Slightly Imperfect

by Tomlinson, Dar

  SLIGHTLY

  IMPERFECT

  by

  Dar Tomlinson

  A Books To Believe In Publication

  All Rights Reserved

  Copyright 2012 by Dar Tomlinson

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission, in writing from the publisher.

  Proudly Published by

  Books To Believe In (a division of)

  Thornton Publishing, Inc

  17011 Lincoln Ave. #408

  Parker, CO 80134

  BooksToBelieveIn.com

  Phone: 303.794.8888

  Fax: 720.863.2013

  Cover Design by Capri Brock

  DesignsByCapri.com

  Cataloging in publication data is on file with the Library of Congress

  Chapter 1

  Chapter2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  CHAPTER ONE

  Portofino, Italy

  1976

  The boy feeding the pigeons, sprinkling breadcrumbs on the stones of the piazza in the warm Italian sun, appeared mesmerized and tentative in one motion. Zac Abriendo watched, his eyes drawn with a will of their own. He didn't know if he should damn God or praise Him for allowing a glimpse of a child who so resembled his own.

  When the boy stood, his eyes met Zac's. His quick smile traveled a path of jagged déjá vu straight into Zac's longing, a craving which would never again be appeased.

  He had to pass Zac to return to his own cafe table.

  "Hi," Zac said quietly, not knowing what to expect.

  The boy stopped. "Hi. I'm Marcus." His fingertips whitened when he grasped Zac's

  table edge, pulling himself onto the balls of his feet, delineating his calves.

  Healthy and vital. Alive.

  Zac looked into the guileless face. "Nice name." Marcus wasn't Italian, but Zac had known that the moment he?d spotted him, despite his coloring that matched the locals.

  "Who are you?" Marcus's eyes honed with interest.

  "I'm Zac." He put out his hand, and Marcus latched on.

  A woman seated with two other children at a nearby table stared intently. Zac had felt her watching as he sipped coffee and tilted his face to the Italian sun. Each time he had stolen a glance, she looked away. Once his eyes had settled on the boy, hers never left the two of them.

  At first, she had looked as if she knew him, but now he classified her look as longing. The expression was not unlike what he felt for the dark child who had migrated back to her.

  "Are you American?" The woman's voice interrupted the resonant piazza atmosphere.

  A bit hushed in the rattle and clink of coffee drinkers, but her words carried easily.

  "Born and bred. You're American, too." He had heard her speaking to the children. Her accent, South Texas he'd bet, caused a nostalgic nagging.

  She nodded. "Are you alone?"

  Her eyes were an arresting shade of green-he had seen a ring that color in Singapore. Jade. He looked around, over his shoulder, then back at her, smiling wryly. "Looks like it." Something undetermined tightened in his chest when she smiled.

  "Would you care to join us?" The propriety of her tone set the stage.

  "Sure. Thanks." He stood, dragged his small metal table to touch the edge of hers and brought his chair forward. Sunlight waned from diamonds to old gold as the afternoon began shutting down, bringing with it a nip in the air, an unspoken signal to clear the piazza. He sat down, leaning his forearms on the table. "I'm Zac." Last names didn?t seem called for. He held her extended hand briefly, finding her skin cool, the bones beneath delicate as spider webbing.

  "I'm Victoria." The perfect name. Anything else would have sounded like a pseudonym. She said, "I was staring at you-I know. I'm-sorry."

  Zac smiled, almost shrugged. Her halting, disjointed way of speaking kept him hanging on, for whatever came next.

  "This is my son Macario. Marcus. I was staring because you remind me of-his father."

  Then she whispered, "So much," to herself, he thought.

  The child, about four, maybe five-years-old, had jet hair and ebony eyes framed in thick, sooty lashes and bronzed skin like Zac's. Victoria's hair, skin, even her clothing, was eminently blonde, like Pampas grass in a Texas winter.

  "This is Alexander and Ariana." Her announcement sounded like afterthought. The two younger children, a boy and girl, were fair, blue eyed, their hair almost white. Twins, he assumed.

  Intrigued by the incongruous little family, Zac smiled. "I sense a story here."

  A shallow furrow formed between pale brows. "You aren't a journalist are you?"

  He shook his head. "It was just a guess."

  She smiled, eyes softening, mouth easing. "I thought you were Italian. At first. You fit the ambience." Suddenly she looked undecided, contrite. "The scene."

  "Ambience. The surroundings or atmosphere of a place," he recited quietly.

  Her smile held apology, then relief.

  "Now you know I'm not illiterate." She'd probably judged by his too-long ponytail and beard. "When did you decide I'm not Italian?"

  "The boots. They're real. Not a prop. And your mannerisms. I had a feeling-. " She reached, almost unconsciously, stuck a spoon back into Alexander's Gelato. When she handed the child a napkin, Zac's eyes sought her hand. She wore an unpretentious wedding band on her ring finger, and, on her little finger, a diamond that belonged in a safe.

  "Shall we divulge what we're doing in Portofino, so far from home?" she suggested. "Why we're so relieved to find a fellow expatriate?"

  Realizing her derisive tone was not for him, he nodded toward the harbor. "I'm on that freighter. My captain is enjoying Italian hiatus." He waited as her gaze stole contemplatively to the nearby harbor. "What about you?"

  Her answer was delayed long enough for him to realize she had weighed the inequity of her disclosure before finally speaking. "I'm on that yacht." She was slow to voice the word yacht. "Just down from you. The Andrea Elena II."

  Caught in déjá vu again, retrospect he tried to dismiss, he asked, "Is Victoria a pseudonym for Andrea?" She had pronounced the name with a soft A, resembling Spanish inflection. "Or Elena?" She had employed the same inflection there.

  "No. We're guests."

  "We?"

  "The children and I." She fell quiet, her gaze shifting around the barren piazza. A breeze lifted her long silky hair, moved the collar of her blouse against her cheek for a moment. She rallied and rummaged in a bag on the cobblestones, producing a navy sweater. "Excuse me," she murmured. "Marcus? Here, angel. Put this on."

  The boy lifted his dark head from a book to take the garment. He and Victoria exchanged smiles that left Zac feeling voyeuristic, but then he smiled at Zac collusively. Zac's heart wrenched, curiosity raging. Marcus seemed older, wiser than his years.

  "How long?" Zac asked.

  She looked quizzical, as if she?d lost her place in a novel.

  "How long will you be in Portofino?"

  "Tomorrow we're sailing for Nice."r />
  He nodded. "That's nice."

  She appeared neither to get his pun, nor agree with his comment, but asked politely, "And how long will you be here?"

  "Until Ruffin Sloan tires of Italian women."

  She looked puzzled again.

  "He's my captain and mentor."

  No smile. "And then?"

  "We're sailing for Athens." Then home to make amends.

  "Ships in the night," she whispered, shivering, giving him guilt pangs, as if he were holding her captive. "We should go," she said abruptly. "The twins are tired." She met his gaze, didn't move. Her jade eyes ran moist, swam behind pale lashes, and his throat tightened in reaction. Her cheeks colored beautifully with her penitent smile. "The resemblance is so...striking."

  A tragic air enveloped the table; empathy coursed through him. "Should I be glad or sorry? About the resemblance?"

  "I loved him." She met Zac's eyes. "Very much." Her being reminded seemed joyless, and gave him no answer to his question.

  Her chair scraped back on the cobblestones. "It's getting cold, but it's been wonderful talking to you."

  He didn't think so, really.

  "Marcus," she said softly, and the dark head bolted up. "Let's go, darling."

  The boy left his chair, materialized at her side. She reached to extract the twins from their chairs. Zac felt obligated.

  "Can I help?" He reached down for her canvas bag, then stood. "The little girl looks done in." Ariana. A beautiful name. "I could carry her."

  "You haven't finished your coffee."

  "Yeah, I have. Let me help." He turned to the girl child. "I'm Zac. Can I carry you?"

  Ariana held her arms up, her brow creasing with curious trust. She was a whisper in his arms.

  Victoria took the bag from him, shouldered it, held one hand out to the blond boy, one to the dark. They walked in the direction of the Andrea Elena II. Navy and white. Looming. Victoria seemed content to move in silence.

  Zac wasn't. "How old are the twins?"

  "Two." Her answer explained Alexander's straggling gait, his languor at five in the afternoon. Victoria slowed her own step, then stopped, looking down at the younger boy.

  Her helplessness, only a look, maybe, struck Zac.

  "Here." He squatted, held his free arm out. "I'll carry you too, hombre."

  She spoke quickly, almost sharply. "Not both of them. It's too much."

  Zac thought of the heavy crates, all the cargo he had lifted in the last year, as Alexander slipped his tiny arm around his neck. A feeling of completion settled onto him, a feeling too long absent. He stood, smiling encouragingly at Victoria, and moved forward.

  She and Marcus fell in line.

  "Where are you from?" Zac interjected into the sounds of their heels echoing against the concrete pier in the quiet. The scent of creosote and salt settled around them.

  "Texas...the Gulf Coast."

  His heart hammered.

  "Puerto San Miguel, near Galveston. It's very small."

  "Do you believe in fate?" In his brief side-glance her full lips tightened slightly, not quite a grimace.

  "In bad fate." Her pensive tone caught a passing breeze.

  He had never considered categorizing fate. "I'm from Ramona," he announced, smiling. The fishing villages, Ramona and Puerto San Miguel, ribboned along Galveston Bay, nesting side-by-side, equally unpretentious and insignificant.

  She looked full into his eyes. For the first time, he thought of her expression as cheerful. "That's wonderful!"

  "I always thought so." Especially the past lonely year.

  "This is unbelievable." Her enthusiasm appeared real. With the diminishing pallor, she was striking. "Of all the places in the world we could have been today-either of us. Don't you think it's inconceivable?"

  "More like predestination." He glanced at Marcus, smiling. "What's your last name? Mine's Abriendo."

  "Michaels."

  Her expression mirrored his. No recognition. Any association, past the piazza, would have been unlikely. She traveled the yacht circuit. He didn't—except he had. Briefly.

  "How long have you been away?" he probed. "From Puerto San Miguel? Have you always lived there?"

  "Yes." She kept smiling.

  Zac felt Alexander nod, shift his weight before he lay his head on Zac's shoulder, giving up the ghost like his sister. The pleasure of their warm breath on the sides of his neck unnerved him a little.

  "I've been gone-almost five years." Her fading merriment was easy to detect in his close scrutiny. "I was in Switzerland-Lucerne-for two years. Then India, and London for a while." She rallied. "What about you? How long?"

  "Almost a year. I'll be going back to Ramona in a month."

  "Do you have family there?"

  He wore no wedding band, symbolic of his suspended marriage. The Andrea Elena—big, beautiful, impending—glared at him. He listened to the faint slap of the sea against the hull, the creak of the mooring lines and the drift of music from the main cabin. "Why don't we have dinner and trade histories?" Infeasible, but no guts, no glory. He wasn't ready to let her go. She reminded him too much of Ramona, Texas, and all he had once cherished. Before he'd given up the right to do so.

  Her smile was polished. "Dinner would be nice, but..."

  "Bring your husband. Is he American? Bring the children."

  "Oh... They eat early and go to bed. I...don't think so."

  "Then you aren't as homesick as I am." He didn't mean to chastise her. He simply spoke his mind, as usual.

  "I'm deathly homesick. A profound understatement," she qualified softly, stopping at the foot of the gangplank. Food aromas wafted out from the ship, along with music filtering through the quiet. She offered a handshake, then drew back abashedly. His hands were occupied with her children. "It was wonderful meeting you. Thank you for helping with the twins."

  She wasn't on board yet, sequestered. How would she accomplish that without further assistance? Two uniformed figures approaching down the gangplank supplied his answer.

  "I'll shave and cut my hair if you'll go to dinner." He smiled, knowing he presented a disreputable disguise. "Working freighters is not my real life."

  Her cheeks colored. "It isn't that," she assured him before turning her attention to the emerging constituency and addressing them. "Thank you for watching for us, Dario—Monique. If you could start their baths, I'll only be a moment."

  The man in blue eyed Zac skeptically as he peeled the twins off him. Zac felt naked.

  "Marcus, could you say goodbye to...?" She looked at Zac helplessly.

  "Zac," he offered and she frowned. "Abriendo," he whispered a reminder.

  "To Mr. Abriendo."

  Zac caught the boy's tiny brown hand. Warm and a little damp. "Adios, Macario," he said smiling. His instincts told him the child was Mexican, genteel breeding. The high cheekbones, the chiseled nose and chin. He couldn't have one drop of Anglo blood. Those eyes couldn't lie, and Zac had looked into them before. "Hasta luego, amigo." His heart was wrung a second time by the boy's curious innocence. "¿Habla español?" Zac prompted.

  "Phir sé bolnaa."

  Victoria smiled at Zac's quirked brow. "Hindu. He asked you to repeat."

  "¿Habla espanol?"

  "Sí, señor." Marcus smiled. "Poquito."

  With a smile edging on regret, Victoria said, "He doesn't."

  Zac had gathered that from Marcus's accent.

  "But we're trying to learn. We're getting a tutor, aren't we, darling?"

  The boy nodded. Zac felt like a spy, rocked by the love he saw in the dark eyes when Marcus looked at Victoria.

  "He can say goodbye," she offered.

  Marcus spoke on cue. "Adiós, señor."

  Victoria nodded to Monique. The maid led him away, Zac's gaze trailing after. He was far from ready to relinquish Marcus. Or any of them.

  Victoria surprised him. "Why don't you have dinner with us, on the boat. It?s lovely." Her tone was obligatory. "Andrea�
�my hostess—and her friend, Fellippe, will be back in a while. They took the helicopter to Rome for the day."

  "Believe it, or not, I've done that."

  "Rome?"

  "The boat. Or one very similar." He thought of the Irish Lady back in Ramona. Green and white, not navy. At Christmas a wreath hung over the galley door. Green ornaments, a big white bow to wave in the morning breeze. A flame-haired woman. In a white-terry robe monogrammed IL.

  Victoria tried not to look skeptical. He granted her that. "Really, we'd love to have you. They aren't American but—"

  "Have you ever had dinner on a freighter?"

  Her brow knitted, assuring him she wasn't an adventuress.

  "You'd be surprised. Sailors don't suffer. Come to dinner. My guest."

  "I don't really know you, or..."

  Or any of the other longhaired, bearded reprobates she would encounter. All male, starved for blond companionship. He couldn't keep from smiling. He found her fear amusing when compared to the women he had encountered on his tour the past year. "Your husband too, of course. I know he'd enjoy seeing the ship. I'll give you a tour." He was definitely trying too hard.

  She shook her head. "He isn't here. I don't think— I shouldn't come alone."

  "Probably not." He allowed nothing final into his smile or his tone. "We'll take a rain check for Ramona and San Miguel. Coors, cheeseburgers and fried oysters." But doubt rankled him. After today their paths might never cross again. He might never again see the boy. What reason would there be? There had been no reason today. Except—

  "Come for cocktails. To meet Andrea," she petitioned him, abruptly. "Then you and I will go to the piazza restaurant. I just don't think the freighter would be a good idea—"