Page 62 of Hot Intent

“Nothing,” he muttered back.

Bull. He felt ready to explode at any second.

The bus passed through a couple of small villages before it pulled into a decent-sized town that reminded her a lot of Baracoa. “End of the line,” the driver called in Spanish. “Guantanamo.”

Alex was practically vibrating with tension by the time they stepped off the bus. She looked around quickly and spied a coffee shop only a few yards from the bus stop. She knew they had to get off the street and out of sight, so she headed for the café with Alex in tow.

She ordered a pot of coffee and paid for it with cash from the stolen purse.

“Where’d you get the money?” he asked suspiciously.

“I liberated a purse from its owner before I rescued you,” she explained under her breath.

“Nice touch,” he commented.

Huh?

“What’s the plan?” he asked tersely.

She really didn’t like the way his gaze was darting around in constant motion like he expected a violent attack at any moment. “Relax. You’ll draw too much attention if you keep looking so uptight.”

If anything, his expression got wilder, but he did stop looking around so overtly. “Are you feeling all right, Alex? What did they inject you with?”

His eyes got that shuttered, stubborn look they got when he was refusing to tell her something. “I don’t feel so hot,” he announced.

“You need a restroom?” she asked in quick concern. “It’s down that hall.”

“Got it,” he said thickly. He rushed from the table in the direction she pointed, distinctly green about the gills.

She waited a few minutes for him to return, but he didn’t. Worried she rose to her feet, moved quickly down the hall to the restroom and knocked on the door. No answer.

“Alex?” she called quietly through the panel.

Still no answer. She tested the doorknob. Locked. Crap. Had he passed out? Or worse? What the hell had they drugged him with, anyway? It was a simple lock. She fumbled in the purse, came up with a ballpoint pen and jammed its tip into the circular hole in the center of the knob. The lock clicked open. She threw the door open?—

--Empty. The tiny bathroom was empty! Where had he gone? She’d watched the hallway the whole time he’d been in here. No way had he slipped back out into the café without her seeing him.The window. It was closed but not locked. He’d bailed out on her? What the hell was going on with him? He’d separated from her back at the Zacara factory and now he’d ditched herin the middle of downtown Guantanamo while stoned out of his mind?

Equal parts furious and terrified, she threw open the window and looked down the alley. No surprise, Alex was long gone. In the loose gravel of the alley, he’d left no footprints that she could see. Not that she was any kind of trained tracker, anyway.

Crap. Now what?

It wasn’t like she could go back to the navy base and ask to be let in, again. Not after she’d busted the two of them out like that. Her brain felt wrapped in cotton candy. God, she was exhausted. She tried to remember the last time she’d slept, and nothing came to mind. Alex always said never to underestimate the power of food and sleep during an undercover op.

She retreated down the hall and asked the waitress where she could find a room to stay in, nothing fancy. Just a place to sleep. The girl named a place and gave her quick directions that Katie only half-understood. But she nodded her thanks and headed out.

Belatedly, it dawned on her that Alex would tell her the last place she should go was the one the girl had named for her. Katie wandered the streets for a little while, searching fruitlessly for him until it occurred to her that there were likely soldiers out looking for her, too. Not to mention Alex would never be dumb enough to roam around in broad daylight when he was a fugitive.

Clearly, she was way too tired to make smart decisions, right now. She saw a cardboard sign in the window of a tiny, cluttered convenience store advertising a room for rent. She swerved into the bodega and grabbed the sign out of the window. It turned out to be upstairs, and the proprietor wasn’t thrilled about only renting it for the week. He was looking for a long-term renter. But when she plunked down a credit card and told him to charge a full month’s rent for the week, he shut up quickly enough.

It wasn’t fancy. A single bed against one wall. A phone-booth sized toilet and sink. A hot plate that looked like a severe fire hazard siting on top of the lone dresser. That was it.

With a look askance at the cleanliness of the sheets, she laid down fully dressed on the bed. She could notbelieveAlex had ditched her again! She would figure out how to escape from Cuba later, when she could think straight. One thing she knew: when she got home, she was going to find Alex and kill him. And if she couldn’t accomplish the deed by herself, she would send her brothers after him.

Alex crouched in the ruined house, looking around in panic. They were coming for him. He could feel it. They’d turned Katie, and they were after him, now. He crept into a small closet, pulled the warped door as shut as it would go and huddled in the corner, hugging his knees and rocking back and forth.

Katie had no idea how long she slept. She woke up a couple of times to go to the restroom, but that was about it. It was morning when she woke based on the sun streaming in her east-facing window. She finally felt human again. Alert. And ticked off.

How could Alex abandon her not once but twice? If the guy didn’t want to be with her, all he had to do was say so. But ditching her in a hostile country to sink or swim on her own…what total jackassery.

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