Giggling, Alex agreed. “Matt has the nicest woman in the world who loves him. Dara is just so kind and gentle.”
“He really got lucky,” Tal agreed, giving Alexa a mischievous look. “It never hurts to have a doctor in the family. The next thing that will happen is that everyone will become fertile myrtles at the same time, mark my words. We do things in triplicate around here.”
Alexa sighed. “I so want to settle down, Tal. I want a family. I hunger for it.”
“How does Gage feel about it?”
“He’s worried about my anxiety and PTSD. If this adaptogen works, Taylor said I should take three months and then talk to a gynecologist about getting pregnant.”
“That sounds pretty reasonable to me. Is Gage ready for fatherhood?”
Alexa knew that Tal was aware that Gage had lost his family when he was young. “Yes, we’ve discussed it a number of times. He’s more than ready.”
“He’ll make a good father,” Tal agreed quietly.
“His dad was a great role model for Gage, and I’m sure he’ll pass that on to our children.”
Tal said, “I was thinking, maybe, just maybe, you’ll end up loving motherhood and family so much, you won’t want to work at Artemis anymore.”
Alexa knew that Tal was an excellent judge of character and had deep insights into people. “I was thinking the same thing, Tal. Gage thinks I should stay away from the Safe House Foundation, that it brings up too many memories and upsets me too much right now.”
“I agree with him,” Tal murmured.
“Could you get along without me, Tal?”
Tal gave her a fond look. “Well, you won’t be very far away from us, Alexa. No matter what you want to do, my instinct is that you were made for motherhood, and that you and Gage will have a bunch of kids. I think what’s happened to you may have moved your life course in another direction, but I believe it’s going to play to another strength of yours: being maternal, loving children, and wanting to be a mother. That’s always been there in you, big time. You were the one that always wanted to play with dolls, not me.” Tal grinned.
Alexa nodded. “You’re right, Tal. I’ve always wanted a big family, like Mom’s Turkish family. I love the warmth between all our relatives.”
“Well,” Tal murmured, finishing off her coffee, “I can see you and Gage with three kids for sure. He lost his family, and yours could be a replacement family for him, a starting-over. A nice one. The guy deserves some good things to happen to him after his lousy start in life.”
“He deserves so much happiness,” Alexa said, her eyes tearing up.
“He’s good for you, Alexa, and he has rare qualities of honor, integrity, and kindness in his bones.”
Alexa wiped her eyes. “Gosh, all of sudden I’m so teary.”
“Could it be that the adaptogen is working?”
“I don’t know. It could be. I’m not feeling numbed out like I usually do. My emotions seem to be on tap within me again, and I think that’s a good sign.”
“Are you still calm inside?” Tal looked at her watch. “It’s noon.”
“I still do. It’s so wonderful, Tal, I can hardly believe it. I’m beginning to feel a tiny bit like I did before all that trauma.”
Tal smiled warmly. “I think it’s a miracle. Mom’s brothers have been going to their mosque to pray for you every day since you were kidnapped. That’s pretty significant.”
“Yes, Uncle Ishan emailed me when I told them I was on this adaptogen.” Her voice lowered, and she sniffed. “I don’t care what the religion is, Tal. If you’re praying from your heart for someone else, it works.”
“You’ll get no argument from me,” Tal said. She heard the back door open and the tramping of feet, then the door closing. “Sounds like Matt and Gage have arrived. Can I help you in the kitchen and we’ll make lunch?”
Smiling, Alexa stood. “Sure can. Lucky for us all, we just roasted a turkey breast yesterday. Turkey sandwiches sound good?”
Tal rose. “Yep, they sure do.”
CHAPTER 9
Alexa stretched out her naked body against Gage as they settled into bed for the night. They had made love in the shower once again, and her body glowed from the unexpected session. Then Gage had washed her hair as she sat on the warm marble bench, the water cascading over her shoulders and back. She relished when he washed and then brushed her hair.
Nuzzling his jaw, Alexa whispered, “I need to share something with you.”
Gage had seen how restless Alexa had been all afternoon. She enjoyed seeing her brother and sister, but there was something else going on that he couldn’t figure out. He moved to his side, propping himself up on an elbow to look at her more closely. For their shower, she had piled her hair up on her head with gold barrettes. Now he eased both of them from her hair and placed them on the bed stand.
“Are you feeling okay? You seemed a little restless today,” he said, trying not to sound concerned.
“Well,” she whispered, frowning, “I just wanted to make sure.”
One corner of his mouth hitched. He skimmed his hand across her belly. “Sure about what?” He saw Alexa lick her lower lip, a sure sign of something important about to be said.
“The adaptogen, Gage. I think it’s working.” She saw his eyes widen, and his hand stilled on her belly.
“What level of anxiety are you at?”
She smiled softly. “Ever since I woke up this morning, I’ve felt no anxiety, Gage. None! I can’t believe it.” She rested her hand over his, feeling his concern, mixed with hope, for her words. “I told Tal about it at noon, how afraid I was that it would come back to slam me.”
“And you’re taking two capsules a day?”
Nodding, she released a fragmented sigh, frowning. “I-I didn’t believe Taylor when she said it would just shut off. Yesterday, I had anxiety. Today, nothing.” She slid her hand up across his chest, his skin moist beneath her fingertips. “And tonight, when we made love in the shower …”
“Yes?”
“It was … well … different.”
“How do you mean?” He tried to keep the trepidation out of his voice. Gage saw how tentative Alexa was right now and knew how badly she wanted this protocol to work.
“Well, before my capture, orgasms were very intense, when I had one. I mean, I felt near to fainting sometimes, Gage, the pleasure was that profound.” She lifted her lashes, staring up at him. “Tonight, I almost fainted. It felt like the kind of orgasm I used to have before the capture.”
Gage leaned down, kissing her lips. “Then it’s working, baby. Taylor said less than a week, and you’ve been on them four days now.”
She made a small sound, sliding her hand through his damp hair. “But I’m afraid, Gage, that it will come back.”
“Taylor said it wouldn’t,” he reminded her quietly. “She said it was like a faucet being shut off, and last night, I watched as you slept so damned hard, Alexa, better than I’ve seen. Maybe that’s part of the proof that the adaptogen is working.” He teased a few damp strands of her auburn hair that were stuck against her cheek and slid them behind her ear.
Alexa pulled him down upon her, burying her face against his neck. “Oh, I hope you’re right, Gage. I want this so bad …”
Hearing the fear in her voice, he kissed her hair and said reassuringly, “It’s happening, baby. Maybe you should call Taylor tomorrow?”
“Oh, I can’t. It’s Sunday, Gage.”
He grunted. “Okay, Monday then.” Moving Alexa into his arms, he leaned against the headboard, bringing her into his embrace. “Does it feel like you used to feel before being captured?” he asked, holding her gaze.
“Yes. The same. I’m quiet inside, Gage. I can’t explain it. It’s like this invisible animal with teeth had been eating me from the inside out. Then, suddenly, it’s gone. Just … gone …”
He murmured, “If you wake up tomorrow morning and you’re still feeling quiet and calm inside …”
&nbs
p; “Yes?”
“Then it’s for real, Alexa. I think you can take it to the bank.”
She pressed her face against his chest. “Oh, Gage, I want it to be! I so want it to be …”
He rocked her a little, feeling how worried she was right now. “Right after my dad and Jen got murdered, I used to go to bed at night and hope that when I woke up in the morning, they’d be out at the kitchen table—Dad with his coffee, Jen with her Cheerios. I think in your case, this is real. It’s working. And it’s here to stay.”
Never had Alexa wanted to hear anything more than that. Gage felt so solid, so stable, and was ultimately practical.
“Believe me, I understand how you could feel that way, Gage. It breaks my heart that you had to go through that alone.”
“Hey,” he groused, “I didn’t bring it up to make you feel bad. I’m just showing you how our minds and emotions can skew us sideways at times.”
“My mind is still churning, Gage. I’m not thinking as logically as I usually do,” she admitted.
“Maybe that will go away, too,” he suggested.
Alexa closed her eyes as he caressed her cheek with his rough palm. “I’m so tired of fighting it, Gage. To wake up this morning and feel nothing but this delicious calm throughout me—I felt as if I’d died and gone to heaven. And the more I woke up, the more I realized that the monster wasn’t prowling around inside me anymore. I kept watching the clock, thinking it would wake up again.” She swallowed hard. “But it didn’t … it hasn’t … yet.”
*
For the longest time, Gage lay on his back with Alexa curled up beside him, sleeping deeply. Allowing her to talk out her fears always seemed to calm her. They’d had great sex in the shower, the best he could remember. And maybe, just maybe, that damned cortisol had been turned off by the adaptogen. God, he hoped so.
In the next two days, they would be getting ready to fly to the Keys. Alexa was always happy, always in her element, when she was out at the hangar with her Stearman biplane. Her mechanic, Andy, in his fifties, gray-bearded with a twinkle in his green eyes, was like a doting uncle to her. They’d work together on the plane, their wooden toolboxes with all kinds of wrenches, pliers, screwdrivers, and work gloves nearby as they tinkered with the ancient engine until it fired on all pistons, the sound making them smile for a job well done.
Closing his eyes, Gage envisioned Alexa when she’d first met him at the canteen at Bagram. She’d been like blinding sunlight to his dark, fractured soul. Her broad smile had fed him hope and made him want to capture that sunbeam brilliance she radiated. It was like capturing fireflies in a Mason jar. He knew he couldn’t, but to sit there at that table with her and her brother, Matt, all of them eating pizza and drinking beer, had changed his life.
At lunch today, Gage had enjoyed the sibling repartee between the three of them. Alexa began to shine once more, as she had upon first meeting him. The sunlight was back in her eyes, the green and gold flecks prominent, the sienna nearly nonexistent. The warmth, camaraderie, and love between the three siblings made Gage ache for Jen and his family, but he hid it well, interacting with all of them, sharing laughs and jokes. Yet his heart yearned for what had been cruelly ripped away from him.
Alexa wanting to become a mother meant more to Gage than he’d admitted to her, and it was something he needed to sit down and share with her. His desire for family drove him whether he realized it or not. Until he’d met Alexa, it hadn’t been a clear thought or a need, but it was turning into a deep longing. He’d had his family torn from him, and there would be no more photos of them, no more shared memories.
But once Alexa was pregnant, he knew his life would truly change. It was so important to his soul and heart, a possibility he could hang onto, that lately he could think of little else but seeing Alexa with a belly huge with his child. Gage now understood how much his father had loved his mother. As a child, what did he know or realize? Not much. But he remembered how his father looked when he came home from deployment, the deep adoration Gage saw in his father’s eyes for his mother. And he always touched his wife with warmth, tenderness, and appreciation. They had that kind of rare, wonderful marriage.
And now, Gage was living with a woman he would marry next March, and he would give her his heart because she deserved nothing less from him. Gage was filled with so much hope, but he knew it hinged on the success of the cortisol protocol.
Gradually, Gage’s lids fell closed. Alexa was in his embrace, her head nestled trustingly on his shoulder, her soft, curvy body resting beside his hard planes. Now he began to worry about the enemies of Delos, and the blood revenge against the families as a whole.
They’d barely dodged a bullet when Rasari went undercover and assumed another identity. Gage believed he was more dangerous than Zakir Sharan, but both men had lost sons to Matt and Tal over in Afghanistan. Tal had a team putting together a PSD, personal security detail plan, for the entire global family. Robert Culver, especially, felt the whole family was at risk, not just the American contingent. And if that was so, there were a lot of Turkish and Greek young adults at risk, too. Gage wasn’t sure how the adult children would react to the information, but he knew that Uncle Ihsan and Dilara’s other two brothers, Berk and Serkan, took it with dead seriousness.
There were a lot of balls in the air right now. Because Gage had been a sniper and was in black ops, he’d told Tal and the planning team that he didn’t want a security contractor shadowing their every move. He’d handle it on his own and felt confident about doing so.
Alexa did not have her head in the game, but Gage didn’t expect it to be. Until she could get this cortisol under control, she was completely distracted in every way. And even if the adaptogen worked, when they returned from the Keys, Gage would buy a trained guard dog for their farmhouse. To outsiders, the dog would appear to be just a dog. But he’d be much more. He didn’t want Alexa alone in their home without one to warn her when someone drove into the driveway. She’d fallen apart the other day when the electric company man had shown up at their property unannounced. No, there was no question: they needed a dog. That was the last thought he had as he drew in a deep, slow breath, Alexa’s rose fragrance filling his lungs.
*
The yellow, red, and white Boeing PT-17A Stearman biplane gleamed in the bright overhead sunlight the next day at Potomac Airfield. Andy was with Alexa, who had her sunglasses on, her hair up, a shirt over her sleeveless tee, carrying a huge, weighty wrench across her shoulders. Andy was doing a final FAA inspection on the World War I biplane. It was one of the few Stearmans to be equipped with blind-flying instrumentation, meaning Alexa could fly in IFR, instrument flight rules, for poor visibility conditions. Without that equipment on board, she could only fly as far as she could see visually. She could never take off in fog conditions, low visibility, or heavy cloud conditions. With the valuable instruments on board, her little biplane could be flown day or night. It had canvas skin stretched and painted on the upper and lower wings, its huge engine clean and prepped for tomorrow’s flight to the Keys.
Gage acted as a gofer for the two of them as they chatted, laughed, and worked on the Continental R-670-5 seven-cylinder air-cooled radial engine together. Alexa got all excited about her little plane’s capabilities. It had a 220-horsepower engine, cruised at 96 mph, and had a service ceiling for 13,200 feet. And then she wickedly said that she had no oxygen masks in the cockpit, and she’d always fly below ten-thousand feet because of that. He’d laughed. The Stearman, when the throttle was applied to it, could go as fast as 135 mph. Not fast, in Gage’s opinion. But, as Alexa pointed out, if the engine died midair, they could easily float to the ground and probably land unscathed, whereas in today’s domestic jet airliners, they wouldn’t coast at all because they were too heavy, much harder to land without killing everyone on board. He didn’t pretend to know an aircraft engine, but Alexa clearly did, because excitement burned in her eyes as she went through an alphabet soup Gage couldn’t really fo
llow. She was clearly impressed with the engine on her biplane. Andy treated her like a much-loved niece. He was dressed in a pair of denim overalls, a dark blue polo shirt with the sleeves pushed up, and a dark blue baseball cap on his flyaway silver hair.
Potomac Airfield sat in Fort Washington, Maryland, a twenty-five-minute drive from Alexandria. Alexa did not want to use busy Reagan National Airport near Washington, D.C. This particular airfield had eighty-seven aircraft on it—eighty-four were single engine, like her Stearman. There were a number of World War II aircraft that Gage had seen too, like P-51 Mustangs, Navy F4U Corsairs, and Army trainers. It was a busy little airport with planes from the past.
Now they had pushed the biplane out of a huge aluminum hangar and onto the concrete, because the November day felt like September and the temperature was in the mid-sixties. The sun felt good beating down on the shoulders of Gage’s lightweight nylon jacket, a black t-shirt beneath it. He wore a black baseball cap on his head, plus wraparound sunglasses. Even though Alexa swore that this tiny one-runway airport was safe, he took nothing for granted. Under his jacket, he carried a Glock pistol in a holster at the small of his back, hidden to prying eyes by the fabric hanging down over his hips.
It was a perfect time to come out here, an Indian summer day, because snow had already fallen and now warm weather followed. All the trees outside the cyclone fenced-in airport area were naked and without leaves. As Gage walked around, some of his hearing was keyed to Andy and Alexa, his other ear listening for anything that sounded out of place for the area. He was in complete sniper mode. As much as he wished he could relax and lounge around, now was not the time or place to do that.
No one knew what Rasari or Sharan were up to or where they might try to strike next.
Gage wanted to celebrate that Alexa had awakened this morning anxiety-free. She was dying to call Taylor the next morning, Monday, to share what had happened to her. Today, she seemed less worried about the anxiety coming back. In fact, she looked and felt more settled than he’d seen her since the capture. It was as if she were slowly accepting that the medication might be working.
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