before stepping back and climbing into the rear passenger seat. “I can’t wait to tell you about my trip. At the last minute the Thurstons decided to have their beach house painted so they flew me to … guess where. You’ll never guess where.”
“You’re tan,” Hope said. “Key West?”
“The French Riviera!”
“Seriously?”
“Seriously. They took me along on their trip as the official pet sitter. I flew first class and stayed in the same resort where they were.” Gabi settled back against the car seat and released a satisfied smile. “I’ve decided what I want to be when I grow up.”
Lucca’s gaze flicked up to the rearview mirror. “Filthy rich?”
“You guessed it. But in the meantime, I’m starved. How about I buy you guys dinner? I’ve been dreaming about Mexican food all the way from Atlanta.”
“Oh, Gabriella,” Lucca whined. “We ate there for lunch. Not all that long ago.”
“Fine. I’ll buy you and Hope dinner at the Yellow Kitchen when we get home … but take me to Gloria’s first. Please?”
“What do you think?” Lucca asked Hope.
“I have room for a sopaipilla.”
As they drove back toward the center of town, Gabi chattered about her trip, though the looks she gave Hope told another story. She wanted answers. Hope suspected Gabi would be dragging her off to the ladies’ room to dish as soon as they reached the restaurant.
Maybe she should try to avoid an encounter like that. She didn’t know what she would tell her. Let her corner her brother, instead.
The downtown area bustled on this Saturday night, and Lucca drove around a bit searching for a parking spot. “Don’t worry about getting close on my account,” Gabi told her brother. “I’ve been cooped up on airplanes for too long. A walk sounds really good.”
“I’ll make the block one more time,” Lucca said. As they passed the Matterhorn, he pointed toward the empty parking spot in front of Room 110. “Looks like our biker friends have moved on. Finally.”
“You are awfully interested in some stranger’s sex life, Lucca.”
“What?” Gabi leaned forward and propped her elbows up on the seat in front of her. “What did I miss? Whose sex life?”
“I’m not interested,” Lucca replied to Hope, ignoring his sister’s questions. “I’m just making an observation.”
“Well, I observe a parking spot,” Hope said. “Up ahead two blocks on the right. It’s in front of the ice cream shop.”
Lucca goosed the gas when the signal light turned yellow and made it safely through the intersection. He executed a skillful bit of parallel parking that disgusted Hope. “It would have taken me three tries to fit this truck in that spot. You made that look too darned easy.”
“What can I say? I’m good.”
She wasn’t going to argue with that. She climbed out of the passenger seat and shut her door, then turned to Gabi. “So are you a fan of guaca …” Her voice trailed off. The color had drained from Gabi Romano’s face and she stood frozen in place, staring in shock through the plate glass window of the ice cream shop.
The biker was there. So was the short woman with those boots Hope liked so well. He was sharing his ice cream cone with her, and she was licking it lasciviously. It wasn’t until Hope heard Gabi make a strangled sound that she took a closer look at the biker, and then his babe.
“Is that … Mom?” Gabi croaked.
Having come around the back of the truck to join Hope and Gabi on the sidewalk, Lucca heard the question, spied his sister’s wounded look, and froze. His gaze went from Gabi to the shop window. It took a few beats, but Hope recognized the instant that it clicked.
Shock, betrayal, hurt, then fury. Hot, fierce, murderous fury. His fists clenched at his sides and his jaw turned to granite. Hope reacted instinctively, threading her arm through his and holding on for dear life. She didn’t care how she had to accomplish it, but she wouldn’t let this escalate into a public brawl.
Then, as if Lucca’s green eyes had shot magnetic laser beams across the distance separating him from his mother, Maggie Romano straightened on alert. She pulled her gaze away from the ice cream cone held by the biker—contractor Richard Steele, Hope now realized—and turned to gaze out the window.
She looked like a soldier on a battlefield who had caught a bullet, and staggered back. But Maggie Romano was apparently wearing Kevlar, because after that first devastating moment of stunned surprise, she squared her shoulders, lifted her chin, and silently told her adult children to go stuff themselves.
Richard Steele leaned down and licked a streak of ice cream away from the side of her mouth.
Lucca made a sound—a low, menacing growl—and Hope knew she needed to take action immediately. “Into the truck,” she ordered, shoving Lucca toward the closest door. Ordinarily, it would have been like moving a mountain, but right now he was off balance. She grabbed the keys from his hand and released the locks, then yanked open the passenger door, and demanded, “Lucca, get in. Gabi, you, too.”
She shoved him toward the opening, and blessedly, he went, taking a seat in eerie silence. Gabi remained rooted to her spot, her horrified gaze locked on her mother, so Hope repeated her action with the back passenger door and guided her friend inside.
Then, like a bat fleeing the dragon’s lair cavern, Hope drove the Montgomery siblings away from the scene of their mother’s crime.
For the first ten miles of the road back to Eternity Springs, nobody spoke. Lucca’s head was spinning. He remembered how he’d felt that time he’d come home from college unexpectedly and walked in on his parents going at it. This felt similar, but worse.
When Hope braked at a road crew flagger’s signal, Gabi emerged from her silent shock in the backseat to suggest, “Maybe it wasn’t how it looked.”
“It was exactly how it looked,” Lucca fired back.
“We can’t know that,” she insisted, denial strong in her tone.
“We can damned sure infer.” Lucca summarized the motorcycle incident for his sister.
Gabi’s shaky voice said, “Maybe it was a different motorcycle. Mom wouldn’t do that. She wouldn’t. I can’t believe this. The Matterhorn? Really?”
“Same boots.”
“You noticed Mom’s boots?”
“Yeah.” He’d thought they were sexy. Knowing now that they’d been his mother’s boots gave him the creeps.
“So you are saying our mother is having sex with her handyman.”
“Contractor, Gabriella,” he corrected. The other term was an invitation to tasteless jokes. “Tasteless” led him to recall the image of his mother’s—his
“Puts a whole new perspective on the name ‘Aspenglow,’” Gabi said glumly. “That’s it. I’m through working at her B&B. I don’t do threesomes.”
Lucca grimaced and held his head between his palms. “Please, Gabi. It’s bad enough as it is. I don’t need you to put pictures in my head.” He looked over at Hope. “Well, you haven’t said a word. What do you think about all this?”
Hope cautiously said, “At the risk of annoying you both, I feel the need to stick up for my friend. Maggie is still young. She’s vibrant. She’s unattached. You and I are unattached. Why the double standard? So what if she’s found someone she wants to be with?”
“Hope, it’s not the same.”
“Wait a minute,” Gabi said. “Did I just hear what I think I heard? You’re sleeping with Lucca? Jeez. A girl goes to the French Riviera for a few days and the world turns upside down. What’s next? You’re not going to tell me Tony has run off with a stripper, are you?”
“You didn’t just call me a stripper, did you?” Hope asked.
“No!” Mumbling, she added, “I’m having trouble processing what I saw.”
