*
“What a night!” Ali said as Ram opened the door to his condo for her. It was one a.m. and they’d just left the Culver’s family Christmas party. Mazzie greeted them happily at the door and Ali leaned down, petting their dog. Ram carried two huge, brown bags filled with take-out containers of goodies packed by Dilara, just for them. There was food from Greece and Turkey, as well as Dilara’s cooking, which was always spectacular and tasty.
“It was a lot of fun,” he agreed.
Slipping inside, she closed the door after Ram entered. He went straight to the kitchen and Ali followed. How sexy he looked in his black chinos, and caramel-colored, wool blazer over a bright-red, long-sleeved tee that he’d worn for tonight’s party.
She had enjoyed dressing up, wearing a velour, evergreen-colored set of trousers and matching blazer with a pink, ruffled cotton blouse beneath it. She went to the refrigerator and opened the door, knowing there were at least eight cardboard containers in those sacks that needed to be refrigerated.
“What a family they have!” Ali said, smiling as Ram gave her the first container. “I haven’t done much traveling in that part of the world and have never met anyone from Turkey, except of course, Dilara and her children. But her three older brothers are wild. And each so different in personality from the others.”
“Does it remind you of your own family?” he asked, passing on another container to her.
“It does. The warmth, the love, the laughter, and affection they have for each other is contagious.” She sighed. “I love being in that kind of family environment. Did you enjoy it, Ram?”
“Yes. It’s beginning to grow on me,” he teased, smiling over at her. “You were the most beautiful woman there tonight. Did you know that, Aliyana?”
She felt heat color her cheeks as she continued to pack the food into the fridge. “Thank you, but I think you’re a tad biased, Torres, don’t you?”
“Nope,” he said, folding up both sacks, and putting them away in another cabinet for use later. After Ali closed the door to the refrigerator, he slid his hand beneath her elbow, guiding her toward the living room. “There’s something I need to give you.”
Her brows rose. “But we have Christmas gifts under your tree,” she said, pointing to a six-foot Scotch pine glittering with tree lights in the corner of the room.
“I know,” he murmured patiently.
Ali felt a tension running through Ram, but didn’t know why. They’d just had a wonderful meal with the Culver’s extended family at their huge U-shaped dining room table. She’d covertly watched Ram relax—truly relax—among the little United Nations of people he’d never met until tonight. Somewhere inside him, he yearned for that same kind of affectionate warmth with a family. His own family.
Ali yearned to give Ram that. He deserved a real, loving environment. And seeing him open up, begin to laugh, and take part socially with that family, meant so much to her. Beneath his fear he yearned for such a way of life that would feed his heart and soul, not try to destroy him as his own parents had almost done.
She tossed him a warm look as he sat down on the couch. Ram liked corners and he situated his large body against one end of the sofa, drawing her down beside him. Their thighs met one another and she gave him an expectant look. “What surprise do you have in store for me, Torres?” She watched him dig into his left, coat pocket.
“Well,” he began, pulling out a dark-blue box and holding it out toward her, “I was trying to time when I’d do this. This is more than a Christmas gift, Aliyana.” He took her hand, placing it in her palm. “This is something I’ve dreamed of doing for a long time.”
The small, blue velvet box sat in her palm. “What have you done?” she whispered, assuming it was a ring box. But maybe she was wrong. Maybe he had bought her a pair of very expensive earrings? Ram knew she had a collection of small gold and pearl earrings that she loved to wear, but had rarely gotten to when she’d been a sniper. Now, working in an office every day, she’d worn them until she’d lost one of them. Perhaps Ram had replaced it?
“Something I hope you’ll like, mi tesoro.”
Every time he called her “my treasure,” her heart flew open with love for this man. It was becoming tougher not to whisper those words to him. Nervously, she sat the box down on her lap, fingers delicately pulling open the top of it.
Ali gasped. Her gaze flew to Ram and she saw the worry in his eyes. “Oh,” she managed in a hoarse voice, “Ram . . . ”
“Do you like them?” he asked hesitantly.
She gazed down at a yellow-diamond engagement ring paired with a gold wedding band. The band was a quarter of an inch wide and was burnished with leaves and flowers. Tears filled her eyes as she caressed the rings. “H-how did you know, Ram? How?” Ali lifted her chin, staring at him, her heart throbbing with so much love for this thoughtful man. “You want to marry me? Really? Not just live together?”
Ram swallowed against a constricting throat. He took her hands in his, holding her glimmering eyes wide with shock and happiness. “Of course I want to marry you, Aliyana. I love you. I’ve loved you for so long without realizing it, but it really hit me on that mission to rescue Cara and those other women. That’s when I knew I loved you. It was damned hard for me to hide it from you. We were on a life-and-death mission and it was not the right place to explore how I felt about you romantically.”
Nodding, she whispered, “I felt the same way about you, Ram. Seeing you again, and being with you on that op, I realized I loved you. I just didn’t know what to do with it. I knew you were carrying a lot of dark secrets from your past and I felt walled out, but I also felt you trying to let me in, little by little, during that mission. And by the time you stayed with us after Cara was rescued, I really got to see more of the real you—the real Ram Torres.”
“And even then, you didn’t know about my past.”
“No, but I saw enough in Tucson to realize there was hope that at some point I might approach you about a relationship, because I wanted one with you,” she admitted, giving him a tender look. “I just didn’t know how to go about it. We didn’t have the privacy there to honestly talk to one another. Cara was our focus, as it should have been.”
“Yes, you’re right.” Ram eased the engagement ring from the setting, placed the box aside, and turned her left hand over. “Will you marry me, Aliyana Montero? Be my wife, my best friend, my woman, the mother of any children we might have in the future?” His eyes bore into hers, his voice low and filled with a tremulous emotion she’d never heard before. “I love you. I’ve loved you from afar for so long. I will love you forever going forward. I want no other woman at my side except you. Will you marry me, mi tesoro?”
Tears streamed down her cheeks. Ali eased her finger through the engagement ring he held. “Y-yes, yes to everything you’ve just said. I’m more than ready to marry you, Ram. You are a part of my heart, my soul. You always have been and always will be . . . ”
The ring fit perfectly, the golden facets glimmering and shifting. Now, finally, Ali realized just how deeply Ram loved her as she saw his relief when she agreed to marry him. She understood that even though some of their generation chose to just live together and not marry, it was important to Ram that they did. He would want any children they had to have their name, their foundation, and their love. Already, Ram was protective of her, and of their future children. Her heart flooded with joy. So much had been taken from him, but he was strong enough, and had the integrity to do the right thing for the right reasons for their future together. And Ali agreed fully with his needs because she loved him and wanted their children to have that parental umbrella of protection, too.
“Fits pretty well, doesn’t it?” he asked, moving her hand, the facets flashing, a pleased look coming to his expression.
“It’s perfect. I don’t know how you did it.”
He gave her a sly look. “Well, to tell you the truth, I called Mary and asked her to check the jewelry case in yo
ur room. I asked her to go look at one of the rings in it, get its size, and let me know.”
“You’re such a fox, Torres,” she laughed. “Did Mama ask you why you wanted to know?”
“Yes, she did. I told her I wanted to marry you.”
“Did she whoop, yell, and shout to the heavens?”
He chuckled, holding her hand in his. “No, she cried. I made her promise to say nothing to anyone until I could ask you. I was afraid you’d say no. I didn’t tell your mother that, but it had to be a secret.”
“I think,” Ali whispered, leaning her cheek against his shoulder, “that you were afraid I’d say no because you heard the word through the actions of your own parents.”
“In part, yes, but I knew you loved me. I saw it when we made love to each other, Aliyana. I saw it in so many large and small ways when we were at your parents’ home. I saw it here when we agreed to live together. So many times, especially when loving you, I wanted to tell you that I loved you. But I was afraid of rejection, afraid of losing you when I’d just found you again. But I had to take a chance, anyway.”
Nodding, Ali whispered, “You weren’t the only one who was scared, Ram. Funny, I thought those same words, about taking a chance to reach out to you, too. At first, I was afraid to bring it up for the same reasons. So you see, we are similar in that way. I didn’t want lose you, either. I didn’t want to scare you off by saying I loved you because some men run at the word.”
“I would never run from you,” he rasped. “I will always run toward you.” Releasing her hand, he slid his arm around her shoulders, drawing her gently against him. “I think we should go to bed now. I don’t know that we’ll get much sleep,” he said, giving her a squeeze. “Then, tomorrow after breakfast, let’s call Mary and Diego and tell them the good news? I’m sure Cara and Tyler will want to know, too.”
“Wonderful, because it’s Christmas Eve tomorrow,” Ali said, nuzzling her cheek against his shoulder. “Mama and Papa will be so happy for us, Ram. For so long, they’ve wanted us girls to marry, to have children . . . this is a beautiful Christmas gift for them.”
“I thought it might be. Do you have any idea when you might like to get married?” He searched her misty eyes, now gazing at him with such joy.
“I don’t know . . . what about you?”
“Why don’t we get married in Tucson? We can be close to your parents and Cara, maybe next March or April? What do you think?”
“Sounds perfect. Mama would hate to be left out of all the celebrations and by going there to marry, it will make them so happy.” She saw a pleased look come to his eyes.
“I’m sure half of Artemis will want to be invited.”
She laughed. “I’ll talk to Alexa. She’s the social butterfly here at Artemis. She’ll help me with invitations and such.”
“And you can work with Mary on the flowers from her garden for your bouquet.”
“She’ll love doing that,” Ali whispered, suddenly emotional. She placed her hand on his chest, drowning in the love shining in his eyes for her alone. “And then, Ram, you will have a real family. No one deserves that more than you.”
“I know, and whenever I think of that, Aliyana, I don’t know if I can handle all that happiness. It’s almost too much.”
She patted his chest. “Get ready to be happier than you’ve ever been, Ram Torres. You’re stuck with me now, giving you more love than you’ve ever dreamed of, and it will be multiplied by each of our children.”
She saw his eyes fill with such emotion she thought he might burst into tears. Instead, he swept her into his arms, crushing her against him, holding her so tightly it squeezed the air out of her lungs.
Closing her eyes, she pressed a kiss to his chest. “Te quiero con todo mi alma. I love you with all of my soul . . . ”
THE BEGINNING . . .
Don’t miss Lindsay McKenna’s next DELOS series novella,
The Hidden Heart
Available wherever you buy eBooks and paperbacks!
Turn the page for a sneak peek The Hidden Heart
Excerpt from
The Hidden Heart
by Lindsay McKenna
December 1
“Grab her!”
“Oh, no!” Cara Montero groaned as she watched one of Emilio Azarola’s drug soldiers grab one of her fellow prisoners, blonde, attractive Inga in the large outdoor cage.
She watched mutely, still unable to believe she was actually living this nightmare. Two weeks ago, three drug dealers who had been driving around looking for women to kidnap to be sold as sex slaves overseas had dragged her off the streets of Tucson.
The day had been warm, bright and sunny, and women were out in numbers enjoying the fine weather and the local shops and bistros. No one expected to be snatched in broad daylight from the streets of a major city.
And then the men had spotted Cara, innocently walking down the street just blocks from her home. They screeched to a halt, grabbed her off the sidewalk and pushed her into the van. Stunned, unable to fathom what was happening, she had been wrestled to the floor by two masked men, held down, and injected with a drug that rendered her unconscious.
Then, she had been driven to a two-story villa deep in the mountains of Sonora, Mexico. Cara still didn’t know where she was except for fragments of conversation she’d heard from the soldiers who spoke Spanish. She knew the men reported to a drug dealer named Emilio Azarola, but that was all. The three German tourists spoke a little English, enough that they could talk stiltedly between themselves.
She knew her gentle, loving parents, Mary and Diego Montero, must be frantic not knowing what had happened to their daughter and every day Cara prayed that someone would rescue her. The day after her abduction, three captured German tourists had joined her in her cell, and the four women had bonded in desperation, despite their language barrier.
Now, Inga screamed as one of the men grabbed her by the arm, dragging her toward the tall, rusty iron door, now open, where two more armed soldiers stood. She tried resisting, but the more she struggled, the more the men laughed. Finally, one of them cursed her in Spanish and slapped her hard, knocking her to the ground. She lay there, crumpled, as the other women gasped and shrank back, knowing what was coming next.
Cara pressed her hand across her mouth to stop from screaming, and watched as the woman was jerked upward, shakily standing barefoot before her gloating captors. The men had taken the women’s shoes away so they couldn’t escape. But where could they go? Deep mountain forest surrounded the area for as far as she could see. Dios, she wished she knew how close they were to the U.S. border!
The Books of Delos
Title: Last Chance (Prologue)
Publish Date: July 15, 2015
Learn more at: delos.lindsaymckenna.com/last-chance
Title: Nowhere to Hide
Publish Date: October 13, 2015
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Title: Tangled Pursuit
Publish Date: November 11, 2015
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Title: Forged in Fire
Publish Date: December 3, 2015
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Title: Broken Dreams
Publish Date: January 2, 2016
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Title: Blind Sided
Publish Date: June 5, 2016
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Title: Secret Dream
Publish Date: July 25, 2016
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Title: Hold On
Publish Date: August 3, 2016
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Title: Hold Me
Publish Date: August 11, 2016
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Title: Unbound Pursuit
Publis
h Date: September 29, 2016
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Title: Secrets
Publish Date: November 21, 2016
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Title: Snowflake’s Gift
Publish Date: February 4, 2017
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Title: Never Enough
Publish Date: March 1, 2017
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Title: Dream of Me
Publish Date: May 23, 2017
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Title: Trapped
Publish Date: July 17, 2017
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