Barefoot with a Stranger (Barefoot Bay Undercover #2)(52)

“It’s a farm,” the girl said.

“Caralita.” The boy took a step back, reaching for his sister’s hand to pull her away. “Vamonos.”

Mal and Chessie shared a silent glance, a lot of questions and observations zinging between them with the ease of two agents who’d worked a long time together. With the tiniest nod, she managed to tell him she’d handle the English-speakers, and he should be with the others.

He didn’t argue, letting her take a few steps with the two kids, engaging them with questions and chances to look at the phone.

He kept talking to the ones around him, finally relenting and letting them play with the phone, while he kept one eye on Chessie. After a minute the kids stopped walking away and talked to her. The little girl more than the boy, Mal noticed. Chessie listened, got down on the ground, and started digging things out of her purse.

Gum. Candy. A toy. All the while, they talked. Mal mentioned the Ramos family to his group, but had no reaction whatsoever, just kid-lust for the phone. So he finally let one attempt a call, but it didn’t go through.

He lost a few fans then, but Chessie stood and gave hugs to both her kids. And waved the others over, passing out candy to all of them while Mal just watched and, damn it, admired her some more.

That was unexpected.

The kids scurried off, dancing, laughing, chomping on colorful candy like they’d been given the keys to the kingdom. Chessie came closer to Mal and placed one hand flat on his chest.

“All this gorgeous male pulchritude on display, and I got what we needed with a few bags of Skittles.” She grinned up at him. “The Ramos farm is a few miles east of here. On a dirt road past a big orange tree.”

“That’s…good. But not too specific.”

“Put a shirt on, big guy. We can find it.” She started walking ahead of him, back to the hotel, but he grabbed her arm and stopped her, spinning her around.

“Are you mad I left?” she asked. “Because I only stepped onto the street and… What? Why are you looking at me like that?”

“I don’t know. I don’t f*cking know.” Without thinking too much about it, he leaned into her mouth and kissed. Not long, not hot, not wet and sexy, but a good kiss nonetheless.

When he backed away, she lowered her glasses to get a better look. “Was that a reward for my top-notch field skills?”

“It was just a kiss ’cause I wanted one.”

“Oh.” She bit her lower lip. “Well. That’s…interesting. But here’s the deal. As much as I want to go back in there and, you know, get hopeless, I need to tell you something.”

He frowned, waiting, catching the serious tone.

“There’s something strange about the Ramos farm. They didn’t want to tell me, but I got the feeling it’s not a normal farm. The little girl, Caralita? She whispered a word in my ear, and I think it might be a password.”

“A password?” Now she was going overboard. “What did she say?”

“Maestra. Like ‘maestro’ with an a.”

“Teacher,” he translated. “Maybe not a password, but a clue.”

“A clue?”

“About where we’re going.” Taking her hand, he guided her back to the hotel. “Gabe made a good choice for this team.”

She gave his hand a squeeze, and he knew the feeling was mutual. Hopeless, he reminded himself, but mutual.


* * *

“Tell me more about what they said about this farm,” Mal said as he drove them through the roughest roads they’d come across yet.

“It was what they didn’t say,” Chessie recalled. “They were evasive, especially the older one. I thought maybe they figured we were with the government.”

“They’re taught from a young age to be extremely careful who they talk to, but generally that means men in uniform,” Mal said. “Tourists and visitors, especially in these parts, are so rare that they are more likely to open up.”

“These two had been to the farm,” she said. “The little girl was pretty specific about the orange tree. Like a giant orange umbrella, she told me. Turn right on the road just after it.”

“A royal Poinciana,” Mal said. “They’re all over Cuba. They call them flame trees.”

“Hopefully, we don’t take a wrong tree turn.”

He threw her a smile, certainly not the first since they’d arrived in this town. His obvious approval of her field skills? Or…his obvious approval of her. It wasn’t smart that she wanted both, but she did. Remember, Chess…forty-two addresses in thirty-eight years. One a prison.

“I think it could be a culture school,” he mused, pulling her back to the mission at hand.

“What is that?”

“Other than illegal? All over Cuba, in private homes and in rural areas, the people try to teach their children the ways of the country before Castro, so customs, culture, and truth don’t die with each generation. If they get caught running something like that, the adults on the property would go to prison for life. The children?” He gave a deep, long sigh as the car rumbled down the road.

That wasn’t a sigh of exhaustion, Chessie mused. It was a sigh of pain. “What happens to the children?” she asked.

“You don’t want to know.”