Barefoot with a Stranger (Barefoot Bay Undercover #2)(18)

Frustration zinged through her, as it always did when directions were vague and…squishy. “Be specific, Gabe. What do we do before we get out?”

“Find Gabriel Winter,” Gabe said.

“And I absolutely can’t do that online?” Couldn’t she just use her computer to start digging? Not get on a plane with some sexy guy who gave her one crazy night of toe-curling sex and then took off like a thief in the night when he found out her name.

“Maybe you could do it online, Chess,” Gabe said, exasperation clipping his words. “But. I need proof. I need DNA. I need a…piece of this kid. Hair, skin, a toothbrush. Something.”

“We go in and get this kid’s toothbrush?” she asked, her voice rising. “Like the witch’s broomstick?”

“We can do it,” Mal said. “We’ll find the child, ascertain his situation, get some DNA, and come back.”

His confidence was…attractive. And a little scary. “But how do you just waltz onto a farm and steal a four-year-old’s toothbrush?” she asked.

Gabe looked skyward in disgust, but Mal took over, touching her arm. “We’ll be creative,” he said. “We’ll interview the family, take a little footage.”

“Yes, video, please,” Gabe said, his voice more emotional than Chessie could ever remember hearing it.

“And while we’re filming,” Mal said, “you can slip into the bathroom and find his toothbrush. Or comb his hair for the camera and get some strands on a brush.”

She finally stared at him, hating the fact that she was dying to put her hand over his and lean closer. That mouth was like a freaking magnet. “You make it sound easy.”

“It will be, Francesca.”

The name slid off his tongue and heated her like he’d just dripped liquid mercury through her veins.

“It will be?” she managed.

“If we are together, in concert, as a team.”

Her heart rolled around and knocked on a few ribs during a free fall to her stomach. “Together…” she whispered the word.

There was no way—no way in heaven or hell—she could travel with this man and not end up back in bed with him.

“Can you do that?” Gabe asked.

“Can I not?” she replied to a different worry.

Gabe grinned. “I knew you were the right person for the job, little sister.”

She finally found the power to pull her hand out from under Mal’s hot touch, focusing on Gabe. “Yeah, well…if we can’t get the DNA, surely I’ll know if he’s your child when I see him.”

Gabe shook his head vehemently. “That won’t help me when I kick down doors and shoot f*ckers dead for the right to get him.”

“Gabe,” Mal said sharply. “You can’t go there.”

Gabe looked away and outside at the expansive resort gardens beyond what looked like a home gym he’d built on the back deck.

Chessie suddenly realized this was why he was in Barefoot Bay. This woman had caused Gabe to turn his life upside down, come to this resort, start a business that was really a cover, and seek his past.

Which turned up a child.

She had to remember what was at stake here. This child was her nephew. And if she didn’t go with Mal to Cuba, she knew Gabe would, which obviously was not a good thing.

“Can you tell us anything at all about him, Gabe?” she asked. “Anything at all?”

He exhaled silently, as if he’d been holding that breath for the whole time it took Chessie to finally realize what truly mattered.

“I can tell you when I think he might have been born, if my math is correct. I know when I last saw…his mother. If the child is mine, he would have to have been conceived before I left”—he glanced at Mal—“that last time.”

Gabe had been in Miami for a while, then off the radar, then, boom, he’d shown up in Boston a few months after their cousins had opened the Guardian Angelinos. All he said was he’d quit working as a consultant for the CIA, and he’d picked up assignments for the family company. No mention of a woman in his life, ever.


“So what’s the math?” Mal asked. “Sometime in 2011?”

“Summer,” Gabe said. “Would have been born in summer of 2011. Much after that, and he can’t…be mine.”

The twist of pain in his voice cut right through Chessie. “I can do this,” she reassured him.

Mal’s eyes flickered with a hint of admiration. “We can do it,” he corrected.

Gabe flopped back in his chair. “Which is why I picked you two.”

Maybe, maybe not. She knew her brother well enough to know that if someone else had opened that file, someone else would go because Gabe would involve as few people as possible.

And that thought only reminded her of the bugged hotel room.

Yes, she’d destroyed the device, and on the ride down, she’d gone over everything she and Mal had said. Anyone listening would know they had sex—good, loud, lively sex—but she’d whispered her last name to him, and they’d barely talked after that.

But she had to tell Mal about it, and soon.

“Hey, I’m really tired,” she said, the lie rolling easily off her lips. Truth was, she felt fiery and alert. And burning with the need to tell Mal about the bug, without telling Gabe. “Can I go to that beachfront villa you promised me?”