Goddamn. His throat was tight, his chest was tight. That soft look, lips slightly upturned… He cleared his throat. “Hey, yourself.”
She turned her head, taking everything in. To the east, past the compound, the sky was lighter than the color of her eyes, and over the ocean it was a deep blue, darker than her eyes. It was chilly but there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. She studied the compound, silent and welcoming in the dawn. “We’re here. We made it.”
“We did. Up you go.” He gave her his hand and she stood, still clutching the thermal blanket. “Let’s get the boat squared away and go explore our new temporary home.”
She nodded. He wanted to make sure the boat would be available to them at all times. They were safe here but that could change in a heartbeat.
They tied the boat to the pier and walked down it, feet loud on the uneven planks. They carried everything with them—Sophie her backpack and Jon his combat pack and the vaccine case. If they had to make a run for it, they had to have everything to hand.
Sandstone steps led from the beach to the lowest level of the compound and…
“Wow,” Sophie breathed.
“Yeah.” It was spectacular, much more than a B & B. It was a mansion, spreading out over several stories but somehow intimate at the same time. “But we don’t have time to sightsee. I want to get inside.”
Jon hustled them along. They skirted an infinity pool, huge enameled planters with flowering plants, up cobblestoned pathways, across a terracotta tiled terrace that could have doubled as a tennis court until they came to the entrance—a double wide set of armored glass doors that were mirrored so he couldn’t see inside. Jon checked his scanner compulsively. They were fucked if there were any infected inside. But the screen was blank. He checked the side of the huge glass entrance and found a screen. One swipe and the screen turned into a keypad. He had once memorized one hundred complex banking passwords of the Cortez cartel. One password was child’s play. He entered the code and with a slight pneumatic hiss, the huge glass door—as wide as his living room wall back in Haven—slid left.
Jon held Sophie back with an arm and entered silently, stunner up, eye on his scanner. There was the faintest possibility that the armored glass doors had a shield coating that provided a barrier so he couldn’t read the presence of infected. But even past the glass doors, inside the huge foyer, the scanner was blank. He holstered the stunner and held his hand out to Sophie, who crossed the threshold wide-eyed.
There was another screen to the side of the door. He disengaged the alarm and relocked the door, punching inmylovewith a secret smile.
He looked at Sophie.
She’d slept some in the boat, sitting up. She was far from rested. Her body had pumped itself full of norepinephrine—adrenaline—to use her body’s resources to the fullest. She’d run as fast as she could, suppressed fear reactions as much as she could and the trembling afterward had been the price. He was surprised at how well she was doing. Most civilians would be a wreck for days afterward as the chemicals of terror washed out of their systems.
He himself, like his teammates, had been inoculated against that during training and they had a different biochemical reaction to stress, anyway. They’d been tested for it. His brain, like that of Mac and Nick and the Captain, like that of all Special Forces soldiers, released a chemical called neuropeptide Y that automatically counteracted stress hormones and kept the frontal lobe ticking while that of other people subjected to the same stress simply shut down.
In other words, he was wired to keep calm under intense pressure.
It was a trick of his body and he’d been born that way, just like every other special forces soldier.
He wished he could give Sophie the gift of time to come down from the stress of their flight out of San Francisco, but he couldn’t. So maybe he could pamper her instead.
“It’s beautiful.” Sophie smiled, tilted her head back to look at the ceiling of the atrium, two stories high. A huge chandelier, big flowering plants…even empty it had a feeling of warm welcome.
Jon nodded. “It is. What do you want first—shower or food? The way Robb described it there should be running hot water.”
“Shower, definitely.”
“Okay.” Jon tugged at her hand. “Master bedroom and bath on the first floor, that’s what Robb said. Let’s explore.”
They walked through a tall arch right into the Robb living area. Man, it was nice. Jon had never had a home of his own, military all the way since he was 17. His quarters at Haven were the closest thing to a personal space he’d ever had. But if he were ever to have a home of his own—and he couldn’t imagine how—this would be what he’d want.
They walked through large rooms that somehow were both beautiful and cosy. Man, Robb had more rooms than Jon had guns.
Finally, they opened a door onto a huge bedroom that had two sitting areas and a door on the other side of the room. Far, far away.
“Looks like we’re here.” Jon checked the scanner once more, then started dumping their gear onto a sofa, the case on the hardwood floor next to the sofa. It felt good to shed the weight. Sophie dropped her backpack and stretched her shoulders.
The windows faced east and the room was suddenly flooded with light as the sun rose up over the walls. Everything in the room gleamed. The light picked out the bright colors of the sofas and the multicolored bedspread. Small pots of still-fresh flowers were everywhere, thriving plants everywhere, making the air smell fresh.
Sophie roamed around the room, touching the furniture lightly. She stopped at a chair and picked something up.
“Look, Jon.” It was a large pale pink shawl, scarf…thing. She held it up, stroked it, then carefully folded it and tucked it into her backpack. “It’s so beautiful. Pure cashmere. No wonder Robb’s wife wants it. It’s a wonderful gift.”
It was. Jon stood in the middle of the luxurious beautiful room, filled with light in all senses of the term.
No one had ever accused Jon of being a sensitive man. As far as he knew, he didn’t have a sensitive bone in his body. And yet—he was picking up on the vibes of this room. A room that had been carefully decorated to please all the senses, a room that somehow still held the echoes of a man who loved his wife.
