“I sure didn’t,” she blustered, scowling at him. “You’ve never been any kind of experiment to me. Now, I agree, I love science, and I dearly love being in a lab, and I find petri dishes swiped with viruses or bacteria absolutely fascinating. But I’ve never seen anyone, much less you, as one.”
“Just consider me instead as a canvas that you can paint on to your heart’s content,” he coaxed, giving her a warm and apologetic look, hoping she would forgive his poor communication skills, which obviously needed work. Instantly, he saw that she liked that visual much better than the petri dish.
“Oh, I love that idea!”
“We are sort of empty canvases to one another,” he said, now serious, holding her interested gaze. “I’m sure we’ll paint facets of ourselves on one another over time, Dara. Right now, we really are blank slates, because we’ve only known each other for less than two months.”
“That’s true,” she murmured, finishing off her omelet. “But I fell in love with you anyway, Matt.”
“And I certainly fell in love with you from the first moment I laid eyes on you at that Bagram chow hall where you and Callie belly-danced.” Her cheeks became a deeper pink and Matt could feel how excruciatingly vulnerable she was right now with him. He could feel the continued openness between them since their lovemaking last night, and he could feel her emotions so much more intensely and brightly. Far more than normal. Was Dara feeling or sensing him as much as he was her?
“Well, you sure made an impression on me that night at Bagram,” she whispered, reaching out, caressing his recently shaved jaw. “I fell so hard for you, so fast.”
“It was mutual,” he agreed, his voice thick with feelings, catching her hand, kissing the back of it before releasing it. She colored prettily and once more, that shining love for him returned to her eyes. “What would you like to do today, Dr. McKinley? The day is yours to do with as your heart desires.” That would get them off this line of inquisition as far as Matt was concerned. Dara perked up, suddenly smiling, and he was warmly drenched with her reaction of utter enthusiasm and childlike excitement. Nothing made him happier than to see the beautiful glow that came to Dara’s expression when her heart was involved.
“Well, don’t be upset with me, but Dilara was telling me there’s a Delos charity located in Waianae, a branch of the Safe House Foundation. I would love to drive over there, meet the director, and spend the day, if they need me, examining the little ones.”
Matt smiled, loving Dara even more than ever before. She was a healer, pure and simple. He’d seen her with the children of the Hope Charity in Kabul, working tirelessly, caring for infants, children, and pregnant mothers. He’d seen her in action for five days straight at that charity, and the Afghan mothers carrying their sick infants or holding their toddler’s hand, hope in their eyes, as Dara utilized her medical expertise to help them. When their infants improved or their small children became healthy, it meant everything to them. And he saw the fierce dedication Dara had to each of them as well. Her being a doctor wasn’t a career choice. It was a heart choice. It was who she was and always would be. So how could he blame her or be upset that she wanted to be with babies, moms, and children here in Hawaii?
“Sure, that would be fine,” he said. “You’ve got your doc’s bag with you. We could make a phone call to the director and find out if she wants your medical services.”
“That’s a good idea,” Dara agreed, suddenly eager to be off. “I have everything I need. I’d just like to help out medically if they need me.”
He chuckled and rose, stacking the plates and picking up the used flatware. “Yeah, asking you not to help out that charity would be like asking a hunting dog to sit on the porch when she spots a bear ambling by her door.” He chuckled, loving her.
“Well,” Dara offered with a wry smile, “I just thought since Delos has a charity on Oahu, it might be nice to drop by for an hour or so. I am marrying you, and I’ve never stepped foot into one of your mom’s charities, so I think it’s a great win-win. I’d like to see what one looks like and how it operates.”
He swallowed another chuckle as he put the dirty dishes into the dishwasher. “I’m fine with you doing it,” Matt assured her as she came over with the jar of guava jelly and the emptied toast plate in her hands. “In fact, I’m surprised you didn’t ask me earlier,” he teased, adding a smile so Dara knew he really was okay with her choice of what to do with their day. Matt had other plans in place, but this wasn’t about him. It was about them.
Dara didn’t see being a doctor as work. For her, getting her hands on those squirming babies was play and fun. Never work. Matt wanted whatever would make her happy and stress-free. And tykes always made her glow with passion and eagerness to be helpful to those who needed medical care. How could he say no?
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 breakins 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.”
Never Enough: Delos Series, 3B1 Page 8