Miracle Road: Eternity Springs Book 7 (15 page)

March Madness.

How long he sat staring at the screen, he couldn’t say. Long enough for the alcohol level in the bottle to sink by two fingers more than a couple of times. The basketball game ended and a replay of the last four holes of the final round of the 1986 Masters came on. Lucca didn’t see Jack Nicklaus birdie the seventeenth hole. He was lost in his nightmare.

Damned ice. Damned dog. Damned preseason, meaningless game.

It had happened two years ago the following Wednesday.

At first he thought he imagined the ring of the doorbell, then the knock. Ignoring the noise, he took another sip of his drink. Then he heard her call his name. Through the fog, he heard pain. He heard the sound of heartbreak that echoed the hollowness inside of him.

Hope. Sounding hopeless.

Lucca went to his door and opened it. Cold air whooshed inside, little knives slicing through his shirt. She stood on his front porch, still wearing her red sweater and black slacks, but no coat. Something was obviously very wrong. “Hope, what happened? Are you okay?”

She stared up at him with swollen, tortured brown eyes, her cheeks tear streaked. “Lucca. I can’t be alone.”

Wordlessly, he opened the screen door. She stepped into his house, into his arms. She buried her face against his chest. She was so cold.
Like me. Just like me.

“I can’t be alone,” she repeated. “Not now. Not tonight. Please …” She lifted her face to his. “Make me forget?”

Whatever her problem, he understood the feeling. He knew it very well. Right now, after the evening he’d spent, he wanted oblivion, too. Holding a woman in his arms was so much better than booze.

What else could he do? Lucca kissed her, and he tasted pain and heartache. He would have wondered why, had he not been numbed by alcohol and caught in the grip of his own pain and heartache.

She’d asked him to make her forget.
Make me forget, Hope. Make me forget what happened two years ago. Make me forget all the grief I’ve caused.

He backed her up against the living room wall and kissed her, wanting, seeking, needing the escape. Their bodies melded together. She yanked and tugged and pulled at the buttons on his shirt until it hung open, and then her desperate hands streaked over his bare skin. Lucca sucked in a breath as her nails scraped across his nipples.

On the edge of sinking entirely into the moment, he was too responsible to ignore the faint chime of alarm bells, barely audible beneath the fog of alcohol and desire. He mumbled against her lips. “Hope? Are you sure about this?”

“Make me feel better, Lucca.”

He picked her up in his arms and carried her to his bed.

What took place there during the next few hours in the muted golden light of a single lamp was raw and physical and mindless. It wasn’t making love, but it was more than just sex.

Lucca immersed himself in his senses. He stripped her naked and feasted on the sight of those curves that had tantalized him since their very first meeting. He bent over her and inhaled her scent—feminine and fresh and hot with arousal. He stroked his calloused hands across her smooth, soft skin and learned her body, using his fingers to coax throaty moans and whispered gasps from lips swollen from the pressure of his mouth.

He tasted the salt of her tears and knew the echo of his own. They were kindred spirits, each running from something, trapped in the throes of a private, painful, anguished memory.

October Madness.

No.
He shoved the intrusion of thought from his mind and concentrated on the woman beneath him.
See her flush, hear her whimper.
“You are beautiful, Hope.”

He nibbled his way down her neck, across the hard ridge of her collarbone to the soft, generous swell of her breasts. Her hands never stopped stroking and exploring, even as he suckled her sweetness and lost himself in the pleasure of the here and now, not the then. Forget the then.

Make me forget.

Hope Montgomery was now. Here, now, with him. And she was wild—driving him wild. He took her and she took him and they took each other. She cried out her pleasure and her pain. He repeated her name over and over. A wish. A prayer. Hope. Hope. Hope.

How many times throughout the night, he had no clue. He’d lay spent, thinking it done, and then she would reach for him and it would begin anew. At some point, finally, emotionally spent and physically exhausted, they slept.

Lucca awoke as a golden dawn began to chase away the night’s shadows, a pleasant weight and warmth sprawled across him. Following a moment of surprise, the events of the evening flooded back. Damn. He lay still, his head aching, attempting to process what had happened.
Make me forget? Oh, holy hell.

Then he sensed the growing tension in the body lying entangled with his.
She’s awake.
Before he could decide on the best way to handle this particular morning after, she quietly and cautiously inched away from him. For a minute, she paused, and he felt the weight of her gaze. Deciding he’d let her take the lead, he feigned sleep as she slipped from the bed. He watched through slitted eyelids as she gathered up her clothes, cast one fearful look in his direction, then exited the room.

He expected to hear the bathroom door close. Instead, a few moments later, he heard his front door open, then softly close.

What the hell?
Lucca sat up, staring like a fool at the empty doorway. She left? She just up and left?

Damn. That was a first. No woman had ever done that to him before.

So, the kindergarten teacher comes over for a booty call, then sneaks out at first light? What is that all about?

Completely sober now, he replayed the scene from the previous night in his mind. He recalled her desperation, her pain.
Why couldn’t she be alone last night? What did she want to forget?

He thought about the sex. It had been … wild. Primal. She’d clawed at him, and he knew for certain that when he showered, he’d see the scratches to prove it. A sudden worry occurred. He hadn’t hurt her, had he? Was that why she had sneaked away? Sure, he’d been lit, but he hadn’t been falling-down drunk. He didn’t hurt women in bed.

No, he hadn’t hurt her. She’d acted as if he’d saved her. She’d acted as if he’d been her lifeline.

There’s another first.
He’d never been anyone’s lifeline before. He didn’t know how he felt about the idea. Talk about role reversal.

Why? What misery had driven Little Miss Sunshine Kindergarten Teacher to such despair that she needed mindless sex to chase it away?

As he rose from his bed and padded toward his bathroom to take a shower, Lucca decided he wanted the answer. Now, how best to go about getting it?

Hope spent Sunday holed up in her house. She was embarrassed, mortified, and—honesty made her admit it—deliciously satisfied. She couldn’t believe what she’d done Saturday night, but she couldn’t entirely regret it, either.

What shamed her was the fact that she’d snuck out of his bed and house without having the courage to face him. Never in her life had she been so … what? Cowardly? Needy? Out of her mind? All of the above?

Was it shame that was making her feel warm as she remembered it? She’d never, ever tried to use sex to distract her from her pain. Why last night? Why with Lucca Romano?

Because he was damaged, too. Because whether he knew it or not, they had that in common.

And, frankly, because he did it for her. She’d hungered for him. She’d wanted the feel of his large hands on her, wanted his mouth, wanted to experience the sensation of having his body lying atop hers. Man, oh man, she’d gotten what she wanted. It had been the single most erotic experience of her life.

And she’d said thank you by sneaking out of his bed like a thief in the night.

That’s what shamed Hope. Not that she had turned to him in her pain, but that she didn’t have the guts to face him the morning after.

Lucca deserved an explanation. If she had any guts at all she would march over there and tell him why she’d acted the way she had. But she couldn’t do it. She could share her body, but not the secret of her heart. Not yet, anyway. After Mark’s call and her evening with the scrapbook, she needed a little more time before she could talk about Holly.

If she peeked out of her dining room window toward Lucca’s house a time or twelve just to see if she could catch a glimpse of him, well … who could blame her?

Following a mostly unproductive day, she dreamed about him that night, tossing and turning, sleeping fitfully and waking up tired. She drove her bus route, and by the time she picked up her last student, she had made a decision. Running away and hiding wasn’t right, nor was it working for her. After school, as soon as she was free, she’d track down Lucca and talk to him. She’d apologize for sneaking off Sunday morning and explain that she’d had an upsetting call from her ex and lost her … well … hmm. She couldn’t say good sense. That sounded insulting.

Well, she had all day to figure something out.

Or so she thought, until a knock on her door at the end of third period prompted her to look up from her paperwork. Lucca Romano stood in her classroom doorway. He wore jeans, a Colorado Buffaloes T-shirt, and a leather jacket. She couldn’t read the expression on his face as he said, “I’m here to serve one of my volunteer hours.”

In what way? Her cheeks flushed with warmth as an image that had no business in a kindergarten classroom flashed through her mind. “I planned to go see you after school.”

“Oh, yeah?” One corner of his mouth kicked up in a slow grin. He leaned against the doorjamb and folded his arms across his broad chest. “Maybe my volunteer efforts can wait another day.”

She glanced at the clock. “I have a parent conference in five minutes, but my lunch period is after that. Do you like chicken salad?”

“I do.”

“Want to share my sandwich?”

Challenge lit his green eyes. “Got any chips to go with it?”

“Carrot sticks.”

“Oh. I’m afraid that’s a deal breaker.”

“I could probably scare up some potato chips.”

“All right, then.” He straightened. “It’s a date.”

A date. Hope blinked. She’d forgotten all about their Friday dinner date. Had he?

Well, no matter. Friday was still five days away. Lunch was in half an hour. “It’s a nice day. There’s a small courtyard off the teachers’ lounge where I like to eat my lunch. I usually have it to myself. I could meet you there in thirty minutes.”

He nodded. “Thirty minutes, then. In the meantime, I’ll see if Principal Geary doesn’t have something I can do to knock out half an hour of my volunteering sentence.”

Hope rolled her eyes, but when she left her classroom for her meeting moments later, she was smiling.

She met Wade Mitchell’s mother in the conference room. A trim woman in her late forties, Darla Mitchell wore jeans, a blue chambray shirt, and cowboy boots that befit her position as a rancher’s wife. “Hello, Mrs. Mitchell.”

“Ms. Montgomery. Thank you so much for seeing me.”

“I’m always happy to speak to parents. I have to tell you, Wade is such a nice young man.”

“Thank you.”

“Is there a problem I’m not aware of?”

Darla gave a heavy sigh. “Not a problem, exactly. More of … well … it’s complicated. Wade tells me the school hasn’t hired a basketball coach? Practice starts soon, and you’re filling in?”

Oh, now Hope understood the reason for the conference request. “Mr. Geary did hire someone, but he quit right before school started, and Mr. Geary couldn’t find a replacement. I’m the only teacher here who played ball in high school.”

“I see.”

“So do I, Mrs. Mitchell. Wade is an excellent player and he deserves a better coach.”

“Well, that sounds embarrassingly rude, but … yes. You see, he has a complicated situation at home. If I share the story with you, may I have your word that you will be discreet with the information?”

“Of course.”

“Okay, then.” She exhaled a heavy breath. “I am squarely in the middle here, and I feel like I’m betraying my husband by doing this, but … Wade wants to go to college. He and I believe that the only way to make it happen is for him to earn an athletic scholarship.”

“Colleges offer financial aid, Mrs. Mitchell. I’m sure—”

“The money isn’t the problem. Well, it’s part of it, but Wade’s biggest stumbling block is his father. He doesn’t want Wade to go to college. He doesn’t see the need for it. Frankly, the idea scares him half to death because of something that happened in the past.”

She went on to explain that her husband was fighting for all he was worth to save the family ranch. “It’s his legacy, it’s Wade’s legacy, and my husband thinks Wade can learn everything he needs to know by working the ranch.”

“Wade doesn’t want to be a rancher?”

“No, that’s what is making this tricky. If he didn’t want to be a rancher, he could defy his father and go off and pursue whatever dreams he has. But he loves the ranch and he wants a future in ranching. He just wants to go to college first. He wants that experience before coming home and settling down, but my husband is afraid to let him go. You see, my husband has been down that road before. His much younger brother—who was more of a son to him than a sibling—went off to college and never returned to Storm Mountain. He won’t admit it, but that broke my husband’s heart.”

“I can understand that,” Hope said, sympathy washing through her. “What I don’t understand is why a basketball scholarship would be different from an academic scholarship to him.”

“I won’t claim that this whole thing makes sense because it’s all based on emotions rather than logic. It’s different to David if one is recruited rather than applying.”

“All right, then. What assistance are you looking for from me?”

Again, Darla Mitchell inhaled a deep breath, then exhaled loudly. “I want to do what is best for both my son and my husband. As the team leader this year, you can be Wade’s advocate. I’m not trying to be rude, but someone with my son’s raw talent needs someone with the knowledge and experience to develop it. I can’t hire or even request a private coach. It would cause too much dissension in the family. But, as this year’s coach, you can bring someone on to help the team. I know that Gabi Romano played college ball. She shot baskets with Wade at the fund-raiser last week. Sheriff Turner played college basketball, too, so he could help if he could find time, though I know he has his hands full running the sheriff’s department. Then, of course, there is Coach Romano.”