Slightly Imperfect (38 page)

"You're soaked," he said needlessly, wanting to hold her, wanting not to more. He found a zipper, worked it down her back. "Did you have car trouble?" He hadn't seen the vintage Rolls anywhere on Rocket Road.

"I walked." The towel muffled her words. "From Chandler House."

"Jesus, why?"

Silence.

He slipped the dress off her shoulders. She wore nothing above her waist. When she clamped her folded arms over her breasts, he handed her his robe, saying softly, "Dry off. I'll get you some brandy."

Turning, she lowered the towel from her face to look at him. He wanted to invade the jade mystery of her eyes, tear her open and learn all the truths tangling within her. Truths he could extinguish and prevent her from so callously distancing herself from him ever again.

And yet he didn't want to. Not completely.

When he returned with the brand, she was huddled on the side of the tub, in the robe, her wet clothing on the floor. She rocked gently forward and back, face flushed, lips pale. Her hair hung in a heavy sheet down her back.

"Here, Victoria." His lips finally formed her name.

She shook her head, refusing the amber-filled glass.

"Drink it." He formed her fingers around the brandy.

She shook her head. "I'm pregnant, Zac."

In a burst of cognizance, he lifted his face to the ceiling, closed his eyes, praised God and damned Him. In his consciousness, visions of Maggie and Angel tangled with hateful reality.

"I'm carrying our baby. I couldn't stay away any longer." The Virgin Mary might have looked like that when she broke the news to Joseph. Awed, scared, a little proud. Now Zac understood at last how Joseph had felt. Goddamned ambiguous.

Seeking his eyes, she whispered, "Our baby."

He knelt on the step that flanked the tub. Gently parting her trembling knees, he worked his way against her, held her, tried to stop her quaking.

"I'm glad, Victoria." He held her face in his palms, drove the words into her need to believe him. And his own need. Remembering that Lizbett had said Victoria cried, sometimes didn't get out of bed, made him wonder if no one else knew.

"I'm afraid—I had problems with the twins—so many." Words tumbled out like a confession, a plea for understanding, for favor. "It's... technical." She shrugged suddenly, hesitant and self-deprecating. Her cheeks warmed, a quality he had loved before. "I have an incompetent cervix. I was bedridden in India. The pregnancy won't be... pleasant."

He smiled, attempting to negate her guilt.

"Do you know what endometriosis is?"

He nodded, not knowing for sure, but she would tell him.

"It creates difficulty in getting pregnant—I should have told you—when you talked about having children. I didn't think—I didn't protect myself that first time we were together. I wasn't thinking about—"

He hadn't either. In Tommy Cordera's bed, in Zac's haste to take her from him, possess her, a choice had been made. She had conceived destiny when she didn't protect them and when he took her for granted.

"I thought of having an abortion. I considered it so strongly. After what I did to you—the way I treated—I thought it would be best. But I couldn't."

He willed her to say she wanted the baby too much for that. The words didn't come. He thought of Carron's abortion, the sting, the rejection, even when he knew she was dying, even in the face of knowing she had no choice.

"We'll get married. Tomorrow. Pierce can't touch the children or you."

He wanted to be happy, wanted to believe it was the perfect ending. But for the moment he remembered his ache too acutely, her choice of others over him, her lack of confidence in him. If she wasn't pregnant, or if the baby was Anglo—not his—would she have gone quietly back to Christian, easing Zac wholly from her life?

"What if Pierce doesn't give up on his threat to get my children. He's so powerful. What if he fights for them?"

"We'll fight too. I've told him that, and the conditions."

"What if we lose?"

"We'll put them on the
Irish
and sail away. We'll be like Noah," he said assertively. "We'll sail to Mexico and find Los Niños to add to the brood."

He tried to sound confident, willing. Annihilation hovered over Gerald's casino-partner plans again. He couldn't erase Angel's face from his mind or Maggie's smile when he'd told her about the Angel Grant, her pleased expression when she'd seen the red van. He relived the way she had tasted and felt standing there by Angel's crib.
Jesus
. Maggie had been right to say it was too soon after Victoria.

"Los Niños." Her eyes gleamed before running dead again. "Franco is seventeen now," she whispered, not quite lucidly.

He tried again. "We'll see our grandchildren born on the
Irish
. Trust me,
novia
. Alex and Ari and Marcus will never know one day without their mother."

She spoke against his neck. "I want to believe you. I've seen this—things like this—before. When Pierce discovered how much I loved Coby... He has so much power."

"Not this time. You can't change him, Victoria. You can change only yourself. If you let go and stop feeling like a victim you can take yourself out of his power. He can never violate you more than you allow. You have to recognize your real needs and take responsibility for the outcome of your life." Hot tears wet his neck. "It's control,
novia
," he soothed. "Nothing more complicated. Men thrive on it. It's his point of view, justified in some complex way we'll never know, a scar from some happening in his past. But consider this. If someone gives you everything you own from the day you're born until the day you die, is that person your benefactor or your master?" His smile was humble. "Not a Zac original. It's Carron's wisdom. Now I know what she meant."

"Not then—when she said it?"

"No. I was too caught up in the threat of losing my own father under similar circumstances—over Carron. Prejudices go both ways. See,
novia
. We aren't so different. If you want to be warmer, Victoria, wear a heavier coat. Don't attempt to change the weather. I'll be your father, your brother, your lover. I'll be your husband, the father of your children and ours. I'll be everything you need. And if I'm not—when I'm not—tell me and I'll change."

His eyes on hers, he parted the robe, kissed her mouth, then lowered his face to her not yet swollen belly. She caressed his head, pressing against him.

Rather than make love to her, he lay in bed holding her as she slept, and it was like finding a misplaced treasure that was not quite the same as his memory had colored it. Drifting into sleep, he assured himself he would feel the rush of love again, the infatuation, the passion. He would welcome, again, the desire to have her and hers as his family. He would know perfect joy for the child she carried, a joy he had once anticipated and professed to her. Residual hurt formed the barrier now. He would learn to trust her again. He had to. It was the right way.

"Zac!"

The distress in her voice woke him, rendered him fully alert. She stood at the foot of the bed gripping his voluminous black robe around her, tears streaming on her face.

"I'm bleeding!"

* * *

As the doctor approached down the long hospital corridor, Zac's gaze locked onto his life's blood smeared on the green surgery coat. Relinquishing hope, he embraced a sense of sorrow that stained his mind like blood, a new loss forever a part of him now.

"I'm sorry, Mr. ... ?"

"Abriendo."

"Were you the father?"

"Yes." If he'd only known sooner. Soon enough to love.

"She wants to see you."

In her dimly lit room, he kissed her forehead, her wet lashes, her slack mouth. She seemed small in the high bed, wan, vulnerable. He thought of Portofino, how delicate she had seemed, how traumatized, fragile. He had wanted to befriend her, take care of her since the moment he first saw her. A senseless feeling of guilt and failure settled on him now.

He dragged up a chair, held her hand, waiting.

"I'm sorry, Zac." Her voice, distant and crowded with fatalism, lay softly in the sterile room. "I'm not very strong."

"I know." Maybe guilt was the one thing they could share. "It's all right." He reconsidered. "Or it will be in time. You and I know time is the only healer."

"No." She shook her head. "It won't be all right. The doctor said—he talked about risk."

He held her hand tighter, caressed her cheek.

"I don't care about risk to me but... He said I probably can never—No matter how many times I try... He said the twins are a miracle."

"I've always thought so." He wanted her inability to conceive not to matter, but it did. That and her lack of honesty about a frailty she had been aware of, and, even knowing the significance, kept from him. He sensed her waiting for abdication and lied. "It doesn't matter."

"I love you, Zac."

"Sometimes love is the last best thing,
novia
. It's what you find when you've lost everything else."

It wasn't over between them after all. Not tonight. Not even tomorrow. But the dream had been tainted by a barrage of prejudice and manipulation, reborn in her fear and need, then at God's hand died a second watery death, never to be resurrected. He knew this, not as a result of conscious "if only" thoughts filtering through his mind, but in his heart and his gut, where he craved to be wrong and never was.

He lowered his face to her barren abdomen and wept.

* * *

At home, he pressed the phone to his ear, swallowed to no avail as Maggie's message filled his head. "Zac, thank you for the wonderful afternoon with Marcus. It seemed so right. So much like before... when we had Allie."

The dam shattered. He sobbed above Maggie's voice, trying to listen.

"Marcus is so good with Angel. Didn't you think so? He's a lot like you. His father must have been gentle and kind." She laughed softly. "And susceptible to beautiful women." He heard kindness, forgiveness in her tone. "If you still want us—if you're sure—Angel and I would like to stay with you for a while."

He was sure. Very sure.

"Remember what you always told me, Zac. That you liked me because I came in the handy, take-home size. Well, we'll see. I'll be here packing all day tomorrow. Come by. We'll have Kool-Aid."

Outside, he watched the dawn emerge and turn the bay to momentary molten copper, then to cobalt blue. He waited until he could trust his voice not to betray jumbled thoughts, waited until he knew she'd be awake, showering, bathing Angel, going forward into a world so cruel she should have cowered from it. But that wasn't Maggie's way, and her strength had always been a catalyst to his own courage.

"That's great, Maggie," he said into the cold, hard phone.

"You're sure, Zac?"

"It'll be great. I'll help you pack after fishing."

Nothing could have made him tell her no.

That night in the Oyster House, Gerald jotted projections for the proposed casino onto a white paper tablecloth with a ballpoint pen. Finally Zac caught his eye, interrupting his enthusiasm.

"I just can't make a commitment concerning the
Irish Lady
right now."

Gerald frowned, bemused.

Zac debated giving his reason for reneging on their tentative plans, maybe sharing Victoria's affinity for yachts. "Unless you want her back," he offered quickly, heart thudding. "I'll sign her over to you tonight." Then what?

Gerald held up a palm. "She's your boat, son. Carron made that crystal clear. I guess I've been pushing the casino conversion to comply with her wishes."

"I think we've both been trying to comply with her wishes. But last night I re-read that letter she left me." His throat tightened. "All Carron really wanted was for me to be happy. She specifically asked me to do beautiful things with her money. I'm not sure how beautiful a floating casino is. I need to think about it more."

"Let me remind you that timing is everything."

Zac shrugged. "If our timing is off what do we sacrifice?"

"Millions of dollars."

"Millions more dollars. Which one of us needs it?"

Gerald grinned. Settling against the wooden captain's chair, he pulled the lobster-logoed paper bib from around his neck and dropped it in his plate. "I see your point." He shrugged. "I guess I thought it would be fun."

"You know what's fun, Gerald?"

His brows torqued upward.

"Watching rich people look for ways to amuse themselves."

"You're one of us now," Gerald reminded.

"Yeah, but so far I haven't found time to be bored."

"Shuffling all those women keeps you busy, boy. I'm not that young." He smiled kindly.

Having told him about Maggie moving in, about Victoria's re-emergence, Zac smiled, diffidently. "To me, fishing is fun, sir. No big pay off, I guess." Except a few times in his life some of those beautiful women Gerald alluded to had waited on the dock. That had definitely affected his life, even if not always for the better. "Would you like to go fishing with us sometime? Tomorrow morning, maybe? You'd have to get up early."

"I wondered when you'd get around to asking me."

"If you like it—"

"I'll like it."

"My old captain, Ruffin Sloan, is retiring in a few more months. We're getting a fleet together to fish in a big way. Long line, off shore. We'll send those night poachers packing. Maybe you'd like to be part of that." Zac waited, studying his mentor.

Gerald's consideration wavered a fraction before evolving to a brief flicker Zac sensed rather than observed.

"I'm only playing building contractor because I like spending time with you, Gerald."

"I wondered which one of us would have the guts to say that first." He awarded Zac a genuine grin.

"Life's too short to hide the feelings God gives us," Zac said. "A lot of people miss out on knowing they're appreciated."

"And loved."

Zac laughed, feeling as though Gerald had hugged him. "Well I guess you have more guts than I do after all."

Gerald shoved back his chair. "Let's let the tourists eat, son, so you can get home to your visiting family."