Книга - Hot Intent

Hot Intent
Cindy Dees


LOVE UNDER SIEGEKatie McCloud just wants to be a mom to Dawn and girlfriend to Dr. Alex Peters. But the violent unrest that brought them all together is once again erupting into their lives. Sent to Cuba to help care for hurricane victims, Katie and Alex are thrust back into the thick of international espionage–this time, on opposite sides.Katie thought she'd made peace with the secrets locked tight behind Alex's handsome, brooding facade. Back in hostile territory, though, those secrets threaten the very bond that holds them together. And Alex? He's finding out that what he holds most precious–Katie and tiny Dawn–is making him way too vulnerable. He's going to have to make a choice…soon







LOVE UNDER SIEGE

Katie McCloud just wants to be a mom to Dawn and girlfriend to Dr. Alex Peters. But the violent unrest that brought them all together is once again erupting into their lives. Sent to Cuba to help care for hurricane victims, Katie and Alex are thrust back into the thick of international espionage—this time, on opposite sides.

Katie thought she’d made peace with the secrets locked tight behind Alex’s handsome, brooding facade. Back in hostile territory, though, those secrets threaten the very bond that holds them together. And Alex? He’s finding out that what he holds most precious—Katie and tiny Dawn—is making him way too vulnerable. He’s going to have to make a choice…soon


RT Book Reviews raves about Cindy Dees (#ulink_18355394-96f9-5612-abc4-0cdd2c9be413)

Close Pursuit

“Dees blends action and intrigue in this character-driven romance with deft skill, keeping readers enthralled until the final secret is unveiled and the last chase winds down.”

Night Rescue

“Dees’s exciting, action-packed story speeds along on all cylinders, with a smoking-hot pair at the center of it all. Your fingers will get exercise as they rapidly turn the pages of this compulsively readable tale.”

Flash of Death

“Dees brings readers into an action-packed world, with superhuman operatives. Add to that a sympathetic heroine and a sizzling romance, and this is a book you can’t put down.”

Deadly Sight

“Dees crafts the perfect blend of romance and suspense with her latest story featuring members of the special ops group Code X. A solid, suspenseful plot, tormented, vulnerable characters and beautiful, compelling writing will keep you turning the pages.”

The 9-Month Bodyguard

“There’s action and hot attraction galore in this addition to the Love in 60 Seconds series. Dees does a terrific job of advancing the overall series while lending her unique talent to her vibrant individual contribution.”


Hot Intent

Cindy Dees












www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)


This book is for you, dear reader. You, who enthusiastically pick up books and throw yourself headfirst into stories, who let your imagination soar and who grant me the privilege of taking you on a journey of thrills, chills, laughter and love. The storytelling process would not be complete without you. Thank you for being here, and enjoy the ride!


Contents

Cover (#ucc68a48b-fdd2-5f37-8f39-9f3c2c704844)

Back Cover Text (#u7315e8d6-9f25-5ee1-a4ea-75a09e7ceffe)

Praise (#ulink_fd95326c-03b7-5ace-9ca5-ebde49b77c00)

Title Page (#ufe8e924a-969a-5317-ad75-a918636b4edb)

Dedication (#u9d8c709a-481f-5262-9240-391bff8466f8)

CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_10fa0e7d-6e17-5dcc-bb8b-927a95e730b9)

CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_352a124f-bed8-5f53-ac04-e344090ef216)

CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_66c9895b-e375-500d-a73e-9a6725ce2112)

CHAPTER FOUR (#ulink_d4dbf34c-ad6a-5751-8a01-a734e8d0f81d)

CHAPTER FIVE (#ulink_33098a60-b9e6-508b-b9bf-71bc80827087)

CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER FOURTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER FIFTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER SIXTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER NINETEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TWENTY (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO (#litres_trial_promo)

Extract (#litres_trial_promo)

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)


CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_76423de8-42e7-57d7-bdab-8a3dcbca51ec)

KATIE MCCLOUD STARTED as the front door’s elaborate electronic locks buzzed to indicate they were disengaging. Her heart leaped in eager anticipation. He was home. Finally. After nearly a year away.

She’d been head over heels for Alex Peters when he was sucked into some supersecret CIA training program last year. He’d been yanked away from her just as they were really getting to know each other. But now he was back, and their life together could resume where it left off.

Their relationship had been forged in danger as they’d fled forces intent on killing them and the infant girl they’d rescued together. Alex, a trauma surgeon by training, had been in the remote central Asian country of Zaghastan illegally delivering babies, and she’d been there as his translator and babysitter. Although who’d watched whom was still open to debate.

His CIA handler, André Fortinay, had briefed her not to assume anything about her relationship with him when he got home. To let Alex set the tone and pace of the reunion. Almost as if they’d broken him in some way while he was gone. What exactly had they done to him in his training, anyway?

Alex stepped into the living room, and her heart gave a lurch. God, he was more beautiful than she remembered. Tall. Dark. And even more dangerous than before. His coffee-dark hair was a little lighter, his skin darkly bronzed. He was leaner through the waist and bigger across the shoulders. But those changes weren’t what really arrested her.

Something intangible had changed about him. His natural confidence had been replaced by something else, something more...powerful. Now it came across as utter belief in himself. He’d always had a lethal quality to him, but it had a new focus about it now, a cold reserve that oozed don’t-screw-with-me-in-a-dark-alley.

She realized she’d risen to her feet after the fact. Crud. She’d planned to stay seated, arranged sexily on his white leather sofa. Oh, well. So much for pretending to be calm, cool and sophisticated. She was a hot mess and would always be a hot mess. To heck with André Fortinay’s do’s and don’ts for Alex’s homecoming.

“Alex!” she cried joyfully. She started forward and managed to catch the edge of the flokati area rug with her heel, slam her shin into the glass coffee table and pitch headlong into Alex’s arms as he dived forward to catch her.

“Been working on your coordination in my absence?” he murmured as he drew her up against his body. His mouth closed on hers and the wild magic exploded between them like it always did. His lips slashed across hers as her mouth opened eagerly. Their tongues collided, and he inhaled her like he couldn’t get enough of her. At least that hadn’t changed about him. Relief crept through her nervousness.

Her arms slid around his waist. He was more muscular, harder, than before. But then, so was she. She’d been working out like crazy while he was gone. Some of it had been boredom, and some frankly had been a remedy for horniness. And a little of it had been insecurity over how a girl like her was ever going to hold the attention of a man like him. He was James Bond, and she was the girl next door.

He came up for air long enough to murmur, “Where’s Dawn?”

“Asleep. Would you like to peek into her room and see her, though?”

He smiled and the warmth reached all the way to his eyes. “Yes.”

Keeping her plastered against his side, he strode across the sleek living room of his penthouse condo and down the hall to the nursery where their adopted daughter, who recently turned one year old, slept.

He cracked the door open and crossed the floor to the crib. “My God, she’s grown so much,” he breathed.

A wedge of light from the doorway fell upon her blond curls and chubby cheeks. She slept on her tummy, her knees tucked up under herself and her diaper poking up under the pink blanket. Adorable didn’t begin to cover her angelic cuteness.

“I thought they taught you in medical school that growing is what babies do.”

He snorted without taking his gaze off the sleeping baby. “She’s gorgeous.”

“Did you ever get a good look at her birth mother before she died? The girl was stunning. Our Dawn’s going to keep you hopping in about thirteen years when the boys start sniffing around.”

“There will be no sniffing,” he said firmly.

She laughed under her breath. “Good luck with that.”

He backed out of the doorway and headed toward the white quartz bar in the corner of the living room. He poured himself a shot of expensive Russian vodka neat and tossed it down. He made a sound of appreciation.

“Missed the good stuff?” she asked.

“You have no idea.”

“Tell me about it. What was your training like?” André had told her not to ask any questions, but he could get over it. Alex would think something weird was up if she didn’t display at least a little curiosity.

His eyes shuttered instantly and completely. “Rough.” And that was obviously all he planned to say about it. Great. He was back to minimal communication punctuated by long silences.

“Fair enough. Glad to be home?”

He looked around the condo, his sharp gaze probing the corners carefully. “Thanks for house-sitting.”

She laughed. “It was a real hardship, living in all this luxury for free.” She added more seriously, “Actually, it helped me feel a little closer to you while you were gone. I missed you.”

He bit out grimly, “I missed you, too.”

She knew him well enough not to take it personally that he sounded supremely unhappy about that development. He’d been raised by his spy father to believe that all human emotions were weaknesses in need of expunging from his heart and mind.

“André said you might want some time by yourself to decompress after your training. I’ve talked with my parents, and they’ve invited Dawn and me to come hang out at their place for a while and give you some space.”

“No,” he replied sharply. “Stay.”

“Are you sure?”

“You’re safest here.”

He wasn’t kidding. She’d spent the past year learning the security features of his fortresslike home and they were daunting. Like him. The place was elegant and gorgeous on the inside, hard and impenetrable on the outside.

“You haven’t lived with a toddler before. Dawn will totally destroy your grand solitude. Chaos is the normal state of affairs around here,” she warned him in all seriousness. Not to mention, she was concerned about his reflexive responses to a baby. Who knew what knee-jerk reactions had been hardwired into him this year? Were she and Dawn even safe around him? After seeing the icy detachment in his eyes, she wasn’t a hundred percent sure.

“I insist.”

Big words. Still, she worried about how he would react to Dawn and her. He’d lived alone basically his entire life, and the transition to having an overnight family was not going to be easy for him. No way would she even consider staying here like this were it not for the threat his father posed to them all.

“I had an intercom system installed while you were away, Alex. I hope you don’t mind. It’s just that the apartment’s so big I can’t hear Dawn if she’s in her room and I’m in—” She broke off. How to describe the master bedroom? Was it still just his room? Their room? It had been her room for the past year.

“Good call on an intercom,” he remarked.

“Are you hungry? Tired? It’s late. Have you traveled a long way to get here? Oops. Strike that last one. But you do look tired.”

He actually looked more than tired. Up close, she spied lavender shadows beneath his eyes, and a certain haggard quality clung to him. He looked bone-deep exhausted. She could imagine the kind of stuff the CIA trained its field operatives to do, and he probably had good cause to look wiped out.

She murmured, “Let me check on Dawn, and then I’ll be back to welcome you home more thoroughly.”

His gray, intelligent gaze went alert and predatory. Her tummy fluttered excitedly in response. Who’d have guessed she was still such an adrenaline junkie after a year of sedate parenthood?

“I’ll be waiting,” he murmured.

Now why did that sound like a threat? Was it just his habitual economy of expression, or was it more? Either way, her heart leaped in anticipation.

Hah. And André had hinted broadly that Alex might not want to have a romantic relationship with her when he got home. He’d been home five minutes and already laid a smoking-hot kiss on her and was now moving things to the bedroom. Along with her triumph, a dose of abject gratitude flowed through her.

He was still hers. Brilliant, tortured Alex Peters—genius, surgeon and now spy—still wanted her. Part of her—okay, a scarily big part of her—worried that it was too good to be true. That he was going through the motions now because he thought she expected him to. That the past year’s worth of training had forced him to revert to form and shut down emotionally. That he would ultimately push her out of his life.

Worried, she leaned over the crib in the nursery. Sweet Dawn, the best baby ever, settled in under her blanket without waking up. If the way she kicked off blankets was any indication, she was on her way to being a great soccer player.

Li’l munchkin had been through a lot in her short life. She’d been born into a war zone and her mother had died in childbirth despite Alex’s heroic efforts to save the girl. Her entire village had been massacred and the three of them had barely made it out with their lives.

But thanks to the trust fund Alex had set up, the legalities his lawyer had sorted out to give Alex and her permanent custody of Dawn and, of course, the roof Alex had put over both of their heads, it was nothing but smooth sailing for Dawn now. For all of them. No more running around being chased by bad guys out to kill them. Katie tiptoed out of the nursery and down the hall to Alex’s bedroom.

* * *

ALEX STOOD IN the darkness of his bedroom absorbing the familiarity of its dark shapes, noting the differences Katie had brought to the space. He could do this. He could pretend to be a normal man. Living a normal life. He could experience pleasure. Family. Love. He would not break.

Nothing would break him.

They’d tortured him and screwed with his head and made him kill. But in spite of it all, he had not broken. And to think, he’d once believed his father a bastard for training him like a spy. If only he’d known just how easy his old man had taken it on him.

Alex pulled his shirt off over his head, not bothering to unbutton it. Cool air blew lightly across his skin causing goose bumps on his chest, back and arms. He kicked off his shoes and stripped off his pants and socks. Naked, he stood stock-still in the middle of his bedroom. Nothing but darkness clothed him.

Memories rolled over him then. Remembered tortures that made him tremble even now. They’d begun like this, too. Exposed skin, cool breath upon his flesh. Then pain. Exquisite, fiery pain.

And in his agony, all the demons from his past had come calling, singing to him like sirens, calling him home. It would have been so easy to lose himself in them. Then check out of the prolonged agony and go to that other place inside his soul.

But he’d chosen the pain. He’d stayed present. Suffered the agonies of hell. Only then had he been sure he was still alive.

Even now, especially now, he wondered if any of this was real. It was so mundane. His house. Katie. The baby.

Was this the cruelest torture of all? Were they going to let him get comfortable and then rip it all away from him? If he knew what was good for him, he would reject it all. He would find the pain and live there.

But that welcome-home kiss...

He swore violently. Kissing Katie might just be worth going to hell for.

* * *

KATIE STEPPED INTO the darkness of the master bedroom and screamed a little as strong arms came out of nowhere to sweep her up against a hard body. “Gotcha. I win,” Alex announced. “You are the worst spy ever.”

“Mmm, but I’m the softest and sexiest and love you the best.”

“True,” he agreed as his mouth closed over hers.

The explosive attraction that had simmered between them before erupted, crackling like chain lightning across her skin, striking further and further inside her as their kiss deepened. Craving twisted her innards into tight knots of desire. She could never seem to get enough of him.

Her clothes went every which way as the passion overtook them, and frantic urgency spurred them onward. Naked and devouring each other, they fell onto his bed. She’d have laughed, except he speared his hand into her hair and pulled her head back so he could plunder her neck and shoulder with teeth and tongue, and the laugh became a gasp of pleasure instead.

He took control tonight, demanding ever more response from her as he kissed and stroked and nipped his way across her flesh. Where she was cold, he was hot. Where she was soft, he was hard. And where she was hungry, he starved her for more.

With hands and mouth, he played her body, using his knowledge of her pleasures and desires to drive her into a frenzy of blind lust. She needed to have him crushing her into the mattress, to fill her body with his, to feel his power and desire as he pounded into her...oh, yes. She needed all of that in the worst way.

But frustratingly, he withheld it from her tonight. Instead, he kissed his way down her body until she gasped with need. His tongue circled her most sensitive bud, wet and hot and maddening until a climax started to claw its way out of her belly. And then his mouth withdrew.

“Tell me something, Katie. How bad do you want this?”

Oh, no. “Um, bad enough to beg?”

“Is that all?” he murmured in disappointment.

“Bad enough to do anything you want?” she tried.

“You’ll do that anyway,” he replied dismissively.

True. She never could say no to him. “Bad enough to cry?”

His thoughtful silence was encouraging. Although on second thought, she wasn’t sure she wanted to find out how he would make her cry. He’d warned her before that his sexual tastes could run pretty dark at times. And he’d just come off a year of pretty dark, violent training, if she had to guess.

Before he could act on her ill-considered offer, she added, “Bad enough to say ‘please’?”

He rose up over her on powerfully muscled arms. “Say it.”

“Please, Alex.” When he didn’t move, she continued. “Please give us both an orgasm. Or ten. I want you so much I can’t stand it. Now. Take me now. Please.”

In typical Alex fashion, he continued to stare down at her, letting her frustration and desperation build until she thought she might die.

“Will you beg me to stop, too?” he growled.

“Never.”

He made a skeptical sound. Cynical mood he was in tonight.

He waited until she all but sobbed with need. The pleasure she knew he could give her hovered just out of reach like a tantalizing piece of candy dangling on a string. Why did he insist on playing these wicked games with her? He knew how he made her feel. He knew how deeply she lusted after him. And still, he made her wait. And suffer. As if he was punishing her for making him feel the same way she did.

She knew why he did it, of course. He hated love. But it didn’t make this cruel game of his any easier to bear.

Her entire body throbbed with unfulfilled desire for the sex that was right there. So close, and yet so totally out of her control. If she could only get him to actually make love to her, his emotional barriers would crumble the way they always did. But for now, he fought it. So hard, he struggled to hold himself apart from her. From everyone.

Tonight his fight was worse than ever. His features pulled into a macabre rictus of suffering half-lost in shadows. It was hard for her to look at. What had they done to him?

She put her hands on either side of his face and tried silently to reach past the suffering to the man beneath. But he was lost. His eyes were black hollows. All she saw in them was pain, and more pain.

“Come back to me, Alex,” she whispered.

His hands went around her neck. They were big and capable and strong. He could snap her neck quickly or choke her to death slowly if he so chose. Soul-chilling terror flashed through her, along with instinctive knowing.

They’d turned him into a killer.

She spoke slowly and clearly into the hush while he debated ending her life. “Do it, Alex. If it will heal your soul, do it.”

“Gah!” He flung her back against the pillows and grabbed her hips, shoving her thighs wide. If he’d thought to scare her, he failed. She’d decided long ago that she trusted him with her life. Giving him her body was kid stuff by comparison. She arched her chest up toward him in invitation.

The fight played itself out on the beautiful, dark features of his face above her. He hated her for how she made him feel, and yet he craved those feelings with every ounce of his being. He wanted with his entire soul not to give in to her, to what she represented. Enough that he’d seriously considered killing her. He was physically shaking with the effort of withholding himself from her.

She truly wished love didn’t hurt him so much. But she also knew he needed it. Needed this. He’d been gone a year. That was a long time not to feel anything nor to let down his emotional walls. If she knew the CIA, his training had only reinforced his belief that feelings equaled weakness.

He plunged into her without warning, hard and deep, his capitulation not quite painful as her body stretched to accommodate him. It had been a year for her, too, and he was not a small man. Oh, how he wanted to hurt her. It was right there in his eyes. But he couldn’t quite bring himself to do it, and she trusted him not to.

He might hate the fact that he had feelings for another human being, but he did have them for her. Dawn and her—his Achilles’ heels and greatest weaknesses. The two of them had snuck past his guard and forced him to join the human race, like it or not. Most of the time, he did not like.

Tonight, he definitely did not like. Rage and self-loathing flashed across his face. Someone who knew him less well might not have seen them. But she’d greedily memorized every nuance of him in their brief time together last year. And she hadn’t forgotten anything. Sadness washed over her for the lonely child who had grown into this isolated, injured man.

He withdrew most of the way from her body. She braced herself, and sure enough, he slammed into her again. But this time, a faint shudder passed through him. Thank God. He was starting to crack. She opened her body and soul completely to him, allowing him to take whatever he needed. Offering herself up on the altar of his hatred and love.

He groaned his surrender and the terrible tension left his body. She exhaled in relief. One of these times, his walls would not break down. What then? She didn’t want to be around when that happened. She suspected his capacity for love would be exceeded only by his capacity for cruelty.

She wrapped her arms and heart around him, drawing him into her as his arms collapsed. His weight crushed her the way she’d wished for, and he pounded into her with all the desperation she could have hoped for. She locked her legs around his hips and rode the storm, meeting it with abandon, glorying in the power of it as the two of them flung themselves into the maelstrom and were swept away.

The sex was hot and slippery, with heavy breathing and hair stuck in the sweat on her face, and bite marks on her neck and scratches on his back, bodies straining urgently toward each other until where she stopped and he began blurred and disappeared. And through it all, he poured his soul into her and she refilled the empty places in his heart with her unconditional love.

Gradually, gradually, the sex changed. Grew more languid. Sensual. Personal. He propped himself on his elbows and pushed her hair back from her face. He found a slow, gliding stroke that her body matched with easy undulations born of exhaustion and relief. It was sultry and sexy and made her breath catch in her throat. He wasn’t entirely gone, after all, her Alex. The killer hadn’t quite won out. Not yet.

Finally, at long last, the massive, emotional orgasm that had been clawing for escape inside her broke free, ripping her apart with its power as she lurched up against Alex and cried out wordlessly. With a drawn-out groan of his own, he found his release, and she fell back to the bed panting.

His forehead rested on hers, and she lazily counted his heartbeats pulsing against her breast. He might win when it came to sneaking up on her in the dark, but she always won this battle of wills.

So far.

Normally she slept like a baby after making love with Alex. He demanded everything she had to give physically and emotionally, usually leaving her drained, but peaceful. Tonight, though, she found herself lying awake, staring at the flickering shadows on the ceiling from the swimming pool outside, worrying about him. About them.

He was fundamentally different than before. Changed.

What had they done to him? Was she an idiot to trust him? She knew in the depths of her soul that he would never do anything intentionally to hurt Dawn. But at the end of the day, could she say the same thing about herself? There’d been a moment there when she thought he’d slipped away from her into a very dark and violent place.

It was all well and good for him to insist that she and Dawn stay here with him and play house. But she didn’t kid herself that he was in an emotional place to let go of his past. If anything, the past year of training had driven him deeper into that locked-down part of himself. Sex with him—heck, life with him—had the potential to be very scary if she ever failed to break through his rage.

If only there was a way to exorcise the demons from his past. The biggest one of all being the one he never spoke of.

His mother. The woman who’d left when he was an infant, never to be seen or heard from again. She’d abandoned him with his father—a Russian spy who used Alex as a cover to infiltrate the United States and who brutally trained his son to be a spy just like him. Alex didn’t even know his mother’s name. No doubt, her abandonment was the source of his rage toward all women. If only she could find his mother for him—

Uncle Charlie, a deputy director of Plans at the CIA, did owe her a huge favor for getting Alex to agree to work for the agency. Oh, technically, he’d gone to work for Doctors Unlimited, but they all knew it was a CIA front.

With all the CIA resources her uncle could bring to bear on the problem, could Alex’s mother be found? Could she lay his demons to rest for him once and for all?

It was worth a shot. She had nothing to lose by trying, right?

Excited at the prospect of how surprised—and potentially healed—Alex would be if she could present his mother to him, she rolled over and went to sleep, eager for morning to come.

* * *

IT WAS NEARLY NOON, though, before showers, breakfast and playtime with Dawn wound down. Katie watched Alex like a hawk with the baby, but he showed no violent tendencies with the toddler. In fact, she thought she glimpsed moments of genuine pleasure on his face as he flew Dawn around the living room to the accompaniment of baby squeals of laughter.

Alex offered to take the baby out for a walk so Katie could run the errands she’d mentioned over breakfast. As Alex and Dawn headed for the local park, she went the other direction down the sidewalk toward a shopping area bound to have cabs loitering nearby.

Alex’s insurance company had delivered a new BMW to replace his wrecked one, but Katie was leery of driving the German sports car. She hadn’t gotten around to buying a car of her own yet. Alex had sent word to her to feel free to use his checking account for anything at all in his absence, but she’d felt hinky about buying something as expensive as a car with his money. Yes, the account had enough money to buy ten cars in it, but still. She was a McCloud, and McClouds had their pride.

Besides, Washington, D.C., had great public transportation, and a train ran daily from D.C. to her hometown in Pennsylvania.

She’d been home often in the past year to visit her folks. Dawn officially had all five of her uncles and both grandparents wrapped around her tiny pinkie finger. Katie shook her head. She hated to see how bad they were all going to spoil her as she got older.

After seeing the emotional condition Alex was in last night, she probably ought to consider making a quick trip with Dawn to Pennsylvania to let him decompress a little more by himself. But memory of the pain on his face as he fought his demons made Katie long to stay and comfort him. Grr. No one had warned her that the demands of being a parent and a lover could conflict so badly.

Her thoughts jerked back to the present as the taxi stopped at the guard shack in front of CIA headquarters. She climbed out and the vehicle pulled away quickly. She could relate to the driver’s nervousness. A sinister vibe did radiate off the sprawling building. After showing proper ID to the guard, she walked across the visitors’ parking lot and through the main entrance.

It was ballsy to show up unannounced at Charlie’s work like this, but she figured the man could stand a reminder of just how much he owed her.

She was duly checked out in the agency’s computers at the reception desk and given a visitor’s badge. An escort, a perky coed girl no older than Katie, took her up to see Charlie. Her uncle was a deputy director of Plans and had a plush office with a nice view of the woods outside.

“Katie! What brings you here today? Is everything okay?”

Which she supposed was spy-speak for Alex hasn’t gone off the reservation already, has he? “Yup. Everything’s great. Thanks again for sending in the cavalry to rescue us from that hit squad and for arranging Alex’s training.”

He leaned back in his chair and pursed his lips. When he spoke, his low-country Southern drawl was a little thicker than usual. “Oh, I don’t know that my crew did that much to help last year. You and Alex had things well under control by the time we arrived.”

It was a lie, but she wasn’t interested in arguing about it today. “I have a favor to ask of you, Uncle Charlie.” She cursed herself silently for using that little-girl tone of voice with him. She was done acting like the baby of the whole damned family. She’d grown up a lot in the past year, and her clan could just get used to it. Although she probably was the first person who had to get used to it.

“Do tell.” His expression went bland and unreadable, his blue eyes oddly opaque all of a sudden. He’d dropped into master spy mode. Alex did the exact same thing.

“You said you’d owe me one if I brought Alex to you. And I did. He’s completed his training, and he has agreed to work for Doctors Unlimited.”

“He’s been out of training for one day. And you’re already calling your chit in? So soon?”

“Yes,” she replied firmly. “I’ve had a year to think about it, and seeing Alex last night only confirmed my decision. I need to find out who Alex’s mother is. The circumstances of his conception, birth and her leaving. Not knowing anything tortures him. I figure it’s the least we all can do for him after what we’ve put him through.”

“Did he talk to you about his training?” Charlie asked quickly.

She frowned. “No. He didn’t.” But why did Charlie react that way after she used the phrase after what we’ve put him through? What on earth did they do to him during his year of training with them?

Charlie leaned back in his leather desk chair. “And what makes you think we know anything about his mother?” Obviously, he didn’t want her to ask any more questions about Alex’s training. She went along with the change of subject.

She shrugged. “You’re the CIA. You can find out anything.”

He steepled his fingers together thoughtfully but didn’t deny the truth of her words. “And then we’ll be even?” he asked.

“Correct. Give me Alex’s mother, and we’re good.”

He didn’t say yes or no exactly, but she got the impression that he was going to look into it. She supposed that was the most she could hope for out of a spy like him. She’d learned that much around Alex. Spies were hesitant to answer questions directly or commit themselves to anything.

As another intern walked her out of the CIA building, it belatedly occurred to Katie that her uncle hadn’t put up much of a fight at the notion of being able to find Alex’s mother. What did he know that he wasn’t telling? Had the CIA already found the woman? It would make sense that in vetting Alex to become an asset for them they’d looked into his mysterious, missing parent. Why, then, hadn’t they shared what they’d found with him out of general principles?

Suspicion blossomed in her gut that there was more to the story of Alex’s mother than Charlie was letting on. Why did it feel like she’d just cracked open the lid of Pandora’s box? Maybe she should slam the thing back shut and put a big, fat lock on it.

Memory of the rage and desperation in Alex’s eyes last night as he fought off his impulse to kill her flashed into her mind. Nope. Whatever evils hid in Pandora’s stupid box, it was high time to let them out and deal with them.


CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_afb5e150-802d-5b78-84cf-3f13a17b8a11)

ALEX LOOKED AROUND reflexively, checking for tails or suspicious individuals, as he reached the playground a few blocks from the house. No one who didn’t belong in the area was obvious. If they were out there, they were good enough at their work to stay hidden. Which meant he didn’t have to kill anyone today. Relief trickled into his awareness. He wondered idly if he did something like that in front of Dawn, would she remember it? Would it traumatize her or was she too young to register such violence? He supposed babies and murder didn’t mix. He pushed the stroller deeper into the park.

The sheer normalcy of this place was a shock to his system. After the past year, it was hard to believe that this other world existed...filled with people who were so clueless. So naive. So completely unaware of the dangerous, parallel world that existed alongside this boring, safe, average existence of theirs. Spies and criminals, watchers and killers, were out here. Wolves among the lambs. And he was one of the biggest and baddest wolves now.

Dawn squealed, jerking his attention back to her. She wasn’t old enough to play on the climbing fort or swing in the swings, but she smiled up at the sunshine and waved her arms excitedly whenever other children laughed or shouted nearby. She would undoubtedly spend many happy childhood hours here.

He silently vowed to make sure her life was nothing like his. He’d spent his youth in a virtual boot camp being turned into a future master spy by Peter Koronov. He only hoped that Dawn would never learn to hate him the way he hated his father when he bothered to feel anything at all for the man.

Although after the past year, he was starting to wonder if Peter had been holding back more than Alex realized as a kid. Was it possible that his father wasn’t quite the villain he’d always painted him to be in his own mind?

He reached into the stroller and adjusted Dawn’s hoodie sweatshirt up a little higher around her ears. She smiled up at him and his heart melted at the trust in her dark eyes. He smiled back at her.

His phone rang and he fished it out of his pocket. The unidentified caller’s number was long and began with a foreign exit code and the country code number for the United States. His jaw clenched. Only one person could be calling him from overseas. He knew better than to ignore the call.

“Hello, Peter,” he said grimly.

“Son. How are you doing after your training?”

“Fine. Why are you calling me?”

“To thank you at long last.”

“For what?” Alex asked with long-suffering patience. He’d learned long ago that the best way to get rid of Peter was to play along and not fight him. Peter made people pay when they pushed back against him.

“I was able to warn the foreign minister and president of our country to expect that call from the American president last spring.”

Our country? Russia was not his country. But Peter steadfastly refused to acknowledge that. The man was convinced that, one day, the prodigal son would come home to Mother Russia. Never, Alex silently swore to himself.

Alex turned the rest of his father’s comment over in his mind. His father must have won a lot of political points for being first to warn the Russian leadership that the Americans had discovered the Russian shenanigans in Zaghastan last year. Competition was fierce between Russia’s FSB, military intelligence and a few other assorted secret agencies to see who brought in the best information first.

“They asked me to pass on their thanks to you, my son.”

Peter had given him credit for delivering that intel? What the hell? Was his father pretending to his bosses that Alex was an active FSB asset?

Deep unease rippled down his spine, an unpleasant reminder of how dangerous a man his father was. What game was Peter playing at now?

His father was speaking again. “I hear you have accepted long-term employment with Doctors Unlimited.”

Alex looked around the park in panic. How in the world did his father know that? He’d only officially been assigned to the aid organization a few days ago, and he’d been in various CIA training facilities and out of sight before that.

Not that it should surprise him that there were moles inside the CIA. But still. It was alarming to receive incontrovertible proof of it. Was Doctors Unlimited itself penetrated? He’d thought that was what Peter had wanted him to do. Was getting inside D.U. a test, then? Any intel Alex passed on to his father would be vetted against intel from the other mole in the organization?

It was a neat way to trap him. Alex would have no choice but to pass on real information. Which would constitute treason. Which would make him dead meat if the U.S. government found out. Which meant Alex would have no choice but to throw in his hat with the FSB and accept his father’s protection and patronage.

Peter must be desperate if he was showing his cards this openly.

In the millisecond it took all of this to pass through his mind, the sun passed behind a cloud, casting the park in an abruptly dim and shadowed light. “Your intel is correct, Father. I did take a job with Doctors Unlimited.”

“You will get me that list of employee names and where the organization’s members are posted abroad, yes?”

He thought fast. Was it worth endangering the lives of dozens of doctors, nurses and translators to throw his old man off the scent? He answered smoothly, “Of course. Because of all my training, I haven’t had an opportunity to get the list. But D.U. is open for business in its repaired offices now. I should be able to get you the list quite easily.”

Who in D.U. was the mole? To whom did he dare talk about his dilemma? If he gave a false list of staffers and their postings to hot spots around the world—ostensibly to render medical aid and unofficially to observe and gather intelligence—his father would know him for the traitor to Mother Russia that he was. Not that the United States of America trusted him any farther than Uncle Sam could throw him.

But if he gave away the real list, his colleagues’ lives could be in terrible danger.

“I shall await the list with great eagerness, Alexei.”

He’d bet. The damned list potentially represented his first step down the slippery slope to treason. And the bastard couldn’t wait to push him the rest of the way down that hill.

He disconnected the phone call, careful not to show any physical or facial reaction to the call. Knowing his old man, Peter was watching him on a satellite this very minute for a reaction. Too tense to sit still for long, though, he stood and pushed the pram a lap around the paved path outlining the park. He nodded and smiled at a few mothers with strollers and an elderly man with a pair of hairy little dogs that looked like mops.

Leisurely, he headed back toward the condo.

As if they’d been monitoring his phone calls, a new call vibrated his phone on cue, this time his boss, André Fortinay. The man had put his life on the line for him, Katie and Dawn last year, and had supposedly been a big advocate of bringing Alex all the way into the CIA fold, but did he dare trust the man?

He took the call. “Hello, André. How are you today?”

“I’m fine. You?”

“Good. What can I do for you, sir?”

“Any chance you could come into the office in the next day or two? I’d like to talk over possible postings for you. We have too few doctors and too many crises around the globe where people are desperately in need of medical care.”

Not to mention he was a trauma surgeon who could handle the sorts of terrible combat wounds that few physicians were trained to treat. The same sorts of wounds he’d spent the past year learning how to inflict.

“What’s a good time for you, André?”

“Now, if you’re not busy.”

“I’ve got the baby with me.”

“Bring her along.”

“I can be there in, say, a half hour?”

“Perfect.”

Alex flagged down a cab and pulled up in front of the D.U. office—a restored mansion on embassy row—in more like twenty minutes. However, it took him nearly ten minutes to get past a phalanx of cooing secretaries and nurses with Dawn to André’s door. He left the baby and a bottle with the man’s secretary. She was in transports of ecstasy at getting to feed Dawn. He stepped inside Fortinay’s office and threw a harried look at his boss.

“Now you know why your old man used you as a cover,” André observed dryly. “Nobody can resist a cute baby.”

Alex scowled and dropped into the chair in front of his boss’s desk.

“Adapting to parenthood all right?” the man asked.

“Dawn’s great. Family life is...relaxing.” When he wasn’t quietly flipped out over whether or not any of it was real, that was.

“So. Let’s talk about what you’ll do and where you’ll go next.”

“That sounds like a plan. I’m not the type to sit around the house staring at my toes.” While he talked, Alex reached across Fortinay’s desk, picked up a pen and scrawled the words “White noise generator?” on a sticky pad.

Fortinay nodded and held up a finger. “I hear you. Inactivity makes me lose my mind in short order.” He opened a desk drawer and pulled out a gadget about the size of an old-fashioned cassette tape recorder and set it on his desk.

“All right. White noise in place. What’s up, Alex?”

“My father phoned me this morning.”

“Did he, now? The man’s not wasting any time calling in the favor he earned by saving your life.”

“He claimed it wasn’t him who gave the order not to kill me last year.”

Fortinay leaned back hard in his chair at that. “Is he still sticking with that line?”

“It didn’t come up today. But as far as I know, he’s standing by the assertion. Not that I’d know with him if it’s true or not. Best liar I’ve ever seen. No tells at all.”

“Duly noted—never play poker with the man. Or his son, the way I hear it.”

Alex shrugged. He’d made millions gambling at the tables in Vegas and Atlantic City. High-stakes poker had been one of his more profitable endeavors, in fact. It hadn’t all been about being a good liar, though. His eidetic memory and master’s degree in cryptography had helped.

“Your training reports are pretty impressive, Alex.”

“I had a head start on the other kids.”

“It’s more than that, and you know it. You have a gift for black ops.”

This wasn’t news to him, but it didn’t mean he had to like being told he was a natural monster.

“Why did your father call you, then?”

“He wants me to hand over a list of D.U. staffers and where they’re posted.”

“I’m sure he does.”

“Tell me, André. Are you going to be my handler?”

The man studied him intently, weighing both him and the question. Alex mentally gave the man credit for catching the nuance behind the seemingly straightforward question. Alex was laying out the ground rules for their working relationship going forward. He didn’t want any fake niceties where they all pretended he was a good guy doing honorable deeds for altruistic reasons. They’d turned him into a killer, and that was how he wanted his boss to deal with him.

“I’ll be handling you for the most part,” André answered blandly.

Crap. So. They were going to pass him around from department to department within the agency to do their dirty work for them.

Alex supposed he ought to be grateful for the man’s honesty. In return, he took a deep breath and did a difficult thing. He extended tentative trust to his boss. “Peter indicated that he already has a mole inside Doctors Unlimited. Besides me.”

André leaned forward hard, staring. “Who?”

“No idea. But he’ll vet any information I pass him against this other mole’s intel.”

“Sonofabitch.”

The two men stared at each other in grim silence. Eventually Alex asked, “Have you picked up any new employees recently?”

“You mean besides you and Katie?”

“Could it be someone in the wider government umbrella?” Which was a delicate way of asking if D.U.’s handlers at the CIA were infiltrated. Doctors Unlimited, technically a nongovernment aid organization, covertly reported to the CIA what its staff observed overseas.

“Possibly. I picked everyone for this outfit by hand. It’s my operation.”

Alex frowned. “Has someone done deep background checks on your staff recently?” He added lightly, “Someone impartial?”

André swore under his breath. “Who do I pick for the job? What if I pick the mole?”

Alex understood the man’s dilemma. The hardest thing to do as a spy was to find someone, anyone, to trust. It was a world built upon lies within lies within lies.

“Will you do it?” André asked abruptly.

“You have no way of knowing if I’m a mole or not at this point. For all you know, I am working for my father.”

“You’re a known risk. Everyone else here is now officially an unknown.”

Alex blinked, startled. André had just put him on notice not to trust anyone else at D.U. “How do you want to handle the list for my father?”

“Give me a day to review where everyone is placed right now. Based on where our assets are at the moment, we might be able to hand over a snapshot list.”

Alex nodded. “Let me know when you’re ready, and I’ll hack into your system and pull a copy of it.”

“Our computer security’s pretty tight around here.”

Alex just smiled gently.

“Has anyone ever told you you’re a scary bastard?” André blurted.

“Once or twice.” His first week in prison at the ripe old age of twenty-four, he’d all but killed three Russian-mob strongmen to make the point to the rest of the inmates that he was not to be messed with. For the remaining four years of his DUI incarceration—and more to the point, avoiding recruitment into the FSB by his father—not another soul had laid a finger on him. His father had been a proponent of shock-and-awe since long before it was an official strategy of war. Yes, indeed. Peter had taught his son well how to instill fear in those around him.

Except for Katie. None of his tactics had ever worked on her. For some inexplicable reason, she insisted on loving him in spite of all his worst behavior. God, he hoped that never changed.

It went without saying that his investigation of Doctors Unlimited would be entirely off-book. Which meant he needed to head home to begin his work. He collected Dawn and left, already planning his approach.

When he opened the condo’s front door, loud, off-key singing emanated from the kitchen. He smiled indulgently. Katie had a lot of wonderful qualities, but perfect pitch was not one of them. “We’re home!” he called out.

Katie rushed into the living room, most of her shirt dusted in flour. She planted a light kiss on Dawn’s cheek and a rather more carnal one on his mouth. “You’re just in time to taste-test the first edible batch of cookies. C’mon. I need your opinion. More chips or not?”

“Ahh. So that’s the slightly burned smell coming from my kitchen.”

“Be nice. Your oven runs hot and I had to figure out how to set the oven on the first pan of cookies.”

Suppressing a burst of what he would label amusement if he allowed himself to feel such things, he trailed after her as she hurried back to the kitchen, all energy and laughter and golden hair. He took the proffered cookie, which turned out to be as warm and sweet and gooey as its creator.

“I see what all the fuss is about. That’s tasty,” he admitted.

“Have you never had a warm chocolate chip cookie fresh out of the oven before?” she demanded.

“Never. My father and I didn’t cook.”

“You poor, deprived man!”

She stood on tiptoe to plant a chocolate-flavored kiss on his mouth. She smelled of vanilla and joy. What must it have been like to grow up in her family? A blade of jealousy sliced into his heart for an instant. “I have some work to do. If you could take the baby...”

“Of course.” She scooped Dawn out of his arms. “What kind of work?”

“The kind I can’t talk about.”

Her bright blue eyes clouded over, but to her credit, she didn’t pry. He’d explained to her that he was accustomed to secrecy and that she couldn’t expect him to share every aspect of his life with her all the time. But he felt bad as he retreated to his office. What the hell was she doing to him? Since when did he want to spill every detail of his existence with anyone?

Furthermore, since when did he have feelings toward any other human being? His father had taught him well that feelings were the greatest weakness any spy could fall prey to. God knew, the past year of CIA training had only reinforced that message.

He’d thought he’d purged all deep feelings from his heart in that CIA training facility. But apparently not. Dammit. He had to find a way to isolate and contain these warm feelings he was having toward Katie.

Setting aside the problem of Katie McCloud, he locked himself in his office and got to work.

Mentally shaking his head, he broke into D.U.’s personnel files with a few casual keystrokes. Actually, it wasn’t that easy. He’d worked for months in jail developing and perfecting the decryption algorithm he used today.

He printed a hard copy of the entire employee roster of Doctors Unlimited and went to work. Financials were the easiest place to spot a turned spy. Mounting debt, illicit spending on a personal vice, an illness in the family—all the symptoms of a spy vulnerable to bribery or coercion—showed up most readily on bank statements. So, that was where he concentrated his search. He figured André would have done a thorough job vetting his people’s distant past and extended families, so he skipped looking at personal histories for now.

But after an entire afternoon of work and nearly a dozen of Katie’s irresistible cookies, nobody was leaping out at him as a candidate to be his father’s mole. Frowning, he went for a stroll around the terrace garden that had been his father’s pride and joy. He had to admit, Peter had a good eye for texture and color. The contrast of the stark cacti with softer, greener plant material was striking.

Contrast.

Maybe he’d been looking for the wrong thing. He’d been looking for a big change in someone’s spending habits. Instead, maybe he ought to be looking for a long-term pattern of expenditures that, in comparison to other D.U. employees, contrasted with the other people’s in the organization.

He went back to his computer to run a position-by-position spending comparison on D.U.’s staff. But that, too, turned up nothing.

Katie brought him a salad at some point and he ate it absently. Food had been optional often in the past year and was not something that held his attention anymore.

It grew dark outside, and he continued to poke and prod at the D.U. staff. But no matter how he examined them, nobody stood out as a mole. Which meant one of two things. Either there was no mole and his father was bluffing, or the mole was very, very good. He strongly suspected the latter was the case.

He leaned back frowning. If he were infiltrating Doctors Unlimited, how would he go about it? The aid organization placed physicians and nurses around the world in dangerous hot spots where regular aid organizations refused to send their people. The staff of D.U. was dedicated, passionate and a little crazy. Money wouldn’t be high on their personal priority lists. Ideals would be, though.

He ran a quick search of political affiliations. And that was when he got a hit. Dmitri Churzov. D.U.’s I.T. guy—responsible not only for its in-house computers, but also the all-important interface with the CIA’s computers—had been flagged by the FBI for attending several Communist Party rallies in college. Alex winced. God, it was so cliché. The kid even had a Russian name.

He frowned. In point of fact, the guy was a little too cliché. His father was emphatically not the type to recruit so obvious a target. Were he Peter, Dmitri would be the one guy he would not recruit to work for the FSB.

Decisively, Alex crossed Dmitri off his list of suspects. Who, then? The problem with an organization like Doctors Unlimited was that it used its legitimate work to passively collect intelligence on the side. André reported what his people observed. Nothing more. It wasn’t like anyone at D.U. besides André would know about, let alone get involved with, any high-profile, active ops. Why would anybody bother to infiltrate such a low-level group? Especially with a live mole who would be expensive to recruit and compensate, and who would be high maintenance to run?

André had allowed that the mole could be someone who merely interacted with D.U. at CIA headquarters. Maybe that was where his father’s mole was placed.

The agency’s computers would be significantly more difficult for Alex to hack than the D.U. system, particularly if he didn’t want to cause all sorts of alarms to go off and a black ops team to show up at his door. But it was by no means impossible.

Rather than make a direct attack, he instead went after André’s home computer. It took him nearly an hour, but eventually he lifted most of his boss’s passwords from his other accounts. Armed with those, Alex attempted a straight-up log-in to the CIA’s system as if he were André himself.

Tsk. Tsk. The same password that logged the guy into his daughter’s school grades got Alex into the CIA mainframe.

He unashamedly browsed his boss’s correspondence with his CIA superiors. If he’d once had any sense of ethics and morals about privacy, they’d been stripped out of him this past year.

It was mostly desultory reports and the occasional debrief on a concluded overseas mission by one of the D.U. medical teams. Even the intelligence reports were predictable, though. Troop emplacements, supply routes, casualty numbers, the usual stuff. But then a phrase jumped out at him.

Cold Intent. Major intelligence and military operations were given two-word names, a random adjective/noun combination. Some of them became well-known: Rolling Thunder. Desert Storm.

What major op could an unassuming, passive intel collection outfit like Doctors Unlimited be involved in?

The whole message read, Cold Intent is on track. The asset is in place and unaware. It was dated right about the time he and Katie were sent overseas last year.

He stared at the words on his screen with foreboding. The asset is in place and unaware. Unaware of what? What asset? Why did he get a sick feeling in his gut that the message had something to do with him?

Cold Intent. He typed the phrase into the CIA search engine. Immediately, a screen popped up announcing that André did not have access to that information. If it was above André’s pay grade, then why was the man aware of it and referring to it in a message?

Frowning, Alex turned his attention to the recipient of the message. There was no name, merely a series of random numbers and letters belonging to an IP address—a location designated somewhere on the internet to receive messages without being attached to any one email account or identity.

He initiated a deep system trace on the location of the IP address. He might not be able to find out who the recipient was, but he could find out where the recipient was.

The message had bounced off seven of the thirteen nodes that all internet traffic passed through and his system was painstakingly searching back to an eighth node when everything went crazy. Attack warnings flashed on his screen. Automated notifications that his antihacking software had been activated flashed up. Lines of code scrolled too fast to read, and then his computer screen went blank. A silent, blue screen of doom glowed at him.

What the hell?

“Are you coming to bed soon?” Katie asked from the doorway.

He looked up, startled. To bed with her? So she could smash through his emotional defenses with the shocking ease she always did? A frisson of dismay whispered through him. “No. Go on without me.”

Social norms dictated that he should probably kiss her good-night or in some other way act affectionate and social. He really owed it to her to at least pretend normalcy, but he just couldn’t bring himself to do it. He felt bad about not being able to show her simple affection, but he just couldn’t. He really ought to be riveted on how his computer had just been shut down. And why.

Katie retreated silently, disappointment darkening her blue eyes, and he turned his attention back to his dead computer.

What—who—was Cold Intent? Why did the mere act of tracing an IP address send an attack at him that had triggered a tactical nuclear meltdown of his computer?

He was shocked at the amount of damage the attack had done to his normally intensely secure computer. He ended up more or less wiping out every file on the hard drive, restoring it to the factory defaults and starting over from scratch reloading and rebooting the entire system from his backup files.

He was still working hours later when he heard Dawn stirring in her room over the intercom and went in to rock her back to sleep. He sat down with her in the rocking chair in her room and let the deep peace of the night and her sweet baby smell pass over him. How could something so innocent exist in the evil world he knew it to be? How was he ever going to manage to keep her safe from it all? The weight of the responsibility pressed down on him until he struggled to breathe. He laid the sleeping baby in her crib and went back to work grimly.

He took a break to doze on the leather sofa in his office while some particularly large files uploaded. But he lurched awake as an alarm sounded abruptly. He raced over to his computer and was stunned to see a warning that one of his bank accounts had just recorded an attempted hack-in. He sat down and typed quickly, locking down the account and his other accounts while he was at it.

He’d barely finished before the phone on his desk rang. What the hell? It was 4:00 a.m.

“Go,” he snapped.

“Mr. Peters? This is Advanced Security Systems. I’m sorry to disturb you at this hour. But we’ve just gotten notification on our internet server that there has been an attempt to break in to your house’s alarm protocols. A note on your file said you wanted to be notified immediately of any such incidents.”

Sonofabitch. Who was coming after him like this? Surely, it had something to do with Cold Intent. “Thanks. Lock it down for now. I’ll be in touch in a few hours with further instructions.”

“Will do, sir.”

He grabbed a jacket and headed out of the condo. Time to get the hell away from his home and his family to continue this search. He headed for an internet café, but not just any café. The Flaming Frog catered to hackers specifically. The firewalls and other protections in the café made its systems nearly impossible to trace. And even if a hack was traced, the café kept no records of who’d sat at which terminal. The FBI and NSA hated the place, but so far had failed to shut it down despite repeated visits to local courts on various trumped-up charges.

“Hey, dude. Haven’t seen you in a while.” The night manager waved cheerfully at him. Store policy: no names got used. Ever. He waved back at the girl, who looked about twelve but was probably closer to thirty. She was also a top-notch hacker.

“Hey, Blondie,” he murmured across the counter. “Feel like taking on one of the big boys?”

“Sure. Which alphabet agency we goin’ after?”

“I’ve got a name. I need more on it.”

Her face fell. “Just a vanilla research job, huh?”

“An aggressively defended name,” he corrected. “Nearly killed my home system earlier.”

She perked up. “Well, then. That’s better. Let’s have this name.”

“Cold Intent.”

“What the hell is that?” Blondie demanded.

“That’s what I’m trying to find out,” he retorted.

“Race ya,” she challenged.

“The bet?”

“Loser buys me a tattoo.”

He grinned. “What if I win?”

“You ain’t gonna win, old man.”

“If I do, I want a copy of the algorithm you used to hack the IRS last year.”

She sucked in a sharp breath, but she eventually shrugged. “You’re gonna lose, so what the hell. Deal.”

He threaded past a half dozen people staring at computer screens and sat down at a terminal in the back where no one could look over his shoulder. He started to type. Come to papa, Cold Intent.


CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_d7348e2d-586c-551b-9764-7fd98e6832d7)

KATIE WOKE UP SLOWLY. The sun was shining in around the edges of the heavy curtains too brightly. She lurched up out of bed and raced down the hall to Dawn’s bedroom. The baby was still asleep. Wow. Nearly 7:00 a.m.

She tiptoed down the hall to Alex’s office. What on earth had he been working on so hard yesterday? She poked her head in the door to ask—

Huh. He wasn’t there. She backed out and headed for the kitchen. His car keys were gone from the hook on the wall. That was weird. Where would he go this early? Particularly without telling her?

Alarmed, she headed back to his office. His computer was running some sort of diagnostic that she probably couldn’t interrupt. She spied a legal pad on his desk. What looked like rows of random numbers covered it. Although knowing Alex and his huge background in math, the numbers weren’t random at all. The rows of digits were interrupted by a single pair of words tucked off to one side of the pad. Cold Intent. What was that?

She heard the front door unlocking and moved out of his office before he could catch her snooping. She greeted Alex. “You look exhausted. Have you been working all night?”

He made an affirmative sound.

“Coffee or sleep?” she asked sympathetically.

“Sleep.”

“By all means.” She’d heard that doctors’ spouses had to get used to some weird working hours. Not that Alex had hinted in any way about marriage, of course. The poor guy was barely getting used to the idea of having a girlfriend, let alone a daughter. Of course , the obvious question—exactly how long was she planning to wait for him to get used to having a family—lingered in the back of her mind, a grenade without a pin in it. But for now, she kept her fingers wrapped around the handle and the bomb deactivated.

She heard Alex’s shower running while she dressed Dawn and fed her breakfast. The baby was starting to feed herself, which entailed much hilarity with flying food and lots of cleaning up. After breakfast, Dawn settled down to play with a pile of stuffed animals in need of chewing and tossing while Katie flipped on the television to check out the news. Ever since she’d hooked up with a spy, she paid much closer attention to world events than before.

Not that she was exactly sure what Alex was anymore. Supposedly, now that his training was finished, he would go back to work as a humanitarian aid doctor.

The morning news focused mostly on a hurricane entering the Caribbean. It was forecasted to grow into a major storm. Current storm tracks had it pointed at Cuba. Too bad. The impoverished nation needed a natural disaster like it needed a hole in the head. The news moved on to a shooting in a shopping mall somewhere on the west coast, and Dawn squalled. Katie picked her up quickly and shushed her lest she wake Alex. Sensing a bout of baby squeals and babble coming on, she bundled Dawn up and took her out onto the terrace for some fresh air.

Dawn bounced up and down excitedly in her walker, and Katie pulled out her cell phone to check her texts and email. Nothing much was happening with her friends or family. Bored, she pulled up a search engine and typed in the phrase she’d seen on Alex’s desk.

Her phone took a long time doing the search, and when the results finally flashed up on the small screen, they were worthless. Every hit had both of the words in it, but not together. It was a bust. She would have to wait until Alex woke up to ask him what it meant. She shrugged and strolled along behind Dawn, enjoying the early-springtime sun. Winter in Washington, D.C., was a gray, wet affair, and she was ready for some decent weather.

After nearly an hour outside, Dawn caught one of the wheels of her walker on a pavement joint, and without warning the whole thing started to tip over. Katie dived for the baby and walker just as the waist-high ceramic planter beside her exploded. Black dirt flew everywhere. What the heck? The baby started and let out a howl while Katie brushed dirt off both of them.

“Get inside,” Alex barked from the sliding glass door to his bedroom.

Katie looked up, shocked to see the blunt shape of a pistol in his fist. Keeping her head down, she raced through the door behind him. Dawn started to cry in earnest, no doubt sensing Katie’s panic. Alex slipped outside, closing the door behind him, while Katie tried to calm the baby. But Dawn was having no part of it.

Had the sharp warm-up overnight caused the cold ceramic to crack? Alex was going to be annoyed if that was what woke him up. He was so jumpy since he got back. Was he going to whip out a gun at every loud noise?

The outside door slid open, and she tensed. Okay, so she was jumpy, too. Hard not to be after all the crap last year. A bunch of people had made a good-faith effort to kill the three of them and nearly succeeded. And for the first time, they were all back together.

“Shooter’s gone,” Alex bit out.

“It was just a big pot cracking—”

He dropped something small and irregular on the bedspread. It looked like a pebble. She picked it up to examine it.

“Medium caliber slug,” he said tersely.

“You’re saying someone shot at you out there?”

“No. Someone shot at you. I dug that out of the dirt from the big planter that broke right beside you.”

She lurched. “Are we under attack? Do I need to get Dawn to the safe room?”

He shook his head briefly in the negative. “Shooter’s fled the area. We’re clear.” His syllables were clipped but stripped of any actual emotion.

Wasn’t he the slightest bit freaked out that someone had just shot at her? “Who was it?”

He shrugged. “I got no visual. I’ve called Langley, though, to have them pull satellite telemetry.”

“Now what?” she asked nervously. “What do we do?”

“Do? Nothing. It’s over. You’re safe. I’ll investigate who shot at you. When I know the source of the threat, I’ll eliminate it.”

God, not even a bump of emotion entered his voice as he casually talked about killing someone. A chill rattled across her skin. Who was this man? What had they turned him into? She stared at him in dismay. “But I thought we were done with all of that. The people who came after us before are all dead or in custody. It’s finished. They told me it was all over. And no one’s tried to kill me and Dawn since you left. Why now? If someone wants to kill me, why wait until the person who can best protect me comes home?”

He exhaled hard. “I kicked a hornet’s nest yesterday. This is my fault.”

She stared at him, wide-eyed. He hadn’t been the only one kicking at hornets. Yesterday, she’d asked for information on his mother from the CIA. Had that provoked someone to take a potshot at her? If so, who? And why? What was the big deal about his mother?

“What kind of hornets did you kick?” she asked him.

“Can’t say,” he bit out.

Dammit. She’d forgotten how fiercely he guarded his secrets. She should have known he’d be worse than ever about not sharing when he got home.

“I’m sorry, Katie,” he murmured, gathering her and Dawn close in a protective hug. “I swear, I won’t let anything bad happen to either one of you.”

She ought to tell him about the hornet’s nest of her own that she’d kicked. Let him off the guilt hook. But she’d really been hoping to surprise him with the information on his mother. The moment passed when it wouldn’t have been awkward to say anything. Great. Now she was keeping secrets from him, too. The guy’s bad habit of not sharing was contagious apparently.

“The windows are all bullet resistant and coated so heat-seeking equipment can’t see through them. The walls are treated the same way. Stay in here while I close the blinds throughout the house. And then you should be safe to move around inside the condo.”

As if that solved everything! Who’d just shot at her? And why?

Alex came back to report that the blinds were closed, and then he retreated to his office and closed the door. How could he go in there and poke at his laptop like someone hadn’t just narrowly missed killing her? She was completely freaked out! Were it not for Dawn already being upset, she would march in there and give him a piece of her mind.

Was he napping on the sofa or maybe doing something with Cold Intent and all those numbers on his computer? Curiosity would be the death of her yet.

Speaking of which, she called Uncle Charlie’s cell phone number and left a message in his voice mail asking if there’d been any progress on her request. She added that there had been some interest shown in her query this afternoon.

Trapped in the house by possible snipers outside, she plopped down in front of the television. She was intrigued that Alex hadn’t attempted to give chase to the shooter or in some way report the guy to the police. Were such occurrences so commonplace in his world they didn’t even register as worthy of response?

Although now that she thought about it, if she’d just taken a shot at someone, she would leave the area quickly so she didn’t get caught. Alex must have figured the shooter had too big a head start in fleeing to make a chase worthwhile. Still. What a lousy way to live. Was this what she had to look forward to for the next fifty years or so?

Despair washed over her. She’d thought they’d left all this stuff behind last year. How in the world were they supposed to raise a child in this insanity?

She vaguely heard Alex’s cell phone ring.

Maybe ten seconds passed before his office door burst open. “Turn on the news, Katie. Now.”

He sounded strange. Tense. She turned on the TV and asked him quickly, “Local, national or international?”

“Local.”

He moved to stand behind the sofa, and she swiveled around to stare at him. “What’s happened?”

“Someone has been murdered.”

“Who?”

“Hacker. I don’t know her real name. She was young, late twenties. It would likely be associated with something innocuous, like the theft of computer equipment. Have you seen anything like that today?” he asked urgently.

“No. Nothing,” she replied, alarmed. “They haven’t reported on any women being murdered or dying in some sort of accident. They’re talking mostly about the hurricane heading into the Caribbean.”

He swore under his breath.

“What’s going on? Who was she? You’re scaring me.”

“They’re covering up her death. Which speaks volumes about who killed her.”

They who? What wasn’t he telling her? “Volumes about who?” she demanded.

“They’re powerful. Connected. Probably government.”

“Our government? You’re saying an American citizen was killed right here in Washington by our government and it’s being covered up?” Holy crap.

“You really have to get over the whole Mom and apple pie thing when it comes to the United States, Katie. All governments work for their own best interest by whatever means they have at their disposal. None of them are nice about it.”

Sometimes she forgot what a cynic he was. The uncomfortable thing was that he might be right. Still, her patriotic upbringing ran deep. “Hey. You work for the U.S., too.”

He scowled and muttered, “Don’t remind me.”

True alarm speared through her. He was having second thoughts about hitching his fate to the CIA and not to his father’s FSB? She shuddered to think what hell would be unleashed at them if he changed his mind about working for Uncle Sam at this late date. No way was she raising Dawn in Moscow.

Alex was speaking again. “...need to leave town before whoever shot at you tries again. Stay inside for now.” He continued. “I have a few things to take care of before I can go. They’ll take me about an hour. Can you and Dawn be ready to leave in that amount of time?”

“Of course.”

The threat to Dawn’s safety rubbed at her psyche until she felt raw and exposed. If they were back in the crosshairs, the baby needed to get away from her and Alex. Again.

Failure burned in her gut like acid as she packed. What kind of mother was she if she couldn’t even keep their baby out of mortal danger? Where were they taking Dawn, anyway? She needed to know so she could pack the right kinds of clothes for them both. She headed for Alex’s office and knocked on the door.

“Come in.”

He swiveled in his desk to face her. A glance over his shoulder revealed his right hand closing his laptop screen. He was hiding whatever he was working on from her. Why? The question exploded across her brain, rife with suspicion.

“If you don’t have any better idea, I was thinking we could take Dawn to stay with my folks until we figure out who’s shooting at us.”

Alex’s eyes clouded with what looked like genuine regret. It was genuine, right? God, it sucked not knowing if she could trust him or not. If only she could shake the feeling he was up to no good.

Although, truth be told, she was working behind his back, too.

He nodded once, grimly. “Sure. We can drive up to Pittsburgh tonight.” He looked impatient, and she took the hint, merely nodding and backing out of his office.

Anxiety prodded her. In the past, when he got all secretive like this, his father had had something to do with it. What was Peter Koronov up to now? The man just couldn’t leave his only son alone. It was an obsession between the two of them. They were locked in some sort of mortal struggle that neither one would let go of. So unlike her big, happy-go-lucky family.

She made a call to her mother, who was delighted to take Dawn for a few days while she and Alex took care of a few things. Not that she thought her mother was fooled for a second that there wasn’t some sort of problem. The woman had raised five soldiers and cops. She could smell trouble from a mile away. She just knew not to ask about it. Her kids would tell her what was going on in their own time. Strong woman, her mother.

Katie busied herself packing the copious gear a well-spoiled baby required for any self-respecting road trip. It took the full hour Alex had given her to make trips to the underground parking garage and cram the BMW’s trunk to the gills.

Just as she finished, he emerged from his office, grabbed a prepacked bag, for which she hated him a little, and was ready to go.

Traffic was heavy until they cleared the Washington suburbs, and then they made good time to Pittsburgh. It was about a two-hundred-fifty-mile trip and took a little over four hours. But by halftime of the Monday Night Football game, they’d arrived at her folks’ house. In time-honored ritual, her brothers and dad were gathered in front of the large-screen TV in the family room yelling at one another and armchair-coaching.

Alex joined the men, but sat off to one side sipping at the beer her father poured for him. He looked misplaced among her burly brothers, although he had more in common with them than most people would guess at a glance. They were all lethal men who took care of their own. Dawn would be perfectly safe ensconced among the McCloud men.

Katie was just retreating to the kitchen for some girl talk with her mother when her cell phone rang. She was lifting it to her ear when Alex’s went off, as well. Their gazes met grimly as they took the calls.

“Hi, this Ashley Osborne at D.U.”

André Fortinay’s admin assistant? What did she want?

“Are you up for an emergency deployment, Katie?”

“Where to?”

“Miami, for now.”

“I thought D.U. didn’t work in the United States. What happened to all the doctors in Florida?”

“We’re prepositioning a team to insert into Cuba after Hurricane Giselle strikes it.”

She frowned. “It’s going to get that bad?” Her knee-jerk reaction was to say no and hang up the phone. She and Alex were done with dangerous missions to deadly places, right?

“We’re being told this will be a major storm with heavy damage. A lot of casualties,” André’s assistant explained persuasively.

“Huh. Who all’s going?”

“Just you two. Obviously, we’re hoping to send you and Alex together.”

What was so obvious about her and Alex going together? Was it her job to keep an eye on him? Make sure he didn’t stray off the CIA reservation? After all, she wasn’t even a nurse, let alone a physician. Sure, she’d taken a first-aid class in the past year while she waited out Alex’s training, but what she knew how to treat didn’t amount to anything when stacked up against a natural disaster.

Ashley was speaking again, a little more urgently. “Can you be ready to leave first thing in the morning?”

Come to think of it, why was a low-level admin type calling to send her on this mission that everyone knew she wouldn’t want to go on? Katie’s antennae went up and started to wiggle. In her years of working with children, she’d learned to sense a lie or evasion, and she was getting one now.

“I’m not in D.C., actually. I can’t really give you an answer tonight.”

The girl’s reply was perky. A smidge too pushy. “No problem. You can fly out of the airport nearest to wherever you are now.”

Alarm exploded in her chest. No! She couldn’t just drop everything and race off to parts unknown on a dangerous adventure! She had a baby to take care of. A fragile relationship with Alex to nurture into something more stable and permanent. For all she knew, she needed to talk him down off whatever emotional bridge the CIA had forced him to climb this year. The last thing she needed was to dive headlong into life-threatening danger.

She asked cautiously, “Is someone talking to Alex now?”

“André’s on the phone with him.”

Katie glanced across the family room. Alex had turned his back on everyone and was in the corner having a quiet, intense-looking conversation with his boss. And it was taking longer than, “Hey, Alex. You wanna go to Cuba?”

Dammit, what were they whispering about? Alex turned slightly, and she caught sight of his face. It was more alive than it had been in weeks. His eyes were bright, his entire body vibrating with tension. Excitement.

Dismay crushed her. She’d known as soon as he got home that Alex had been changed by the past year, but there had been more to it than just that. Something had been missing from him, but she hadn’t been able to put her finger on it. Not until now. Not until this dangerous, electric side of him awoke and showed itself. This was what had been absent.

Was the prospect of domestic bliss with her and Dawn so stifling, then? Apparently so. Who was she trying to kid? She would never tame the tiger within him. Not without killing that part of him. He would never be happy without living on the edge. Heck, he’d spent his entire life walking a high wire without a net. What made her think that clumping around in the mud of average life with her would be enough for him?

Racing off to a dangerous place like Cuba was more than what Alex did. It defined who he was. If she gave half a damn about him, she wouldn’t stand in his way. Except she wasn’t ready to let go of him yet. Even if her dream of a life with him was doomed.

All that was left for them was a swan song. One last adventure. How, when it was over, would she ever find a way to let him go?

“Lemme talk with Alex,” she mumbled into her phone. “We’ll let you know.”

Ashley replied too brightly, “Send me your location, and I’ll set up your itinerary and flight reservations.”

Were they not being given any choice in the matter, then? Was that what was taking so long between Alex and André? She ended her call, frowning.

Cuba, huh? She flopped down beside the brother everyone in the family thought was an intelligence officer for the SEALs. “Hey, Mikey. Whaddya know about Cuba?”

“That I can talk about with you?” he retorted.

“Duh.”

She listened intently as he and several of her brothers pitched in to bring her up to speed on the political and military situation with the island nation. The only big, unpleasant surprise to her was how active the Russians still were in Cuba.

No wonder André was all hot and bothered to get Alex down there on any pretense he could. Alex possibly knew more about Russian intelligence practices than just about any other person at the CIA. After all, he’d been raised by a master KGB spy and carefully trained to follow in Daddy’s footsteps.

At long last, Alex disconnected his phone. “You up for a trip?” he asked her tersely.

“Not particularly. I’m not crazy about leaving Dawn, and frankly, I could do without being shot at again.”

“I won’t let you get shot at.”

“You can’t promise me that,” she retorted.

Alex frowned. “I need to go.”

“Why?”

He glanced at her brothers, who were unabashedly taking in the exchange. “We’ll need to discuss that in private.”

“Aw, c’mon,” Mike complained. “We’re family.”

Katie sympathized with the pained look on Alex’s face. He wasn’t used to dealing with a big, nosy family like this. She took pity and nodded toward the back porch. “Let’s go outside.”

Her brothers protested, but they could get over it. This was between her and Alex.

He pointedly turned his back on the picture windows. Good call. A couple of the McCloud men could read lips. “There’s more to this trip than just treating hurricane victims.”

“There always is, isn’t there?” she replied rhetorically.

He merely rolled his eyes at her.

When he didn’t speak, she demanded, “You’re not seriously going to put your neck on the line again, are you? I thought we agreed this stuff was over. For both of us.”

He sighed and moved toward the edge of the big deck. “Things have changed. My...role has changed.”

She wanted to shout at him that his role was to be Dawn’s dad and her lover and eventual husband. But she bit the words back. She’d known going into this relationship what his priorities were. But she’d thought she could change him. Or at least change his priorities. Foolish her. Yup, that was her heart cracking just a little bit more in her chest. How long until it shattered completely?

He continued. “Cargo ships have been seen making unscheduled stops in small ports along the east coast of Cuba. No off-loads or on-loads have been observed. We’ve been asked to poke around. Talk with the locals. See if they know something about any smuggling that might be going on.”

“What kind of smuggling?”

“No idea. Could be drugs, weapons, human trafficking...hell, it could be cigars for all I know.”

She snorted. “If the CIA wants to send us in to have a look, they think it’s more serious than cigars.”

He exhaled hard. “You always have been too smart for your own good.”

She took a step closer to him, to where he stared out at the woods. “It’s not our problem anymore. Other people with a death wish can go check it out.”

“But I’m uniquely qualified—” he started.

“Why? Because you’re practically a Russian agent yourself?”

He spun to face her. Something dark and cold emanated from him. This was the side of James Bond the movies never portrayed. They might get the fun and games right, but the movies mostly ignored what it meant to be a trained killer. A couple of her brothers were trained killers. She knew the signs of it in the way Alex held himself now. In how he watched everything and everyone, in the way he moved, always coiled, always ready to spring. He was a living, breathing hair trigger.

Alex spoke low and hard. “My father’s telling the powers-that-be in his government that I’m working for him. I can use that against him. I ought to be able to use his name to move around with impunity.”

“Until they get wind of you working for the CIA,” she retorted. “If your father thinks D.U. is a CIA front, you have to expect the Cubans to think the same thing. We’d end up in danger regardless of who your father is.”

He shrugged. “I have the skills to evade the Cubans. I know exactly how they’ve been trained. It’s how I was trained, dammit.”

“The CIA can find someone else to do the job,” she said implacably. She felt bad about coming across as a pushy bitch, but no way was she going to show him the true depth of her terror at the course shift his life had taken. He was heading down a path she and Dawn could not follow him down.

He huffed, sounding exasperated.

“What aren’t you telling me, Alex?”

“I already accepted the assignment.”

“Well, unaccept it!”

“I can’t.”

“You mean you won’t.”

“I mean I gave my word, and I’m going to do this.”

“And I’m supposed to sit at home like a good little woman and wait for you maybe not to come back? Ever?”

He shoved a hand through his hair. “Yes,” he finally answered. “That’s about the way of it.”

“You expect me to sit around doing nothing while you sally forth to your possible death? Not a chance. If you go, I go.”

“That’s crazy. You’re not trained for this kind of mission.”

“And yet, Doctors Unlimited asked me to go on it.”

“You need to stay home.”

She planted her fists on her hips. “No. If you go, I’m going, too. And that’s an ultimatum.”

“I don’t deal well with ultimatums,” he snapped.

“And I don’t withdraw mine,” she snapped back.

They glared daggers at each other. She could be just as stubborn and pigheaded as he could. If he was determined to do this supremely stupid thing, he damned well wasn’t going off by himself alone to do it and die.

A little voice in the back of her head whispered that this wasn’t the way to demonstrate her trust in him. She shoved away the realization that her declaration was partly based on desperation. If he decided to leave her, there wasn’t a darned thing she could do about it, right? Mentally, she knew that. But way down deep in her gut, she was forced to acknowledge that her ultimatum had as much to do with clinging to him as anything.

“What else aren’t you telling me?” she demanded.

“I don’t know anything more than I’ve told you.”

“If you’re dragging me off to Cuba, I have a right to know everything.”

“I don’t want to drag you to Cuba, dammit! I want you stay here and be safe.”

“Which is exactly what I want you to do, too.”

“Not happening.”

“Then I’m going to Cuba, whether you take me with you or not.”

He stared at her in frustration. She crossed her arms defensively and stared back. It was a long standoff, but she was a McCloud, and they were a tenacious bunch.

He finally declared, “You are the most stubborn, unreasonable female I’ve ever had the misfortune to know.”

Hah. Capitulation. She heard it in his voice. Gracious in victory, she murmured, “And that’s why you love me.”

He scowled, and she didn’t press the point. Instead, she asked, “Why is André going to all the trouble of infiltrating us into Cuba to hunt for something the CIA isn’t even sure exists? Does this have something to do with your father?”

“Maybe,” he answered candidly. “The close Cuban connection to Russia lends credence to the notion. Several of the ships that have been spotted belong to Russian front corporations, and some intelligence traffic has been tracked between Cuba and the FSB that corresponds to the appearances of the ships.”

“Is that why you’re so set on going on this wild-goose chase, then?”

“I’d definitely rather know what Peter’s up to than be operating in the blind.” He added quietly, “And so would the CIA.”

“Are you ever going to give up this never-ending battle against him?”

“I will if he will.”

She snorted. “Like that’s gonna happen.”

“Exactly.”

“Cuba, huh?” she said in resignation.

“Please stay home,” he tried one last time.

“Please stay here with me,” she retorted.

“I’m sorry,” he said simply. “I can’t.”

“There are things going on around us I don’t understand, Alex, and I’m worried. My gut says something or someone’s closing in on us. Whoever took that shot at me on the terrace did not do it randomly. I think it would be best if we both got out of Washington and stayed off everybody’s radar for a while. Call it crazy women’s intuition.”

He stared at her for a long time. Secrets swirled in his turbulent, unwilling gaze. But in the end, keeping them to himself won out over talking her into staying home. She gathered, however, that he agreed with her intuition.

He released a long, unhappy sigh. “Are your parents going to be okay with keeping Dawn for a few weeks?”

“Lemme think,” she drawled. “More time to spoil their adorable only grandchild rotten? Gee. I don’t know.”

Alex smiled briefly, but the expression didn’t reach his eyes. He had some inkling of who’d taken that shot at her and why. What about that had him so freaked out? Enough to give in and let her come to Cuba with him? Was it really going to be safer for her in a hostile country where being caught meant arrest or even possible death?

Wow. Not reassuring.


CHAPTER FOUR (#ulink_fdb5bd0e-b4c1-547f-8866-7246629b5e71)

ALEX LEANED BACK in his uncomfortable airplane seat and pretended to sleep. Why hadn’t CIA satellites picked up anything at all on the shooter at his condo yesterday? He’d been on the phone no more than two minutes after the shooting and André had promised the agency would take a look at its live security telemetry of the nation’s capital.

The day had been sunny and clear. They should have seen something. A car, a figure moving away from the area on foot, a flash off a gun scope, anything. He’d given André detailed descriptions of all three of the perches a sniper could possibly use to hit that planter on his terrace. How hard could it have been to check out three lousy hides?

His gut churned alarmingly. Something was wrong. What wasn’t André telling him? His instincts warned that the agency’s analysts had seen something but elected not to share it with him. What? And why were they hiding it from him?

And now they were sending him to Cuba, a known swarm of Russian intelligence activity, on a flimsy excuse. Why? What did they think Peter was up to? Or were they just using his father’s name as a hot button to get Alex to jump into Cuba?

André had been cagey when he pushed his boss for details. Fortinay had flatly refused to divulge why he and Katie specifically had to go to Cuba and what exactly they were supposed to be looking for when they got there. No way was this a random aid mission. The CIA was up to something. But André steadfastly avoided revealing even a hint of what was up.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, Alex really didn’t like the fact that D.U. was determined to send Katie with him. He’d tried to talk André out of it, but had failed spectacularly. He got that they wanted someone watching him, but he resented the idea that they thought they could use his civilian girlfriend that way.

This whole business of being a good guy, of playing along with their damned rules, was starting to grate on his nerves. He was half tempted to go back to the good old days when everybody hated him and he lived on the edge, tiptoeing between his enemies to stay alive.

Katie’s head landed lightly on his shoulder and he shifted to make it into a more comfortable pillow for her. She gave him a purpose in life, but God, the cost of being with her and Dawn was daunting at times. He so wasn’t an inside-the-box kind of guy.

And it wasn’t as if he had any right to ask her to live outside the box with him in his shadow world. If Dawn weren’t in the picture, maybe he would ask it of her. But the two of them had committed to raising the orphaned child, and he wasn’t about to back out of that commitment any more than Katie was.

It was hard enough for him to straddle the world of espionage and the bright, shiny world where people fell in love and had families, and he had a lifetime’s experience doing it. No way could Katie handle both. If only he could offer her and Dawn some kind of security for the long term.

Miami International Airport was as huge and chaotic as he remembered it. The plan was to wait out Hurricane Giselle in Florida, and then make their way to Cuba after it passed. André’s contact in Cuba had flatly refused to let Alex bring any of his own equipment or supplies into the country.

The unnamed Cuban had apparently assured D.U. that plenty of emergency medical supplies were in place on the island. Riiight. Alex smelled a whole bunch of meatball medicine under horrendous conditions forthcoming.

He glanced over at Katie, who smiled excitedly at him, and he just shook his head. The girl had an adventurous streak a mile wide. It had gotten her in trouble before, and he had no doubt it would get her in trouble again. He was beginning to suspect it would turn out to be his fate in life to protect her from herself.

They collected their bags and found a shuttle to take them to their hotel. He had to give D.U. credit for springing for upscale lodgings. Most of the time, D.U. staffers lived in miserable field conditions—crude tents with no running water or electricity among refugees and the destitute, treating injuries and disease under grueling pressure. He had faith Cuba wouldn’t be any better when they got there in the aftermath of a major hurricane.

Speaking of which, the sky overhead looked ominous. By the time they reached the hotel, the first fat drops of rain were starting to fall and the wind was picking up. Miami was forecast to get hit by peripheral rain bands but not much more.

They checked into their room with no trouble. He was amused that André had booked them one room with a king-size bed. Keeping the watcher and the watched close, much?

“How bad is the weather supposed to get here?” Katie asked as rain pounded at the big windows.

He flipped on the TV to check the latest updates. The weather channels were still showing a direct hit on Cuba. Giselle, a small but strong category-four storm and intensifying, was expected to run, literally, the length of the island. “Nothing to write home about here in Miami. But Cuba’s going to get clobbered.”

“Where will D.U. send us?”

“East end of the island. The mountains down its spine will weaken the storm significantly, and the west end won’t get hit nearly as bad.”

“So, the category five will be down to a measly category three or so when it hits Havana?” she asked wryly.

He shrugged. “They’re used to hurricanes. Havana will be fine. It’s the poor, isolated villages in the east that will be in trouble.”

“Have you ever been to Cuba?” she asked curiously.

“Not on our list of approved conversation topics,” he replied shortly.

“We still have one of those?” she asked in dismay.

“You thought having sex with me entitled you to all of my secrets?”

“Well, yes.” She looked crestfallen.

He grinned and shook his head. “I swear. You’re such a newb.”

“If you won’t tell me all, then can we at least have sex?” she asked hopefully.

His grin widened. God, she was good for his soul. He took a step toward her, but his phone rang, and he swore under his breath.

“Alex Peters,” he snapped.

“Am I disturbing you?”

His father’s unwelcome voice startled him, and he replied tersely, “What do you want?”

“I hear you’re taking a little trip. Is there anything I can do for you while you’re there? I have a few contacts who might prove useful.”

Alex’s jaw dropped. How in the hell did Peter know about their secret trip to Cuba? Obviously not so secret a trip, dammit.

Christ. Who else knew about their supposedly secret infiltration onto the island? How dangerous was this trip to Cuba going to be, after all? He glanced over at Katie in alarm. And she was out here in the line of fire with him. On the one hand, he was glad to have her close by where he could personally ensure her safety. But on the other hand, he’d promised her she’d never be in life-threatening danger again if he could help it.

Yeah, he’d bet his Russian spy father had plenty of contacts in flipping Cuba.

Why did the man feel obliged to let his son know that he was aware of this planned junket? What was his father’s ploy? Was Peter worried about Alex’s safety and genuinely warning him that his mission was on the Russians’ radar? Or was the man putting him on notice that his every move would be watched? Or was it merely part of their long-standing pissing contest to show that FSB intelligence sources were better than the CIA’s?

It was always like this with his father: circles within circles. Meanings hidden below layer upon layer of meaning. Sometimes, Alex got so damned tired of it all. Maybe that was why Katie’s directness appealed to him so strongly.

Peter. How to answer Peter? He forced his mind back to the sparring at hand. His father had asked if there was anything he could do to help. Alex replied, “Actually, there is something you can do for me. I’m going to need medical supplies when I get there. Nothing fancy. Sterile needles and syringes. Clean surgical implements and antibiotics. Maybe an X-ray machine.”

“It will be waiting for you when you get to Baracoa.”

The air rushed out of Alex’s gut like he’d been punched. How on earth did his father know exactly where in Cuba he was going? Alex himself didn’t know where he was being sent yet.

Did Peter’s mole at D.U. figure it out, or worse, did the information come from the Cuban government? Either way, it was a stunning display of intelligence power. Russia might be a fading empire, but its legendary spy service wasn’t dead yet.

Not that it mattered at the end of the day. He and Katie would go where they were sent, treat the sick and injured until the two of them dropped from exhaustion, discover what was being smuggled and go home. He would do the job they’d asked of him, but that was it. He was damned well keeping his nose out of any other CIA or FSB business while he was in Cuba. He ended the call abruptly and jammed his phone in his pocket.

To hell with them all. He closed the distance between him and Katie.

* * *

KATIE STOOD BACK from the steamy mirror to inspect herself. Nobody would know she’d just screwed the living daylights out of her boyfriend...she hoped. Her cheeks were rosy and her eyes sparkling, but that could be put down to good health and excitement over the trip to come, right?

The water cut off in the shower. “Could you pass me a towel?” Alex asked.

She handed a dry towel into his outstretched hand with its long, strong fingers and dark tan. She would have expected a surgeon of his skill to have more...feminine...hands. Softer. His were anything but. They were more what she would expect of a trained killer. He even had the telltale callus at the base of his right thumb to indicate that he shot handguns. A lot. He’d developed that in the past year.

Her dad and brothers had the same shooting callus. She certainly knew how to handle a pistol—it was impossible to grow up in the McCloud house without knowing how—but she kept meaning to ask Alex to show her how to use a rifle one of these days. More specifically, a sniper rifle.

She tugged her sexy little T-shirt down to the top of her snug jeans. She might not be a doctor, but she knew how to fill out a pair of designer denims. And she could handle herself in a crisis. Compliments of more of her McCloud upbringing.

She took a quick look at the TV. The hurricane was wrapping tighter, intensifying its energy into a tight knot of monstrous strength. Its outer bands were lashing the east tip of Cuba now. By tomorrow morning, the island would be ground zero for the core of the storm. It was morbidly fascinating to wonder just how powerful the winds would get and how bad the damage would turn out to be.

“Ready?” Alex asked from behind her.

“Yup. I’m starving.”

“Vigorous sex has that effect on me, too. Although I have to say you didn’t do all that much work. Next time, you can do the heavy lifting and pleasure me while I sit back and relax.”

She stuck her tongue out at him and he dropped a kiss on the end of her nose. “And she thinks I’m kidding,” he murmured.

“I don’t for a second think you’re kidding. I look forward to having you at my mercy.”

That sent his right eyebrow into an arch and a speculative gleam into his silver gaze. Hah. She dared him to taste his supper now. Not that she was going taste any of hers, either.

His hand landed in the small of her back in the protective, possessive way that never failed to turn her on. Oh, so that’s how tonight was going to be, huh?

She leaned into him in the elevator, pressing her breast lightly against his arm as another couple entered the small space. He didn’t glance down at her, but a faint smirk curved his lips.

He asked for a corner table in the darkest part of the hotel’s restaurant. Pleased to see the long linen tablecloths, she immediately kicked off her heels and planted her bare foot in his lap. While she massaged his groin with her toes, he massaged her calf under the table until she was all but groaning in pleasure.

He murmured over their entrées, “So tell me, Katie. What naughty fantasy is rattling around in your head wishing to become real?”

Her steak knife fell to her plate with a loud crash as it slipped out of her fingers. Embarrassed, she picked it up and risked a peek at Alex. The smirk was firmly in place again.

Her gaze narrowed. “I rather like the idea of you on your knees. Maybe even with your hands tied behind your back.”

“And then what?” His eyes glittered like shards of broken mirror.

“I would...present...various body parts for you to...”

“Make love to with my mouth?”

“Exactly.”

“And if I do this for you? What will you do for me in return? Sex is, at its core, a trade, after all.”

She leaned back against the banquette. “That’s where you and I differ. For me, sex is a gift. Something I give freely to you. I don’t necessarily expect anything back in return. Of course, I generally do get plenty back. But it’s not like I think to myself, ‘Okay, if I give Alex x amount of pleasure, then he owes me y amount back.’”

He asked, amused, “Are you implying that I’m a selfish male?”

“I’m just saying your mind-set is different than mine. I don’t know if all men treat sex the same way you do or not.” She shrugged. “Frankly, you treat everything as a bargain, not just sex.”

“Do I, now?”

Interestingly enough, he didn’t seem offended. Thoughtful, maybe, but not angry. They finished the meal, and Alex ordered chocolate mousse for her without having to ask if she wanted any or not. The creamy dessert was, bar none, her favorite food on earth.

He let her get well into the mousse before he commented, “Sex has always been a transaction for me. I pay a prostitute, she gives me what I want.”

Katie waved her spoon at him. “You don’t want them to like it, do you? You go out of your way to make sure they don’t enjoy themselves.” Alex arched an eyebrow at her in mild warning that she was treading on dangerous ground. But she’d had one glass of wine too many to heed his eyebrow. “I think you’re taking out your anger over your mother’s abandonment on those prostitutes.”

Whoops. Predator Alex went still. Alert. Ready to attack. The scale of her mistake finally cut through the wine buzz to register on her.

“Are you finished?” he asked. His voice was cold. Precise. Controlled.

Crap. She trailed after him in silence to their room when he didn’t slow down to wait for her. He grabbed a couple minibottles of whiskey out of the refrigerator and moved over to the big plateglass window-wall, where he sprawled in one of the armchairs there.

Was their uneasy truce over, then? She knew how much Alex hated the idea of her going with him on this trip. Almost as much as she hated the idea of him going. He’d been mature and quit fighting about it when it became clear he was going to lose the argument. But she by no means thought he’d made peace with the idea.

God knew what else was rattling around in his head and messing with his mind after the past year. She’d read enough spy novels and seen enough spy movies to have an inkling of what he’d been through.

She waited until he’d downed the whiskey and the tension had left his shoulders somewhat to go stand behind him. “I’m sorry, Alex. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

Nothing.

She might as well not have been in the room with him. Okay, she could deal with him being mad at her for saying something to him he really didn’t want to hear, but she would not stand for him ignoring her. That was just rude. She marched around in front of his chair, wedging herself between his knees and the cold glass at her back.

She put on her best kindergarten teacher lecture voice. “Alex Peters, that is quite enough sulking out of you. It’s not nice to ignore people when they speak to you. So shake out of this snit of yours, right now. Got it?”

His gaze lifted to hers. Had she not already been plastered against the window at her back, she’d have staggered back a step from the utter emptiness in his eyes. Where had her Alex gone? This man was...dead.

Remorse and fear roared through her and she fell to her knees and flung her arms around his neck. She hung on to him like a tornado was trying to tear them apart. At first, he did not respond at all. But eventually, his arms came up around her waist. He pulled her into his lap. They sat like that for a long time. Long enough for the city to grow quiet below them and the streets to empty of cars.

Without warning, he commenced tearing her clothes off her. Some he tore off figuratively. Others that didn’t give way easily enough, he literally tore off her. And when she was naked, he surged to his feet and shoved her face-first against the glass. She heard a zipper rip down, and then he was slamming into her from behind. No foreplay. No words of endearment. No kisses or caresses. Just his hard, hot body invading hers.

Her breasts and right cheek mashed against the cold window. Rain struck it hard enough on the other side for her to feel the tiny impacts. The drops came so close but didn’t touch her. Sort of like her trying to reach Alex’s soul. An invisible but impenetrable barrier blocked her way.

If someone happened to look up at this building and zero in on this particular room, they were getting quite a show. And yet, she couldn’t spare the mental energy to care. Her attention was entirely focused on the agonized man behind her. She wasn’t fooled for a second by his angry outburst. This was pain, not punishment. Anguish, not rage. And if he needed to dump it into her body, she was fine with absorbing it from him.

He was being rough with her, but as always, some part of him held back just enough not to actually hurt her. Relieved that whatever barriers held the beast at bay had worked one more time, she did her best to open her body to him. To relax and not fight the aggressive invasion. To convey an unspoken sense of welcome and acceptance to him.

By arching her back and thrusting back toward him, their bodies fit perfectly. He grasped her hips to pull her back harder, and she groaned her pleasure. He growled under his breath, probably irritated that she was enjoying this. But the harder and deeper he drove, the better it felt.

Finally, as she moaned with too much pleasure to bear, he collapsed against her back, panting in her ear, crushing her against the window. His hands came up to cover hers where they pressed into the glass by her head.

“Come to bed,” he eventually murmured. “You’re cold.”

She was frozen with fear for his soul. Did that count as cold? He tucked her under the covers gently enough, though, and then pulled on jeans and a sweater in the dark.

“You’re not coming to bed?” she asked from her cocoon of warmth.

“In a while, maybe.”

Translation: I’m going to be up all night, brooding. She sighed, rolled onto her side and drifted to sleep wondering what it would take to get him to shed the darkness in his soul and choose to be happy.


CHAPTER FIVE (#ulink_b0bb73e4-6ccc-5927-9e7e-6c6fbc21b0ce)

OVERNIGHT, HURRICANE GISELLE slammed into Cuba with a vengeance. It tore the island to bits from east to west. Even in a region accustomed to tropical storms, Giselle was a monster. Death tolls were unknown, but television commentators speculated that thousands had perished. Always secretive, the Cuban government declined to share details or let any foreign journalists into the immediate aftermath to report on it. What little news did leak out painted a grim picture, however.

Alex turned off the TV. Katie was still asleep, so he used the time to get on his laptop to see if any of the feelers he’d put out on Operation Cold Intent had come back to him yet.

Bingo. An encrypted email from C¥berE¥e, perhaps the top hacker he’d ever seen operate and his anonymous mentor since his first attempts to start hacking.

Alex ran their usual decryption protocol and got gibberish. He stared at the letters and symbols in surprise. He would suspect a failed message transmission were this not from C¥berE¥e. And then it hit him. He ran a secondary decryption protocol the hacker sometimes used.

Sure enough, a short message resolved itself on his screen. He stared at it in dismay.

Blondie and ThrεεWolvεs dead. Looks like murder. What the fuck did you get them into?

He knew the forces behind Cold Intent had killed Blondie. But they’d killed her boyfriend, too? Jesus. Who was doing this? And what in the hell was Cold Intent? Why was someone killing to cover its tracks?

He messaged C¥berE¥e back, asking if the guy had any idea what Blondie and her boyfriend were killed over. Hackers had lots of enemies if they were any good, right?

The reply made him feel ill. It said that Blondie must have been looking into something within the past few days that had triggered the real-world attack. No matter how he tried to rationalize it away, Alex couldn’t escape arriving at the same conclusion C¥berE¥e had. He was responsible for the hackers’ deaths. He sent an email back.

Any idea if someone got their files?

The reply was immediate.

An ABC agency was making a run at them. I snagged everything and wiped the drives before the Man could get in. Some interesting shit here. Who’s Cold Intent?

Aww, crap. He didn’t need dead hackers all over the planet on his account. Alex typed hard, as if he could transmit his emphatic warning through the keys themselves.

Be. Careful. They’ll kill you, too. And no, I don’t know who “they” are. You need to leave it alone.

C¥yberE¥e’s reply was succinct.

I’ll find ’em. You kill ’em.

He stared at the message speculatively. He’d long suspected that C¥berE¥e was some sort of intelligence agent or at least a former one. More than once, the hacker had sent Alex timely warnings about various government agencies being close to catching up with him and some of his more adventurous online activities as a teen.

What was fascinating about that short statement was that this guy seemed to think Alex was capable of killing someone. Hackers were criminals but rarely violent ones. Who was C¥berE¥e, really? Not that it mattered at the end of the day if the guy found Cold Intent for him. Slowly, one letter at a time, Alex typed his response.

Done.

“Whatcha doin?” Katie asked from right behind him.

Alex jumped about a foot straight up in the air.

“Wow. I managed to startle the great spy, Alex Peters?” she crowed. “I win!”

He scowled at her as he stood up, sweeping her into his arms. “We’ll see about that.”

She laughed as he carried her back to the bed. “You always have to win, don’t you?”

“Yup.”

For once, their lovemaking was simple and uncomplicated, just sex. No strings attached. No deep emotional conflicts. No struggles to push past emotional blocks or physical boundaries. It felt good to him, and he was fairly certain it felt good to her.

It was nearly an hour later, and Katie had unequivocally declared him the winner in all things...loudly and passionately...before he finally collapsed to the mattress beside her. His soul felt lighter, somehow.

And that was when fear came calling, deep in his gut. This time, she had blasted past his emotional defenses so easily and smoothly he hadn’t even realized she’d done it.

How she managed to take him out of his head and into a place of pure feeling and emotion, he had no idea. But he had no power to resist whatever it was she did to him. God knew, he wanted to. He hated the loss of control. His entire life was based around the concept of supreme self-discipline. Success rested upon it. Hell, survival rested upon it.

He died a little each time she broke through his mental defenses. But man, it was a good way to go. Seductive. Addictive as hell.

Still. He would give just about anything for her not to be here with him, back in harm’s way. He couldn’t fight them all—André, Peter and Katie herself—but his gut yelled at him that taking her to Cuba with him was a giant mistake.

“I’m hungry,” Katie announced.

He had to smile. She sounded like a little kid who’d just come in from the playground, breathless and happy. “Shower, then food?” he suggested.

She leaped out of bed, laughing over her shoulder. “Last one to the shower’s a rotten egg!”

How could anyone be so damned innocent? Particularly given that she was highly intelligent and by no means naive. And getting less naive by the day around him. She told him once that happiness was a choice. Was innocence a choice, as well? If so, he’d chosen long ago to forsake it. He climbed out of bed more temperately and invaded her shower.

He’d just finished dressing and she was still in the bathroom blow-drying her hair when his cell phone rang. André.

“Hey, boss. What’s up?”

“You’ve got a charter flight to Inagua in two hours. From there, a boat will take you to Baracoa. My contact will meet you at the rendezvous point on shore and take you to the base camp that’s being set up for you.”

Baracoa. He swore under his breath. Peter had been right, after all. A sane man would tell André the Baracoa meet-up was compromised. But Alex was inclined to go ahead and show up where Peter expected him to. Maybe he could spot whatever was going on that had both the CIA and FSB so interested in Cuba all of a sudden.

“Got it,” he replied to André’s more detailed instructions, which he memorized in lieu of writing them down to be found by anyone else.

“Have a safe trip, Alex.”

Yeah. Right. “Thanks.” He hung up before more sarcasm could leak into his voice.

He looked up and spied Katie standing in the bathroom doorway. “Showtime?” she asked.

An urge to lie nearly overcame him. To take her to the airport, put her on a plane and send her home. But not only had he promised never to lie to her, she could also sniff fibs a mile away. He sighed. “As soon as you’re ready to go, we’ll head out.”

Into what, he had no damned idea. But one thing he knew for sure. They were headed into something.

* * *

KATIE WATCHED THE twin prop airplane that had been their ride lift off into the sunny blue sky, and then looked around at Great Inagua Island in dismay. She’d never seen a more barren place. It was nothing but windswept dirt and rocks. “I thought Caribbean islands were supposed to be tropical paradises.”

“Not if all the tree cover is destroyed by settlers and the ecosystem collapses in response and desertifies. Then they look like this,” Alex replied.

She shuddered. “It’s awful. Who lives here, anyway?”

“Workers at the salt factory. About eight hundred of them.”

“Are they okay after the storm?” she asked in quick concern.

“They were evacuated by the salt company. We’re the only people back on the island.”

“Wow. We’re really all alone on a desert island, then?”

He smiled reluctantly. “Yes. We’ve got to make our way to the shore on foot to catch our ride. I hope you’re up for a hike.”

The last time he’d asked her that, they’d been fleeing with an hour-old Dawn stuffed inside her coat and a war raging behind them. “Are you kidding? Piece of cake.” She just hoped no wars were about to break out around them. She had a sneaking suspicion one might, though, before this was all said and done.

Alex took off across the pale dirt. The going was easy for about three minutes. And then they reached a patch of ruined vegetation, twisted and flattened by Hurricane Giselle into a nearly impassable tangle of jagged wood, sharp-leaved foliage and hidden rocks waiting to turn the unwary ankle.

Thank God she’d been working out like a maniac since he’d left. She was panting like a dog, but so was Alex. It took them something like an hour to cover a quarter mile.

“How far do we have to go in this stuff?” she finally broke down and asked Alex.

“Just over the ridge.”

Awesome. They weren’t far from the crest now. Another fifteen minutes of carefully picking their way forward, and they topped the low rise.

The ocean and a blond beach stretched away in front of them. And praise the Lord, this side of the ridge was bare of vegetation until the margin of the beach below. They made their way down the hillside relatively quickly with only sharp stones and treacherous slides of gravel to avoid.

But then they got to a literal wall of destroyed scrub trees, bushes and random vegetative debris. It was easily eight feet tall and looked like a loofah sponge. “How on earth are we supposed to get through this?” she demanded. “Even if we had a machete, it would take hours to hack through all that.”

“That, grasshopper, is why man conquered fire,” Alex answered.

“Isn’t it too wet to burn?” she asked dubiously.

“Only one way to find out,” he answered absently as he commenced laying a fire at the base of the pile. The wind was still brisk in the lee of the hurricane and the fledgling flame blew out twice before it finally caught and held.

In seconds, though, it flared from the size of her hand to waist high, and from there to well over her head. Apparently, enough of the material had been dead long enough that a single day in the sun and wind, posthurricane, had dried it out. The pile went up in a firestorm that swept down the beach at shocking speed. No fire department on earth could put that out. She and Alex scrambled back from the intense heat as the debris burned with a roar of sound.

“My God! What if there are houses down the beach?” she cried.

“No house survived two-hundred-mile-per-hour winds for fourteen hours. And if one did, it was wrecked, anyway. A stone structure might survive the hurricane, but it won’t burn.” Alex shrugged, pragmatic. “Burning this stuff off is how a cleanup crew will get rid of it, anyway.”

She watched the fire rip down the beach in front of the stiff wind with deep misgivings. The good news was the wind was headed out toward the ocean. If they were lucky, they hadn’t just set the entire island on fire. And the salt factory was on the other side of the island, well upwind of this conflagration. Still, the ease with which Alex had taken radical action without concern for peripheral damage sent up warning flags in her head.

The debris burned hard for maybe thirty minutes. Where there were decent-size tree trunks and brush, the fire continued to burn. But here and there, where the pile had been mostly small brush and dead vegetation, the fire started to blow out.

Katie spied a small shape well out on the water. “Is that a boat?”

Alex pulled out binoculars to have a look. “That’s our ride,” he announced. “Time to head down to the water. Keep your feet moving and your shoes won’t burn as we cross over the embers.”

She stared at the remnants of the fire in front of her, maybe fifteen feet wide. Whoa, whoa, whoa. “I don’t do the walking-across-beds-of-coals thing, Alex.”

“Walk lightly and quickly on your entire foot. Don’t run. You’ll be fine.”

She scowled ferociously at him, but he only shrugged back. “Follow me.”

This was how life was always going to be with him, wasn’t it? He would blithely lead her into danger, and she’d follow along like a lamb for the slaughter. She sighed and walked fast across the coals, distributing her weight across her entire foot with each step.

Vague heat registered around her, but before she knew it, she was on the other side of the glowing ember field. Her heart was racing like a runaway horse, and one spot on her leather hiking boots was smoldering a bit, but otherwise, she was intact. That hadn’t been so bad, after all, darn it. She hated it when he was right.

A dark-skinned man angled a crappy little fishing boat toward them. It barely looked seaworthy and was in desperate need of a barnacle scraping and paint job. He stopped about a hundred feet shy of shore and gestured for them to come out to him.

“How are we supposed to get out there?” Katie asked blankly from the edge of the beach.

“Swim. Why else do you think I made you put your gear in a waterproof bag?”

She scowled at him again. “I thought it was for rain.”

“C’mon.” Alex was already stripping off his shirt, pants and shoes, and stowing them in his bag.

“I don’t have a bathing suit!” she cried in sudden horror.

“You have underwear. Same difference.”

“Not the same, thank you very much.”

“I’m sure Pedro won’t mind if you want to swim out there naked. God knows, I’ll enjoy the view.”

Thinking terrible, murderous thoughts about him, she stripped down to her underwear and stuffed her clothes in her bag. “You’re such a jerk sometimes,” she muttered.

“You knew what you were getting into when you insisted on coming with me,” he said stonily.

He was right. But that didn’t make her any happier to be swimming out to a total stranger in lingerie, darn it. She was so getting even with Alex for this.

To make matters worse, the water was freaking cold. Apparently, the hurricane had stirred the ocean, pulling shallow, warm water out to sea and cold, deep water up to the surface. Her teeth were chattering like a high-speed typewriter by the time she climbed the rickety ladder into the back of the boat.

The driver’s gaze raked down her nearly naked body once and then, blessedly, the man turned away to face the wheel. The boat engine started with a cough. She took the scrap of terry cloth Alex passed her.

Swear to God, the towel was covered with grease stains. But it was that or freeze to death before she got dry. She threw Alex a long-suffering look and used the disgusting towel. He was doing this on purpose, punishing her for not staying at home like he’d wanted her to.

Tough. She might not like the whole idea of him going to Cuba one bit, but if he did insist on going, no way was she letting him go alone. He was her man, and she was protective.

After a few minutes of letting the brisk breeze finish drying her skin, she shivered and shook her way back into her jeans and T-shirt. She added a sweatshirt from her bag and gradually began to feel her fingers and toes once more.

The boat bumped along over waist-high waves that Pedro assured them were wonderfully calm seas after the recent storm. She failed to convince her stomach of that, however, and ended up barfing ignominiously off the back of the boat. She felt better afterward, but the whole experience sucked.

Alex suggested she try to sleep and made her a nest in some piled fishing net, which stunk of raw fish. She was so miserable, though, that she curled up in it and managed to pass out for a couple of hours.

Pedro said something about it being about seventy miles from Inagua to Baracoa, and Alex said something about the trip taking about four or five hours. She didn’t think she was ever going to get off that bobbing little boat and see solid land again. Clearly she was not Navy material like her brother, Mike.

Finally, as a spectacular sunset stained the western sky in a dizzying display of color, a black hump took shape on the horizon below the sunset.

“There it is,” Alex said. “Cuba.”

“How come there aren’t any lights—” She broke off. Because of the hurricane. She supposed coming ashore right after the storm like this would make it a lot easier to sneak onto the island. At least, that was probably the idea.

But as the shore drew near, she saw there would be nothing easy about this at all. Giant waves pounded the rocky crags and cliffs that formed the coastline, sending up massive geysers of white spray in the twilight. If she and Alex tried to swim ashore in that they’d be torn to pieces on the rocks.

“How on earth are we getting from here to there?” she asked him.

“Wind blew us off course. The landing point’s a little farther north along the coast. Pedro says there’s a beach at our rendezvous point.”

She sensed another swim in her near future. Fantabulous.

The good news was they did, indeed, motor up the coast to a stretch of shoreline without the intimidating cliffs. The bad news was Pedro refused to pull in close to the shore. Apparently, the storm surge was still way up the shoreline and the man didn’t want to risk running aground on the remains of some sort of dock that had stood at this spot a few days ago.





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