Page 44

“Why else did you go to Baracoa?” she pressed.

Nope. She was not going to be distracted, today. “I needed time to think,” he tried.

Expectant silence came from beside him.

He sighed. “As you no doubt noticed, my father called. I don’t know how, but he got wind of what we were going to find when we came up here. He called to check up on me. To see if I found any…unusual…deaths.”

“How did he know about those?” Katie exclaimed.

“I assume the Cubans told him. Or, he’s got a mole in the Cuban government who slipped him the information.”

“Okay, so the Cubans know there was a chemical spill out here. How do they know that?”

He shrugged. “Satellite imagery, maybe. Or a local observer has reported in to Havana. Or, there’s a military presence in this area.”

“Wouldn’t the military try to evacuate the locals if there was a chemical incident?”

He answered grimly, “Not if their orders were only to protect the chemicals or to hide the evidence of their existence.”

Katie stumbled and he shot out his hand to grab her elbow and steady her. And said, “If soldiers are here, then we’re in serious danger. And maybe those were real soldiers back there.”

…Aaand she’d made the leap of logic he’d been hoping to avoid her taking.

“Isthatwhy you shot them?” Katie demanded abruptly. “They were doing a clean-up job and would have taken us out?”

He ground out in a moment of bald honesty, “I killed them so they wouldn’t kill you.” Yes, there were myriad other reasons for a preemptive strike on those two men. But at the end of the day, he’d killed to protect her.

Katie was silent. At long last, she murmured slowly, “I guess I can live with that.”

He let out the breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. She might not fully understand, but at least she accepted what he’d done. Sometimes, he was grateful she’d grown up in a family full of warriors. There were some things the uninitiated just didn’t get about men like him or her father and brothers.

He paused and turned to face her. “I would never kill anyone if I did not deem it absolutely necessary. Can you believe me?”

She stared up at him doubtfully for a moment and then exhaled hard. “Yes. Of course, I believe you.”

He swept her into his arms and kissed her deeply. Her arms looped around his neck and her lithe body stretched against his deliciously. If they weren’t seriously pressed for time, he would lay her down right here and now and lose himself in her body.

“God, I’m addicted to you,” he muttered against her sweet mouth.

“Good thing,” she murmured back. “I’m totally addicted to you, too.”

Something possessive and primitive surged up inside him. He needed to make this woman his and never let her forget it. He contemplated throwing caution to the wind, stripping her clothes off her and having his way with her.

“We’d better go,” she sighed regretfully. “Work first. Play later. Isn’t that what you always say?”

He swore under his breath, and she laughed lightly. “Just promise me that someday you’ll truly cut loose with me.”

“Ahh, Katie. You know not what you ask.”

“Show me?” she replied hopefully.

He didn’t answer. He couldn’t. speak at all. His throat tightened as his entire being was galvanized by the notion of losing all control with her. Of turning loose the beast within completely. God, it was tempting.

As if the current corner of Hell he occupied wasn’t tortuous enough. If he destroyed her innocence, there wouldn’t be a pit of fire anywhere deep enough or hot enough for him.

The scattered ruins of farms began to cluster more tightly together, and they approached an abandoned village.

“Where did all the people go?” Katie asked reflectively.