Free The SEAL’s Secret Lover by Anne Calhoun Page A

a few cars and smaller tour buses were lining up in the parking lot. The wind caught Rose’s door when she opened it, rocking the Land Rover. Keenan helped the Babes from the backseat, then closed and locked the car. They paused in the middle of the parking lot to lean back and peer up at the turquoise spire brilliant against the dark gray sky and the hewn blocks that comprised the walls. A smaller minaret perched delicately between the domes of the main building. Hardy evergreen trees stood fast against the desert wind.
    Grannie peered over her shoulder at Rose, then pointed up. The wind carried her words, but her body language and excited smile came through loud and clear.
    “I’m so glad I’m here to see this,” Rose said. Her elastic couldn’t keep her hair confined, and strands of it blew across her cheek and clung to her mouth. She tugged them free, then gave Keenan a sweet smile. “So glad.”
    “Me too. We’d better catch up with them.”
    They cleared the main gate and walked into the walled compound. Using the research he’d gathered before driving to Ankara he gave a quick talk on the building’s history and architecture. He looked at his watch. “Will two hours be enough?”
    Grannie pointed at the gift shop. “Let’s meet there in ninety minutes,” she said. “If we need more time, we’ll decide then.”
    Keenan set the timer on his watch, and the group drifted apart. Rose strolled across the marble-paved courtyard beside her grandmother to the museum entrance, an arch set into the ornate dark wood decorating the mausoleum’s main floor and the roof jutting over the entrance. A small crowd milled around while covering their shoes with incongruous blue surgical booties to protect the fine carpets inside, and show respect for the poet’s final resting place. Rose tugged the booties over her boots, then shot Keenan a smile as Grannie used her shoulder for balance to cover her Converse sneakers. They disappeared into the crowd. Keenan followed them at a discreet distance to give them privacy but also keep an eye on them.
    For Jack. He told himself he was doing this because Jack asked him to, not because he couldn’t stop watching Rose. Her hair was uncovered. Some Turkish women wore the hijab ; whether to cover your hair or not was a hot topic among women in Turkey, with modern women often opting not to cover their hair in daily life, while more ardent Muslims and older women chose to wear the hijab .
    But even if Rose had covered her hair, even if her hair wasn’t a distinct shade of reddish brown, he would have known where she was by some interior compass that was slowly realigning itself to her as true north.
    The mausoleum’s ornate interior held sarcophagi for Rumi and his immediate family, with Rumi’s resting underneath the green dome. The room wasn’t overly crowded yet. He still didn’t feel at ease in tight spaces full of people, but he stayed behind Rose and the Babes while they examined the contents of the glass cases, clothing attributed to Rumi or his family, locks of hair, and beautifully illuminated Korans. When they were in the last small room, he walked back outside and stood by the fountain in the courtyard to wait for them, watching pilgrims lean over the low white-painted fence to fill bottles from the fountain or wash their hands and feet at one of the spigots extending from marble blocks at regular intervals in the wrought iron fence.
    The Babes and the Babes’ Road Manager emerged from the museum. There was a brief moment of conference as they took off their booties, then they split up, going in a different directions, Florence and Marian toward the gift shop, probably in search of tea and souvenirs, Grannie covering her head as she walked into the small mosque at the far end of the courtyard, and Rose studying the pilgrims and the architecture in the courtyard.
    “What did you think?” he asked.
    She paused for a second, arms crossed over her torso as she looked