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Katie was perplexed when Alex abruptly broke off their investigation of the Zacara factory to take Oscar to Baracoa.

She didn’t for a minute think he’d agreed to the trip for altruistic reasons.

He’d gotten a stubborn look on his face when she first promised the boy they would take him to his grandmother.

Then, that call had come in, and Alex had abruptly changed his tune.

The shed had yielded a waterlogged mo-ped, but Alex and the boy worked on it for a half-hour and got it running again. Alex rigged a makeshift hitch to a four-wheeled utility wagon also in the shed and turned it into a tow-able conveyance for the boy.

She and Alex rode the mo-ped while Oscar sat in the wagon behind them. The trip south to Baracoa was slow going. They were only about twenty miles from the city, but it took them most of the afternoon to get there.

Baracoa had fared slightly better than the villages had.

It had a number of sturdy buildings that had withstood the battering of Giselle.

And, it had public services like police, a fire department, and a hospital.

It appeared that much of the populace had been recruited to clear debris and shovel mud.

The city was mostly dug out from the storm and passable.

A soldier with an AK-47 slung across his back waved them to a halt as they reached the edge of Baracoa. Alex explained that they were bringing the boy to his grandmother. On cue, Oscar burst into tears and told the soldier a fractured account of his home being washed away and his family lost.

Once Alex assured the soldier that he and Katie would be leaving Baracoa as soon as they found the boy’s grandmother, the soldier let them pass.

The irony was not lost on her that Alex was doing to Oscar exactly what his father had done to him—using a child as a cover for espionage. For surely, this trip to Baracoa was about their mission in some way.

A frisson of ethical misgiving tickled her spine. She ought to object to using Oscar like this. Except the boy really did need to get to his family and really was too young to get there by himself. And it wasn’t like they were endangering the child.

The boy tearfully directed them to a modest cottage. Its windows were still boarded up, but the front door was open and there were signs of life.

Oscar leaped out of the wagon and ran for the front door, shouting. A middle-aged woman came out and scooped the boy into her arms tightly. As the boy sobbed, the woman’s face crumpled and the pair shared their grief. It was hard to look at, and Katie turned into Alex’s shoulder for comfort.

His body was rigid, his face set in stone. She didn’t care how tough he tried to be. He was affected. He was just conditioned to close off his feelings. His arm came up around her shoulders for a brief squeeze.

He said quietly, “Time for us to be on our way.”

Oscar’s grandmother barely got a chance to thank them before Alex untied the wagon and climbed on the mo-ped.

She threw her leg over the back of the bike, and they pulled away from the house.

How many more personal tragedies just like that were playing out all around them?

The scale of this storm’s damage was hard to wrap her mind around.

Alex pointed the mo-ped toward the middle of town with purpose, as if he had a destination in mind. She leaned forward to ask over the noise of the motor, “Where are we going?”

“The hospital.”

She frowned. What did he want with a hospital?

They couldn’t just stroll in and announce their presence to the authorities.

But apparently, that was exactly what he had in mind.

They parked in front of a decent-sized structure that appeared to have weathered Giselle reasonably well, and Katie followed him hesitantly as he marched into the emergency room.

“Let me do the talking,” he muttered low.

Ya think? She made a face at his back as he headed for a man in a white lab coat with a stethoscope around his neck. The Cuban doctor got a surprised look on his face, but in a few seconds, nodded in agreement with whatever Alex was murmuring to him.

Alex returned to her side, shedding the backpack of their emergency gear as he came. “Take this and find a spot out of the way to get comfortable. This will take a while.”

“ What will take a while?”

“I’m trading my surgical skills for the supplies we need.”

Her eyebrows lifted in surprise. “We need supplies?”

“We need sterile test tubes to get clean samples,” Alex bit out. And then he was gone, disappearing behind a pair of swinging doors with the Cuban doctor.

Chairs were in short supply, so she found a corner and hunkered down in it.

She leaned against the backpack both for comfort and so no one could steal it while she dozed.

They’d gotten precious little sleep since they’d arrived on the island, and the warm, muggy waiting room knocked her out quickly.

It was dark when she woke and the waiting room crowd had thinned considerably. The backpack was still behind her and there was no sign of Alex. Shouldering the pack of gear, she went in search of food.

Eventually, she stumbled across the employee’s cafeteria. She took the mug of soup someone handed her and nodded her thanks. It was some sort of thin broth with canned vegetables floating in it, but it was hot and quieted the growling in her stomach.

She nearly cried as she found a restroom with working toilets and running water in it. Funny how much she’d taken for granted just how amazing a simple flush toilet was.

Bored, she returned to her corner to wait for Alex. She slept on and off through most of the night before a hand on her shoulder made her lurch awake, alarmed.

Alex’s shadowed form bent over her in surgical scrubs. “You look exhausted,” she murmured.

“Time to go,” he said low.

“Do you want some sleep first? The toilets work here, and I’m sure they could find you a bed to grab a nap in.”

“Later.”

She followed him outside. While the city had some electricity restored, she’d heard locals in the waiting room mention a nightly curfew and power blackout. The city was silent and still, almost as dark as the jungle had been.

Alex doffed the scrubs, tied what turned out to be a very light, but bulky, bag on the back of the backpack, and passed the whole thing to her. She shrugged on the shoulder straps and climbed on the mo-ped behind him.

As they pulled away from the hospital, she pondered how Alex had become more of an order-giver in the past year.

That, in and of itself wasn’t bad, she supposed.

But it could be a little irritating being ordered around.

She did have to laugh at herself a little for falling for a guy just like all the other men in her family.

How did her mother tolerate a husband and five sons just like this? The woman must have the patience of Job not to haul off and cold-cock one of them now and then.

The night was cool. The ocean chuckled and murmured nearby, its briny odor hanging thick in the air. The moon, a lopsided disk high overhead, threw cool light down on them as they head north out of the city.

Alex’s back was warm and vital against her front, and she snuggled close against him. His presence reassured her like nothing else on earth. She probably shouldn’t feel so safe given where they were, but she did. She trusted him with her life.

They ran into two military checkpoints, but the sleepy soldiers let them pass when he identified himself as a doctor heading north with medical supplies to treat victims of the hurricane.

At the second checkpoint, the soldier opened up the bag hanging from her pack and seemed satisfied with what he saw inside. He waved them through.

The sun was rising by the time they reached the iron gate leading to Oscar’s ruined home. A thin layer of fog rose from the moist earth, making the morning misty and bright.

She was surprised when Alex turned into the driveway.

“I’m beat,” he muttered by way of explanation. “The shed’s intact and we can use it for cover while I go down for a few hours.”

Spoken like a true field operative. “I got plenty of rest yesterday. I’ll take the watch while you sleep,” she offered.

“Deal.”

It took them a few minutes to carry out farm tools, buckets, and junk to make enough room to stretch a tarp on the dirt floor for Alex. Without further ado, he passed her a loaded pistol, laid down, and passed out.

She sat on the edge of the tarp just inside the door for several hours, watching the day age. A few birds sang outside, and she wondered idly where they’d ridden out the storm and managed not to get blown away. Already, the area was renewing itself, recovering from the storm.

If only she could find a way to do the same for Alex. There had to be a way to renew his soul. To wash away the hurts his parents had caused the boy and to heal the man.

She watched him sleep, memorizing the features of his face.

His cheeks were leaner than last year, his hair shorter and his skin darker, as if he’d spent a lot of time in the sun.

His mouth spent more time compressed in a tense line than before, but right now it was relaxed, his lips full and kissable.

Like this, he looked nearly the same as when she’d met him.

Of course, his eyes were closed. That was where his changes really shouted at her.

His gaze now was cold and assessing, where before it had been sardonic at best and cynical at worst. He looked at the world now with a detachment he hadn’t had before.

As if everyone around him was a bug potentially to be squashed if they made a wrong move.