Hustle Me (Bank Shot Romance #1)(38)
Author: Jennifer Foor

I got halfway up the driveway before my now aging mother came running out of the door. She grabbed both of my arms and looked me right in the eye. "I thought I would never see you again."

"Mom, I’m so sorry for staying away from you." I kissed her head and held my lips there for a moment. She still smelled the same as I remembered. I felt horrible for staying away from her, when the only thing she was guilty of was supporting her husband. "I’m here now."

"Come inside, son. Come tell me what you’ve been up to for the last six years."

For the next twenty or so minutes, she sat across from me, just staring. I finally cleared my throat and leaned in closer to her. "Mom, I hate to come in and start asking you questions, but I need some answers and you’re the only person that can help me."

She reached over and grabbed my hand. "John, are you in some kind of trouble?"

"No, of course not." I pulled the picture out of my wallet and slid it across the coffee table. "Who are these people you’re with?"

She looked shocked as she stared at the old picture. "Where did you get this?"

"It doesn’t matter right now. I need to know how you and dad know that man."

She shook her head and traced the people in the picture. "Joe and Charlotte McNally. Your father and Joe were best friends in high school. I guess you were too young to remember him. Back before you were born, we spent all of our time together. Joe was very good at billiards and we would travel with him to some of his events. Where did you find this?"

"How come I never met him?"

"Joe and your father had a falling out. I guess you were about four or five. I only remember because you were crazy about his daughter and you actually cried when they moved away." My stomach dropped. I heard what she said, but I didn’t want to believe it.

"A daughter? I don’t remember."

My mother stood up. "Stay here. I’ll be right back."

I considered that she’d gone upstairs to call my father and tell him I was at the house, but she came back down with a box in her hand. She sat it on the table and started sorting through it. After a few minutes, she handed me a picture. "That’s you and their daughter, Charlene. You were three when she was born. It was cute because you couldn’t say her name, so you called her…"

"Lena. I called her my Lena." Oh my God this couldn’t be happening to me. I sat there staring at a picture of Charlie sitting on my lap when we were just little kids.

On top of hiding my identity from Charlie, now there was this whole other thing that I had to tell her.

She handed me another picture of Charlie and I playing in the snow. "You were so cute with her. I remember you used to say that when you grew up you were going to marry your Lena. I often wonder what happened to that poor child."

I looked up at my mom and pretended that I didn’t know where Charlie was. "What do you mean?"

"There is a reason that we stopped talking to them. Your father would be best to explain it."

I grabbed her hand. "Mom, I’m asking you."

"When your father and I first started the business, he and Joe were still the best of friends. They did everything together, including going on long trips where Joe would play in billiards tournaments. I guess while they were away, Charlotte met someone else. She started having an affair and after a while, it was obvious that her heart wasn’t in her marriage. Joe threw himself into playing pool and hanging out at bars all night long. The problem was, the more he drank, the more the liquor changed him. One night Joe came home and caught his wife with the other man. They had a heated fight on the front lawn and Charlotte called the police. Joe tried to take his daughter, because he knew that Charlotte would keep him from seeing her. Charlotte fought with him and Joe hit her to try to get to his daughter. Unfortunately, the cops came and took him away. While he was locked up for the night, Charlotte took her daughter and left town. Joe was never the same after that night. He drank from the time he woke up, until the time he passed out somewhere. Your father and I tried to help him, but his drunk driving was too out of control. He hit someone and killed them and they sent him straight to jail. We hired a lawyer and tried to get his time reduced, but the judge wasn’t the kind to be lenient on drunk drivers. He got ten years. In that time, his wife filed for a divorce and got remarried. Joe felt so bad about taking another person’s life that he signed over parental rights of his daughter. The saddest part about it was that just a few years later Charlotte and her daughter were killed in a house fire."

I looked up at my mother. She didn’t know Charlie survived the fire. Would she have adopted her into our family if she knew? I couldn’t believe all of this happened while I was a child. "So what happened between Joe and dad?"

She sat another picture down on the table. "When Joe got out of jail all he had were the clothes on his back. Your father took him and gave him a job, but Joe wanted to buy back his father’s tavern. Your father lent him the money to do it. It had been a foreclosure, so it wasn’t that expensive for a business. Your father’s only stipulation was that he be part business owner with Joe. Unfortunately, when Joe’s business started doing well, he went to an attorney and somehow had your dads name removed. As far as I know that was the reason they stopped being friends. To tell you the truth, the last time I’d seen Joe, he seemed to really have turned his life around. So tell me, John, where did you get that picture? Did you meet Joe?"

"It doesn’t matter. Where can I find dad?"

"He’s in Atlantic City for the weekend. Some big investors are looking into a strip mall and your father wants to lease out the buildings."

I stood up. "Mom, I can’t stay. I promise I will come back and visit with you. I just have to go."

"John, please, I’ve waited six years to see you and you come in asking about someone that I haven’t seen in a very long time. What is going on?"

My mother deserved some kind of explanation. "How much do you know about dad’s business?"

"We have several businesses."

I put my hands in the air. "Mom, I’m not a kid anymore. I know what dad does behind closed doors."

She shook her head and started to cry. I wasn’t going to feel sorry for her, not after all of these years. "You can cry all you want, but it isn’t going to change the fact that your husband is trying to throw a girl and her brother out on the streets over some kind of old vendetta. When he calls, you tell him I’m looking for him. It’s about time I tell good old dad where he can shove his f**king wallet."