Miracle Road es-7 Page 20

  “Well, now,” Hope said moments later to her empty classroom. “That was interesting.”

  When she went to practice that afternoon, she didn’t mention Maggie’s visit to Lucca. For the next several days, he and Gabi both stayed far away from the subject of their mother.

  As the week went on, Hope watched him at practice working with the team. She saw him jogging up Cemetery Road as she drove her bus route. When she delivered her students to school, she imagined a young Lucca Romano in time-out, banished to a chair facing the wall in a corner. She pictured him as a kindergarten student wearing red canvas sneakers and kicking the wall. She envisioned him as a fifth grader condemned to after-school detention, finger-kicking folded notebook-paper footballs toward an imaginary goalpost. She tried not to think about what the middle-school-aged Lucca Romano had done during detention. Probably found a way to flirt with a girl using hand signals or mirrors or even birdcalls.

  “Maybe that’s why he became a coach,” she thought as she dismissed her gym class at the end of school on Friday. “All that experience with time-outs.”

  Amused at her own joke, Hope indulged her vanity by ducking into the locker room and touching up her makeup. Basketball practice was scheduled to begin in ten minutes. With their first tournament of the season coming up on the weekend, Lucca had promised to spend some time coaching her about game-time strategy.

  A district rule prevented Lucca from actually coaching during the game, so the pressure would be all on Hope. Gabi had come to practice to help, too, and while she worked with the boys, Lucca went over the game plan he’d developed with Hope.

  She tried to pay close attention to what he told her, but she kept getting distracted by the scent clinging to his skin. Finally, when he was attempting to explain a new play he wanted to add, her attention wandered a bit too obviously. “Coach Montgomery! You need to pull your head out. What the heck is wrong with you today?”

  The players and Gabi glanced in their direction, their expressions ranging from shocked to scandalized to amused. Lucca looked so annoyed with her that she couldn’t help but tease him. “Sorry, Coach Romano,” she said loudly. Then she leaned forward and dropped the volume of her voice. “Though you know it’s your fault, don’t you? The scent of your sister-in-law’s soap clinging to your skin turns me on. I just want to lay you down and lick it off of you. All over.”

  Coach Romano’s clipboard slipped right out of his hand and clattered against the hardwood floor. Hope smothered a grin.

  “What sort of a kindergarten teacher are you?” he murmured after bending to pick up the clipboard. “You’ll pay for that remark.”

  “I certainly hope so.”

  “My brother Max is visiting from Denver and I promised to meet him and Zach and some of the other guys at Murphy’s tonight. How about you come over to my place tomorrow after the game? Bring your whipped cream and chocolate sauce. Plan to stay.”

  Whipped cream and chocolate sauce? A little shudder worked its way up her spine. Why was it that every time she tried to bait him sexually, Lucca out-baited her?

  “Better get some butterscotch, too,” he added.

  “Enough,” she said. “You’ll make me … oh, wait. Saturday. It’s November second. I can’t see you on Saturday.”

  “What’s so special about the second?”

  “I have a guest coming to visit. My friend Daniel Garrett.”

  Thinking about Daniel and the upcoming weekend wiped all thoughts of sexy soap and whipping cream from Hope’s mind. He’d be arriving sometime that evening and staying at least through Monday. She dreaded the weekend at the same time she looked forward to it. Daniel had done so much for her. Not only did he continue to search for Holly, he’d surely saved Hope’s life, making her face her prescription drug addiction and being there for her every step of the way while she dried out. It made her feel good to be able to give him any help at all, but at the same time, these were difficult days for them both.

  “In fact,” she mused aloud. “I probably should wrap up practice right on time tonight. I have a lot to do before he arrives.”

  Lucca grunted, and she jerked her gaze up to meet his. He didn’t look happy. In fact, he looked a little bit jealous, and that stroked her ego enough that she smiled at him brightly. “So what’s next, Coach Romano?”

  He set his mouth, then scratched a few more notes on his clipboard. Handing it over, he said, “Here’s your game plan. Traditionally, my teams run one final drill at the end of the last practice before a game. It’s important for team-building purposes, because for this one preparing-for-war instance, a coach is one with his players. Surrender the ‘me’ to the ‘we.’ Any objections, Coach Montgomery?”

  She sensed a trap, but she could see no way out. “None whatsoever.”

  “All right, then. We’re running ladders. Coach Montgomery, you run with the post group.”

  Oh, jeez. Her legs hurt already.

  Leaning over the pool table in the game room at Murphy’s Pub, Lucca drew back his cue preparing to break. He put all of his anger and frustrations into the stroke. Balls cracked and spread. He sank three in three different pockets, then made two more shots before he missed.

  “The man is hot tonight,” Max Romano said to his eldest brother, Zach Turner, as he lined up his shot. “Or has he been spending all of his time in Eternity Springs playing billiards?”

  Zach frowned at the table when Max sank his ball. “Actually, I’m not sure what he’s been doing lately. I just came back from visiting Savannah’s nephew last night.”

  “I’ve been holding Gabriella’s hand,” Lucca told his brothers. “She’s really upset about Mom.”

  “What about Maggie?” Zach asked.

  Max and Lucca shared a look. “Gabi didn’t call you?”

  “While we were in South Carolina? Yes, she did. But we were out to dinner with Savannah’s family, and she said the conversation could wait. So what’s going on? I thought Maggie went to Texas for a B&B conference.”

  “Have you talked to her?”

  “From Austin? No. I got an email from her asking that I attend a family meeting on Monday night. I told her I was scheduled to work, and she told me that I’m the boss so I can change the schedule.”

  “I got the same spiel,” Max said, taking another shot. He missed, muttered a curse, and said, “She’s working around Tony’s schedule.”

  “So we’re all going to be there? What’s the deal? Whatever it is couldn’t wait until Thanksgiv— oh.” Zach’s eyes widened. “She doesn’t have cancer, does she? Tell me that’s not it. I’ve already lost one mother to cancer.”

  “She’s not sick,” Max said.

  “Physically, anyway. I wouldn’t put money on her mental health.” Lucca strode toward the door separating the game room from the pub and checked to see if anyone was listening before he explained. “Mom is doing her contractor.”

  Zach carefully lifted his pool cue away from cue ball. “Doing? As in …?”

  “Ah, yep.” Lucca took a long pull on his beer.

  “Richard Steele?”

  “Good old Dickie.”

  In the process of taking a sip of beer, Max spewed. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “You did not just say that.”

  Lucca shrugged, then gave Zach a quick but thorough summary of the previous Saturday’s events. Zach whistled softly. “I didn’t have a clue. Every time I’ve been around them they’ve acted totally like employer–employee.”

  “Great,” Lucca said. “I didn’t think about that. Next thing you know he’ll probably charge her with workplace sexual harassment.”

  Zach rolled his eyes, then asked, “Do I remember that he has kids?”

  Lucca nodded. “Two. One is in college, the other married. Steele is divorced.”

  “I don’t get the sense that he’s strapped for cash,” Zach said.

  “He’s not,” Lucca said. “He sold his business and made a pretty penny on it. Look, I know that Mom is an
adult, and she’s not married, and she’s got the right to do what she wants, and all the other platitudes, too. But, dammit, I can’t help but feel like I’m twelve years old. I know it’s stupid, but I feel like she’s cheating on Dad.”

  Max gave a snort and Lucca rounded on him. “What? You’ve been awful quiet. You think it’s all fine and dandy that Mom is having an affair?”

  “What I think is that I’m surprised it’s taken her this long,” Max said. “After all, Dad did it first.”

  Lucca’s voice went cold and quiet. “What did you say?”

  “Dad did it. He cheated on Mom. Apparently, he did it for years.”

  Lucca’s temper blazed and he snapped, “You shut the hell up.”

  Max shrugged. “I can do that, but I’m telling the truth. Being silent won’t change history.”

  “That’s just bullshit,” Lucca fired back, hanging on to denial.

  “So says the twelve-year-old.” Max set his beer down and picked up a block of chalk. “Take your shot, Zach.”

  Zach looked from Max to Lucca, then back to Max again. “I think I’ll do just that.”

  As Zach sank the three, then studied the table, Lucca set down his cue and folded his arms. His chin up, he challenged his brother. “Why would you say something like that? Dad loved Mom. He worshipped her.”

  “He screwed around on her. That’s not love.”

  “How do you know? Proof, Max. What proof do you have?”

  Max leaned back against the shuffleboard table and casually picked up a weight. Tossing it from hand to hand, he said, “His current mistress came to the funeral.”

  “What!” Lucca exclaimed.

  “Whoa,” Zach said. “That’s cold.”

  “Actually, it was pretty hot. On Aunt Mary Catherine’s part, anyway. It was about ten minutes before the mass was due to start. Mom and Aunt Gloria and all of you were inside the church. I’d taken a walk around the block to get my head on straight, and I was across the street from the church waiting for a break in traffic. Aunt Mary Catherine was standing on the church steps greeting the last of the arrivals, and I saw her look at me and then her eyes bugged out. Then I figured out she wasn’t looking at me, but past me. I turned and saw a woman I didn’t recognize. She was about my age, blonde, wearing black patent stilettos and a skirt that barely reached the top of her thigh. At first I thought Aunt Mary Catherine was freaking out because the woman wore an outfit like that to a funeral mass. I thought the woman was probably one of Tony’s groupies.”

  “But she wasn’t,” Zach observed.

  “No. That would have been way easier.”

  “So what happened?” Lucca prodded.

  “Well, Aunt Mary Catherine came off the steps, and thank God the light had changed and stopped traffic or she’d have probably walked out in front of a car in her rage. She got ten feet away from the woman and started letting her have it. ‘How dare she,’ ‘she wasn’t welcome,’ ‘Jezebel.’ Then she hit her. Slapped her right across the chops. Like a movie. I think my jaw hit the sidewalk.”

  “Aunt Mary Catherine!” Lucca exclaimed again, uncrossing his arms. The woman was four feet ten inches and ninety pounds dripping wet. Hitting someone on a public street? In front of Saint Benedict’s, no less?

  “Yep. By then my eyes were the ones bugging out. It was an old-fashioned cat-fight slap. There was some back and forth, then the woman said, ‘But I loved Marcello.’ Aunt Mary Catherine came back with, ‘And he just wanted to screw you. You were just the last in a long line of trashy women who couldn’t find their own man, so don’t think you’re anything special.’ The woman whirled around and flounced off, and Aunt Mary Catherine turned around and noticed me.”

  Lucca shoved his hands into his pockets. Zach took another shot and missed. Max set down the shuffle-board weight and picked up his cue. “Her face went from raspberry red to milk white in an instant.”

  “What did you do?” Zach asked.

  “Then? Nothing. I stood there like a statue. I was too shocked to do anything else until the church bells began to toll and we had to get inside, so there wasn’t time for me to even ask Aunt Mary Catherine the woman’s name. Later at the house, I asked her if Mom knew. She said yes and that she’d tell me the whole ugly story another time. She asked me not to say anything to the rest of you and said it would hurt Mom more if she knew that I knew. So I kept my mouth shut.”

  “Hell, this is like a soap opera.” Zach winced as he rubbed the back of his neck. “Did she ever tell you the whole ugly story?”

  “Some of it. I didn’t want to hear all of it. I didn’t want to know what I knew. Once I started thinking about it, it made some sense. There were clues, though none of us ever picked up on ’em.”

  “Clues? There weren’t any clues.” Not any that Lucca wanted to think about, anyway. “I can’t believe this. Dad wouldn’t hurt—” He broke off abruptly when the sound of Cam Murphy’s and Gabe Callahan’s voices in the front room of the pub signaled their arrival and propelled Lucca toward the back door. As he shoved it open and stepped into the bitter cold night—without a coat—he heard Max say, “Let him go. He’ll cool off quick.”

  Cooling off took him longer than one would expect with outdoor temperatures hovering in the twenties. For the second time in a week, Lucca had had the foundations of his world rocked. He found himself walking away from Murphy’s and toward Hope’s house, toward sanctuary.

  But as he approached, he saw a car pull into her drive. Lucca’s steps slowed when a man got out of the car carrying a duffel bag. He stopped completely when Hope’s front door flew open, and she ran outside and into the stranger’s embrace.

  FOURTEEN

  The Eternity Springs Grizzlies finished fourth in the tournament on Saturday with Wade Mitchell scoring a personal high forty-five points in the semifinal game. With her concentration on the court, Hope only vaguely noticed that Lucca had taken a seat next to Daniel on the bleachers and that the two men exchanged conversation from time to time.

  “So what’s the deal with him?” Daniel asked when they returned to her house after the games ended. “For a basketball coach at a basketball tournament, he sure was fishing.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Daniel leaned against her kitchen counter and turned his inquisitive blue eyes her way. “He’s very curious about me.”

  “Oh?” Hope took her wooden recipe box from a cabinet.

  “He pumped me for information. He acted … territorial.”

  Really? That should probably bother her, but she felt flattered instead. Lucca’s attention didn’t totally surprise her. Daniel’s tragedy had aged his face but he was still an attractive man, and under other circumstances, they might have tried for more than friendship. Attempting nonchalance, Hope said, “We’ve been, um, seeing each other.”

  “I wondered if that might be the case.” Daniel eyed the ingredients she pulled from her pantry with interest. “I don’t think he liked me.”

  “You say that with such glee.”

  “What have you told him about me?”

  Her chin came up. “I told him that you are my hero.”

  Daniel snorted. “I’m sure that went over well.”

  “Well, you are my hero, Daniel. I’d be lost without you. Actually, I’d probably be dead without you. You are my friend. A friend who stood by me when I had no other. You saved me.”

  “You saved yourself. I just gave you a helping hand. And I think you would have pulled out of it on your own given more time. Your inner core of strength is a force to behold. I just saved you time. Are you going to make ginger cookies?”

  “Of course. Don’t I always?”

  He scooped up her hand and kissed it. “Marry me, Hope.”

  She laughed. “No. You don’t like chocolate. We are simply too different to be compatible long-term. Besides, your friendship means too much to me to risk it for something temporary.”

  “You break my heart, woman. Not all marriages are temporary,
you know.”

  “True. Just half of them.”

  He watched her measure out blackstrap molasses, then caught a drip with his fingertip and tasted the sweetness. “Did you tell him why I’m here?”

  The very casualness of his tone prompted her to look at him closely, and she spied the pain he tried to hide. “No, Daniel. It’s our private business.”

  “I wouldn’t care. I just don’t want to talk about it with a stranger. Not this trip.”

  “I know. Don’t worry. Besides, I don’t owe anyone an explanation for why I have friends visit.” She turned on her mixer, creaming shortening and eggs and effectively putting a period to that topic of conversation.

  Daniel put the teakettle on the stove, and by the time her dough was mixed, he’d placed two cups of steaming orange pekoe on the table. As was his habit, he filched a spoonful of dough, tasted it, then sighed. “Marry me, Montgomery.”

  “Keep your paws out of my cookie dough, Garrett.”

  He winked at her, then went for another. She slapped his hand. “Drink your tea and talk to me, Daniel. I feel bad that I conked out on you so early last night. I think I need new vitamins. Tell me what’s going on in your life.”

  He licked his fingers. “I took a new case.”

  “Another infant?”

  “Yes. A two-month-old. From 1998. San Antonio. A little boy. Parents both professionals, an architect and a lawyer. The wife’s mother was babysitting and someone broke in. Killed the grandmother, stole electronics, jewelry, and the baby. At the time, the cops thought it was robbery that turned into more. I’m not so sure.”

  “You think the baby was the object of the crime all along?”

  “I think that possibility didn’t get enough play.”

  They talked about his case, then he asked her if she’d like to talk about Holly. She rolled a ball of dough in sugar, then set it on the cookie sheet. “You would have called me if you had anything new to report.”

  “Absolutely.”

  “And you continue to make your phone calls and distribute flyers and show her picture around immigrant neighborhoods?”