Heartache Falls Part 5

"How can we fix it if we don't know what's wrong?" she fired back, a bite in her tone. "Unless you've had a great revelation in the past nine hours. For instance, have you figured out why you can't find your way to our bed at night?"

Maybe because it's the coldest place on earth. Mac set down his drink, closed his eyes, and rubbed his forehead. "This isn't helping anything."

He sensed, rather than heard, her sigh. "The governor's dinner is in a few weeks. Perhaps it would be best if we didn't speak again until then. I'm angry, Mac. I need some time to cool off."

"Well, fine. That works for me. I just wanted to know the plan." He hung up without saying goodbye and sat staring at the phone, feeling as lost and alone as he had the day he walked into the first of his foster homes.

Mac didn't hear his son enter the room and approach him. It wasn't until Chase's hand gripped his shoulder that Mac's thoughts returned to the present.

"C'mon, Dad," his son softly said. "Let's go for that drive. You might want to get a sweater, though. That is too sweet a car not to break it in as a convertible. We're going topless."

Topless. The memory of an anniversary trip to St. Barts and a beautiful but bashful Ali flashed through his mind, and he grimaced. Not since that day in an Oklahoma courtroom had he felt this powerless. To borrow his son's vernacular, this sucked.

Totally.

FOUR.

Exhausted, heartsick, and dehydrated from shedding an ocean of tears, Ali went straight to bed upon her arrival at the Angel's Rest carriage house in Eternity Springs. For the next week she rarely left it.

As a rule, she wasn't one to lie around feeling sorry for herself, but this time she had no energy for anything more. She slept, then slept some more. When she woke up, she'd stumble to the bathroom, then return to bed and fall back to sleep. Sometimes she'd managed to make her way downstairs to the kitchen, where she scrounged for coffee and choked down a couple of handfuls of dry cereal from the box, but she ate because she felt she should eat rather than to sate an appet.i.te. She didn't have an appet.i.te. All she wanted to do was sleep, although the nearly constant ringing of her phone made that difficult.

Each of her children called-again and again and again. She didn't pick up the phone, but she did, finally, send them each a text message rea.s.suring them of her health and asking them to lay off the phone for a bit. Her father called, and since she didn't have the gumption to talk to him, either, she waited until a time when she knew he wouldn't be home to phone and leave a message on his machine.

Mac did not call.

Finally around noon, a week to the day following her arrival in Eternity Springs, she awoke with enough energy to thumb the b.u.t.ton on the television remote and caught part of a local newscast out of Denver. She paid more attention to the anchorwoman's outfit-was showing that much cleavage on a morning show really necessary?-than the news until the buxom blonde mentioned the high-profile athlete arrested for importing drugs the previous year. The Sandberg trial was set to begin on Monday, presided over by the Honorable Mackenzie S. Timberlake.

Ali sat up in bed and glared at the television set. So it was about to start. Another high-profile trial right on the heels of the first. She folded her arms as her pulse spiked for the first time in days. She'd known he'd been a.s.signed another flashy case because he'd groused about it. He'd never mentioned it was about to start. Since the Sandberg trial would consume his life for the next five or six months, you'd think he would have said something, but no. She had to hear it from the news.

Commence round two. After living through the Desai case, Ali knew that high-profile cases added an extra burden to an already difficult job. Seating a jury would be a ch.o.r.e, witness lists would be a mile long, and the media would do their best to turn the trial into a circus. Mac would spend a lot of time dotting i's and crossing t's. He had excellent clerks, but Ali knew her husband. In this case, he'd be detailed in his oversight and his ordinarily long hours would stretch into marathon days.

With the Sandberg trial looming, he most a.s.suredly wasn't lying around their bedroom today feeling sorry for himself because his marriage had imploded.

"So why am I?" she murmured.

The more she thought about it, the more annoyed she became. What in the world was she doing? She hadn't come to Eternity Springs to fall apart and feel sorry for herself. She'd come here to work. To help make the Bristlecone something special again. She should get started today. Celeste had given her the keys. She would begin by making a complete inventory of the Bristlecone's kitchen.

Actually, she should start with a shower. She really needed to start with a shower. And a toothbrush.

Twenty minutes later, clean and dressed and feeling marginally human once again, she exited the bedroom. For the first time since her arrival, she took a good look at her surroundings. On her other visits, she'd rented a room up at the main house. She liked the idea of having more s.p.a.ce during an extended stay. The remodeled Victorian carriage house truly was a darling little place, with two bedrooms and a bath upstairs plus a kitchen, a living room, and a half bath on the ground floor. The furnished rooms were tiny but welcoming. "You will be happy here," she told herself, trying hard to believe it.

She grabbed a banana and an apple from the bag of groceries she'd left on the counter upon her arrival, then stepped outside. The day was still and quiet but for the bubble and rush of the waters of Angel Creek a stone's throw away. Cool, pine-scented air swirled around her as she stepped off the porch and down into the yard. She lifted her face toward the suns.h.i.+ne, and in that moment she experienced a glimpse of the peace that she had come searching for in this valley. Surprising herself, Ali smiled.

A rumble of thunder caused her to look around. Behind her, a thundercloud was building up over Murphy Mountain. Maybe she should grab her umbrella out of her car before walking over to the Bristlecone.

She'd covered half the distance to the garage when suddenly a male voice called from behind her. "Stop. Don't go any farther."

Ali gasped a breath as she froze in midstep. Before she could manage a word, the man continued. "Sheriff's office, ma'am. A bear went into the garage a few minutes ago. We need to give her some time to find her way out."

"Oh." Surprise widened Ali's eyes. "Okay. I'll just go back inside the carriage house."

"That'll be good. I'll let you know when the coast is clear."

Ali retreated to the carriage house and stood watching the garage while she ate first her banana and then her apple. She'd seen deer in the middle of town on prior trips and heard stories of a mountain lion who had parked herself in the middle of Aspen Street one time, but she hadn't given much thought to bears. If she was going to be living here, maybe she should give the bear-sighting flyer available in the tourist office a glance.

Almost ten minutes after the sheriff stopped her, she saw a large black bear wander out of the garage, then disappear up the hill behind Angel's Rest. A moment later, a knock sounded on her door. She answered with a smile. "My hero. You saved me."

He grinned and extended his hand. "Zach Turner."

"Ali Timberlake."

They both said simultaneously, "You're Sarah Reese's friend."

Sarah was a single mom with a daughter Caitlin's age. She owned the local grocery store and was a caretaker for her mother, an Alzheimer's patient. Ali knew she had dated Zach Turner some, before they decided they worked better as friends.

He was younger than she, probably mid-to-late thirties. He wore a khaki uniform s.h.i.+rt, complete with badge, tucked into worn jeans with a handgun holstered at his hip. He had thick brown hair, a handsome, angular face, and drop-dead gorgeous blue eyes. He was definitely a s.e.xy man. Sarah, what's wrong with you?

"I saw you at Sage's wedding," Zach observed. "I got called away before the reception, so I missed the chance to actually meet you. I'm glad to have the chance to do so now."

"I'm happy to meet you, too, Zach. This is my first trip back since the wedding. I'm here to help Celeste get the Bristlecone Cafe reopened."

"Oh, yeah? That's great news. I ate there twice a week before it closed. The town needs another full-service restaurant."

"Well, our plan is to get it up and running ASAP. Celeste is convinced we'll find a cook and be able to reopen and get all the kinks worked out before the tourist season hits in force. I'm reserving judgment on that until after I've seen what I have to work with. In fact, I was on my way to grab my umbrella out of my car and walk over there when you and your furry friend stopped me."

Zach glanced up toward the sky, where the dark clouds continued to build and thunder continued to rumble. "Looks like you'll probably need that umbrella. I'll walk with you. You can tease me with more details about the new Bristlecone. Are you changing the menu?"

Ali offered up what few details she knew as she retrieved her umbrella, then headed for the Bristlecone, which was right across Angel Creek on Cottonwood. The restaurant faced the creek and offered a lovely view of a gra.s.sy slope leading down to clear, bubbling Angel Creek and, across it, the charming structures of Angel's Rest nestled between the water and forested mountain behind.

During new construction at the healing center, Celeste had ordered a footbridge to be built that offered convenient access to local businesses for healing center guests. As they neared the footbridge, Ali spied Celeste approaching from the direction of the mansion. Seeing them, the older woman waved and called, "Good morning. Isn't it a lovely day?"

Zach Turner frowned. "It's about to storm, Celeste."

"I know." The older woman beamed. "I just love thunderstorms in Eternity Springs. The echoes of thunder reverberating off the mountains are G.o.d's exclamation points."

Ali smiled at the thought, then as a particularly loud clap of thunder sounded said, "He's exclaiming a lot today. I hope you brought your umbrella."

As Celeste pulled a compact umbrella from her bag, the hair on the back of Ali's neck rose and a forked bolt of lightning flashed out of a dark cloud above them. Thunder cracked. She smelled ozone. Instinct had her diving for cover, dragging Celeste along with her.

"It hit the Bristlecone," Sheriff Turner said, grabbing the radio on his hip. He started running for the footbridge, shouting into the handset, "Fire! Fire at the Bristlecone."

"Oh dear." Celeste sighed. "I do seem to have a bit of bad luck where fires are concerned, don't I? You do know that Cavanaugh House caught fire the first year I moved here, don't you? Luckily, our wonderful volunteer fire department was able to save it and limit the damage." She clucked her tongue, then added, "I hope I have as much luck this time."

An hour later, Celeste declared herself one lucky woman. Ali wasn't certain she'd have gone that far. The Bristlecone Cafe had been saved, but damage was extensive. Gabe Callahan estimated that repairs would take months.

Ali's job had just gotten a whole lot bigger.

The summons came two weeks after Ali had left him. Mac had finished his morning swim, showered and dressed, and sat down to breakfast when his phone vibrated to announce the arrival of a text message. There were only a handful of people in this world to whose tune he jumped, but Charles Cavanaugh was one of them. The man had been his employer, his mentor, and his confidant for more than twenty years. Mac owed him more than he ever could repay. Yet when he read the message asking him to present himself at Charles's home posthaste, Mac seriously considered ignoring it. Charles might be his mentor, but he was first and foremost Ali's father.

This wasn't going to be pretty.

Mac decided to take his old pickup instead of the Porsche for this particular meeting. No sense inviting trouble.

He arrived at the Cavanaugh home in Denver to find his ordinarily dapper father-in-law dressed in dirty jeans and a chambray s.h.i.+rt, indulging in another hobby of his-backyard vegetable gardening. Mac shoved his hands into his pockets, took a bracing breath, and approached. "Lettuce is looking good."

Without looking up from the row he was weeding, Charles said, "Third row needs weeding. Hit your knees, son."

Okay, so that's the way this will be.

Respect took Mac down onto his knees, and he went to work on the weeds. The men didn't exchange a word during the next few minutes. As he tugged thin blades of gra.s.s and dandelions from the rich brown soil, Mac made mental bets with himself as to how Charles would begin this discussion. Would he bring up the firm first? The Sandberg case? Maybe ask about the kids? Or would he go straight for the jugular, asking what horrible thing Mac had done to Ali?

When Charles finally got around to talking, his choice of subject took Mac by surprise. "Alison's mother believed in family dinners. She said that having supper together as a family each night was the best thing we could do to build bonds and foster positive relations.h.i.+ps between us all."

Mac had no clue as to how he was expected to respond, so he didn't.

"I tried to continue that practice for both Alison and myself after we lost her mother, but sometimes I think she developed a stronger relations.h.i.+p with our cook than she did with me."

"Alison feels close to you," Mac protested.

"Does she?" Charles rolled back on his heels, rested his hands on his thighs, and stared directly at Mac. "Then why is she dodging my phone calls, and why do I have to learn that she is divorcing you from a secretary at the firm?"

Divorce? Mac's gut clenched. "What?"

"I guess I should be glad that I learned from Serena rather than cable news," Charles continued. "I hear your name a lot these days, since the Sandberg case is on every channel."

"You heard wrong, Charles. No one has said anything about divorce."

"Alison has left three messages on my machine in the past two weeks. She talked about a lot of things, but she never mentioned the fact that she's left Denver and you. Do I have that fact wrong?"

Mac couldn't believe this. He'd thought for sure that Alison would have called her father. In fact, he'd been counting on it. He'd thought Charles might talk some sense into the woman.

"Mackenzie?"

"We're just going through a rough spot." Mac stood and brushed the dirt from the knees of his jeans with a little more force than was necessary to get the job done. Divorce. That was nothing but law office gossip. Somebody had heard about Ali's new project and ... Mac frowned. How had anyone at the firm learned about Ali's new project? He hadn't told a soul.

"Who started the rumor at the firm? Has someone been talking to Ali?"

His father-in-law shrugged. "I believe she contacted Bob Renwick's sister. She is-"

"Ali's favorite interior designer," Mac concluded with a sigh. He'd hoped Ali would come to her senses and come home before the news got out. So much for hope.

"Who is her lawyer?" Charles asked.

The question caught Mac off guard. "Bob's sister's?"

"Alison's."

Mac's chin came up. "I'm her lawyer." When Charles chastised him with a look, he added, "She doesn't need a lawyer. Look, any talk about divorce, even legal separation, is premature."

"I suspected that would be your response. Just so you know, I've retained Walt Prentice on Alison's behalf."

Mac sucked in a quick breath. Prentice was the best divorce attorney in Denver. If Mac were in the market, Prentice was the man he'd choose. The fact that Charles had hired the lawyer for Ali didn't make him angry. It was what he'd expect-if Ali needed a divorce lawyer, which she didn't. Still, he was surprised at his own reaction to the news. He was ... hurt.

His relations.h.i.+p with Charles Cavanaugh was complicated. He figured if he ever landed on a psychiatrist's couch, the doctor would rack up big bucks on that subject alone. Since the day Ali introduced them, Mac had worked to earn Charles's approval. Then, professional interests had driven him. He'd wanted access to Charles's connections in order to land a prime clerks.h.i.+p. Later, he'd wanted a position in the firm and eventually a partners.h.i.+p.

Just when his desire to please became personal, he couldn't say, but somewhere along the way he'd developed a desire to make Charles proud. Was it because Mac had never had a father of his own in his life? Or was it due to the fact that he admired Charles more than just about any man he'd ever met? Whatever the reason, Mac had waited to hear the words I'm proud of you from Charles for more than twenty years.

It had finally happened at the reception following his swearing-in ceremony. Almost, anyway. While he'd been accepting the congratulations of family and friends, he'd overheard Charles tell the district attorney, Yes, we're proud of him.

So proud that he'd hired a divorce attorney based on office gossip.

"Fine. You do what you feel like you need to do."

"I will." Charles Cavanaugh used the hoe lying nearby for balance as he climbed to his feet. "You know, Mac, when I gave you an opportunity at the firm, my daughter asked me to refrain from inserting myself into your private life, and up until now, I have done so."

Mac couldn't hold back a snort at that. Charles Cavanaugh had never resisted the opportunity to b.u.t.t into Mac and Ali's personal life. Oh, he did it subtly, Mac would give him that, but the fact remained that the man had managed to make his opinion known on subjects as wide-ranging as where Mac and Alison should buy a house, attend church, and shop for groceries to what video games the boys were allowed to play when they were young and what brand sneakers Caitlin should wear while running.

"However," Charles continued, "in light of this recent development, I felt compelled to act. That's why I also hired a private investigator to look into your affairs."

That bit of news. .h.i.t Mac like a punch to his gut. An investigator? Holy h.e.l.l. How far back would the guy go?

Bristling with anger and a measure of fear, Mac snapped, "For G.o.d's sake, Charles. Why didn't you just call and ask me? I don't have affairs. I'm not cheating on her. I never have. You should know me better than to think that."

"I didn't know what to think, and I've been a lawyer too long to take anybody's word about anything. I wanted to know if you were running around on my girl or hiding a.s.sets, or if you had committed some other nefarious act that might damage my daughter or grandchildren if it became public knowledge."

His blood running hot, Mac folded his arms and glared at the older man. "So, tell me. Just what did your investigator learn about my ... affairs?"

Please, G.o.d, don't let him have looked all the way back.

"Apparently you don't have any, not that the investigator could find, anyway." Charles harrumphed. "It was a relief to me, I must say. I hated to think I had misjudged you so completely. I admit I had my doubts about you at first. The fact is, I resented you. You took my Ali away from me."

Mac blinked. This was as frank a talk as any he'd heard from this man, and it took him aback.

"Intellectually, I knew that was the way of it, but emotionally, I didn't handle it well. After we lost her mother, all we had were each other. I depended on her as much as she depended on me. When you came along, she began s.h.i.+fting her allegiance to you, and I didn't like it."

Mac opened his mouth, but he didn't know what to say.

His father-in-law continued, "Oh, I wanted her to marry and have children. I expected that. What I didn't antic.i.p.ate was that she'd find a man who suited her as well as you did. When the two of you became a couple, you became a unit. A unit in which I had no place. I was jealous of you. And selfish."

This shocked Mac. "Charles, I don't know what to say. I just-"