“Your children love you, Maggie.”
“I know that. I know they want me to be happy, too. Just happy by their definition.”
“They were caught off guard.”
“To put it mildly, I suspect.” Fresh tears welled in her eyes. “I knew they wouldn’t be thrilled when they first learned that I was dating, so I had planned to introduce the subject slowly and carefully. So much for plans.” Maggie rubbed her eyes, wiping away the tears. “What I wouldn’t give to be able to go back and change things. What do I do now? I don’t know. These are my children, and I don’t have a clue what I should do.”
“What do you want to do?”
She laughed without amusement. “Run away.”
“To Austin?”
“Farther. Gabriella just returned from France. Maybe I should take the hint. Where exactly is Timbuktu?”
“Actually, Maggie, I think a strategic retreat is just what you need right now.” When her friend looked at her in surprise, Hope elaborated. “Go to Austin. Give your children some time to digest the change in your circumstances. Then when you come home, they’ll be ready to listen.”
“I’m not telling them about their father. That would be selfish of me, and it would only hurt them.”
“Then skip that part. Speak to them as adults and communicate your feelings.”
“But what if they still won’t listen? What if they continue to dodge my calls and avoid me?”
“Then pull the mom card. Call a family meeting and demand their presence. If you make attendance compulsory, they’ll show. Remember, they do love you.”
“Yes. Okay. That sounds like a plan.” Having made her decision, Maggie nodded. “I’ll go to Austin, and I won’t try to contact them. Well, except, maybe I’ll send them an email with a date, time, and place for a family meeting and tell them they’re expected to attend. If they try to contact me, well, we’ll just be taking a break. Give everyone a chance to cool down.”
“Sort of like kindergarten time-out.”
Maggie laughed. “Yes. Every one of my children has had experience with time-outs. Lucca was the worst.”
Hope glanced at her clock. Her conference period was almost over. “You’d better call Richard and tell him plans have changed again. What time is your flight?”
“Four.”
Hope winced. “You’ll be cutting it close, but I think you can still make it.”
Maggie hopped up, full of energy and purpose, and went around the desk to give Hope a big hug. “Thank you. You are such a dear friend. I know you’re Gabi’s friend, too, and now that I’m thinking clearly again, I realize I’ve put you in the middle by burdening you with some sensitive information.”
“Don’t worry about it. I’ve already forgotten seventy-five percent of what you told me.”
“God bless you, Hope Montgomery. I think you might have saved my family.” Maggie pulled her phone from her purse and hit redial.
“No. The Romanos are strong. You’re just reorienting your stars.”
“What?” But before Hope could explain, Maggie’s call connected. She waved good-bye and rushed from the classroom as she brought Richard Steele up to date.
“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.”
