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Cuba, huh? She flopped down beside the brother she knew to be working in the intelligence community, although she didn’t know in what capacity since Alex stabbed him by accident last year. “Hey, Ian. Whaddiya know about Cuba?”

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

“Duh.”

She listened intently as he and her dad brought 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 knew more about Russian intelligence practices than just about any other person at the CIA.

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 brother, who was unabashedly taking in the exchange. “We’ll need to discuss that in private.”

“Aww, c’mon,” Ian complained. “We’re family. And you owe me after you almost gutted me.”

“I saved your life after I gutted you. We’re even,” Alex retorted.

“You stole my ride and abandoned me in the middle of nowhere,” Ian shot back.

“I got your baby sister out of Zaghastan alive.”

Katie looked back at Ian for his rejoinder and was amused when he huffed. “Fine. We’re even.”

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 sit on the back porch.”

Ian protested, but he could get over it. This was between her and Alex.

They stepped into the screened in three seasons room behind the family room.

Alex pointedly turned his back on the house’s windows. Good call. A couple of the McCloud men could read lips. He murmured, “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, maybe eventual husband. But she bit the words back.

He continued, “Cargo ships have been seen making unscheduled stops in small ports along the east coast of Cuba. No offloads or onloads 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 outbound 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 where he stared out at the woods. “It’s not our problem, any more. 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 inside Cuba 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 un -accept 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. I’m done being apart from you. We’ve already lost an entire year. 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 pig-headed 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 stand-off, 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 Roman’s up to than be operating blind where he’s concerned.” 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.