"I'm sorry." He wanted to be. The decent part of him was. The selfish part, that portion
of his intellect that wanted access to Marcus, sprang into shameful, but pure, exhilaration.
She looked away, seeking the children who had gone below, leaving her nowhere to look but back to him. "Can you come to dinner with us?" She sounded resolved.
"You have to come home with me."
She looked surprised.
He pictured the normally lonely house, hope soaring. "We'll swim in the bay. Josh can take the kids sailing on the Sunfish."
She definitely appeared dubious.
"We'll hook the slip to the pier with a twenty foot rope. How's that?" When she looked relieved, he said, "After all that, I'll grill the redfish we caught." He waited, then coerced, "I have a cat named Samson, with Ari's eyes."
The corners of Victoria's mouth twitched.
"And a Doberman named Delilah for Alex to maul."
Her smile broke loose. "I think we're dressed for dinner at the Oyster House."
They looked like a Ralph Lauren ad. All navy and white, leather and pearls. Even Lizbett was dressed to the teeth. Zac stalled his agreement, however.
"We'd need life preservers for sailing," she hedged and when he nodded, urged, "Do you have any that small? And they'll need suits."
"They're only babies," he offered, kindly derisive.
"They swim in suits," she said flatly. "And then there's Lizbett... considering... She considered. "Considering... Josh?"
And there was Victoria, considering Zac.
"Visit the marine store down by the yachts," he suggested. "I'll lend you T-shirts if the store doesn't have what you want."
She looked unconvinced.
"If Town and Country Magazine shows up for a feature interview, we'll ignore them. Lighten up, Victoria."
That made her smile. "I'll try."
Zac and Josh watched her lead her crew in the direction of the marine store. Something about the vulnerability in her stride, the curve of her shoulders, seemed to underline the subtle significance of her being here.
"Who is that, Mr. Z?"
"Your new mistress, boy." Zac raised his brows, his smile teasing. "If she likes the plantation."
Josh laughed. "She sure is pretty. And look at those cute kids. All colors. Some for you and some for her."
Zac's gaze traced Josh's real target. "And one for you."
They both laughed.
* * *
Zac hoisted himself out of the water onto the swim dock, offered Victoria his hand and drew her from the bay to a sitting position beside him. They dangled their feet and watched Lizbett, Ari and Alex bob about in their life preservers. Further out, Josh and Marcus made wide, lazy circles in the diminutive sailboat.
Only Lizbett had found an acceptable swimsuit at the marine store. Victoria had bought pull-up shorts for the twins and Marcus and added an oversized RAMONA YACHT CLUB T-shirt to complete Ari's ensemble. At the house, Zac gave Victoria the heaviest cotton T-shirt he could find, frayed cut-offs that matched his, and a big safety pin to secure the waist. She accepted them in good humor, but now that she sat beside him, soaking wet, he could see she had opted not to remove her bra.
Very proper. And refreshing.
Silk and cream and honey kept coming to mind. Even her voice, when she issued soft instructions to the children—he noted they were always called children, never kids—was satin smooth, perfectly pitched to soothe and cajole. Her laugh proved capable of carrying him to a surreal plane somewhere. He wondered how today's impact of her delicate beauty, her fine, carefully chiseled features had escaped him in Portofino. No coarseness touched her. The silkiness of her ashy-beige hair and flaxen lashes, the narrow bridge of her perfectly tilted nose, her long, slender neck, all served to play out her fragile image and feed his nagging attraction to Anglo women.
In Portofino, the hope of reuniting with Maggie had consumed him; he'd longed to be with her and Angel bodily, as he was joined to them in spirit. In the same heartbeat, still wounded by death, he had been trapped in the memory of Carron's vibrant, flame-haired beauty, her statuesque frame. He reasoned now that not being acutely aware of Victoria's appeal then probably had something to do with feeling a little used, feeling she couldn't see past her obsession with his resemblance to Marcus's father.
Was the difference he sensed today imaginary? In which of them had the change occurred?
"I thought you would call us." Her words were partially obscured by the twins' shrill laughter bounding up from where they played near Victoria and Zac's dangling feet.
He watched her make a thick rope of her wet, wheat-colored hair, twist it slightly and bring it over one shoulder. "I thought you would call."
She didn't speak or look at him.
"I wasn't sure you were back from Europe. Then, after I saw you last week, I decided not to."
"Did you get my note?"
The note had come in the mail, after Cinco de Mayo, two polite lines. She was glad they'd seen one another and she looked forward to their friendship. "I got it."
She frowned.
"I didn't want to tamper with your marriage, considering what you'd been through before—especially considering what Christian went through." He relived the days of indecision after that Sunday. "I thought it over and decided not to call."
She looked at him, her brow creased. "But Marcus—I thought we... you and I had an understanding."
He tried again. "I wanted to give Christian a chance. I could see last Sunday—or feel maybe—he and Marcus didn't have the best of relationships." He had hit a nerve. The crease in her brow furrowed. "I thought the gentlemanly thing to do was abstain, no matter how taken I am with Marcus." He smiled, attempting lightness. "That's what you and your brood inspire in me. Chivalry."
"I thought you didn't care." "I care."
"Marcus needs you. He doesn't have anyone now."
That sounded like accusation. And it led him to believe either she did have someone, or didn't need anyone, which prompted him to ask, "What happened with Christian?" He felt it imperative to get the answer straight in his mind, to know for certain the divorce had nothing to do with him. He watched her stoic profile.
"We tried. Each of us. Very hard." Like a sentinel, she stared hard out to sea. "We had too many obstacles to overcome."
"Name them for me," he encouraged.
"You don't have to do this." She looked at him, petitioning.
"Then name them for you," he said gently. "Go for it."
"I left him—I refused to go to Baku with him for Marcus." She must have reconsidered that. "Because of Marcus. Christian could never please me. I thought he discriminated between Marcus and the twins."
"They're different."
"I didn't want them to be. But I couldn't change what—I didn't give Christian a chance really. I suppose. He wanted to adopt Marcus at first, but I wouldn't let him change his name to Michaels. After a while—after the twins were born—he stopped talking about it." She fell quiet. Marcus called to her from the sailboat. She waved, then cringed as Lizbett lifted Alex to her shoulders. "If I had only stayed away from Marcus's father five years ago—"
"Water under the bridge."
"If I had—but then there was Coby—the hurts and scars, my fears after what he did to Tommy and tried to do to Christian. The past built a wall Christian and I couldn't get over. Mostly it was Marcus, though. I put him before Christian. I know it's not supposed to be that way, but Marcus is a child. I thought that as a man Christian should be able to overcome Marcus's... origin. I always expected more than Christian was capable of."
At least she had a healthy lack of blame shifting.
After a short silence she went on. "We married in September and it took only two months for me to realize what I had done. By Thanksgiving I was—" She looked at him and smiled contritely. "Upset? By Christmas I was insane with it and there was Coby, his constant phone calls, begging me to see him. Instead I began
seeing—I began sleeping with Tommy again. It destroyed the marriage. We could never rebuild it. Even after Tommy died. Even after the twins were born. All the time in India when we were supposed to be salvaging our marriage—"
It was sketchy but he got most of it. "You've got a handle on it," he said gently. "It will take time, and blaming yourself won't change anything." Although from what he was hearing, he'd say she was right on target with the blame.
"You're very understanding." She smiled. "Could we talk about you? Was that your father in the wheelchair at the party last week?"
"Yeah. He was on our old boat, the Ramona Dos, when it burned last year." Where Zac was supposed to have been. "He had a stroke. We fished together before that."
She frowned, listening closely while keeping an eye on the water fracas.
"That's the reason for the old boat I bought. I wanted one as nearly like the Ramona Dos as possible." He thought of the ones he'd seen and could have afforded and felt good again about his final choice. "I'm planning on shrimping again."
"Why?" She took in the elegant surroundings, her conclusion evident. Her curiosity ran rampant, he knew, but she was polished.
"I want to. It's what I do. I want to take Papa with me."
And Marcus, maybe." She proved relentless, not bothering to hide her agenda. Or camouflage it.
"And Marcus. Anytime."
She smiled, satisfied. "What else do you do?"
"I'm going back to school, as soon as the summer session starts. I majored in philosophy, and I want to get my master's."
"To teach."
"Yeah. In the ghetto—Houston probably."
"Philosophy?" Her smile humored him.
He liked her arched brow. "Crazy, huh?"
"Not really." She moved onto her stomach, stretched her legs out behind her, never taking her eyes off the water. "Why don't you teach Marcus?"
"Philosophy?"
"Teach him everything you know."
He stretched out beside her, rolled onto his hip, propped his head in his palm. "Would you trust me to do that? You know nothing about me except what I've told you."
"I know you," she half whispered, her jade eyes appraising. "What you are is evident. I trust you. Teach him."
"And the twins?"
The furrow formed between her brows. "Of course, the twins."
* * *
Zac donned a pair of jeans and a clean tee shirt and made moves toward dinner as Victoria sat on a kitchen barstool watching. She and her brood had taken showers and reclaimed their Oyster House clothes. Victoria's head kept turning toward Josh and Lizbett entertaining the children with Samson the Siamese and Delilah the Doberman, just as Zac had promised. Zac could almost see her ears straining.
"What can I do to help?" she said, as if in afterthought.
He glanced up from filleting fish. "Let me guess." His eyes took in her clothing and moved to her perfectly manicured hands. "I'll bet your skills don't include mess duty."
She laughed. "I set a magnificent table." Slipping from the stool, she went to search the cabinets for the tools of her proclaimed trade. She said over her shoulder, "Don't go to too much trouble. They only eat Spaghetti Os and canned green beans."
Zac laughed at the familiarity of that scenario.
"Shall I set separate tables? Lizbett can eat with the children... and... Josh?"
"No way." He watched the rough house between Josh, Lizbett and her charges on the breakfast room floor. "I want to teach them how a real man graciously accepts defeat when he totally screws up dinner."
They ate gathered around the kitchen table, Alex and Ari elevated by phone books on either side of Victoria, Marcus between Lizbett and Zac. Josh completed the picture. Zac watched, satisfied. They were all hungry, and he had done a fair job. The children seemed to be eating heartily, after Josh's emergency run to the convenience store for canned green beans.
Victoria's thinness was easily understood. Between coaching the twins to eat and laying out etiquette instructions to them and Marcus, very little food passed her lips. Next time—if there was one—he'd be quicker on the seating arrangements and give her some assistance.
"You have a tennis court," she observed in the middle of the quiet calamity.
His gaze followed hers out the big window framing the pool and the lighted courts, assuring himself, once more, that he did.
"Do you play?" she asked.
"I used to play a lot. Do you?"
She nodded as she retrieved a green bean from the floor and placed it discreetly by her plate.
"We could play sometime but it wouldn't be fair," he said. When her brows arched, he explained, "You'd wear one of those skimpy dresses with the ruffled panties, and I'd get distracted and lose, and then I?d lose my temper, like men do, and ruin our friendship."
She laughed. Josh and Lizbett laughed, too, exchanging glances framed in yards of white around their big black eyes.
"That's sweet," Victoria murmured, negating his honesty. True to form she asked, "Do you think you could teach Marcus?"
"Probably." He smiled conspiratorially at Marcus.
"His father was an excellent—"
"I know." Zac considered pulling up a chair for Tomas Cordera's ghost. "I played him once for a membership at the hotel." Zac recalled a promotional campaign, launched when the old hotel tennis courts were refurbished. He had opted to try to win a match off Tomas Cordera, the reward being a free tennis membership. "We went into a tie breaker. Cordera wasn't into losing, though." He painted self-deprecation into his smile.
"Until he—" She checked herself, but a significant sadness prevailed. "If I had known, I would have come to watch."
"Not then, you wouldn't."
"Today I would." She met his eyes unwaveringly.
He wasn't sure of the meaning behind that. He tabled it for mulling over, when the house would be deathly quiet, when he would toss sleeplessly, in his bed, according to pattern.
When the twins fell asleep at the table, slumped in their chairs, Josh transported them to a living room sofa, then took Marcus to the study to watch one of Allie's old Disney movies. While Lizbett loaded the dishwasher, Zac maneuvered Victoria to the sofa across from Alex and Ari, and poured two glasses of hundred-year-old brandy.
"I don't drink when I'm responsible for the children."
"Treat yourself," he suggested from the opposite end of the sofa. "We'll take you home, or I'll bet Lizbett drives."
She smiled and took a sip. "You have a way of just taking over. No. A way of taking control."
"Sorry."
"I don't mind, or I'll say if I do."
She would. He'd witness her ability to speak up.
"Your taking control is nice, actually. Sometimes I—"
"Get tired."
"No. I sometimes have trouble making decisions."
From what she'd related, he'd have to agree, but didn't.
She tactfully swayed the subject. "This is such a beautiful home, Zac. How long have you lived here?"
"About six weeks."
Her surprise was evident.
"Before I left on the freighter I was living above Buck's Bar on Rocket Road." He decided to take the plunge. His hand swept the room. "I inherited all this."
"Really? I've never known anyone who inherited anything. From whom?"
"Carron Fitzpatrick." He held her gaze steadily, wondering if she'd change her mind about his tutelage. "We were lovers. She died."
"Oh, Zac." She put her brandy down with a stricken expression. "Carron?"
"You knew her?"
"Coby went to school with her—before boarding school. I remember him talking about her red hair and freckles and... all her assets." She smiled. "The boys teased her unmercifully."
"And then she grew up and died." He took a big drink, swirled the Remy Extra Perfection and took another drink, relishing the fire in his belly. "She had a congenital heart disease. She died within a week of Allie's accident." He watched Victoria putting
dates together in her mind.
"Was that the reason for the freighter?"
"That was it." That and Maggie's banishment.
"I'm so sorry."
His grief was too close to the surface to risk thanking her. "Did you know Carron?"
"Later—in my party era. We seemed to migrate along the same routes. She was beautiful." She offered no more. "Zac, I'm really sorry."
He nodded, still hurting, but just a little less each day.
"Please tell me about your relationship. You were married to—"
"Maggie. I came in from fishing one day, and Carron was waiting on the dock. All else is history." He paused, giving her time to examine today's parallel.
She took up her brandy again, waiting for the details.
"She said she had seen my picture, and she wanted me." He shrugged, smiled, offering humility. "I never understood that completely."
"You didn't?" One perfect brow arched. "I do. It happened to me the first time I saw Tommy. I can't explain it. I didn't love him... at first, but my desire for him overpowered all reasoning. Maybe that was what Carron felt."
An accurate description of compulsion, wrong as it had been.
"How did you feel about her?"
"The same. Something in me went crazy, and I lost all reasoning." He had felt a little like that when he'd seen Marcus, but he'd managed to control it. Maybe he wouldn't have to now.
"See," she said softly. "It happens."
"My weakness destroyed my marriage, my relationship with my family and all semblance of morality as I'd known it. I'd never go that route again."
She nodded, his feelings mirrored in her eyes.
He felt obligated to tell her, "Carron and I would have never made it if she'd lived. She couldn't stay out of other men's beds."
She showed no surprise, assuring him he had been right in assuming she had known Carron better than she had originally revealed.
"Every time I didn't conform she'd find somebody—anybody—and sleep with him." For the first time since Carron's death, he felt a release, as though he'd been allowed to crawl from beneath a rock. His honesty with Victoria contained salvation. "How long could I take that?"
"Christian couldn't take it even once," she said quietly. "And when I discovered Tommy was married, it devastated me. We are a monogamous society beneath all the clamor."
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