Hot Intent

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.”