Hacienda Moon (The Path Seekers) Read Free Page B

everything wrong, I think I finally got it right. She makes me feel that way, you know?” Virgil glanced over at his wife, a calm look on his face.
     
    He’d put on quite a bit of weight since Eric last saw him. Back in school, people used to say he and his best friend could pass as twins; but now, he looked more like Eric’s older brother. The bright Hawaiian design on his shirt added to this new carefree Virgil. Strangely, Eric was somewhat envious.
     
    “You can meet her after she’s done with her set. She loves me. So, I know she’ll like you. One and the same, you and I are.” Virgil winked and grinned.
     
    “This place is hooked, Virgil. You’re still surviving after a decade, and expanding, I see.”
     
    “Yeah. Yeah. Tourist season brings the money to keep it looking this way. Tonight, there aren’t many tourists. I don’t have a fancy contractor business like you, though. Just look at you: your fancy watch, your expensive ride. Man. You left here and worked yourself over.” He made a small laugh, shaking his head as if he were in deep thought.
     
    “It’s not all like that.   Not really. The company still has a way to go before I get big-time sponsors,” Eric said, anxious to steer the conversation to the old Chelby plantation and its new owner.
     
    The woman living in Chelby Rose was stock pretty: nice skin, long dark hair, curves in all the right places. Eric Fontalvo had watched her for days. Truth was he watched both the house and the woman. You see there was a curse that his mother claimed some old witch had cast on his family hundreds of years ago—one that started in the calm little town of Bolivia. She even claimed it was the reason his oldest brother, Javier, was diagnosed with prostate cancer eight months ago.
     
    Was it a twist of fate that the woman he just happened to run into at an international airport was the new tenant in a house that had a history with both the Chelbys and Fontalvos?
     
    No. Eric never placed much faith in two things: coincidence and rumor. One involved just as much blind faith in someone else’s theories as the other. Accepting Saul Chelby’s contract meant that he and the woman would meet each other at some point, anyway.
     
    “Go ahead. Act humble. But we all have heard about Eric Fontalvo and his big renovation biz.”
     
    “You give me too much credit,” Eric said, taking a sip of his drink.
     
    The rum in his Wild Turkey burned going down his throat and he winced a little.
     
    “Look at you. Can’t even hold your liquor like you used to,” Virgil said, making a wheezy laugh and slapping his knees.
     
    “Speaking of spirits, I see someone’s bought the old Chelby mansion.” Eric set his loaded drink down and raised an eyebrow at Abby. Over behind the bar, she was scratching her thighs and sticking her butt out each time she bent over so Eric had a clear view of it.
     
    “Oh yeah, you’re talking about that weird chic. She used to be a police medium somewhere up north. They say she had a big-timey husband. Son of a bitch gave her a hard time after their kid got killed. Made the gal lose her job, and everything—a real high-class ass. Don’t you go getting all big in the britches like that, you hear me? Hey, that rhymes: high class and ass.” The two men laughed again.
     
    “Yeah, and don’t let me catch you up there onstage reading poetry,” Eric joked.
     
    “You might catch me doing a lot of things on that stage, but reading poetry isn’t one of them,” Virgil said, still making the wheezy laugh.
     
    “Saul Chelby sent me a work request. It seems I’ll be renovating the place from top to bottom.” Eric wanted to steer the conversation toward the old plantation.
     
    Virgil studied him a moment. “You’re gonna take it? I mean, those Chelbys are part of what spooked your old man out, right?”
     
    Eric took a sip of his drink. “Look at it this way. It’s a chance for me to expand the same way you’ve done with