Slightly Imperfect (26 page)

"Am I making myself clear so far?"

"Crystalline. What else?"

"Bottom line stuff. She has her own life to live now. You being a sane and healthy part of that life can only make it better for her. And that's how it's going to be. You're going to cut her some slack, especially where I'm concerned. Every time you get a new drift of how things are going, you're going to smile and say, 'great.'" He stopped to study those vacuous eyes.

"We'll see." Coby smiled as though he held a palmed ace.

"See what?"

"How Tori feels about this."

"No. We won't see, Coby. Victoria is never going to know what we talked about. It's over between you and her. She's your adopted sister—no real mystery. I've got two sisters. When we get together at my mama's for Sunday dinner, I say 'hi' and give them a hug. That's how it's going to be with you and Victoria."

"Probably not. She's my alter ego. So to speak."

"It's over, Coby.
Terminado
." Zac strode to the table, gripped the back of one of the green leather chairs and stood with it between them. "It's not that hard for me to understand what happened between you and Tommy. I'd kill to keep Victoria too, if it came down to that."

A brow arched. "I recognize a threat when I hear one."

"Who'd believe you? You're crazy."

He laughed softly. "So are you, apparently."

Zac shrugged. "Maybe. But I'm smart enough to mark my territory."

"
Machismo
." His lips curled around the term.

"You're goddamned right."

Coby lifted his face to meet Zac's eyes and smiled, seemingly undaunted. Pulling himself erect, he took Zac's place at the window, waving.

Zac's gut clinched.

"Cain married his sister." Coby's voice floated quietly on the charged air.

Zac had heard the incest theory based on the old testament, heard it from teachers far more astute in their field than Cailen Jacoby Chandler.

"There weren't enough women to go around then. God allowed that little event for the sake of propagation, and then Jesus came to earth and helped clear up all the muddled areas. It won't fly anymore."

Coby's smile, a bit condescending, portrayed amusement.

"
I'm
marrying your sister, Coby."

Coby flinched.

"And if any propagating goes on, where Victoria is concerned, they'll be little brown babies, and they'll be mine."

"Nice speech. She said you were articulate."

Slightly worn down by Coby's gentle resistance, Zac felt he understood Victoria a little better. "Give me a sign you're getting this. We should be friends, for her sake. But it's your call."

In the severe silence, the twins' soft laughter, the vague suggestion of Victoria calling to them, settled on Zac's ear. The sound grew more distinct, closer. Coby waved again, his somber face taken over by an expression both moving and frightening.

He turned, extended his hand to Zac. "I'm getting it. I'll give it my all. I love her that much."

When Victoria came into the room she walked past Zac as though unseeing, into Coby's embrace. He enfolded her, engulfed her, rocked her slightly, whispering something in her ear that made her smile. Something Zac wasn't privileged to. Coby looked over the top of her head, his smile bordering on triumph. Their eyes pushed. A fear sprang up in Zac's consciousness.

Had he attempted to intimidate the wrong Chandler?

* * *

Kerrville's best motel boasted dim lights, sagging beds, inferior air conditioning. Zac helped get the twins to bed and went into his adjoining room with Marcus, where they shared a Spanish comic book until Marcus fell asleep.

In the night, Victoria's voice came through the fog of twilight sleep.

"Zac?"

He opened his eyes to make out her form sitting on the side of the king size bed he and Marcus shared. "Hi," he whispered to her outline, overly aware of Marcus's gentle breathing. Reaching, he found her thigh, rested his palm there. "Is something wrong?"

"No," she whispered back. "I want... to be with you."

Marcus stirred at the sound of his mother's voice.

"Nice." He stroked her thigh, feeling her warmth through the thin robe, enjoying his reaction to her disclosure. "But not advisable," he added, putting a smile in his tone.

Marcus stirred again when she leaned down, the bed shifting with her weight. Her breasts pressed Zac's forearm, her lips touched his chest before she rested her cheek there. He eased his hand onto the back of her neck beneath her heavy hair, caressed her, listened to her faint verbal encouragement.

"I've been thinking of this—having you—since we left Puerto San Miguel this morning," she murmured. Her hand stroked his chest, moved down his ribcage, up again, seeking his face. Her fingertips lingered on his mouth.

He caught her hand, kissed her palm, held it.

"I spent this day, Zac, remembering how you hold me."

He couldn't hold her now, not really.

She sat up slowly, trailed her hands along the sides of his neck, across his shoulders, brought them to rest at the chest muscles forming his breasts. One finger tweeked a nipple.

"Victoria..."

"Come outside with me."

He felt as if part of his soul had been excised when she stood, backed toward the sliding terrace door, opened it, and went out. He found his pants, stepped into them and followed. After easing the door closed, he crossed to where she waited in the shadows of the sudden, hellaceous heat of the July night.

Her mouth was hungry, her body eager beneath his hands. She backed against an iron rail that fenced the tiny terrace and drew him against her, her hands at the small of his back, pulling, pressing, urging.

"What about the twins?"

"They won't wake up," she said against his mouth. "I need you so much, Zac."

His resistance ebbed, flowed, diametrically errant.

"Love me." She tugged the tie of her robe, opened it and pressed her bare breasts against his chest. "Love me."

He lifted her into a sitting position on the waist high rail. Her legs clamped around his middle, her surprising strength staggering him. He lowered his face to nuzzle her breasts, then kissed her mouth, stifling and swallowing her emerging moan.

"Not here." His voice was hoarse, ragged with the effort of holding onto resolve. He had thought for a moment—wanted it to be possible, too. It wasn't. "Marcus will hear us."

She unleashed him, eased him back, and slipped down from the rail, moving out of his hands gradually. She left the terrace and crossed a portion of the grassy lawn before turning to look at him through the darkness.

Her face was darkened, but remembering her expression at moments like this encouraged him to follow her into a dense growth of oleander, mere yards from the terrace door. A stand of blue spruce hovered, rendering the alcove a haven of privacy. She had done her homework well.

She sank to her knees, pulling him down with her. His hands followed hers to the beltless waist of his pants. She lay back on her side, opened the robe, took him against her, her mouth wet, warm, insistent.

His penis shot rigid, bursting.

Moaning, she raised a leg across his hip, moved him onto his back and positioned herself on him, sitting, arching, thrusting forward, gasping, her head back. A cry issued from her, loud enough to bring him up on one elbow to clamp his palm across her mouth before he joined her in that state of oblivious completion.

"Oh... God, Zac." She lay beneath him now, the sharp-edged St. Augustine grass sawing their bare skin. The call of locusts was suddenly inordinately loud, the buzz of hovering mosquitoes profound. "I want to lock you inside me forever." Her legs tightened on his diminishing zeal.

He lifted her tangled hair away from her face, kissed her wet temple. "What happened to passive?"

"I have a desire to give back to you. You awaken all kinds of unfamiliar urges in me."

"Like spending your life with me?" He sat up, drew her up with him, fitted the robe around her, and tugged at his own clothing. He felt suddenly wary, naked and spied on, as logic returned on the wake of passion.

"Like wanting to, Zac. Wanting to so much."

* * *

Two mornings later, Zac opened the
Puerto San Miguel Sun
to Pierce Chandler's second scathing editorial attacking Gerald Fitzpatrick and Fischer's Landing. This time Chandler had embellished his tirade with the dreaded element of gambling.

"Gerald Fitzpatrick's timing is to be commended, even if his intentions are questionable. The completion of his supposedly philanthropic Fischer's Landing, inferior in every way according to county building inspectors, will be interestingly convenient for the inferior quality of people who will infiltrate Galveston County in connection with the gambling casinos Fitzpatrick and local fisherman, Zac Abriendo, are advocating. Judging from statistics, gamblers' priorities are not home and family, and they will be willing to
chance
sub-standard quality, lower priced housing, thus creating a thriving market. The shoddy construction and price-cutting of Fischer's Landing, in the middle of a potentially affluent environment, will go far in the Fitzpatrick tradition toward lowering the overall value of our sister city of Ramona. Just as the advent of gambling will be the initial step taken to scar beyond retrieval, this heretofore, Gulf Coast family Mecca."

"Zac, did you see the morning paper?"

He had put down the
Sun
to answer her call. "Yeah. I saw it. I love you this morning even if you are Pierce Chandler's daughter."

"I'm so sorry."

"That I love you?"

Her pause was too long. "I'm sorry Pierce has revived his opposition to Gerald. I did try to tell you."

"Victoria, are we missing the all-important factor here?"

"Pierce's ire will become the all-important factor. Gerald is only part of it."

"It can only become what we allow it to be."

"I love you, Zac. Please remember that."

He had a mental image of her departing on a treacherous journey from which she wasn't certain of returning. An illogical suspicion raised the hairs on his neck, gave way to a second mental image of packing her, the twins and Marcus on board the
Irish Lady
and sailing for parts unknown. That image melded into another time in which she had tried sailing away and lives had been altered forever. One unsolvable point loomed in his mind.

And how could he leave Angel?

* * *

Gerald bustled around the office, a cellular phone stuck in his back pocket, shuffling papers, packing a briefcase. He looked pink, scrubbed and purposeful in the inevitable three- piece suit. "I've read the Chandler editorial. I get up the minute the paper thumps on my front porch to see the sweet bastard's latest literary concoction."

"You don't sound disturbed."

Gerald shrugged elaborately. "What the hell good would it do to waste a lot of energy? It's time to play defense."

"Send me in, coach." Zac smiled, wishing he felt that committed or confident. "Do you have a game plan?"

"We're having a party."

What little confidence Zac had, dampened. "Is that defense for rich people?"

Gerald laughed. "I've already called the finest caterer in South Texas. We're setting up an air-conditioned tent at Fischer's Landing. We're hiring two bands. One for the old fogies who believe in me, one for generation X, who believes in nothing." Gerald checked Zac's reaction before continuing. "We'll have displays with the history of Fischer's Landing from the first doodle pad to the last blueprint. Are you with me?"

Zac nodded, not sure to what the nod committed him.

"I've got old photos of the area that go all the way back to the 1900 hurricane. We'll display those next to the artist's renderings of the completed project."

Gerald went for coffee on a blueprint-laden counter behind his desk. He held the pot toward Zac in invitation.

Zac shook his head, waiting for the meat in the plan.

"The girls will rent, borrow and steal stuff to make models of all the completed units, but we'll tear walls out in each unit—or leave one undone—to expose the high-caliber, up-to-code mechanics behind the scene. We'll invite the press from Houston and Corpus—even Dallas," he expanded. "We'll invite all the politicians from the governor on down. And they'll come, Zac.

"I'm meeting with a P. R. firm this morning to begin pushing Fischer's Landing. We'll project the caliber of buyers, the good the project will do toward turning the community around."

"All this is going to cost a lot of money."

"I have a lot of money. Money begets money. Remember that, son." Gerald eyed him. "You don't look convinced."

Zac looked at the toe of his boot, remembering Victoria's fatalism on the phone that morning. "Victoria told me her father shut you out when you tried something like this in Puerto San Miguel a few years back."

"Different era." This shrug was less jaunty. "A real unsettled period in my life. We were looking for a donor for my wife's bone marrow cancer, and she was going in and out of alcohol programs, blaming me, calling me a workaholic. Carron's health was deteriorating and her brother died of a massive heart attack on a ski slope in Brazil." He lapsed into thought, then rallied. "All my efforts switched, for a while, trying to get his body back. Pierce tunneled in under me. It won't happen this time."

Zac studied his boot intently, his hands clasped loosely in his lap, as he borrowed an idea from Rodney King, wondering why they couldn't
all just get along
.

"It's time we did some posturing of our own," Gerald claimed. "Are you still with me?"

He thought of the assistance fund Gerald had funneled his way when the
Ramona Dos
blew up and Alejandro was injured, how it had eased the Abriendo family over a financial disaster. He thought of Carron's money and Gerald's insistence Zac have it, use it, stipulation free. He considered Marcus's joy every time he faced Gerald over a table in Taco Bell, every time Gerald hugged the child, or fished dollar bills out of his three-piece suit to play liar's poker, always managing to lose.