And now? Had it only been two months since she’d met this incredible man who could shoot to kill one moment, and the next be there to comfort her and the children in the aftermath, calming all of them with his low, soothing voice and his gentle touch? As she languidly rested, watching the heavy foot traffic on one side of the street and looking at the ocean on the other, she felt as if she were in some kind of amazing, ongoing dream. She hadn’t intended to fall in love with Matt Culver. She’d had no idea who he was or that he came from one of the richest families on earth. He’d shared a few hints of his family’s history with her but never admitted that he was rich beyond imagination, or that he was as generous as he was kind. Dara knew nothing about him except that he drew her to him, and she felt helpless to resist those large, intelligent gold-brown eyes of his that missed nothing.
As the dry breeze passed through the open windows, she closed her eyes, enjoying the balmy mid-seventies temperature, just happy to be with him under less pressured circumstances. The Taliban attack at the orphanage wasn’t the only terrifying event they’d had to endure. The Taliban had ambushed them as they’d driven toward a pro-American, Afghan village to render medical aid. Once Matt had gotten her and her younger sister out of that overturned vehicle, he and Beau Gardner, his teammate, had grabbed Dara and Callie and headed off in opposite directions, hoping to throw the attacking Taliban forces into confusion.
Dara had thought they were going to die either of hypothermia in the winter mountains of Afghanistan or at the hands of the Taliban relentlessly tracking them. She thought about the constant, unceasing struggle of the two days they spent running for their lives. Matt was in rugged shape, like a mountain goat, accustomed to climbing up to an elevation of nine-thousand feet in winter weather. She was not. Matt had coaxed her, helped her, and somehow, she’d done it. Without him, she could never have gotten over that horrid mountain and to eventual safety on the other side. Dara would never forget those nightmarish days. Even now, at night, she’d have a nightmare. Matt would awaken instantly, curving his body around hers, his arms holding her close, speaking soothingly to her, calming her, dissolving her fear of being captured by the Taliban.
Dara reached out, sliding her hand across his hard, jean-clad thigh, barely turning her head to catch his glance. “I love you so much, Matt … this is such a wonderful vacation to share with you.”
He placed his hand across hers, his fingers long and roughened. “We needed this,” he rasped. “You went straight from the ambush and running for your life to flying home the next day, going back into your residency. You’ve not had time to absorb everything that’s happened to you, sweetheart.”
She heard the concern in his deep voice, felt his care, that wonderful, invisible love that surrounded her as it had so many times before. “Spending Christmas with your family, though, and then two weeks with my mom, my dad, Callie, and Beau at my family’s ranch, helped me a lot, Matt. Really, I feel pretty normal.” Her lips curved ruefully as she absorbed his classic profile, thinking how ruggedly handsome he was. “But I’m also still floating with unbelievable happiness over finding you … you loving me. Me loving you.”
She curved her long, slender fingers around his sun-darkened ones. Matt had a golden tone to his flesh, and it wasn’t from being in the sun, although he had been in it plenty as a Delta Force operator. He took strongly after his uncle Ihsan, who had the same gold-brown eyes, the same golden tone to his flesh. His Turkish-Greek mother, Dilara, had olive-toned skin and those flawless aquamarine eyes that mesmerized Dara. She’d never seen eyes quite the color of Dilara’s. When Dilara was happy, they were more blue. When she worried, they grew more green. She was classically beautiful. Matt had once said that he thought his mother was the goddess Artemis come down into human form. And Dara couldn’t disagree. The woman was a world-famous socialite and fashion icon, but she usually kept her fame low-key and didn’t seek out attention. Still, Dilara was the face of the Delos Charities, and she would go out into the limelight to raise awareness of what Delos did to help those who had so little.
Dara felt Matt’s fingers grow more firm around her own as he drove down the six-lane boulevard between the huge, sprawling Hawaiian city and the endless white-sand beaches with huge hotels built nearby. She loved the gently swaying palms that were eighty to a hundred feet tall. This was the jungle, and she saw many hibiscus, birds-of-paradise, and other colorful bushes here and there.
“You look really relaxed,” Matt said, taking the boulevard to the H1 freeway, which would lead them around to the other side of Oahu and to the town of Waianae.
“Ohh,” she whispered, smiling softly, “am I ever. I feel as if I’m in a never-ending dream with you, Matt.”
“Well,” he joked, “at least this time around it’s a dream and not a nightmare.”
Laughing throatily, she said, “No, we had the nightmare ambush to endure and live through already. Remember?”
“Helluva way to impress you, wasn’t it?” Matt gave her a warm, amused look. Strands of her thick blond hair moved restlessly across her shoulders as they picked up speed on the busy freeway. The sun glinted through them, showing the caramel, gold, and wheat tones throughout it. Dara’s hair color was natural, and he’d been mesmerized by it since he saw her belly dancing that night at Bagram. Women would die for her hair, and he knew it. Many tried to create the look, but Dara was the real deal. She didn’t realize how beautiful she was, how clean her features, those wide marine-blue eyes of hers, that lush, full set of lips he would never tire of kissing and making his own.
“Yes, you impressed me all right,” she said, grinning recklessly. “I was mesmerized by the color of your eyes, how exotic you looked. After I found out you were Turkish and Greek, I really saw it in your face. Your DNA is what made you so striking.”
“As long as you like me the way I am, I don’t care what anyone else thinks.” Matt lifted her hand, bringing it to his lips and kissing the back of it, inhaling her sweet, womanly scent. Dara was delicious to him. He liked listening to the low, vibrating moans she shared with him when he loved her slowly, building her up, watching her whole body begin to quiver with anticipation of what he was going to give to her. There was no joy greater than foreplay with Dara. She wasn’t a neophyte when it came to making love, but in some ways, she was, and Matt delighted in teaching her. She was a fast learner, which made him smile. He was eagerly looking forward to showing her Oahu, the Hawaiian way of life, the blindingly beautiful nature of the island and its warm, welcoming people.
“You really are a shadow warrior, Matt. Callie was right about that.”
“Your sister? What did she say about me?” They had spent nearly two weeks up at the Eagle Feather Ranch outside Butte, Montana, the McKinley family’s twenty-thousand-acre cattle ranch. Most of the time, they were snowed in, but there were days when the sky was a bright, clean blue and the sunlight was blinding, and they’d ride horses on well-known trails, enjoying the raw beauty of nature together.
“Callie has a lot more experience with you operator types,” Dara said with a careless shrug. “You and Beau were talking with Grandpa one evening, and she said that both of you never really revealed who you were. You gave parts of yourself to the person you were with but were never really fully available to them. Or maybe, putting it a different way, you gave only what you thought the other person needed, but not your full self. Does that make sense?”
Grinning, Matt said, “You know, your grandpa was a Marine sniper during the Gulf War. Did you realize he was black ops, too?”
“No, I didn’t. He never talked about his war experiences when he was in the Marine Corps.”
“That’s because he held a top secret clearance, and he was a sniper. He was blacker than most black ops, Dara.”
“But he was able to be vulnerable with Callie and me.”
“You were innocent children growing up with him. He could be open with you. You weren’t a threat to him; rather, he saw himself as protecti
ng the two of you. As you got older and because of the love and trust you had with him, he could remain open in all ways to you girls.”
“That makes sense,” Dara said. She slanted him a glance, absorbing the dry warmth and strength of his hand around hers. Matt never hurt her. Never used his brawn or strength against her. “But I feel that way about you. You know that, don’t you? I trust you with my life, and I love you. I don’t feel any need to parcel myself out in facets to you. What you get is all of me.”
He absorbed her serious look; he longed for such deep, searching talks with Dara, because as beautiful as she was, she was equally intelligent and insightful. “Do you feel like I’m parceling myself out to you?” It was a serious concern to him, and Matt knew that after nearly ten years in black ops, there were many things about his behavior that were so ingrained in him that he didn’t give them any thought. He saw Dara’s broad, unlined brow scrunch, her lips pucker, and he’d studied her body language enough to know that she was in serious thought. His training had finely honed his powers of observation so that he could read a person minutely, and in such a way that they didn’t even realize he was analyzing them.
“Sometimes,” she said, hesitant. “I mean, I saw it a lot when we were on the run after being ambushed.”
“I was working on all cylinders at that time, Dara. I needed to get you the hell out of there, put miles between us and the Taliban. I was spending most of my time reading the landscape, the weather, recalling that area from memory and taking your physical abilities into consideration, too.”
“I could feel it, Matt. Don’t take what I said the wrong way, because it made me feel safe. It really did. I could sometimes look into your eyes and I’d see the power of your mind at work. It made me feel secure when I shouldn’t have felt that way at all.”
“What about after that?” He caught her solemn-looking blue gaze. Dara was a conservative person. Much like his older sister, Tal. She was the oldest of the Culver siblings and had borne the responsibilities of an eldest child. “Do you feel I still parcel myself out to you?” Because he didn’t want her to feel like he was giving only a part of his heart to her. She held his whole heart in her slender hands. Dara was a natural healer. Everything she touched was better off for it. Every smile she gave to someone was like blinding sunlight cascading through them, touching their heart, healing their soul. Matt had been privy to that as Dara trustingly gave her vulnerable self to him when they made love with one another.
“When we love one another?” she said tentatively, still putting the right words together. “I feel … sometimes, it’s just a feeling, Matt. I feel you withholding some part of yourself from me, and I don’t know why.”
Grimacing, he nodded. “It’s Delta training,” he muttered. “And it’s something I need to work on and fix between us.” He kissed her hand again, holding her confused gaze for a moment before returning to driving. Settling her hand on his thigh, he rasped, “It’s not easy to be open, Dara. I’ve spent nearly a decade in situations where lethal threats were damned close to me. It’s not an excuse, but that’s the reason, okay?” He gave her a concerned look.
“But I’m not a threat to you, Matt. I never will be.”
“My heart knows that,” he said, his voice suddenly thick with emotion. “My overly-trained brain doesn’t. And that’s where I have work to do.”
She gave him a gentle, understanding smile. “Every time we love one another, it’s always better than the last time. It’s not about what you sometimes teach me. It’s about how I feel your heart is slowly unfurling toward me, embracing me, making me one hundred percent yours. That’s what I live for: feeling that magical, beautiful, spellbinding connection with you, Matt. I feel you opening up to me more and more every time, so don’t look worried. Okay?”
“But you don’t feel it every time I love you?” That tore at his heart, because he hadn’t realized it. And he knew Dara wasn’t saying this to hurt him. She was not a manipulator. What you saw was what you got. And he loved her fiercely for being her simple, honest self with him. She was that kind of woman, and he wanted to tenderly nurture the beautiful connection between them forever.
He saw her squirm. It wasn’t obvious, but he sensed it. Dara didn’t like hurting anyone’s feelings. Because she was so ultra-sensitive by nature, she was more careful about potentially hurting another person with a wrong look or word. She’d been trained to be diplomatic and optimistic, no matter how bad the news she had to deliver to a parent of a sick child or a mother carrying her baby.
“Hey,” he warned her gruffly, “don’t hedge on this with me, okay? I’ve got the skin of a rhino, Dara. I’m not like you—you have no skin.” He gave her a teasing grin, hoping to pull her out of her fear of hurting his feelings.
“You do not have rhino skin, Matt Culver!” she sputtered, horrified.
“Not with you, I don’t,” he agreed. “But you can ask Beau Gardner how tough I can be when necessary.” Matt loved her tinkling laughter, seeing her head thrown back, her eyes shining with happiness. He lived to make this woman smile, to see her spread her heartfelt sunlight out to others. And like the greedy sponge he was, he lapped up every smile, every loving look, every touch she gave to him. There was something so sacred about Dara that Matt couldn’t put it into words. It was a feeling, and it was around her all the time; it made his heart fly open when normally it would have remained closed and guarded. Dara made him want to be utterly vulnerable with her.
“And yet,” Dara said, reaching over after pulling her hand from his and sliding her fingertips over a few brown and gold strands of hair above his ear, “you never let that toughness show. I’ve seen you in a lot of situations and you never shield yourself, Matt.”
“I show it only if I need to,” he counseled her gently. “You haven’t been in that kind of situation with me.”
“And I hope I never am. Getting to know you, falling in love with you, is like riding a rocket. I don’t know what’s going to happen next or where it will go.”
Mouth quirking, Matt admitted, “Well, that’s true. But I’ve been like that since I was born, Dara. Things just pop up and happen around me. My mother swears that I carry the energy of a bolt of lightning within me. She loves the old gods of Turkey and Greece. Zeus was the one who carried the lightning bolt, and he was the king of the gods.”
“Oh, but wait!” Dara said, giving him a gleeful look. “Zeus allowed his daughter Pallas Athena to hurl his bolts of lightning, too! I’ll bet you didn’t know that.”
Amused, Matt cocked a dark brow. “Yes, I did. I was raised on the myths of Turkey and Greece, Dara. I probably know more about the myths of these gods and goddesses than ninety-nine percent of the world. My uncles would sit us on their knees and ply the three of us with those wondrous tales. Little-known ones. Real gems, because each one was like a teachable moment. We loved when we visited our Turkish aunts and uncles during our summer break in Kuşadasi because they always had a myth to share with us. The three of us are drenched in them, believe me.”
“Okay,” she laughed, “so who’s to say your mom isn’t right? Maybe you do carry the lightning of Zeus or Athena within you, and you attract sudden, unexpected, transforming experiences because of it. Do you think it’s Zeus or Athena who works with you?”
“Oh, I think it’s probably Athena. I’m not like Zeus. I don’t want to be a king. I don’t need to be seen as all-knowing or all-powerful like he does. There’s a statue of Athena where she’s holding a coiled snake around each of her upper and lower arms, their heads resting in her opened palms. Uncle Ihsan told us about this statue one morning after breakfast while we were sitting around his rocking chair at his villa. He said he’d heard of it as a boy, that this myth of her with the snakes around her arms had come down from the twelfth century when their family started their shipping company.”
“What does it mean?”
“That the snakes are about wisdom, fertility, intuition, and creativity. You know that
the head of Medusa is on the shield Athena sometimes carries? Or on her breastplate. Medusa is the woman goddess whose hair is made up of hundreds of living snakes.”
“Yeah, but Medusa got a bad rap,” Dara said, wrinkling her nose. “The myth we were all told instead, in the later centuries, was that if you looked at her, you turned to stone.”
He snorted. “Yeah, that was male patriarchy getting in the way of the real truth about Medusa. My uncles always told us kids that ten-thousand years ago and earlier, the world was matriarchal, ruled by women. Back then, Medusa was the goddess of enlightenment. The snakes on her head represented a connection with the Great Mother Goddess of all. It was as if she were plugged into the loving, creative, and fertile energy and brought it down to this earth, to share with us mere humans to make things better for all of them. She was the light of awakening and being in touch not only with your heart and soul, but with all the world around you. She was known as a great healer, also.”
“Well, I sure like that myth better than the one where she petrifies men.”
“Well, isn’t that interesting?” Matt countered. “The myth was revised by men. Because Medusa was an enlightened woman who was awake, they felt threatened by her. So they reinvented the ‘truth’ and had her turn men into stone. Men were asleep. They were not in touch with themselves, with their hearts or their feelings. So of course, that was a logical lie to tell about Medusa. They never said that she turned women into stone, did they? Just stupid, foolish men.” He chuckled. “As males began to dominate the world, they destroyed the respect they had held for women and their intelligence, creativity, and fertility. And they subjected goddesses to a do-over, too. The patriarchy changed a lot of Greek myths where the goddesses were supreme or at least equal to the male gods. What you see in today’s myths is a male remake, distortions, twisted half-truths, or outright lies. And the goddesses have suffered gravely from this injustice. But so do women of our world to this day. That has to change.”
Never Enough: Delos Series, 3B1 Page 2