Free Slightly Imperfect by Dar Tomlinson

temptation to swing his loafered feet to the desk. "She anticipated your reaction. No use declining. This is a deathbed edict, and I've already done the legal work. Everything has passed through my hands into yours. In good conscience, after reading the letter she left me, written in her own hand, I couldn't take a dime of that money." He faltered, seemed to regroup, disclosing, "She especially wanted you to have the Irish Lady . She had this dream of your turning that yacht into an exclusive casino—" He smiled confidently. "—once gambling is voted into the state. But I wouldn't feel beholden to a casino. That's your decision."
    Zac risked rudeness again. "Then why do you feel beholden to give me her money?"

    "Good point." Gerald lifted his brows, Carron fashion. "Maybe I have an ulterior motive." His guileless grin made Zac question that. "We'll work together, son, to win gambling for this state—if you?re willing. Then we'll turn the Irish Lady into the damndest floating casino between here and hell. We both know Carron would have loved that."
    When Gerald's eyes misted over, Zac wondered how in hell he would ever recover, especially amid all the trappings being offered. "I can't take the money. I'd never feel right about it."
    "I can't help how you feel, Zac. That's out of my hands. It's all yours. The house—"
    "No way. I could never live there." Visions of the house, being there with Carron, waking up that rainy Sunday with her cold body in his arms, filtered down. "The memories would eat me alive. You take the money, sir, and go on refurbishing Ramona."
    Gerald seemed not to have heard. "The car, too." Carron's blood-red Mercedes convertible had been the essence of her. "It's parked in the garage, begging to be driven. It's like a fine woman, Zac. Don't let it sit too long."
    He shook his head, closed his eyes, racked with recall.
    Gerald got out of the chair and crossed to a window that framed the NASA traffic crawling along Rocket Road. Zac saw indecisiveness, hesitance, in the set of his shoulders.
    "Please don't be offended, Mr. Fitzpatrick. It isn't pride. Not really."

    "Have you thought of all the good that money can do?"
    "No, sir. Not really." Following Carron's death, there had been hints of what Gerald proposed now, but Zac had left on the freighter without answering Gerald's summons. In the year's hiatus, he had tried not to think what Gerald might have wanted. Tried to believe it would all just disintegrate. "I'm thinking about all you could do with it."
    "I'm doing fine."
    "Yes, sir. Maggie told me."
    "Money's a big responsibility, son. It can make you or break you. I have no one to leave it to, just as Carron didn't. What if it slips into the wrong hands after I'm gone?" He turned around. "Have you thought about your folks, what it could mean to them? The burden you could take off your brothers and sisters? You can fish for the love of it, Zac. You never have to sell another shrimp as long as you live. You can have that boat you want—" He snapped his manicured fingers. "—tomorrow. Or use the Irish to fish from until the gambling vote comes in. Above all, boy, use your head."
    "I don't want to profit from Carron's death."
    The words lay on the charged air, raw with truth.
    Gerald sighed, a kind of heavy expulsion. He crossed back to the desk and the file, dug deeper in the folder and brought out a second envelope. Zac's heart plummeted when he saw his name in Carron's handwriting, in that same rust-colored ink.
    "She prepared for your refusal. She knew you well, Zac. Carron was a quick study." He rounded the desk, put the envelope in Zac's hand. "I wish I could tell you I haven't read this. I wish I never had read it. It was painful. It'll be hell for you."
    Zac lifted his head, met Gerald's eyes, questioning, yet knowing.
    "The maid found it when she was packing up Carron's things, about a month after she died." He backed up to the desk, folded his arms over his chest as though holding the sum