Heartache Falls
Authors: Emily March
Tags: #Fiction, #Romance, #Contemporary, #General, #Contemporary Women
A
NGER AND DESPAIR
swirled inside her, and she blurted out the question. “Did you sleep well on the couch?”
His shoulders subtly stiffened as he belted his robe. He hung up his wet trunks, then turned and reached again for his coffee. He stared down at the mug and spoke with an apology in his tone. “No, I didn’t. I intended to come up, but then time got away from me. I didn’t want to disturb you.”
She clamped her teeth against a sarcastic
How considerate of you, dear
. She was supposed to be making an effort here. “What were you working on?”
“Just reading a brief.” He avoided her gaze and drank deeply from his mug, then crossed to the refrigerator. Opening the door, he gazed inside. “I think I’ll have an omelet this morning. Would you like me to make one for you, too?”
Ali froze. Had he really asked that? She couldn’t eat eggs; she’d never been able to eat eggs. They gave her a horrible stomachache. Mac darn well knew that.
Hurt sliced through her, a sharp, deep pain that lodged right beneath her breastbone. Ali shut her eyes, shivered, and shriveled. He knew eggs made her ill, but he simply didn’t think, not about her, not anymore. She was of no more consequence to Mac Timberlake than the puddles of water he’d left pooled on the laundry room floor.
ALSO BY EMILY MARCH
Angel’s Rest
Hummingbird Lake
Heartache Falls
is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
A Ballantine Books Mass Market Original
Copyright © 2011 by Geralyn Dawson Williams
Excerpt from
Lover’s Leap
by Emily March copyright © 2011 by Geralyn Dawson Williams
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
BALLANTINE and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
This book contains an excerpt from the forthcoming book
Lover’s Leap
by Emily March. This excerpt has been set for this edition only and may not reflect the content of the forthcoming edition.
eISBN: 978-0-345-51839-2
Cover design: Lynn Andreozzi
Cover illustration: Robert Steele
v3.1
For Mary Lou
Sisters, sisters …
Thanks for going with me to Eternity Springs. Next time, I’ll drive over the mountain pass if we hit a thunderstorm, though I still have dibs on being Louise. You’re Thelma.
Love seems the swiftest, but it is the slowest of all growths. No man or woman really knows what perfect love is until they have been married a quarter of a century
.
—M
ARK
T
WAIN
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
PROLOGUE
Byron R. White Federal Courthouse
Denver, Colorado
“So help me God.”
Lowering his right hand, Mackenzie S. Timberlake shook the hand of the chief justice, who had just sworn him in as the newest member of the United States District Court for the District of Colorado.
“Congratulations, Judge Timberlake,” the chief justice said. “We’re glad to have you aboard, Mac.”
“Thank you, sir. I’m honored. I look forward to working with you.”
He turned to his wife, Ali, who held the family Bible against her chest, and they exchanged a quick hug. “I’m so proud of you, Mac,” she murmured. “Congratulations.”
“Thanks, honey.” Then, as he turned to face the witnesses in the courtroom—his colleagues, his friends, and especially his family—his heart swelled with emotion as they broke into applause.
This grand and glorious moment was the culmination of a long-cherished dream. It was almost surreal.
His gaze fell on his longtime secretary, Louise, whose maternal smile beamed with pride and approval,
then to his former law partners, then to Charles Cavanaugh, his mentor from the very beginnings of his legal career. Charles was also his father-in-law and the only father figure Mac had ever known. Meeting his gaze, Charles nodded once, a regal bow of his head. Pride rose within Mac. Having this man’s approval meant the world to him.
Next Mac met the warm gazes of the young adults who were his children. The pride in Stephen’s and Chase’s eyes made him feel ten feet tall. The hero worship in Caitlin’s reassured him that even though his little girl was almost all grown up, her daddy was still her prince.
Finally he turned back to Ali. In her eyes, he saw … everything. Pride, respect, encouragement, admiration, love. Always love. Classically beautiful, outrageously generous, and infinitely supportive, for more than twenty years she’d been his wife, his lover, his biggest cheerleader. She was his heart.
I am blessed
.
Tradition required that he give a bit of a speech, but Mac kept his remarks short and limited them primarily to expressions of thanks and appreciation to those who had assisted him along this journey. He accepted handshakes and hugs, verbal jabs and kisses until slowly his guests departed for the reception to be hosted by his father-in-law at the Brown Palace Hotel. As the crowd flowed through the doors and out into the hall, Mac hung back. Once the courtroom had emptied, he paused and turned around.
Mac drew in a deep breath, then slowly exhaled. A courtroom.
My courtroom
.
He thought back to the day he’d had his first look
at a courtroom. Nine years old and scared to death. The public defender smelled of grilled onions. The prosecutor wore gold cuff links with stones that winked in the sunlight beaming through a dusty window. The courtroom was muggy and hot, the air-conditioning system unable to keep up on an August afternoon in southern Oklahoma.
Towering above him, his robe black as midnight and his hair white as snow, was the judge. The judge could make his mother do something. The judge could make sure his mom
didn’t
do something. This was a man who would change Mac’s world.
A man who held all the power.
To the nine-year-old boy who’d watched the huge, white-haired man bang his gavel and have his mother handcuffed and marched away, the judge was a god. In that moment, Mac’s life path had been blazed. He wanted that power, that prestige, that authority. He wanted to be a god.
He wanted to be a judge.
And now, after decades of study and sacrifice, hard work and determination, he’d achieved his goal.
From behind him, Ali spoke. “Mac? The cab is waiting.”
Turning to look at her, his heart gave a twist and his conscience whispered,
But at what cost?
ONE
Two years later
In the bedroom she shared with her husband, Ali Timberlake tucked her makeup case neatly into her suitcase, then zipped it shut just as her husband emerged from his closet, a duffel bag in one hand. “Are you sure about this, honey?” Mac asked, his brow knitted with concern. “We can still change the plan.”
“Right,” Ali replied, her tone dry. “And for the rest of my life I’ll get to listen to Stephen and Chase talk about the one that got away.”
“Hey, we can go fishing in Alaska another—”
Ali interrupted. “No, it’s okay. I’m glad you’re getting to go. It’s a minor miracle that your schedule and those of the boys meshed this time. If Caitlin wanted you with her, that would be different, but she’s flexing her wings and feeling independent and ready to take on Vanderbilt University.”
Her lips twisted as she added, “Frankly, I’m not sure she really wants
me
to go with her to Nashville. We haven’t exactly been getting along very well lately.”
Her husband tossed his duffel onto their bed, then
gave Ali a rueful look. “She did tell me you packed her toothbrush three days ago. She thinks you can’t wait for her to go.”
“After the way she’s been acting lately, can you blame me?”
“Now, sweetheart.”
“Oh, I know.” Ali shrugged and waved her hand in a dismissive gesture. “She’s emotional. I’m emotional. It’s not every day that your youngest child and only daughter goes off to college for the first time.”
“Exactly.” Mac grimaced and rubbed the back of his neck. “That’s why I think I should be there. The boys could go to Alaska without me. No reason why they couldn’t.”
He truly appeared torn, so Ali swallowed her own misgivings and pasted on a smile. “Actually, there is. This is a father-son trip. You can’t very well have a father-son trip if the father is a no-show. You went with me and Cait to orientation, and that was the important trip. This will be fun for me and Caitlin. An August road trip. A mother-daughter adventure. We’ll do just fine.”
He gave her a long, searching look, then nodded. “Okay. If you’re sure.”
“I’m sure.” She smiled with a brightness she didn’t feel. “Now I’d better get downstairs and see to breakfast.”
“Leave your suitcase. I’ll carry it down when I come.”
“Thanks.”
Ali tried to shake off her melancholy as she made her way downstairs to prepare a meal for her family. She wanted today’s breakfast to be extra special since
this was Caitlin’s big day, the day she flew out of the nest and off to college. It was also the first time in months that the entire family would sit down to a meal together and likely the last meal they’d all share until Thanksgiving.
Throughout the children’s lives, Ali had made the family supper a big deal. It was the Timberlake family together time, and everyone was expected to make a real effort to be there. Since Mac had worked at her father’s firm while the kids were growing up, she had invoked the boss’s daughter privilege in that respect alone. Mac had rarely missed dinner with the family. That had changed since he took the seat on the bench, but by then the crucial years were behind them, the precedent had been set. Their family was stronger because of it.
After today, family meals would be few and far between.
Ali briefly closed her eyes.
Don’t go there
.
She’d have the kids set the table in the dining room and make it a celebration. Maybe even use her mother’s china. The kids would complain about having to hand-wash the dishes, but if you didn’t go to the trouble to make an occasion an occasion, it became just one more meal in a lifetime of meals.