Read Online Slightly Imperfect by Dar Tomlinson - Free Book Online Page A

be merry Mexicans and they'll love us, and buy it all." Zac quieted for a moment. "But do you know what the most important thing is right now?"

    "Tell me."
    "I need your truck." Zac pictured the Toyota four-wheel Alejandro had gotten just before his accident, the only new car he had ever owned. Now, it sat in the drive. Useless. Zac laughed contritely, admitting, "I'm penniless and walking."
    "Then how do you plan to accomplish all these wonderful things, niño ? Even in a red truck?"
    "I don't know how, Papa." Blatant truth gripped him. "I just know I will."

CHAPTER FIVE
    Zac gazed across Gerald Fitzpatrick's comfortably cluttered desk, feeling displaced in his Levis and tee shirt in the presence of the man in the pinstriped suit. After learning from Luke of Zac's return, Gerald had called the Abriendo home that morning. Zac had all ready left to look for a job, not gotten Gerald's message until late afternoon. Now he looked into eyes, the exact color of Carron's, china-blue, and just as penetrating.
    "No, sir. I haven't been dodging you. I've just been caught up in being home." His words emerged with an even quieter timbre than the hushed mahogany grandeur of the surroundings. Lying to eyes like Gerald's proved difficult. "Well, maybe I have been dodging you." Zac smiled. His cheeks singed. "Luke said you wanted to get in touch, and Maggie told me you asked about me. I guess I would have gotten around to calling."
    The eyes measured him.
    "I'm not usually rude, sir." He swallowed, hoping Gerald would understand. "It's just... now that I'm home, everywhere I turn I'm reminded of Carron's death. When I look at you, she's all I see."
    Gerald nodded. "I went through that already, son. It'll take a while to get over the brunt of it. The merciful thing is, after a while it's like looking at everything through a gauze lens, and it doesn't hurt so much. Carron's mother is still having a hell of a time."
    That surprised Zac when he considered how severely estranged Carron and her mother had been. He guessed a death under those conditions could cause even more grief, given the guilt factor.
    "At the rate she's drinking—on top of the bone marrow cancer—she won't last long," Gerald added.
    The drinking had been the problem, all right. For Carron.
    "I'm sorry to hear that, sir." He watched Gerald attempt to shrug it off, rifling papers, lining files up haphazardly. "Was there something you wanted? Particularly?" Rude, but his question was out there, the culmination of all the mind searching that had prepared him for this visit. Or hadn't.
    "Several things." The sun from the big bay window laced Gerald's hair with pink and white slivers as he settled back in the massive leather chair. He got his feet halfway to the desktop and seemed to reconsider, ending up bracing his elbows on the chair arms.
    Zac wondered if maybe their meeting was as awkward for Gerald as for him.
    "I wanted to see for myself how you were doing. You had a lot of losses all at once, Zac. Your father's stroke, the boat, your son." He hesitated. "Carron." He held up his hand when Zac made a move to speak. "I know you cared about her—no doubt in my mind. I wanted to look you in the eye and tell you that—that I'm sorry I gave you a hard time about being in it for the money. But most of all I wanted to gauge how you've come through it all." He eyed Zac closely. "You're a survivor. I can see that."
    Zac managed a smile. "Yes, sir. I'm almost beginning to feel like one."
    Gerald's eyes lit up. "And that little wife of yours. What a gal. Tough as nails, but tender as an abscess. The essence of Texas womanhood." He grinned, obviously taken with Maggie. "A waste loosing her for a woman like Carron. Huh, boy?"
    To Zac it seemed Gerald waited, not so much for an answer, as to let Zac consider it, to drive a point home. Zac thought of that country song, about missing the dance and the old ambiguity—the ecstasy and consequences of his and Carron's affair—reared its