Miracle Road: Eternity Springs Book 7 (26 page)

“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.

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?”

“Every month.”

“So, no, then. I don’t think I want to talk about Holly.”

Surprise shone in Daniel’s brown eyes. Frankly, Hope was a little surprised, herself. He was the one person with whom she spoke of Holly freely, and she’d done so ever since she and Mark had hired him to privately investigate their daughter’s disappearance four months after the kidnapping. Not talking about Holly illustrated a significant change in her relationship with Daniel. Was it because she’d popped the pressure on that particular cork by talking to Lucca? Possibly. Probably. Was sharing Holly’s story with someone other than Daniel a sign that her spirit was healing? Perhaps. Time would tell, she guessed.

She put a sheet filled with dough into her preheated oven, then set the timer. “Shall we talk about tomorrow? I have a couple of ideas about how we can spend the day. We are supposed to have sunshine.”

“No skiing. Last time I did that I almost broke my leg.”

“Actually, I thought we could either go snowmobiling or horseback riding. The family of one of my students owns a ranch, and he’s offered a trail ride. Wade Mitchell. He was my high-point man today.”

Daniel looked alarmed. “In the snow?”

“Snowmobiles usually work better in snow.”

“I’m talking about the horses. Won’t PETA be on your ass for making them go out in the snow?”

“Careful, Daniel. Your Boston upbringing is showing. Horses are quite adapted to cold weather. They have a winter coat, and Storm Mountain Ranch puts them in winter shoes. As long as they don’t get wet from rain, snow, or sweat, they are quite comfortable being outside.”

“Horses.” He looked a little pained.

“Or snowmobiles,” she repeated, smiling. “On snowmobiles we’d stay in the valley. Wade said the trail ride would take us high.”

Daniel rose and went to peek in the oven. “I’ve never ridden a horse before. But I like the sound of going high tomorrow.”

“Then I’ll give Wade a call and take him up on his offer.”

The following morning Hope wandered into her kitchen in search of coffee to find Daniel sitting cross-legged on the floor playing with Roxy. When he looked up at her and said good morning, she couldn’t miss the bleakness in his eyes.

“Good morning, Daniel,” she said lightly. “My dog is in heaven.”

“She’s a sweetheart. I was just thinking that maybe I could get a dog. Every year I do more and more work from home. I don’t travel nearly as much as I used to. I might be able to make it work, but I’d hate to get a dog and then find out I couldn’t.”

“You could foster for a rescue group and see how it goes until the dog is adopted. If you’re gone too much, you’ll know without making the commitment to having a pet of your own.”

“There’s an idea.”

“What kind of dog do you think you’d like?”

“Nothing girly like Roxy here. I’d want a big dog. A man’s dog.” He hesitated a moment before adding, “Justin had a dog. A boxer. He named her Soupy Lou.”

Hope’s heart twisted. He’d never mentioned a dog before. “Soupy Lou?”

Daniel’s lips lifted ever so slightly. “I don’t know. Gail said she thought Justin heard it on a cartoon.”

“What happened to Soupy Lou?”

Daniel exhaled a long sigh. “I’m not sure. I came home a couple of months after Justin was killed and the dog was gone. Gail wouldn’t say where. I looked for her, but …”

He shrugged, and Hope crossed the room and wrapped her arms around him in a comforting hug.

Half an hour later, they left her house, driving out to Storm Mountain Ranch in his rental. Daniel was quiet on this, the anniversary of the most horrible day of his life. Hope offered him her silent support, holding his hand for much of the twenty-minute drive to ranch. She directed him to the stables where Wade had instructed them to meet.

Wade came out to meet them, and Hope thought the smiling young man appeared even more at home in this setting than he did on a basketball court. Dressed in jeans, boots, a cowboy hat, and a sheepskin coat, he was the quintessential mountain rancher. Give him five years and women would be swooning all over him. Not that the teens at school weren’t doing it already.

At that point, Hope got an unwelcome surprise. Instead of three horses saddled for riding, there were four. Wade wasn’t the only person waiting at the stables.

Lucca Romano leaned against the stable door, his arms folded casually, a faintly satisfied grin on his face. Wade said, “Welcome to Storm Mountain, Ms. Montgomery.”

“Thank you, Wade.” She introduced the boy and Daniel, and while Daniel asked the young man a few questions about riding, she turned to Lucca. “Well, this is … unexpected.”

“I was at the gym working with Wade when you called. He invited me to tag along.”

After you made it impossible for him not to do so, I’m sure.

“I told him you wouldn’t care.”

Keeping her voice lowered, she said, “You were wrong. You should have asked me, Lucca.”

“When? The guy hasn’t left your side since he arrived two nights ago. Emphasis on the word ‘nights.’”

She folded her arms. “Tell me you don’t think I’m sleeping with him.”