Now and Always

by Pineiro, Charity

  Victor cursed. It was definitely not his night.

  Chapter 4

  Victor glanced at his watch for the fifth time in the last twenty minutes and cursed. His one free night and he was stuck in the office, waiting for Carmen’s older sister. To hear Carmen tell it, her way too serious, too-hardworking, FBI Agent sister. But nevertheless, the perfect sister according to Carmen.

  Despite Carmen’s sisterly pride, Victor suspected Connie was probably either boring as hell or an uptight career woman. He glanced at her file one more time and then at his watch. He would give her another five minutes, no more. He didn’t care that Carmen’s sister had broken her arm in Virginia and now needed a Miami area doctor to take over her care. If she needed him so badly, she would manage to be on time.

  He rose and walked out of his office. Carmen’s laugh was followed by a deeper huskier chuckle that sent a blast of warmth through him. Victor shook it off, but as he heard the voice again, the sensation returned in full force.

  It was the hooker from last night, then he reminded himself that she hadn’t been a hooker, but a cop. Or so he had thought.

  As that sexy enticing laugh came again, he shook his head and told himself, “No way.” But when he stepped into the small receptionist’s area, the object of last night’s attentions was leaning her very shapely derriere on the edge of Carmen’s desk.

  Her suit was dark and pin-striped, tailored like a man’s, but it gaped away to reveal an ample bosom and tiny waist. A length of well-shaped leg was visible beneath the skirt that had ridden up. His breath hitched somewhere in the middle of his chest and he forced himself to breathe.

  Coughing, he drew her attention and she jumped off the desk.

  Connie straightened her skirt and jacket, glanced up at the man who had entered, and immediately tensed. It was Mr. Tall, Dark and Handsome from last night. “Dr. Cienfuegos, I presume,” she croaked and offered her hand.

  He smiled, his full, well-shaped lips parting to reveal straight, white teeth and devilishly delicious dimples.

  “Ms. Gonzalez. Not a hooker and not a cop, but an FBI Agent.” He took her hand, shook it, and then continued to hold it in his strong grasp.

  “Hooker? You thought my sister was a hooker?” Carmen piped in irately.

  A blush rose to her cheeks and Connie tried to clarify things. “We ran into each other last night and I told him I was working.”

  He raised a slash of an eyebrow suggestively. “Working, get it?”

  More heat raced to her face as Carmen continued to sputter, “A hooker? Does she look like a hooker?”

  “No, but she looked really really good,” he said, obviously to shock Carmen into silence. Thankfully, it worked.

  “I’m sorry. Carmen gets a little, you know ….” She glared at Carmen, motioning for her to quiet.

  “You’re telling me. I know. Believe me, I know. Sometimes I wonder why I put up with her.”

  “As if you could live without me,” Carmen replied with an indignant sniff and started filing papers away. “Why don’t you just examine her like you’re supposed to? I have to get home.”

  Victor arched an eyebrow at her, then at Connie. “Snippy, isn’t she?”

  Connie laughed, astounded that he could apparently get the last word in with her sister. A rare feat. “Let’s go while we’re ahead.”

  He motioned her in the direction of his office, laying a hand on the small of her back as he walked behind her, making her all too conscious of him. She tried to break free of her attraction.

  “So when did you realize I wasn’t a hooker?”

  “When you pulled out your badge and took off in my Corvette.”

  “Oh, God, no. That’s your car that’s in impound now?”

  He nodded. “Yes, it is. I understand it’ll take another few days to get it back which leaves me without transportation.”

  “I’m so sorry. We didn’t have a choice if we were going to catch our suspects.”

  Victor motioned her to the sofa in his office. She sat down primly and waited for him as he crossed the office to retrieve her file. When he returned, he sat on the sofa beside her.

  “I think I can forgive you if you tell me that you managed to catch the bad guys,” he said.

  “We did, thanks to you,” she said as he looked through her file.

  When he was done, he raised his head. “Any pain?”

  “Very little. Just a twinge every now and then,” Connie admitted.

  “Taking anything for it?” He pulled a pen from his coat pocket to write down her answer.

  “Nothing.”

  He glanced up from the file and met her gaze. “Nothing? Why not?”

  Connie shrugged. “It wasn’t bad enough.”

  “Ah, the strong, silent type,” he said with some hint of sarcasm.

  Connie bristled slightly at his attitude. “I don’t like taking drugs.”

  He dropped her file into his lap and took hold of the hand with the cast which extended from the middle of her hand halfway up her forearm.

  “Flex your fingers for me,” he instructed and she did. He nodded and stood. “I’d like to get an X-ray to see how the bone’s healing. It was a pretty bad break hence the more traditional cast instead of an air cast.”

  As he rose from the sofa and gestured to the door, Connie followed him out into the hall and down to another room. Inside, he helped her onto an examining table and brought over a smaller table. When she lay down, he arranged her arm on the side table. As he stepped away, she admired the seemingly competent way he gathered all that he needed, returned with the items, and prepared her for the X-ray.

  He laid the heavy lead apron over her body and asked, “Any chance you may be pregnant?”

  “No,” she answered without hesitation.

  “No recent sexual relations?”

  “Dr. Cienfuegos.”

  “Please call me, Victor. So no recent involvements?” he asked with a dimpled and too boyish grin.

  “You are persistent, aren’t you, Victor?” It didn’t take a rocket scientist to see where he was headed. For some reason she couldn’t fathom, she was excited that he might be interested. “If this is your less than subtle way of asking if I’m dating, involved, etc., the answer is ‘No.’”

  His grin broadened. “Great. Really great. I’ll be back in a second. Try not to move too much.”

  He stepped out of the room. There was a slight hum and then the clunk of the X-ray machine. Victor returned, moved her arm slightly, and repeated the procedure. When he was finished, he led her back to his office and as he did so, he called out to Carmen to develop the X-rays and bring them in when they were done.

  “Sure, sure. Leave me to do all the hard work,” Carmen complained, but smiled at Connie as she walked by.

  Connie looked back over her shoulder at him. “You and Carmen seem to work well together.”

  Victor chuckled and shook his head. “You mean she seems to know how to get me to do whatever she wants. You can’t believe how she bosses me around.”

  Connie pulled a stray lock of hair from her face. “Believe me, I do. Who do you think she practiced on?”

  “I can totally sympathize,” he joked. “But all kidding aside. Carmen’s a wonder. I’m glad she’s working for me.”

  She eyed him, thinking that he might possibly be too good to be true. “Just make sure you take good care of my sister.”

  He shook his head and led her back to the couch in his office. “Don’t worry. I don’t plan on any funny stuff with your sister. I’m saving that for you.”

  Connie blushed again at his attention, sputtering as her heart accelerated a beat. She had no chance to reply as Carmen walked in with the X-rays and handed them to Victor.

  Victor took the X-rays, held them up to the light, and nodded. “The break’s healing well, but the cast will have to stay on for at least another week, maybe two to be on the safe side.” He handed the X-rays back to Carmen along with Connie’s file and stoo
d.

  “I’d write you a prescription for any pain —”

  “Oh, no. Connie never takes anything,” Carmen jumped in before Connie could say a word.

  “So I’ve been told.” He held out his hand to help Connie from the low sofa and she took it, and stood. “I think I owe your sister dinner and she owes me a ride for stealing my car,” Victor said and eyed Connie with a dangerously sexy look. One that made her breathing stop for a second.

  “I didn’t steal it, I just borrowed it,” Connie replied, drawing her hand out of his, and moved away from his side to battle the wayward thoughts stealing through her mind.

  Carmen clapped a hand over her mouth. “Oh, no. You’re the one who confiscated his Don Johnsonmobile?”

  “It is like he watched too many Miami Vice reruns, right?” Connie added.

  Victor motioned with his hands as if in surrender. “All right, I give up. I can barely keep up with one of you, but with both, I’m a goner. I know when I’m beat, so if you’ll close up shop, Carmen, Connie and I will be off to dinner.”

  Connie protested. “I never said I’d have dinner with you.”

  Carmen waggled a finger in Victor’s face. “Somewhere nice, now. And don’t keep her out too late.”

  Victor captured Connie’s hand in his and half dragged her out the door. “Don’t worry. I’ll take care of her,” he tossed back at Carmen.

  Connie dug her heels in harder, stopping him as they exited into the hallway of the office building where his practice was located. “Now who said I wanted to go to dinner with you, much less be your chauffeur?”

  He turned and took both her hands into his again, running his fingers lightly across hers. She tried to tell herself she didn’t like his attention, but it would have been a lie. Here was a handsome, seemingly intelligent and gorgeous man who wasn’t looking at her as competition or some asexual book worm. He was treating her like an attractive desirable woman.

  An unusual occurrence in her life and one she wasn’t particularly equipped to deal with well. She had always been so busy with her ambitions, that she had paid little heed to the woman buried inside of her. The woman who this man was bringing to life with just a look and a touch. She flushed, trying to convince herself that even though those feminine skills were rusty, she could handle him.

  As she met his gaze and noted the interest there, she groaned and looked down, but he cupped her chin with one of those large warm hands, gently urging her face up. “If you don’t want to go, that’s fine. All I ask is that you give me a lift home.”

  Connie told herself that would be the sensible thing to do. Just give him a ride and forget whatever attraction she felt. But as she gazed into his eyes, the deep blue of Biscayne Bay at dusk, she didn’t want to just run away from this. She had never run from anything in her life. “I’d like to go. Where did you have in mind?”

  “How about AdriJuli down in South Beach?”

  Connie smiled. Perfect for a first date.

  First date? she thought, taken aback for a second. First usually meant there were more to follow and she wasn’t sure that was wise. As he led her onto the elevator, he intertwined his fingers with those of the hand without the cast. It felt natural, amazingly right. She kept her hand in his and when they reached the floor for the parking garage, she motioned him in the direction of her car — a brand new, candy apple red BMW 325i convertible.

  “Red and speedy. Seems to me it’s like the pot calling the kettle black,” he teased, getting even for her earlier comments about his Corvette.

  “My one treat to myself after finishing the academy,” she replied as she disarmed the alarm. She slipped behind the wheel of the car and waited for him to join her. After he got in, she started the car, pulled out of the parking lot, and onto Brickell Avenue. There was still a good amount of traffic in the downtown area and as they sat at a light, Victor reached into his pocket and removed his cell phone.

  “Do you like paella?” he asked and at her nod, he dialed the restaurant, reserved a table, and placed the order for the paella for two. “It takes some time to prepare,” he offered, seemingly in apology. “We should order it now to save time.”

  “Does this mean you’re planning on it being a short date?” she asked, shooting a quick look at him as she continued driving down the avenue.

  “No way. It’s just that I never know when this,” he said, gesturing to his cell phone, “is going to go off.”

  Connie laughed and raised the edge of her jacket to display her own cell phone. “Same here.” She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye.

  His smile broadened over his face. “What a pair we are. So what do you say the odds are we get to finish dinner in peace?”

  She shrugged and threaded her way into the traffic heading to the busy Bayside area. “One in ten?”

  He laughed, but it had a harsher edge to it. “That bad, huh? Are you involved in a big case now?”

  Connie avoided the cars streaming into Bayside Marketplace, slipping onto the entrance ramp for 395 and the MacArthur Causeway. “Actually, we’re just winding one up. The case you helped end with the use of your car.”

  He tipped his head. “So glad I could be of assistance. What’s next?”

  “A possible serial killer, bank robbery, kidnapping,” she teased, although it was partially true. The file on a string of murders had been dropped on her desk as she left and was now sitting in her briefcase, waiting for her review. The FBI had been called in to assist by the local authorities after another girl had been found and they had feared that a serial killer was possibly at work.

  “Do you have anything urgent going on?” she asked.

  “Always. That’s why I think it’s time to take a nice long trip on one of those.” He pointed to the large ocean liner sitting in the Port of Miami, visible from the causeway on which they were traveling.

  Connie glanced at the ocean liner for only a second and grimaced. “I’ve had all I ever want of oceans and boats.”

  She shuddered and Victor recalled that she like her sister, had escaped to the States on a small boat. “I’m sorry. It must not have been easy for you.”

  She raised her shoulders in a very Gallic kind of shrug. “We survived.”

  Despite her words, he sensed it bothered her more than she was willing to let on. But he wouldn’t press. It was too soon for that kind of thing. He let her have her silence, taking the time to commit her profile to memory as they traveled across the causeway and past the various bridges leading to the Venetian Islands built in Biscayne Bay. Again he was struck by her simple, elegant kind of beauty. Her eyes were a caramel brown, the iris fringed with a touch of deep brown, dark like Cuban coffee. Her straight nose was regal and high sculpted cheekbones framed those amazingly expressive eyes. A model would pay one of his colleagues a fortune for cheekbones like Connie’s. He wouldn’t even think about her lips, pouty and covered with only a light gloss. Like frosting on a cake, it made him want to lick it all off.

  He groaned and looked away, trying to control himself. He sensed that she wouldn’t appreciate being ogled. She was too independent, probably too feminist, to appreciate his appreciation of her.

  At his moan, Connie took her eyes off the road to check him out. “You okay?”

  His head whipped around. “I’m … just a crick,” he said, rubbing the hair at the nape of his neck as he looked away, a flush on his cheeks.

  Connie’s intuition and training told her he was lying, but she let it pass, needing to concentrate on the traffic. At the end of the causeway, she stayed on Fifth Street which ended a few blocks later on Ocean Drive. She made a left, cruising down the street where a slow stream of traffic moved northward.

  “It might have been easier to go down Collins,” he said, gesturing to a side street that would let them backtrack to one of the other main avenues.

  “I know,” she said, looking over at him. “But I love to see what’s going on down here. What new sights there are.”


  He chuckled. “Me, too.”

  They rode along in silence, her gaze meeting his occasionally as they checked out the action going on in the hotels and clubs. People milled in front of the buildings and strolled along the sidewalk. Others bounced and danced to the sounds of the music coming from the clubs. The neon trimmings and signs on the hotels threw colors down onto the crowd, painting them brightly with the hues of the tropics.

  Connie smiled and tapped her hands against the wheel as they passed one bar that was blasting a hot Latin mix onto the street.

  “Like it?” Victor asked.

  She glanced at him and noted he was also drumming his fingers to the beat. When she nodded, he smiled, and said, “Maybe we’ll have time to drop in for a dance later.”

  “That sounds good.”

  Chapter 5

  The purple neon of the hotel where the restaurant was located became visible a block or two further up and after detouring up and around a few blocks, Connie pulled up in front of the hotel. A valet met them on the street and shouted a greeting to Victor, who waved at the man as he took Connie’s keys.

  She raised an eyebrow and met Victor on the sidewalk. “Don’t get out often, do you?”

  “Would you believe I prefer their cooking to mine?” he said facetiously as he guided her up the stairs to the restaurant.

  Inside, the maitre’d greeted Victor warmly and eyed Connie speculatively. “It’s nice to see you’re not alone again, my friend,” the young man teased.

  Victor put a hand over his heart, grimacing. “Dude. You’re ruining my reputation.”

  The maitre’d held out his hand and motioned Connie in the direction of the veranda. Victor followed behind her and she couldn’t help overhearing the maitre’d’s softly whispered comment. “I don’t think this is a lady you want to impress with that kind of reputation.”

  She laughed and Victor groaned, aware that she had heard the other man’s comment.