“You’re damned right it’s enough.”
Hope’s heart bled from the wounds his words caused. “I would never try to replace Holly, Mark.”
“Really? Looks like you’ve made a good start. Looks like you’re working at replacing our whole family. Pretty little house with a dog in a pretty little town. Postcard picturesque. Kids don’t end up on milk cartons here, do they? Well, until now.” He glared at Hope. “Give it time. Hope may need to get her nails done and leave your baby with the stranger next door.”
Lucca set down his groceries and walked toward Mark. “You need to leave now.”
“I’ll go when I’m damned good and ready to go. She’s not worth the heartache, you know. You can’t believe a word she says. I’ll bet she told you that she loved you, right? That this baby means everything. That it’s her whole world, right? It’s lies. All lies.”
Lucca grabbed him by the arm and began to push him toward the door. But even though Lucca was taller, Mark still had an athlete’s build. He planted his feet and pulled away. “Don’t you get it, man? She’s poison. Damaged goods. And I’ll be damned if I let her do it to another child. Even if it isn’t mine. She has no business being a mother. She doesn’t deserve it.”
“Shut up, Montgomery,” Lucca snapped, his eyes glowing with fury. “I’m sorry about Holly, but you have no right—”
“I have no right? I have no right? Buddy, you don’t know the first thing about my rights! I had a right to see my little girl grow up. I had a right to see her at dance recitals and playing softball. I had a right to see her in a cap and gown becoming whatever she wanted to be. I, by God, had a right to walk her down the aisle when she got married!”
“I know, man,” Lucca said. “I’m sorry. But—”
“That woman … the one you think you’re in love with now … she took all of that from me. All of it. And now she’s got it all back. It’s not fair. It’s just not right!”
“No,” Hope said, having gone as cold as the Colorado winter inside. “It’s not fair. It’s not right.”
Mark appeared depleted as he said to Lucca, “I almost feel sorry for you, hooked up to the likes of her.” Turning toward Hope, he added, “You go on and build your new little replacement family, Hope. You just go on and make new babies to replace the one you lost. But think about this. You will never, ever be able to replace my Holly. She was perfect. The only good thing you ever did. I can’t believe I’m going to say this, but maybe wherever she is, perhaps it really is better than being with such a sad, sorry excuse for a mother.”
His words hung in the air, numbing Hope.
Lucca went at him again, but this time, Mark was finished. He left the house without another word or a look back.
Shaken, Hope sank into her rocker. Nausea roiled in her stomach. She felt as if she’d been hit by a truck, and she started to tremble. Lucca put a hand on her shoulder, offering her support. He looked worried and upset and angry as he asked, “You okay?”
“Sure. Just peachy.” Actually, “raw” was probably a better word.
She shook off Lucca’s hand. She didn’t want him touching her. She didn’t want him to be here. She had maybe ten seconds before she started bawling, and she didn’t want him around to witness it. Not today. Not when she was shaking and hearing Mark’s voice saying “Maybe she’s better off where she is.”
“I think you’d better leave, too, Lucca.”
“No,” he told her calmly. “I’m not going to do that.”
Hope didn’t know why his refusal to leave rubbed her the wrong way, but in an instant, her temper flared hot. She rose to her feet. “Yes, you are. I can’t rehash this, Lucca. I can’t take any more. I want to be alone. I need to be alone.”
“No, you don’t need to be alone.”
“You don’t know what I need, Lucca Romano.”
Now his tone sharpened. “Yes, I do. I know you need to not let your ex pull your string.”
“‘Pull my string’? Really? You think my heartache is a ‘string’? The man I once loved just came into my home and said the most vile things to me. Vile, but true. I did destroy him. Did you see him? Did you see the pain I caused?”
“Still, he shouldn’t have said—”
“Why not? It’s true!” she exploded. “It’s all true. Every single word. I did wreck our family. He was out working hard to put food on the table and what did I do? I decided I had to get my hair done. Now I have to live with that every day for the rest of my life.”
“You didn’t do anything wrong, Hope. You did what a million other women do. You didn’t know. You couldn’t have known. He shouldn’t blame you, and you can’t blame yourself. It wasn’t your fault.”
“It was, Lucca. At the end of the day, I have no one to blame but myself. I did it. I left her. I was the one who left her. No one else is to blame for that”—she started to sob—“that mistake. Just … me.”
He reached for her, attempting to touch her. “Calm down, Hope. Don’t get overwrought. It’s not good for the baby.”
It was the absolute worst thing he could have said.
She jerked away from him. “Of course you need to say that. I need to think about taking care of the baby, right? Because I can’t think to do it on my own. I’m incapable. I don’t have sense enough to know that being an emotional wreck is bad for the baby. But that’s what I do. That’s what Mark warned you about. I destroy children. My daughter is missing, maybe even dead, and now my overwrought emotions will probably give this baby a birth defect. Mark is right. Children are better off without me.”
Lucca’s chest lifted as he filled his lungs with air. “Dammit, Hope.”
“I asked you to leave, Lucca. This is my house, not yours.”
“Fine. I’ll go. You’re obviously not in the right frame of mind to discuss this rationally.”
He turned and headed for the door, wrenching it open. In the threshold he paused and glanced over his shoulder. “Don’t forget what you learned at the driving lesson, Hope. You lose control, you cede the power. Don’t do that to either one of us.”
With that, Lucca walked out.
EIGHTEEN
Christmas lights twinkled in windows along Spruce Street as Lucca drove his friend James and his brother Tony—a surprise visitor to the day’s game—to Murphy’s Pub to have a beer following the Grizzlies’ win. His mood was such that if any movie people were around casting for a remake of
James and Tony shared an amused look. “Trouble in paradise?” the scout asked. “I sensed a little tension between you and the head coach.”
“Tension?” Tony drawled. “It was chillier inside the gym than it is outside. What happened?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.” Lucca scowled as he pulled into a parking place across the street from the pub. “How can she go from strong and stable to bat-shit crazy in the space of a few minutes?”
“I thought you didn’t want to talk about it,” Tony said.
“I don’t.”
“Then why do you keep asking questions?”
“I don’t know. Because I’m just as crazy as she is.”
“Speaking of crazy,” James said. “Who was that woman who stopped you on the way out of the gym? The older one with angel earrings? She sounded like a fortune-teller. What was it she said to you?”
“Celeste Blessing. She is our local … well … I don’t know how to describe her. Our wise woman, maybe. Our angel. She told me she’d had a dream about me and Hope last night, and that when she woke up, she knew she had to tell me to hold on to my patience and listen to my instincts.”
“Nothing wrong with that advice,” Tony said as they exited the vehicle. “Sounds like something Mom would
