Heartache Falls (8 page)

“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 appetite. She didn’t have an appetite. 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 reassuring 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 button 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 assigned 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 chore, 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 assuredly 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 space 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 sunshine, 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 shirt, 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 sexy 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 Café 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 grassy 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 God’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 Café 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 shirt, 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 grass 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 relationships 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 relationship 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?”