The Cuban Assignation

Chapter Four

Cara leant her head against the door and squinted through the tiny spy hole, feeling her heart sink as she saw who was on the other side. Briefly she considered not answering, but then the knocking came again, more persistent this time, and she had a feeling it would be quicker and easier to deal with the situation than try to ignore it.

Unfastening the latch, but keeping the security chain in place, she opened the door and greeted her visitor tersely. “Paulo, it’s late. What are you doing here?”

“Cara, mi cielo,  I needed to see you,” Paulo spoke in heavily accented English, “All these weeks you tell me you’re not wanting a relationship, and then tonight I see you with this guy…”

Cara rolled her eyes and sighed deeply. “Not that I owe you an explanation, Paulo, but Marcus is just an old friend visiting Havana on business.”

“He look very friendly to me when I watch you on the dance floor together,” Paulo replied, a sulky tone in his voice. Cara could feel her exasperation building as she replied.

“He is a friend, Paulo, and you are becoming a pest, now go home.”

But Paulo was not giving up that easily. “Why you want to be with this guy?” he continued.  “He is no good for a fiery Latino girl like Cara Fuentes. He is an old man.”

“He’s an old man that’s more than capable of kicking your arse, mate.” The deep, gravely northern tones came out of nowhere as John reached the top of the stairs, just out of view of Cara’s front door.

Paulo turned round, initially shocked, then visibly angry at John’s sudden arrival.

“Oh, really,” he retorted, turning to face John and square up to the perceived threat.

John raised a sardonic eyebrow, a smirk crossing his face as he replied, “Yeah, really. Now you heard the lady – go home.”

Paulo stood still for a moment, taking in John’s well-built frame and confident stance. Realising that youthful bravado was clearly going to be no match for the man that stood before him, and that Cara was not about to come to his aid, he set his shoulders firmly back and marched off down the stairs with as much dignity as he could muster.

Hearing the main door to the apartments slam shut behind him, Cara released the chain and glared at John. “I don’t know what you think you’re doing here either,” she fumed, “I really don’t need a knight in shining armour you know.”

“Thank Christ for that,” John replied, drily.  “I only came for a glass of wine and some company.” He held aloft the bottle of chilled Sauvignon Blanc he’d picked up on the way over, “Peace offering?”

Cara relaxed a little and smiled in spite of herself, “Come in.”

* * *

Even off-duty, Porter couldn’t help doing a quick recce of the apartment as he entered. He nodded towards the balcony’s open doors.

“You probably ought to shut those, what with your stalker lurking about out there.” He grinned.

Cara handed him a glass of wine. “Nope. I’m going out there later to watch the storm,” she replied.

John looked at her as if she was just a little bit crazy. The sun was only just fully setting and in the distance there were still pale orange patches of sky in between dark purple clouds. “There’s no storm forecast tonight.”

“You don’t need a forecast to know when a storm’s coming, John.” Cara replied mysteriously.

“OK, now I know you’ve either been hitting the tequila or getting the voodoo dolls out.”

John took a seat and an enthusiastic mouthful of wine as Cara perched on the edge of the sofa next to him. He was fascinated by the apparently massive difference between Cara the MI6 operative and Cara the woman.

“Just wait and see. My dad taught me how to predict storms when I was a kid,” Cara smiled at the memory. “We came back to Cuba for holidays a few times, to visit my grandparents. They had a farm, well a smallholding really, out in the country. It wasn’t huge, but to me and my brother who’d grown up in a terrace in the East End it was like having the whole world to explore.”

Cara took another sip of her drink, and as she began to relax a little more, settled back into the cushions.

“Go on,” John encouraged.

“One day we were out playing in the fields. It was late afternoon and Dad called us and called us but we were having far too much fun to take any notice. Eventually he came out and warned us that a storm was coming. It was sunny with a bit of breeze – not that humidity you get with thunderstorms in England, so we didn’t believe a word of it. He gave up in the end and went back inside. Within less than five minutes the sky turned black and the heavens opened. Tony and I ran as fast as we could back to the farmhouse – imagining the lightening was chasing us. We were soaked through by the time we got back, and I never doubted a word my dad said after that.”

Cara laughed as she finished her story. John watched her lean forward and top up both of their glasses. With every moment he was growing increasingly aware of how much he wanted her, but he was at a complete loss as to how to approach her in that way. They were getting on but she’d given him no indication that she felt the same way and the last thing he wanted to do was make an idiot of himself.

Cara turned towards him. “Don’t tell me I’ve stunned you into silence,” she teased, “There is more to me than just work. Besides, you’re a bit of a dark horse yourself, what with the dancing – I’d never have imagined you strutting your stuff at disco in Benidorm!”

“Well, perhaps I’ve got hidden depths too,” John joked. There was a brief pause in the conversation and John recognised a series of familiar guitar chords emanating from the radio on the kitchen counter. It was, he thought to himself, now or never.

“We never did finish that dance at Luca’s.” His tone was slightly softer than before, and he watched Cara intently for her reaction.

Jose Feliciano was singing now.

“You know that it would be untrue…you know that I would be a liar…”

Cara smiled at the irony, she could no longer kid herself that she was immune to John Porter’s gruff, northern charms so she got to her feet.

“Come on then,” she pulled John off the sofa, “Show me your best moves.”

John slid a hand round Cara’s waist and pulled her closer so their hips were almost, but not quite touching.

“Come on baby light my fire…”

They began to move in time with the music. The longer they danced the more naturally it came to them, and as they relaxed into the rhythm both John and Cara were aware that they were moving slowly, inexorably closer, but all the while not quite able to look one another in the eye.

“Try to set the night on fire…”   

Suddenly the last few bars of the song were drowned out by a long, deep rumble that John could have sworn he could actually feel. Cara looked up, her face full of laughter.

“Told you so!” she grinned, and in that split second she was out of John’s arms and heading for the balcony and its grandstand view of the incoming storm.