Heartache Falls (5 page)

Masking his thoughts, he calmly lifted his coffee cup to his mouth for another sip, then pulled out his three aces. “What about the kids?”

At that, her eyes went big and round.
Aha—hadn’t thought of your children, had you? And you, the poster child for great motherhood
.

She grimaced and cleared her throat. “I guess I should call them.”

“I guess you should.” He’d like to eavesdrop on those conversations, hear her attempt to explain this nonsense. However, he knew good and well that those phone calls wouldn’t happen because any minute now she’d come up with an excuse to stay.

“What about the governor’s dinner?” he added, throwing her a bone. He was slated to speak at a dinner honoring the recipients of the Governor’s Award for heroics in law enforcement in a few weeks. He had two seats at the head table, and he knew Ali was looking forward to the event. “Shall I ask …” The words “a date” hovered on the tip of his tongue, but when it came time to say them, he couldn’t be that cruel. Instead, he substituted their daughter’s name. “… Caitlin to take your place?”

Ali pursed her lips. “That’s so close to the end of the semester. Cait might have trouble getting away. I
don’t want to interfere with her studies.” Then she lifted her chin and declared, “I’m not cancelling my commitments, Mac. I’ll attend the dinner.”

Well, lucky me
. He’d expected her to lob out some sort of excuse that would allow her to attend, but this particular one touched an old nerve. Same song, ten thousandth verse. He loved his children. Truly, he did. But why did their needs invariably come before his with her? “Don’t do me any favors, Alison,” he snapped. “Maybe I don’t want you there.”

He saw the blow land as she sucked in a breath. Then she tilted her chin even higher and said, “Are you asking me not to attend?”

With that, he lost patience. “Give it up, Ali. You’re not taking a job in podunk Eternity Springs. You’re not leaving.”

Her eyes went to ice. She removed her sunglasses from her shoulder bag, then slipped them on. In a voice as cold as January, she declared, “Just watch me, your honor. Just fucking watch me.”

Mac gaped at her. Had he heard right? Had his wife just dropped an
F
-bomb? His Ali? The woman never cursed. Ever! It was one of her most precious principles. And to start with that particular word? Whoa.

For the first time since she’d stormed upstairs, he wondered if she might actually leave him after all.

Needing something to do, he took another sip from his coffee mug. She gave her hair an angry toss, then strode toward the door leading to the garage. She opened it, stepped outside, then had to yank her suitcase hard when it got hung up on the threshold. She reached back into the house for the doorknob, shot
him one last furious look, and slammed the door shut.

Mac heard another shocking curse, followed by the sound of the garage door going up. He remembered then that she’d forgotten to move her car into the garage last night, leaving it parked in the center of the circular drive in front. He moved to a window that gave a view of the front yard and watched with an unusual sense of detachment. By the time she dumped her suitcase into the trunk of her BMW and slammed the lid, it was as if he was staring through window glass ten inches thick.

He saw her climb into the driver’s seat, and for some weird reason he recalled bringing Caitlin home from the hospital. When Ali started the car and pulled out of the drive, he remembered Chase pedaling his Big Wheel in that same drive. When she punched the gas and fishtailed her way down the street, he thought of the day Stephen got his driver’s license and made his first solo trip to the grocery store to buy a gallon of milk for his mom. He watched the vapor from her tailpipe evaporate on the crisp morning air. Then she turned the corner at the end of the street and was gone.

Gone. Okay. Well, good. I’m glad
.

She’d come right back.

He waited and watched the grandfather clock in the hall. Two minutes. Five. Plenty of time to drive around the block.

Mac looked out the window once again, but the street remained empty.
Okay. Well, then. Fine. Just fine
.

Mac brought his coffee mug up to his mouth.
Just fucking watch me
.

He jerked his arm back and sent the mug flying. Dark liquid splashed against butterscotch paint as the mug slammed against the wall, then fell to the tile floor and shattered. “Damn her.”

Mac stood with his fists and his teeth clenched, breathing hard. Breaking the mug wasn’t enough. He wanted to hit something, to put his fist through the wall, to break something else. His body trembled with need of it.

His gaze swept around the family room and focused on the collection of photographs that sat in crystal frames atop the baby grand piano. He was seconds away from sweeping the pictures to the floor with a violent swipe of his hand, but common sense prevailed. Just because Ali was acting like a fool didn’t mean he should.

She’d left him. He couldn’t believe she’d actually left him.

He glanced at the clock and winced. He was running late for work. But instead of shifting into overdrive with his morning ritual, he stayed in the shower long enough to drain the hot water tank, then took twice as long as usual to shave. He felt numb.

She hadn’t believed him when he claimed not to know the source of their problems, but he had told her the truth. Some difficulties in their marriage were obvious—sex being the prime example. However, their lack of sex wasn’t the problem; it was a symptom of the problem. The underlying disease was more difficult to diagnose.

It would be easy to blame it on his job. He’d worked long hours during the Desai case, and it was true he’d neglected Ali from time to time throughout, but that wasn’t anything he hadn’t done in the past when he’d had a big case. She’d always been understanding in the past. She’d seemed to be understanding this time. Yet after the Desai case ended and his overtime hours disappeared, life hadn’t returned to normal. Somehow, somewhere, they’d gone from being united to being apart.

They had little in common anymore. They hardly spoke and rarely touched—even casually, much less sexually. Maybe he shouldn’t be surprised that she intended, apparently, to physically move to the mountains. She’d been there mentally for months. It was as if sometime last fall Ali had taken up residence on the summit of a high peak surrounded by unscalable cliffs and deep snow that defeated him anytime he tried to reach her. He would lie beside her in bed, aching with want for her, sensing she wanted him, too, but knowing that the Ali he loved was beyond his grasp.

He didn’t like making love to a shell. It left him feeling as empty as she.

And angry. So freaking angry.
How dare she freeze me out. How dare she walk out!

He’d been a good husband to her. He’d been faithful. He’d been a good father to their children. He’d loved his family. He’d loved her. He didn’t deserve this.

She didn’t deserve what you did to her, either
.

Mac clenched his jaw against the old guilt that
never completely went away, despite his efforts to redeem himself. That sin was more than twenty years old. He’d done his level best to make it up to her.

Have you, really? After all, you’ve never confessed to it
.

Staring at his reflection in the bathroom mirror, he said with a sneer, “Well, I can’t do much about that now, can I? She’s left me.”

So, now what? What are you going to do about it?

“I’m going to get dressed and go to work. I have a meeting at ten.”

He strode into his bedroom and grabbed underwear from the bureau. He’d go to work and do the job he’d worked so hard to get, and maybe she’d be back by the time he came home.

Just fucking watch me
.

He sighed heavily. Or maybe not.

Standing at his closet door a few moments later, he stared at the row of suits and found himself frozen with indecision. Blue? Gray? Solid? Pinstripe? What color shirt? Which tie?

Whoa. This wasn’t like him at all. Overwhelmed. Incapable of making a simple decision. Not a good situation for a man in his line of work.

He pivoted and crossed to a telephone, called his office, and claimed a sick day—his first in more years than he could remember. He no sooner replaced the receiver in the cradle than the phone rang. Checking caller ID, he winced. Caitlin. Should he answer it or not?

Mac found this choice no more easily made than the last. Had Ali already phoned the kids? Was Caitlin calling to rag on him? Or was this simply one
of her usual, multiple daily calls to her mother? He allowed the answering machine to pick it up, then sat on the edge of the bed to listen.

“Hey, Mom. You there?” his daughter’s voice asked. “I remember you’re going shopping with Mrs. Blessing sometime today, but it’s early yet. Hello?” After a pause, she continued, “Okay, maybe you’re in the shower. Well, I’ll just talk to the machine until my bus comes—I’m on my way downtown to pick up a new tire for my bike. Some Einstein got the idea to hang all the bikes in front of the dorm in the trees overnight and when the campus cops took it down, the tire was history. Speaking of which … I got my paper back in history and made an 86, which blows because I needed an 88 to bring my grade up to an A. In more interesting developments, I met the cutest guy at the library last night. His name is Patrick and he’s a psych major. He wants to go to law school. I think … Okay, here’s my bus. I’ll call your cell later, Mom. Love you. Tell Daddy I said hi and give him a kiss for me. Bye.”

Mac closed his eyes. Caitlin would flip when she heard her mother’s news. The boys wouldn’t like it, but Caitlin had her mother’s drama queen gene. She’d probably cut her classes and book a flight home. She’d cry a river and hire a pop psychologist to come to the house and counsel her off-their-rocker parents, and they’d all make their television debut on a reality show.

“Ah, Ali, what have we done?”

At that point, Mac had to get out of the house. He pulled on jeans, a T-shirt, and sneakers, then grabbed
his wallet, keys, and cell phone and headed for the garage. He’d take a nice long drive and clear his head. He’d go east. Away from Denver, away from the mountains. Away from Alison.

While she drove west, away from him.

THREE

Twenty minutes after leaving her house, Ali turned into her father’s neighborhood. How lucky that she’d arranged to meet Celeste this morning at her dad’s house. She needed a dose of comfort, and she knew she’d find it there. This was her Dorothy moment—there’s no place like home.

She couldn’t believe what she’d done. It was as if the Medusa thing that had begun with her hair had spread and taken control of her body.
I’ve been offered a job, Mac. I’m going to take it
.

“My oh my oh my.”

She’d left her husband. She’d packed a bag and driven off in a flurry of temper and trauma and drama, and Mac had never asked her—or told her, or begged her—to stay.

The jerk.

Ali had halfway expected that she’d lose her nerve and turn around. Yet, deep down inside, she’d known that wouldn’t happen. She’d spoken the truth when she told him she couldn’t bear it at home any longer. She didn’t know how long this journey would take, where it would end, or with whom, but her first stop would be Eternity Springs. Well, after a detour to her daddy’s house.

She parked in the driveway of the three-story Victorian mansion that had been the family home for three generations. Ali loved the place. Her father and his ancestors had taken great pains not to ruin its historic charm while adding modern conveniences. Celeste Blessing had used the same approach while converting her Victorian in Eternity Springs to the Angel’s Rest Healing Center and Spa.

It was one of the reasons Ali had visited there so often during the past couple of years. At Angel’s Rest in Eternity Springs, she felt at home.

Celeste believed the valley in which the little town nestled held a special healing energy, so when Eternity Springs faced an economic crisis a few years back, she’d stepped up with a solution—her Angel Plan, she’d called it. She’d set out to revitalize the town by establishing a first-class healing center and making Eternity Springs the Sedona of Colorado. So far, so good. Angel’s Rest was bringing new prosperity and new opportunities to the citizens of Eternity Springs.

Ali opened her car door and reached for the coffee cake she’d stopped to buy on her way, emotional trauma being no excuse for being a poor hostess. Thankfully, her semiretired father golfed on fair-weather Tuesday mornings, so she wouldn’t have to face any uncomfortable questions. She used her key and let herself in. In the kitchen, she put on a pot of coffee. Just as the appliance beeped a signal that brewing had ended, the doorbell rang. Ali returned to the front of the house, pasted on a smile, and opened the door.

Celeste stood on the front porch. A widowed, retired
schoolteacher from South Carolina, she had purchased the Cavanaugh estate in Eternity Springs about three years ago and transformed it into Angel’s Rest. She was a delightful woman, and Ali had liked her from the moment they’d met. Her lovely blue eyes always seemed to twinkle, and her soft southern accent made Ali think of sweet tea and front porch rockers. Celeste kept her silver-gray hair cut in a fashionable bob, demonstrated a fondness for angel-themed collectibles, and rode a Honda Gold Wing motorcycle for fun. Ali had decided she wanted to be Celeste when she grew up.