’s take this one step at a time. I think that if you’re pregnant, a lot of your worry will go away. Your focus would be on our child. And I’m going to survive over in Afghanistan just fine and come home to both of you.”
*
Matt was outside the hospital lab Dara had disappeared into. They still had jet lag from landing yesterday evening at Reagan National Airport in Arlington. The whole Culver family had come out to meet them in baggage claim. It was a feast of happiness, and Matt liked that his mother hugged Dara. They were close and kindred spirits of a kind. As he and his father walked with their luggage in hand to the covered parking lot and their awaiting Suburban, Matt knew his mother would be a strong, caring rudder to Dara while he was overseas.
He slowly paced the hallway outside of the lab on the second floor of the massive, busy hospital. He’d made them breakfast, and by nine a.m., he and Dara had driven over to the Alexandria hospital. Dara had practically dragged him into the elevator, flustered, worried, and excited. Matt hid his smile because she was anxious and wanted so badly to be pregnant. He wanted it for her, too.
About twenty minutes later, he heard Dara’s shriek carry all the way out to where he stood outside the swinging doors. Turning, Matt saw her flying toward the door, waving a piece of paper in her hand, her radiant expression impossible to ignore. He opened his arms and she flew into them.
“I’m pregnant!” Dara cried, hugging him fiercely. “Oh, Matt! I’m pregnant!” She sobbed against his neck as his arms closed around her, lifting her off her feet momentarily. Tears of happiness spilled from her eyes as he slowly turned her around in a circle. His laugher reverberated through his chest and through her. She had never felt as close to him as she did in this moment. He gently deposited her feet on the floor, easing away just enough to kiss her long and hard.
Overwhelming joy washed through him from her. Matt framed her face with his hands, tears streaming from Dara’s eyes as she sobbed. He understood she was elated, and so was he. “You’re going to be a helluva mother, sweet woman,” he managed to say, his own voice strained with tears he was fighting to keep from spilling. Maybe he’d let them fall later. But not here in a busy hospital. Matt wasn’t going to cry in front of strangers. He caressed her loose hair, feeling her unfettered response, that luscious mouth of hers stretched into the biggest smile he’d ever seen. Her hands were busy gripping his shoulders, fully embracing him over her joy at carrying their child deep in her body.
“Oh, Matt!” She tried to stop crying and pushed the paper into his hand. “Look! It’s real! I’m really pregnant!”
He released her but kept one arm around her waist. Dara was like an overexcited puppy, moving from one foot to another. “I don’t know what I’m looking at,” he confessed with an apologetic grin. “But I believe you. I really do.” He handed the results back to her.
“I’m just so happy, Matt,” she said, wiping the tears from her cheeks. “This means so much to me . . . to us . . . I’ve wanted a family of my own more than anything else.”
“Well, you have one now.” He eased her forward. “Come on, let’s go home. I think you have a bunch of calls to make to your family and friends.”
Dara nodded, giving him a watery smile filled with such love that tears drove into his eyes as he led her toward the elevator. Matt sensed that with this shift in her life, she’d have half as much time to worry about his being over in Afghanistan. And he knew his mother would be over the moon about her pregnancy. The Turkish and Greek sides of their global family had been waiting years for the Culver kids to grow up and have children. Matt shook his head, grinning, as he led Dara into the elevator, tucked beneath his arm.
Dilara’s three brothers—Matt’s uncles—and their wives would rock into a weeklong celebration once they were told, he was sure. They would be ecstatic, because in June, he and Dara were marrying in Kuşadasi, Turkey, where they all lived. Matt could just see the wedding gifts they’d be given—all the aunts, who were stellar at knitting, crocheting, and quilting, would be busily making all kinds of wonderful booties, onesies, baby quilts, and God knew what else.
The elevator doors shushed close. Dara leaned her head against him, wrapping her arms around his waist, hugging him tightly.
“You’re going to be a father. Do you realize that?”
He grinned and kissed her temple. “Yeah, and I’m sure as hell going to need a lot of help, training, and guidance in that department.” He thought of how awkward and uneasy he’d been with what to say to Stacy. Matt had wanted to show his love to her, but she was so damaged that he wasn’t sure how to do it. It brought back starkly to Matt how unprepared he really was for fatherhood. He was hoping his father would be his mentor. God knew he needed one. Matt didn’t want to accidentally harm their own child with his ignorance. It would scar his heart forever if that happened.
“Oh,” Dara whispered, hugging him tightly and then releasing him as the doors opened, “you’ll do wonderfully, Matt. You’re a natural father. Look at Robert. He’s such a wonderful role model for you to learn from.”
“Yeah,” he groused, giving her a fond, loving look as he led her toward the main doors of the hospital. “I’m going to need a lot of training, Dara.” And then he gave her a reassuring look. “I’ll get there, so I don’t want you to worry about that, okay? I know you have motherhood nailed down.”
She slid her arm around his waist, leaning happily against his strong, powerful body as he led them through the doors into the cold morning. Snow had just fallen two nights earlier, and the naked trees were coated with white blankets of it, looking beautiful in the morning sun’s light, glistening and sparkling, reflecting how she felt right now. “You’ll be fine, Matt. I know you will!”
Matt wasn’t sure but didn’t pursue it. This would be their last day together. He had to leave out of nearby Joint Base Andrews at 1000 tomorrow morning. Today was Dara’s day. “Well, let’s just spend the day together. I’m sure your family is going to be really happy to hear from you.” Like his Turkish-Greek-American family, the McKinley family had also been pining away for children from Callie and Dara. Matt was sure she would be bathed in the love of her Montana family, and he was sure more happy tears would be spilled during those phone calls.
Wait until his mother found out! She’d probably start sending Turkish food over to Dara’s condo tomorrow. Matt was sure that the globe would explode with unabashed joy from his far-flung family. He was also sure, knowing his Turkish aunts and uncles the way he did, that all the aunts would take turns flying over to keep Dara company once they knew he would be in Afghanistan for nearly two months. They would not want Dara to feel lonely or unsupported during this important time in her life. They’d also be sending Dara flowers at her condo, and once an aunt arrived, she would cook Dara Turkish food to eat, to keep her healthy during her pregnancy. And Cousin Angelo and his wife, Maria, would probably send flowers and food from Greece, too. There was a bit of a competition between the Greek and Turkish sides of the family, but it was all in good fun. What they shared was the love of the family’s American children: Tal, Alexa, and himself. Matt knew that both sides would surely start immediately planning a baby shower for Dara. They were people of action, and they had the money and heart to literally shower Dara with so much love, attention, and support in his absence that she’d probably forget to worry about him while he was overseas. He grinned; his visiting Turkish aunts, who would care for Dara, were the best possible diversion for his worrywart woman.
Smiling as he settled into the driver’s seat and Dara put on her seat belt, he said, “What would you like to do first?”
Dara smiled, her eyes bright with tears. “Let’s drive over to your mom and dad’s home. I so want to share this with them in person.” She reached out, slipping her fingers around his black leather coat sleeve.
“Yeah, that feels right,” Matt agreed. And as he drove out of the freshly plowed parking lot, water gleaming here and there along the asphalt of the highway leading toward his parents’ house, Matt smiled to himself. This was the single most important time in his life, as it was Dara’s.
Matt would make a point of emailing her every day unless he was out on an op. He knew there would be a few, but not as many as there would be in the spring through the summer, when military activity increased markedly throughout Afghanistan. And he knew his visiting aunts would keep his fiancée busy. Dilara would also know the shortcuts to keep Dara occupied so that she wouldn’t have time to worry about him. Matt never underestimated the power of women.
But what would really keep her distracted was his Turkish aunts’ coming over, one at a time, taking turns, to live in the condo with Dara. His aunts had always promised that if Tal, Alexa, or his wife got pregnant, they would visit if they were alone and without the support of their loved one. The aunt would live with them to be a source of help and support, cook for them, and in general be the big, sloppy, happy Turkish family that they were. The aunts had taught them from childhood onward that the extended family should surround a newly pregnant woman and make sure she and the baby she was carrying stayed happy and peaceful. She became the focus of the family and had plenty of love showered upon her, with the aunts cooking her special food to keep her healthy and the baby growing strong. Dara had no idea this tradition existed, but she would shortly.
Matt smiled again. When—not if—the Turkish aunts took turns flying over to live with Dara, they would keep her looking forward, give her company, and help her with their wise feminine knowledge. They would be there to support and mother Dara with their care and unabashed love.
Matt was sure Maria, their cousin Angelo’s wife, would eagerly volunteer to help, too. He wouldn’t be surprised if once his Greek side found out that each Turkish aunt was flying in to keep Dara company, Maria became a fixture in Dara’s life, too. Maria would enthusiastically cook Greek food; Dara would be in heaven over that. When he got home from Afghanistan, he knew his babysitting aunt would return to Turkey because he could then take over and be there as an ongoing support for Dara and enjoy her pregnancy. His mother would keep making and sending over that special Turkish food to them, however. Matt didn’t mind that at all. He knew Dara loved Turkish and Greek food, so it was a win-win for everyone.
His whole life had just been turned upside down in the best of ways. As Matt drove through the wet streets of Alexandria, heading for the Culver home on the outskirts of the city, he shared a smile with Dara. She gripped his hand in her lap, the joy radiating from her face and her tear-filled blue eyes. Yeah, there was nothing better than this moment. Their time in Oahu had been a key turning point in their lives with one another, a very special, heart-centered moment.
Matt gently squeezed Dara’s hand, feeling happiness wash through him in tsunami-like waves. He’d never seen her so happy. There was so much to look forward to. So much.
THE BEGINNING . . .