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
