Heartache Falls (19 page)

“That won’t be any trouble at all,” Mac assured her.

He pushed the bike safely off the road while Ali and Celeste took seats in the jeep. As Mac resumed the drive up the rutted dirt road, Ali made a connection.
“The B and P on the gate. I’ll bet that stands for Bear and Patricia.”

“You’re right,” Celeste confirmed. “Bear owns a wonderful strip of property that meanders along the national forest boundary.”

Ten minutes later, the older woman directed Mac onto a side road. When the jeep topped a rise, Ali spotted the yurt. It sat beside a picturesque creek and offered a spectacular view of three of Colorado’s Fourteeners, mountains that rose to an altitude above fourteen thousand feet.

“What a view,” Mac said, then added, “And what an interesting shelter.”

“Wait until you see inside it,” Celeste told them. “It’s wonderful.”

“Bear is one of the area’s more interesting residents,” Ali told Mac. “He’s trapped and stuffed an amazing collection of local wildlife that he donated to the school. He lives in this yurt year-round with his wife, Patricia Robertson, who worked for NASA before moving to Colorado to live with Bear.”

“She was a rocket scientist,” Celeste elaborated.

“Really?” Mac looked amused.

“They’re newlyweds, too. An interesting couple.” Ali studied the yurt. “With an interesting home.”

The yurt was a large circular tent with vertical walls and a conical roof modeled after those used by nomads on the steppes of Central Asia. Bear’s yurt had what appeared to be a canvas outer shell and a wooden door frame and door. As Mac killed the ignition, the door opened and Bear stepped outside.

Mac took one look at him and grinned. Bear was the quintessential mountain man, with long hair and
a full beard. He dressed in deerskin and carried a rifle. Identifying his visitors, he set down his gun, then lifted a hand in a wave and called out in his naturally raspy voice, “Peaches, it’s Miss Celeste.”

Peaches, Ali realized, was his pet name for Patricia, who joined him to greet the visitors. Ali introduced Mac, and Celeste explained her gasoline predicament. “Not a worry. I’ll get you all fixed up,” Bear declared. Noting the curiosity in Mac’s gaze as he studied the yurt, he added, “Can I show you our home? It’s a lot fancier inside than it used to be. Peaches fixed it up once she moved up here.”

“He means I had him put in a septic system and a solar-heated bathroom,” Patricia explained.

The interior of the yurt was spacious and lovely—if decorating with animal skins was your thing. It had a wooden floor, rustic handmade furniture, and a queen-sized bed that looked as plush and comfortable as any Ali had owned. A second door opened to a short corridor that led to the facilities. “She tells me not to call it an outhouse anymore since we have indoor plumbing,” Bear explained.

“It’s wonderful,” Ali said, meaning it.

“It is. I’ll be sad to leave it,” Patricia responded.

“You’re going somewhere?”

Patricia smiled at Bear, who gave an exaggerated roll of his eyes, sighed, then took her hand. “My woman has been offered an opportunity to teach in Brazil. She wants to do it, and I can’t let her go alone.”

“What will you do with your yurt?” Ali asked. “It is portable, isn’t it? Will you take it with you?”

“No. I’m thinking of leasing it,” Bear said. “I’m
not ready to sell, but since the short route is only twenty minutes into town, I might find someone in town who’d want to rent.”

Patricia patted his hand. “We have time for him to decide. We don’t leave until September.”

They made small talk for a bit, and Bear invited them to stay for lunch. Celeste accepted, but Ali wanted to be alone with her husband. “Thank you, but maybe another time?” Ali said. “Mac and I brought a picnic hamper with us, and we planned to fish a bit below Heartache Falls.”

Bear nodded. “It’s a good spot. One side of the creek is my land, the other is Uncle Sam’s. You’ll have it to yourself today—since it’s a Saturday in July, all the locals are working.”

Ali shot her husband a saucy wink. “Mac claims he’s gonna catch me a trout dinner.”

Bear gave him a measuring look. “You a fly fisherman?”

“I am.”

“Hmph. Try the stream right before it widens into the lake.” Bear strode over to a table, opened a drawer, and removed two items. “Give these a try,” he told Mac, handing them over. “They’re what I call my peaches-and-cream specials, and they’ve brought me nothing but luck.”

“Thanks. I’ll definitely give them a go.”

After that, Mac and Ali took their leave, and soon they were back at the trailhead. Ali carried the blanket, while Mac toted the fishing gear and picnic basket.

They didn’t speak as they hiked. Ali drew a deep breath of air redolent with the fragrance of the
forest—the clean, crisp scent of evergreen paired with the darker aroma of damp earth and decay. An occasional gust of breeze whispered through the leaves and needles of the trees, but for the most part, the woods remained quiet but for the soft crunch of twigs and sticks and dead leaves beneath their feet. In spots, sunlight dappled the forest floor. In the shadows, monster-sized toadstools made her think of leprechauns and pixies—until a two-foot-long brown snake slithering by wiped all thought of anything cute from her mind. Ali let out a little squeal, then stepped closer to Mac.

“You doing all right, honey?” he asked.

“I’m fine,” she said, keeping her gaze on the forest floor. “How much farther, do you think?”

He stopped and took her hand. “I do believe we’re there.”

Ali halted, looked up, and said, “Oh, wow.”

The high meadow was about the size of their neighborhood park in Denver and was awash in a sea of wildflowers, primarily yellows and pinks with a few blues and purples mixed in. At the far end a waterfall splashed down to a creek approximately six feet wide and lined with grasses and brush. The creek snaked its way through the center of the small clearing, then disappeared into the forest. It was a small, beautiful oasis.

“Definitely worth the hike,” Mac said. “You want to pick a spot for the picnic blanket?”

He stepped aside and she led the way, spreading their forest-green blanket atop a patch of white columbines and clover a few feet from the water. Ali considered searching for a shamrock.
Maybe later
.

Following a brief debate, they decided to fish for a while before they ate. Mac, her hero, baited her hook with a nightcrawler rather than the salmon eggs she ordinarily used since she didn’t do worms, and then he walked upstream with his fly rod. Ali found a spot where she could sit on a boulder and dip her hook into a crystal-clear pool. She watched the water gurgle and bubble and froth its way downstream and drew a parallel to her marriage.

Like this idyllic mountain stream, her marriage had frothed and bubbled along year after year, enduring periods of white water and enjoying slower-paced moments of peace and beauty. But over time, things changed. The bedrock of her marriage eroded, not by any cataclysmic event, but by the constant wear and tear of life.

Before yesterday, she would have said that all they had left was sand. Quicksand, even. But Mac’s trip to Eternity Springs had given her second thoughts about her second thoughts. Maybe portions of their marriage bedrock had eroded, but not all of it. Sure, they had a few sandy spots, but they also had their share of granite.

Because first and foremost, she and Mac still loved each other. Maybe they’d allowed the detritus of life to hide it, but now Ali knew it was still there—solid and steadfast and strong.

Her gaze fell to her left hand and the ring she’d worn for half her life. Mac had chosen quality over carats in choosing the stone, and he’d presented his reasons for doing so with as much care and attention to detail as he’d used when he’d argued his very first case in court. He need not have bothered. Ali had
loved the ring from the moment he offered it to her. For years after he’d started making money, he’d tried to replace it with something flashier. She’d refused to allow it. He’d given her the very best he could give. What could be better than that?

She wiggled her fingers. Sunlight glinted off the stone. Solid, steadfast, and strong. Just a little dimmed and dingy. Just in need of a good cleaning and polishing. Maybe that was the purpose of this time apart, maybe these last few months had been a dust rag for her marriage.

You’ve mixed up your metaphors, Alison
.

“Actually, I’ve mixed up my life.”

She focused on a leaf as it swirled and turned on the water, dancing it’s way downstream. What was she doing in Eternity Springs? After this trip, Mac would expect her to come home. She knew that as sure as the creek was cold.

A part of her wanted nothing more than to do just that. She wanted to go to sleep with him beside her in their bed each night and wake up snuggled against him every morning. She wanted to bake him pies and argue politics and battle over control of the television remote. She wanted to kiss him good-bye when he left for work in the morning and revisit his reaction to her garter belt collection at night.

So do it
. The work on the restaurant was almost done. She could get serious about hiring a cook instead of piddling along at it like she’d done so far. She could do most of that from Denver. She should just do it. She could go home with Mac tomorrow. Monday he would go off to work and she would … what?

I can volunteer, join a quilt group, go to lunch with
friends
. If she went home, all would be right with her father’s world once again. He’d surely want to resume their weekly lunches. She’d once again be a lady who lunches.

Oh, joy
.

“Yes, joy,” she softly declared, wanting to mean it. She’d be with Mac again. The man whom she’d vowed to love and cherish in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health—a vow she’d allowed to get lost in the malaise of her middle age. Well, shame on her. He’d made the first step, and now it was up to her to take the next one—all the way back to Denver—where she would be happy if it killed her.

She’d go back to her therapist. If things got shaky, she’d insist on marriage counseling. Her dad had been right about that. She should have suggested counseling again rather than running off to the mountains. Who knows, he might have agreed. Stranger things had happened. A NASA rocket scientist was living with Bear in the mountains.

I’ve been so happy in the mountains
.

She could be, she
would
be happy in the city again. Mac would be happy to have her home. Her father would be pleased. The kids would be thrilled.

Everyone would be happy. Everyone would be satisfied.

She blinked away the tears that stung her eyes and told herself to grow up. This was her choice. It was the right choice. She could find ways to occupy herself in the city again. She could get another job if that was what she decided she wanted. She could make a new set of friends, interesting people like Sage and
Sarah and Celeste. She could even join another quilting bee if she wanted to continue learning that skill.

Frankly, at this point in her life, she could do almost anything she wanted. She had money. She had time. The world was her oyster. She could do whatever caught her fancy.

As long as she did it in Denver.

Because her husband was a federal judge. A federal judgeship was a lifetime appointment. He’d be working in Denver forever—unless political winds blew his way, and then they’d go to Washington, D.C., the pinnacle, the culmination of his dreams.

But what about your dream?

Mac was her dream.

Oh, yeah? Well, you’re his dream, too, but he doesn’t have to give up one for the other, does he?

That was okay. It was just the way it was. She’d known that when she married him and made those vows. It was wrong of her to have buyer’s remorse at this late date.

Besides, she wasn’t feeling buyer’s remorse. She loved Mac. She wanted to be with him. Just because she’d found happiness here in Eternity Springs didn’t mean that she couldn’t find happiness again back in Denver. She’d been happy in Denver for a lot of years. Just because her kids were grown and gone and her social life no longer revolved around their activities didn’t mean she couldn’t invite one of the other school moms to join a quilting bee with her. Just because Mac’s move onto the bench complicated her relationships at the family firm didn’t mean she couldn’t continue to attend yoga classes with the trio of female attorneys she’d made friends with years
ago. They simply had to try to get past the awkwardness. They could do that. They were all bright women. Ali could have friends in Denver. Could have a life in Denver that was just as enriching and fulfilling as the one she’d begun to build in Eternity Springs.

If she said it often enough, maybe she’d begin to believe it.

How long she sat staring unseeingly at the water lost in thought she didn’t know, but it wasn’t until Mac reached out and took hold of her fishing pole that she jerked back to attention.

“Honey,” he said, “here’s a fishing tip. You’ll catch more fish if you remove the ones you’ve already caught off the hook.”

“Oh.” She watched him pull a twelve-inch trout out of the stream. “I got distracted. How did you do?”

“I caught dinner. Made me hungry for lunch.” He removed the trout from its hook, added the fish to his stringer, then returned it to the water and washed his hands. “Are you ready to eat?”

“Sure,” she said, shrugging off her melancholy and smiling. Moments later, she reached into the picnic basket and set out the bounty they’d purchased at the Trading Post while Mac pulled the cork on a bottle of wine.

While they ate, they spoke of inconsequential things, and Ali thought they both made an effort to avoid subjects that could introduce controversy into the conversation. Gradually, helped by wine, a sweet summer peach, and a silly story Mac told about one
of their neighbors, Ali relaxed and pushed the last lingering worries from her mind.

So relaxed was she that she had only a mild grip on her wineglass as she brought it to her mouth for a sip when a noise—a loud animal noise—sounded from right behind her. She startled, spilling half a glass of wine down the front of her shirt.