Slightly Imperfect (3 page)

"Victoria Chandler Michaels," she whispered.

Abruptly his resemblance to Marcus's father, which had attracted her that afternoon, made sense. "Tomas Cordera was Marcus's father."

"Did you know him?" Hope, spurred by something in his voice, maybe, characterized her tone.

"Not actually. But everyone knew him. At least Hispanics. He was a folk hero."

"Was he?" Reverence swept over her face, settled in her eyes, arresting his consciousness. He hoped he would live long enough to elicit an expression like that from a woman like her. "Tell me about—why was he a folk hero?" she urged.

"His rags-to-riches story, I guess," he said tenderly. "The community watched him come up through the ranks from shady character to respected businessman when he bought the hotel." A historical bastion of Texas coast society, decaying and up for grabs. Cordera had grabbed it.

She nodded, her gaze quickening as she waited.

"That gratis
Chicano
Pride Day party he threw at the Valdez sealed it for him. He was a definite champion." A historic event, thousands in attendance, poor Hispanics who would otherwise never have seen the inside of the grand hotel.

"That party replaced my wedding reception, which had been planned the day I was born, I think." She smiled. "Tommy wouldn't let me use the hotel. He devised the party instead."

Her grudging, yet worshipful, smile awed Zac. "Tomas was opposed to the marriage?"

She nodded, her smile waning. "An understatement."

He remembered the rancid part. "Your brother shot him."

"My cousin, actually. He killed him," she corrected, looking away quickly. He watched her throat move once, twice, before she faced him. "He also tried to kill my husband that day. Christian." The declaration lay like an oozing fester, her emotion accounting for her original reluctance to share, he supposed.

"I guess you're eaten up with anger. Hate can do that to you." How would he know? He had never hated anyone in his life.

"No, I'm not," she said adamantly.

He had misinterpreted.

"I understand what happened between my—" Her mind and mouth seemed to balk, to search, "—between my cousin, and Tommy, and Christian. I'm to blame."

A stirring on the back of his neck rankled him, made him want to erase the regret in her eyes, the defeat in her voice. "Did you pull the trigger?"

"I could have kept Coby from pulling the trigger. I was as sick as he...was."

"Coby?"

"My cousin. Cailen Jacoby Chandler." Light rippled in her eyes, and he thought she tried to smile. "The twins are named after him. Alexander Jacoby. Ariana Cailen."

Coby.
Her soul mate. That, too, was evident in her voice.

She opened a tiny bag that hung on the corner of her chair and handed him a worn, frayed-edged photograph of two blond children. Toddlers. They slept intertwined in one another's arms, on a plaid blanket spread near a large tree trunk.

"This is Coby and me, not Ariana and Alexander," she half whispered.

And it meant so much to her that she changed it from one purse to another when she went out to dinner? The twins' present ages lined up approximately with the subjects in the photograph, their resemblance to Victoria and her cousin haunting.

"I found this in my mother's things and gave it to Coby when we were fifteen. He had it in his pocket the day he killed Tommy. Coby and I had—" She searched again, eyes clouding. "—a strong attachment." She gazed away, mute. Running her hands up and down her arms, she closed her eyes as if to shut herself in with her memory. And shut Zac out. "My father sent me this old photograph, when everything was over."

"Over?"

"Tommy was dead, Coby had been hospitalized, and I had fled. My father wanted me to have no doubt who was to blame."

Zac had never heard more evident fatalism. "So your father's the villain?"

Her eyes flew open. "Why do you say that?"

He shrugged. "Every arresting story has to have a villain. Is it him in this case?"

"You're very...insightful," she murmured.

"That's a yes."

Her pensive smile was delayed. "I'm so frightened for Ari and Alex. That the same thing—"

He nodded, waiting. What same thing? Without understanding her fears, he was unwilling to tell her they were groundless. He didn't know that, or her, as she'd said. Not knowing what led to the
rancid
turn her life had taken the day Tomas Cordera died, gave him no knowledge with which to encourage her. But he wanted to know. He wanted to keep her talking.

"Why did your cousin kill Tomas?"

"Coby hated him. I had left Christian for Tommy. We were taking Marcus to Mexico to live, so Coby stopped us." She looked away, out the open window. "I loved Tommy," she declared for the second time in their brief acquaintance. Her throat moved again, her hand stealing there, stroking. She looked back. "I loved Coby, too."

She loved him still. That went without saying.

"I haven't seen him since the day he killed Tommy."

Zac supposed propriety kept her from crying. She was drowning on the inside, and it wouldn't get better until she sobbed long and loud, grieved hot, wet tears. He understood that, for sure. "Why did Coby try to kill your husband?"

"God." She actually shuddered. "That's another story."

"We have time. The sun doesn't come up for hours." She shook her head. He took a long, pacing drink, and tried again. "How were you able to adopt Marcus?"

"No one cared. His mother was dead. Do you remember?"

He nodded, stayed noncommittal, waiting for her to go on.

"Tommy had no family." She had been staring across the room, or into infinity. "He died because of my heritage, Zac. Because I couldn't give up Chandler House and my image in Puerto San Miguel, not soon enough, anyway." She looked straight into his eyes. "I know this is hard for you to understand. It would take so long...and we're strangers."

"I want to hear." Then they wouldn't be strangers.

He thought she was finished, but then she sighed and took a long acquiescent breath.

"Tommy loved Marcus so much. That structured his life. Our lives really. I hold on to Tommy through Marcus. And I want to give him a heritage. In Puerto San Miguel." Her lips tightened. "That town killed his father—because of me—because I couldn't turn loose of superficial trappings. I'm taking Marcus back there. I'm going to change that."

He wanted to ask when, but he only commented, "That's a big undertaking." His thoughts skidded backward, memory of trying to pump life into a dying woman and failing. He hoped Victoria's restorative efforts would prove more fruitful than his had. "Maybe you could just love Marcus, raise him with decent principles—"

"No." The fervor of her refusal surprised him. She hadn't shown much mettle up to now. "I want him raised Mexican." No trendy, ethnic labels for Tomas Cordera's surviving lover.

Zac couldn't help smiling. "How's a
gringa princessa
going to accomplish that?" he asked tenderly, studying her, waiting for her smile. Instead, her eyes moistened.

"I'm not sure. Not in India or London. Not on Andrea's yacht, sailing the world in luxurious disregard."

Her picturesque language snagged him into thinking he could listen indefinitely.

"Tommy had friends in Houston. The Valasquez family. There are children. Older than Marcus, but children. Marcus was born in their neighborhood." Her teeth caught her lip, painted it white.

"And you're going to move there? You won't fit in, Victoria. That would be a problem, once Marcus is old enough to sense it. And what about the twins? Their heritage?"

"I don't know." She shook her head. "Sometimes I forget about the twins."

Her most disturbing divulgence, thus far. He wasn't fast enough to hide a grimace.

"Not really," she rushed. "Try to forget I said that. It isn't true."

"I know." He didn't. "Crossing cultures is hell." He thought of Luke, Jan and Tita, again. "Especially with children. You've taken on a lot with Marcus. An admirable enterprise." Guilt was a hellaceous motivator, all right. "Do the twins have a father? Or did they result from Immaculate Conception?" He had figured it out, but he wanted to hear it from her, for her sake, he thought. Or maybe just to hear that beautifully cultured and comforting South Texas drawl.

"Christian is their father. He was an Episcopal minister."

Zac remembered from the much-publicized scandal. No wonder she recognized his Biblical name. She'd had in-house training. He sat back smiling, adjusting his body at an angle in the rigid, armless chair and extending his long legs. "A minister named Christian. Sounds contrived."

Some of the tension dissolved in her soft laugher.

"Is Christian a saint?" Was that why she felt so guilty, so responsible for the rancid past?

"He was once. Actually, he still is, on
my
better days."

Yeah. That was it, all right. She based her guilt on cause and effect.

"I don't think transference applies here," he said. "We're only responsible for our own actions. The bible's full of it. Trust me, I'm an aficionado." But then so was her husband an aficionado on the Bible. Zac was more proficient in guilt.

She smiled again, but didn't ask how he'd gotten so qualified on the subject of culpability.

"Where is he? Christian?"

"In London now. Since the—when Tommy died—" She fell silent, then started over. "Because I exposed my relationship with Tommy to the media, Christian lost his church. He's between missionary assignments now. He's being briefed in London to go to Baku. That's in—"

"Azerbaijan. Nice place." He smiled, his mind grasping the fact she hadn't said she and the children were going. Only Christian. "It might
be
nice, actually. I've been spared. Is that why you were in India? On a mission? Were the twins born there?" He tried to imagine, comparing his vision to the Ramona General Hospital, where he had been born. And his son. And Angel.

"Yes." That seemed to be all on the subject. "Do you have children? You seemed very attuned to Marcus and the twins."

He was quiet, not sure he was ready, or ever would be. At last he heard himself say, "I have a daughter. Angelita." Angel's imagined face caressed his mind, but his lips wouldn't shape the pain of never having seen her. "I had a son. His name was Alejandro—Allie. He died."

"Oh, God. I'm sorry."

Zac smiled and swallowed, nodding. She was stricken and because of that, he would probably cry. He was past caring, past trying to hide his grief, except she hadn't cried and she was hurting, too. Did that make him weaker or stronger?

"When?" she asked quietly. "How old was Allie when...?"

"Almost a year ago. He was six." Zac was helpless. Nothing had ever burned as much in his life, or been as wet, as the tears easing down his face. He smiled again, shrugged, offering no apology. "He got hit by a car. While recovering from his injuries, he died of pneumonia."

Victoria placed her hand over his. Snow on rich earth.

"So, looking at Marcus is a reprieve," he said. "Painful but good. I thought of taking him and running away."

Aghast, she jerked her hand away.

He swiped at his tears, remembering that he and Victoria truly didn't know one another. "Not really," he soothed. "But seeing him—talking to him was great. He's beautiful. Allie was beautiful."

"I'm so sorry. I should have been listening to
your
story."

"That
is
my story." All he was ready to relinquish. "I signed onto the freighter thinking it would make it a little easier." Easier for Maggie to heal from betrayal and loss.

"Has it?"

He shrugged. "I don't know. I have nothing to compare it to. I sure as hell haven't forgotten anything, but how do I know I wouldn't have felt worse in Ramona? I guess getting back there in a month will be a revelation."

"I'm going back, too."

"When?" He pictured Marcus, knowing him in Puerto San Miguel. In Ramona. The vision felt right.

"I'm not sure. I have some things to put to bed."

That was an interesting phrase.

"I want Marcus in school there by fall."

February now. Zac did a quick calculation while she seemed to have a revelation of her own. "I think I should start back to the boat," she said. "Sometimes the twins wake up and want me." She smiled, scraping her chair backward on the battered tile floor, then leaned onto the table, her folded arms forming a cradle for her breasts. "If Marcus wakes up, he reads. He learned to read at missionary school by the time he was four. He reads Hindi, too, and speaks it. I get up and find him reading in the mornings and...." She seemed to leave Zac for a moment.

She hadn't stood, so he sat back down while she traveled to some far plane of remembrance, a devout quality back in her tone when she disclosed, "Tommy spoke six languages—and read like Marcus. Sometimes I would wake up, and Tommy—"

She caught herself, embarrassed by her intimate disclosure. Her pale cheeks glowed feverishly. She appeared to be a thoroughly bedded, married virgin. Her reserved demeanor moved him to amusement. And something close to tenderness.

"I inhale books like that." Was he identifying with Tomas Cordera? If so, good luck, Zaccheus. "I'm sure you encourage Marcus to read. He can live many lives that way. I do."

"Yes." Her reply floated ungrounded as she stood and led the way out of the restaurant.

They strolled along the deserted dock. Some of the yachts had lights. Music or voices drifted out from a few. Others were vaporously, eerily dark. He pictured the
Irish Lady
again in his mind's eye, the docks in Ramona. Cast into retrospect, he floated in memory and conjecture, watching heat lightning rip the placid horizon.

"This was good for us," she said conclusively. "It's just what we needed. To talk."

It felt natural to take her hand. She appeared satisfied to have him do so. Her hand was as cool and delicate as he'd remembered, her nails pronounced against his skin.

Talking helped for sure, but he knew she really needed to be held and made to believe it all didn't matter. She needed to have the bad memories excised, even if only for a whisper of time. She needed what he needed: immediate gratification. But their brief time frame in Portofino and their dissimilar agendas would leave them vulnerable to recurring reality. And its pain. He thought of all the ports he had seen in the year past, the women of every size, shape, shade and flavor. He hadn't touched one of them, hadn't wanted to. He wasn't going to
touch
Victoria Chandler Michaels, but he was sure as hell moved by her, a kind of salvation. He was beginning to heal, to scab over, and he hadn't known if he ever would.