Page 112 of Good Enough
“Perfect. That’s still going to happen, just not how you planned.” He stood up and reached out for her hand. “C’mon, babe. Let’s go. We’ve got a drive in front of us.”
Waters’ house was just under two hours from the heart of L.A. in the rolling hills of Escondido. The ride was silent, with Kubrick staring out the passenger side window the entire way. When they arrived at the A-frame luxury cabin, she simply stared out the front window at it. Waters watched her process what she was seeing.
“Wait for me to open your door.” He hopped out of his truck and then walked around to her side of the vehicle. “C’mon. Let’s get you inside.”
He put her just in front of him as they walked to the door. When they got onto the porch, he made sure to cover the entire back of her with his body as he disarmed the security system.
When he ushered her through the door, he watched her take in her surroundings, trying to see the house from her perspective. Vaulted ceiling. Pine floors that gleamed. Log walls that matched the outside, although there was insulation between the inside wall and the outside wall. A kitchen with stainless steel appliances and a kitchen island breaking it apart from the living room. A stone fireplace. Floor-to-ceiling windows showed that there was a second-floor deck, both windows and deck giving a spectacular view of the orchards on the side of the mountain that spread down into the valley. A staircase that went upstairs to the open bridge hallway connecting the two sides of the gallery formed the bottom of the U-shape to bedrooms on the left and right side of the structure. On the left was a closed-off room. On the right was a loft guest room the kids had shared with each other or friends when the family vacationed there. Or the occasional other guests that Tribe housed there.
Her eyes and nose scrunched up again.
So fucking cute.
“Not what I pictured for you.”
He pocketed his keys and reset the security system. “What did you picture?”
“Honestly? A bunker.”
“I read so military that you imagine me living underground like a doomsday prepper?”
She shrugged and hugged herself. “I guess I never thought about where you lived. Everything with us was always so right-here-right-now that it wasn’t something that existed in my head.”
He left that commentary alone. He was on dangerous ground here and didn’t want it all to go sideways by saying the wrong thing. “You tired?”
“No. Amped, actually.”
“The crash will come.”
“I don’t have anything with me. How long will I be here?”
“Cherry went out to grab you some things from the stores. The guys will bring them up later.”
She whirled around. “God said they’d be babysitting?”
“They’ll be so invisible, you’ll forget they’re even out there. As for a timeline, probably a week. Maybe two.” He shoved his hands in his pockets. “Why don’t you have a seat?”
She moved to the leather couch, and he watched her consider sitting down. Reading her right now was painfully easy. He could almost see the wheels turning, envisioning the leather couch in the War Room. He swallowed hard and tried to bury his own memories of that couch.
She jerked suddenly ninety degrees and instead sat on the edge of the matching leather chair, her hands underneath her thighs. “Thank you,” she said so softly he almost missed it.
“Thank you for what, babe?”
“Finding Zahra and the baby. Finding Jacques’ family. Taking care of them and making sure they’re safe.”
“No need to thank me.” He sat on the edge of the coffee table in front of her, elbows on his knees, leaning toward her. “I’m just sorry we’re still hunting for your brother. His gifts, which are so valuable to the military, are the very reason we’re struggling to find him. But we will find him. It’s just going to take time and patience.”
Weakly, Kubrick smiled at him. “And we know how good I am at being patient.”
“Don’t sell yourself short. You’re patient when it comes to a lot of things.”
“Not so much when it comes to self-control.”
“Self-control is overrated.”
She slouched. “Ka-Bar could have used some, and he wouldn’t have been in this situation. And neither would I, or you and your team.”
“While it is true that, in hindsight, it would have been much better for him to have just brought her to the embassy for sanctuary, we have no idea why he didn’t. He might have had a damn good reason. Then again, sometimes love blinds people to the obvious, and they make decisions that later are defined as ‘What the fuck was I thinking?’ moments. No one is immune to those, even the most brilliant of us.”