Heartache Falls (25 page)

Ali first heard the news about yesterday’s shooting when Gabe Callahan stopped her as she walked to her car following the stupid meeting with the egotistical Californian and observed, “After that excitement yesterday, I bet your husband avoids deli lunches for a while.”

Ali smiled up at him. “What excitement yesterday?”

Callahan’s eyes widened, then narrowed. “Let me guess. You didn’t watch the news last night or this morning?”

“No, I didn’t,” she said warily.

He briefly summarized the incident, then added, “I guess Judge Timberlake took it all in stride if he didn’t mention it to you.”

Ali recalled the chaos of her day yesterday. “Mac and I played phone tag.” She swallowed hard. “I haven’t spoken to him.”

Later, she didn’t recall what she’d said to Gabe as she hurried to the carriage house and her phone. She dialed Mac’s cell. The call went straight to voice mail.

Next she called his office. Mac was in court, but Louise caught her up on the frightening events.
“Please ask him to call me as soon as he’s able,” Ali requested. “I just learned about the shooting, and I’m desperate to talk to him. I’ll be on my cell. I’m leaving Eternity Springs now.”

“Of course.”

As the minutes and then hours passed, her cell phone remained stubbornly silent. She told herself not to be surprised that Mac didn’t call during the morning hours, but when time for the Big Brothers/Big Sisters luncheon came and went without a return call, her stomach sank. She knew her husband. He was angry.

The last two hours of her trip home passed in alternating bouts of guilt and defensiveness. When the guilt controlled her, she imagined how he’d reacted during and after the attack. Mac would have been stoic, reassuring to everyone around him, outwardly calm, cool, and collected. But in his heart, he would have wanted her to fuss over him.

In more than twenty years of marriage and forty years of daughterhood, she’d learned that no matter a man’s age, his inner boy never entirely disappeared. The inner boy never outgrew his need for being mothered.

Since Mac hadn’t returned her call, Ali knew his inner boy was probably pouting.

That thought jolted her into a defensive state of mind. If the man had wanted her to fuss, he should have let her know that something fuss-about-able had occurred. How unfair of him to assume she remained tethered to news outlets while she was working! Would it have hurt him to meet her halfway? Why
couldn’t he have called and said, “Hello, honey. An insane man took a potshot at me today”? Was doing so asking too much? Really?

And why hadn’t the children called? Not one of them? That made no sense whatsoever—unless he’d told them not to bother her. Had it been some sort of stupid test?

The jerk. Mac Timberlake needed to grow up. He shouldn’t expect her to read his mind any more than he should expect her to tune into the news 24/7. All he needed to do was to place a call and tell her something had happened, and she’d have cancelled the meeting and hit the road within minutes. She might put her job for Celeste ahead of Big Brothers/Big Sisters, but her family always came first. Mac should know that.

He knew that until you left him to live in Eternity Springs
.

At that, Ali shifted back into guilt mode and continued her drive. Approaching Denver, she placed another call to Mac’s office. Reaching Louise, she said, “It’s Ali again. Is he still in court?”

After a moment’s pause, Louise said, “Let me see if he is available.”

Well
. Ali’s mouth tightened into a grim smile. That told her he wasn’t in court and that he darn well could have returned her phone calls but had chosen not to do so. Steaming, she briefly considered hanging up, but decided against replying to childishness with childishness. No matter the provocation.

Louise came back on the line and said, “Ali, he asked me to tell you he’s in a meeting and will see you at home this evening.”

Fine. Just fine
. She forced a cheery note into her voice and said, “Thanks, Louise. You have a nice afternoon.”

Upon reaching home, she greeted the dog, gave him extra treats from the dog treat jar, then went upstairs to her bedroom, where she took a shower, fixed her hair, and reapplied her makeup. Like any woman going into battle, Ali wanted to look her best.

When Mac saw Ali’s car in the garage, he pursed his lips and blew a slow, silent whistle of relief. He hadn’t really expected her to run back to the mountains just because he didn’t return her phone calls, but Ali had surprised him more than once this past year or so. He was glad to find her home. The time had come for them to hash a few things out.

Unfortunately, he wasn’t in any better mood for this today than he’d been yesterday. Nobody had taken a shot at him today—not physically, anyway—but prosecutors on a tax case had annoyed him by asking for a continuance when they should have known better, and then the clerk had thrown the high-heat fastball directly at Mac’s head by assigning him the Hutchinson trial, a
Denver Post
reporter’s wrongful-termination case that was bound to be yet another high-profile circus. It was exactly the kind of case Mac didn’t want and didn’t think he should have. He had expected that he and his colleagues would share the wealth regarding high-profile cases. His docket was as full as those of the other judges. Why did he get all the fun?

As Mac whipped the Porsche into the driveway and
parked behind Ali’s car, he lectured himself to accept this as part and parcel of the job—a job he’d wanted since childhood. He’d set his sights on a judgeship and he’d worked hard and he’d earned it.

In his mind’s eye, a memory rose of Ali lecturing a crestfallen high school freshman who had learned that the varsity tennis team slot he’d won meant he no longer had time for guitar lessons. “The lesson here, Stephen, is to be careful what you wish for.”

He switched off the engine and sat for a moment, his eyes closed, wondering why he was so unhappy. Was it the job? Was it Ali? Was it their marriage or the fact that she acted like a part-time wife?

Mac let out a sigh and grumbled, “All of the above.”

He opened the door and exited the car, pocketing his keys. Then he walked to the kitchen door and stepped inside hoping to detect the unmistakable aroma of Ali’s homemade red sauce, which would mean that she’d felt compelled to concoct a peace offering. Instead, all he smelled was pine-scented cleaner.

When Ali felt guilty, she cooked. When she was ticked off, she cleaned.

“Great,” he muttered. “Just great.”

He hung up his jacket and yanked the knot from his tie, then carried his briefcase toward his office. Down the hallway from it, he heard Ali say, “You’re a doll, Zach. Thank you so much. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

The sheriff again. It was one too many annoyances on top of a day, a week, overflowing with them. His
mouth set in a tight frown, Mac stepped into his office and saw that the contents of his bookshelves were scattered around the room. Ali stood on top of a stepstool dressed in running shorts and a scoop-necked hot-pink T-shirt. She held a dust rag in her right hand while with her left she lowered her cell phone from her ear. With the usual spot for his briefcase now occupied with books, he set the case down on the wood floor. Hard.

She looked around. “Oh, Mac, I didn’t hear you come in.”

“You were on the phone,” he replied.

She slipped her cell phone in her pocket. “I have a few last things to coordinate for the reception for Sage tomorrow.”

Oh, yeah
. One of her friends—the artist—had been invited to speak at the Denver Art Museum, and a bunch of people from Eternity Springs planned to attend. Ali had offered to host a reception for her afterward. He’d forgotten all about it.

He waited, expecting her to descend the stool and cross the room to greet him with a kiss like she’d been doing each evening since their reconciliation. Instead, she wiped a bookshelf with her dust rag and remained perched on her step stool.

Mac was annoyed. He recognized that his behavior was childish, but recognizing it didn’t seem to change anything, and that simply annoyed him even more. He scowled at the mess in his office. “Why didn’t you have the service do all this?”

She visibly bristled, lifting her chin and squaring her shoulders. He noted that her makeup was perfect.
“We’re having guests in tomorrow,” she said. “I wanted it done right.”

We
aren’t having guests
. She’s
having guests
. Those people were part of her life, not their life together.

The tension in the room was palpable, and as his own temper built, Mac decided a swim was in order before he opened his mouth and said something he shouldn’t. “I need a swim,” he stated flatly, then turned and left before she could say anything more.

He took the stairs two at a time, changed clothes quickly, and dove into the pool a few minutes later. He swam hard, taking out his anger and frustration on the water until his sixth lap, when something hit the water in the shallow end in front of him. Mac halted in midstroke and pulled up, his feet finding the bottom of the pool. He blinked the water from his eyes, thinking he must be imagining things. “Ali?”

She’d jumped into the pool. Wearing her clothes. When he said her name, she drew back her arm and sent a big splash of water flying at his face. “Damn you, Mac Timberlake. You should have called me. Why didn’t you call me? Some maniac takes a shot at you and you let me hear about it from somebody else!”

Mac’s chin fell until another splash of water had him snapping his mouth shut.

“Why, Mac?” She beat the water again. “Why didn’t you call me?”

As he shut his eyes against the wash of water, his temper and frustration swelled to a breaking point. He would never, ever hit his wife, but here she was in his pool, interrupting his swim, splashing water at his
face. She’d chosen this battlefield, and it was one that allowed him to slip free of the tight tethers of control.

So he splashed her back. “Because I wanted you to call me, Alison. I wanted you to care. I wanted you to be here where I needed you, when I needed you!”

“You should have called me!” She splashed the water with both hands.

“You should have been here!” he fired back, moving toward her.

She swiped her hand across her face, wiping water from her eyes. “I’m sorry that I wasn’t here when you needed me, Mac. I called the moment I heard and you didn’t answer. You wouldn’t call me back. Since when does a federal judge act like an eight-year-old boy?”

“An eight-year-old? Really?” He smiled then, showing her lots of teeth, and he wondered if she just might hear the theme song to the movie
Jaws
in the background. “Okay.”

He let his knees go soft, dropped beneath the surface, grabbed for her legs and tugged her beneath the surface. When she bobbed up, he put his hands on her shoulders and shoved her underwater once more. Then he stepped back, folded his arms, and waited.

She launched herself at him like a rocket. Mac fell back a step as she wriggled and wrestled and grappled and grasped. The woman was slippery as a fish and hissing like a kitten. Holding her was heavenly.

Mac wrapped her in his embrace and held her tight. “Ah, Ali. Don’t.” Then he spoke the two most powerful words in any language. “I’m sorry.”

She melted against him and began to cry. Mac kissed away her tears, whispered for her to hush, told
her that he loved her, that he was sorry he’d hurt her, that he was sorry for being an ass. Ali responded by saying that she was sorry, too, that she wished she’d been here for him, that hearing about the shooting had frightened her to death. She gave him the attention he’d craved yesterday, and her sobs soothed his soul. Admitting that made him feel like a world-class ass. Or an eight-year-old.

Wanting to rid himself of the eight-year-old boy inside him, he gave himself over to the forty-four-year-old man and turned his attention to making love to his wet and oh-so-sexy wife. He always enjoyed makeup sex. And pool sex … well, it had been way too long.

At first when she wriggled away from him, he thought she was playing. Then he tuned into what she was saying. “No. I’m not doing this. Not now, like this. I’m not ready for makeup sex because I’m not ready to make up. I’m sorry I hurt you, but Mac, I’m so mad at you!”

Disappointment morphed into confusion. “Me! How is this my fault? I’m the one who was shot at.”

“That’s right. You were. And somehow the problem became my fault. Because I have a job and jobs are your territory, aren’t they?”

“What does that mean?” And where had the “I’m sorry” disappeared to?

“It means every decision in our family, in our marriage, has revolved around your career. Where we’re going to live, who our friends are, even what schools the kids attended. Now that I’ve found something worthwhile and fulfilling, you can’t stand it.”

“That’s bull. Helping Celeste sell that restaurant to
outsiders who think reality TV is real life isn’t something you find fulfilling. You don’t like what’s happening with the restaurant. You don’t like those Hollywood people any more than I do. You should have cancelled that meeting and come to the luncheon with me.”

“Well, you should have called me yesterday. It was ridiculous for you to assume I’d see the news, and selfish and childish for you to wait for me to call you, and just plain mean to ignore me when I did call. Bet you thought I’d be wallowing in guilt because I wasn’t there to comfort and mother you. Bet you thought you’d find me in the kitchen cooking marinara, didn’t you? Because once again, like always, everything is always about you. My wishes and desires are inconsequential compared to yours. You don’t take me seriously, Mackenzie Timberlake. You never have. And another thing. Did you tell the kids not to bother me with the news?” She must have read the guilt on his face because her eyes glittered with triumph. “I knew it.”

“Fine.” Mac folded his arms across his chest. “I should have called. My bad. But don’t try to lay all the blame on me. How many counseling sessions have we had? Hmm? That would be one, wouldn’t it? And whose schedule is the reason for that?”