Never Happened Read Free Page A

This was home…stunning, intoxicating…and forever youthful.
    Age was irrelevant here. No one cared how old you were because everyone dressed and behaved young at heart. Whether they were soaking up the rays or haunting the designer shops, locals and tourists alike sauntered to the beat of a different tune—one filled with Latin heat and the primal lust of the tropical landscape.
    She leaned against the headrest and let thepleasant breeze caress her face. The perfect climate and the lush scenery might draw the world to Miami but it was the eclectic blend of people that made this city so unique. Cubans, Colombians, Peruvians and Venezuelans made up fifty percent of the population. Not surprising that Spanish was the primary language. The news from Havana or Caracas was more often than not the talk on the street.
    Speaking of people, as traffic slowed near 10th Street, Alex braked and watched couples glide into the Casa Casuarina, a hotel that was once home to the revered designer Gianni Versace. Not even the fabulous architecture could detract from the gorgeous patrons flowing into the ritzy joint. Men with wash-board stomachs and bulging pecs were outfitted in the still famous Miami Vice Sonny Crockett look with their loose-fitting linen slacks and silk shirts. Soft pastels were sharply contrasted by richly tanned skin. Alex sighed as she studied the appetizing smorgasbord of pleasing male specimens. Just part of the everyday landscape and another aspect of her love affair with this city. She wasn’t intimidated in the least by the equally attractive ladies with their short, tight dresses and stiletto heels.
    Beneath her faded jeans and Margaritaville tee,Alex maintained the kind of figure women half her age envied. She knew it, reveled in it. She’d learned a long time ago that humility was vastly overrated. If you had it, you saw it for what it was and used the hell out of it. Life was too short to do otherwise.
    Admittedly it took work to stay in this kind of physical condition, she mused as her right foot instinctively pressed against the accelerator, propelling her SUV forward with the traffic. After all she wasn’t twenty anymore.
    A sly grin slid across her face. But she wasn’t dead, either. Nor was she wearing her age on her sleeve, so to speak. She liked keeping the world guessing. Only two people in her life knew her exact age; her oldest and dearest friend, who had been sworn to secrecy under fear of death; and her mother, who wouldn’t dare tell her daughter’s age for fear of giving away her own.
    With a final, longing look at one particular man on the busy sidewalk, Alex made the necessary turn and headed toward a less glamorous residential district. The working-class side of town. Art deco remained the prevailing theme in architecture, even in her lower rent neighborhood but with a more Bohemian atmosphere. Her small cottage wasn’t onthe water, but there was a boardwalk nearby that went all the way to the water’s edge. Anywhere around here was close to the ocean—that living, breathing entity upon which this city thrived.
    She pulled into the short driveway and slid out of the 4Runner. No, it wasn’t much, she thought with a frank yet appreciative survey of the property, but it was home and it was hers. Her grandmother had left it to her. Alex grabbed her bag, elbowed the door closed and clicked the remote lock.
    Sometimes she felt guilty that she’d inherited the cottage instead of her mother. But her grandmother—her mother’s own mother—had known that Margie Jackson would piss the property away if given the chance.
    As if fate had chosen that memory to warn that trouble was headed her way, Alex’s cell erupted with the chorus from “It’s Getting Hot in Here” by Nelly.
    She checked the caller ID. “Damn.” The office. Had to be Shannon, her office manager and lifelong best friend. This couldn’t be good. It