Heartache Falls (27 page)

He opened his mouth to argue with her, but found he didn’t have any words to say. Her questions unsettled him. They challenged him. They made him think.

“There’s my Land Rover,” Celeste said, gesturing toward the SUV parked parallel to the curb beside the neighborhood dog park. “I need to get on the road. It’s quite a drive back. Isn’t it handy that we walked this way? Ali asked her guests to park away from the house so as not to spoil the surprise for Sage. It was a lovely afternoon. Thank you for sharing your home with us, Mac.”

Distracted by his thoughts, Mac murmured absently, “You’re welcome.”

Celeste removed a set of car keys from her handbag, thumbed her key fob to disengage the locks, then opened the driver’s-side door. She spent a moment petting and cooing at Gus, then reached into her handbag once again. “Speaking of wishes and dreams, I have something to show you.”

She removed a white envelope and handed it over, saying, “I thought of you when I saw this.”

“What is it?”

“Let’s just call it a possibility. Somebody’s dream changed, and they not only recognized it, they embraced the new. Now it’s up to you to decide where your dreams and wishes for the second half of life lie.” She climbed into her Land Rover, shut her door, started the engine, then rolled down the window. “Thanks for the walk, Mac, and for the hospitality. Know that you are welcome at my place anytime.”

Still staring at the envelope, he said, “Um, thanks. You drive carefully.”

She put the SUV in gear, then finger-waved and pulled away from the curb. Mac stood dumbly for a long minute watching Celeste Blessing drive away. What an unusual woman. What a scary woman.

Gus let out a yelp and strained at the leash. Mac allowed him to pull him toward the dog park gate.

It wasn’t until later when, freed from his leash, Gus put his nose to the ground and went on a sniff mission that Mac turned his attention to the envelope. Why did his instincts tell him to beware the contents?

Mac leaned against the spreading branches of an oak tree, blew out a heavy breath, and removed the folded sheet of paper from the envelope. The letter read:

Dear Celeste
,

The rain forest is amazing. We are living among monkeys and macaws and sloths and boa constrictors, to name just a few. As much as I love Colorado, this land and its inhabitants speak to me in a way I never expected. We are happy here. Life
has taken us in a new and exciting direction. We have decided to make this place our home
.

As a result, we wish to put our Colorado property on the market, and we’d like to take you up on your offer to oversee the arrangements should we make this decision. Will you please put the matter into motion? Heartache Falls is a good place filled with positive energy. It brought both Patricia and myself great happiness. It is our hope that you find new owners who will experience similar joy from life lived in a Rocky Mountain yurt
.

God’s peace
,
Bear and Patricia

Judge Mackenzie Timberlake folded the page and returned it to the envelope, then stuffed the letter in his pocket. He whistled for his dog and wondered why in the world Celeste Blessing had given him the letter. What nonsense was she thinking?

Needing a distraction, Mac called Gus and instigated a game of fetch with a stick. They played until Mac’s arm grew tired and a new scent caught Gus’s attention. Mac let him explore for another few minutes, then called, “Come on, boy. Time to go home.”

Mac got more of a distraction than he bargained for upon arriving home to find Caitlin sitting on the front steps, crying. Seeing his daughter, Mac dropped the dog leash and ran toward her. “Honey? What is it? What’s wrong, kitten?”

She looked up, tears flowing from eyes a mirror image of her mother’s. “Daddy! Oh, Daddy. Patrick broke up with me!”

Mac sat beside his daughter, took her in his arms,
and held her while she sobbed. As his shirt grew wet with tears, he silently acknowledged a few undeniable truths. He was filled with relief that the frat daddy was out of his daughter’s life. Second, he acknowledged once again how profoundly his selfish decisions had affected Ali’s life. Finally, he understood that as Caitlin’s father, he had a good shoulder for her to cry on, but beyond that, he didn’t know how to help her. She needed her mother.
He
needed her mother. Ali ought to be here.

Or we need to be with her
.

Two weeks later

On the second anniversary of the opening of Angel’s Rest, Hollywood was due to set up shop in Eternity Springs. Ali’s alarm woke her at seven-thirty that morning. Glumly she stared at the clock and sighed. Today was a big day for Celeste, a big day for Eternity Springs. She wished she could be more positive about it. What she wanted to do was to bury her head beneath her pillow and pretend this day had not arrived.

The television program concept proposed during negotiations by Lorraine Perry and embraced by Celeste was to show the progression of a little mountain mom-and-pop restaurant to a five-star success that would attract celebrities from all over the world. Lorraine Perry’s combination reality and cooking show would take Eternity Springs another big step along the road to revitalizing the town’s economy. The locals would reap the benefit of visitors with deep pockets. Times wouldn’t be so hard. Maybe the whole TV
thing wouldn’t change the town as much as Ali feared. After all, Celeste had proven time and again that she had good instincts, had she not? Ali should put aside her doubts and trust in the “angel” of Angel’s Rest.

With that she rolled out of bed, showered, and dressed. She wanted to make one last sweep of the Bristlecone while it was still hers—so to speak. The final addendums to the lease agreement were to be signed today.

Her keys hung in their usual spot on a hook beside the door. She eyed her cell phone, connected to its charger, and wondered if her day wouldn’t go more smoothly if she left it behind. Caitlin’s post-breakup call volume was down to less than a dozen times a day again, but her life could be a roller coaster and today, especially, Ali didn’t want to get drawn into drama. Not having a phone might also help her avoid her personal obsession of late: checking every five minutes to see if Mac had called or emailed or sent her a text message.

Something weird was going on with Mac. He should be happy because the Sandberg trial had ended and the paparazzi no longer stalked him. She couldn’t put her finger on what it was, but something wasn’t right. She’d mentioned it to her father last night when they talked, but he seemed to think it was nothing more than that Mac had already turned his attention to his next case. Ali wasn’t so certain.

She and her husband played phone tag more often than not. When they did speak, Mac seemed both distant and preoccupied, though he didn’t come across as angry or cold. With her own hands full between
long-distance hand-holding for Caitlin and preparing for today, Ali had found little time to worry about it. But as the days passed and the situation continued, she’d begun to fret. He had said he would try to make it today, but they hadn’t connected in a couple of days, so she didn’t know whether or not to expect him.

She decided to bring her phone with her, but she’d leave it upstairs in the Bristlecone office.

Outside she noted that the streets were already bustling—another sign that the Bristlecone deal was good business for Eternity Springs. This was the tail end of the tourist season, after leaf peepers had taken the place of families on summer vacations, but in another week or two, the autumn colors—and the tourists—would be gone. For the last two years, visitors to Angel’s Rest had filled the economic gap for the locals. Now, as the television show began filming, a whole new type of visitor was arriving.

She arrived at the Bristlecone to find a car parked in front of it—in a no-parking zone. Couldn’t they read a sign? As she unlocked the door, two men climbed out and one of them asked, “Mrs. Timberlake?”

“Yes.”

“My name is Bob Dickerson. I work with Ms. Perry. I know we’re early, but would it be all right with you if my set director and I looked around for a few minutes?”

“Come on in, gentlemen.”

Twenty minutes later, she showed them out the door with a smile. She twisted the lock behind them, counted a slow ten, then kicked the door hard. “New
paint? New curtains? New tables? Excuse me? What have I been doing for the past few months?”

Wasting her time, apparently. Chef Lorraine had decided the decor simply wouldn’t do for her “mountain cuisine.” They were going to begin gutting the restaurant as soon as the papers were signed. Ali was furious, and if she was honest, she had to acknowledge that her feelings were hurt. The remodeled Bristlecone was her baby, and now her baby wasn’t pretty enough? Really?

She wanted to talk to Mac, to complain about the celebrity chef and confess her concerns about the effect on the town, and to cry on his shoulder over the destruction of all her recent efforts. She hurried to her office, found her phone, and turned it on. First she tried their house, but he didn’t answer. Next she called his cell. The call went straight to voice mail. She glanced at the clock. Finally she dialed the office. Louise didn’t answer, but when Ali asked to speak to Mac, the stranger manning the phone said, “Judge Timberlake has taken a leave of absence, may I refer you to someone else’s office?”

A leave of absence?

After a moment’s pause, the voice said, “Hello?”

Flustered, Ali hung up without saying good-bye. She tried both the home phone and Mac’s cell phone again, then dialed each of her children. Neither boy answered, but she did connect with Caitlin. “Honey, have you spoken to your father lately?”

“Yes, just this morning. What’s wrong, Mom?”

“What did he say to you about his work?”

“That he was glad the Sandberg case was over, and that the trial had almost ruined baseball for him.”

“He didn’t say anything about a leave of absence?”

“Leave of absence from what?”

“His job. I called the office and they said he’s taken a leave of absence.”

“You’re kidding me! That’s his dream job.”

“I know. It doesn’t make sense. I also think he’s dodging my calls on purpose.” Hearing a knock on the Bristlecone’s front door, she glanced at her wrist-watch. “I’ve got to go. Things are starting to pop around here. Listen, Cait, see what you can find out and let me know. And, if you do talk to your father, tell him he’d better call me and do it fast.”

“I will. Good luck today, Mom. I hope everything goes great.”

They ended the call, and Ali nibbled worriedly at her lower lip as she stuck her phone in her pocket and headed back downstairs to admit mayhem into her carefully constructed world.

In short order, that’s exactly what occurred. First the crew descended with their cameras and cords and lighting. Then Celeste arrived, a vision in green and gold, happy and bright as summer sunshine. Ali’s father showed up next, dapper in his Savile Row suit, serving as Celeste’s attorney. Ali shook her head. Her dad in a reality TV show? How crazy was this?

By the time the great chef herself swept into the Bristlecone with an entourage of eight, the street outside was filled with curious sightseers. Ali hung back, not bothered one bit by the fact that the office was too small and crowded for her to witness the contract signing. But once that happened, her job was officially finished and she was out of here. No way would she hang around and watch them begin taking apart
what she’d worked so hard to put together. What a waste.

While she waited, she wandered back to the kitchen where she poured herself a glass of iced tea. She stood in the doorway, sipping her drink and observing the little mountain restaurant she’d put together well enough to catch a Hollywood chef’s interest, but apparently not well enough to pass muster with her.

“I should have tried to talk her into going Italian after all.” Then she could have designed this space the way she’d
really
wanted it, and with any luck, Lorraine Perry would have walked right on by her restaurant during her summertime visit to Eternity Springs.

Applause broke out in the office, signaling that the morning’s business was done. Ali lifted her tea glass in a sad salute, then exited out the back. She’d catch up with Celeste and her father at the celebration at Angel’s Rest.

A small crowd remained gathered outside the Bristlecone, but people were beginning to congregate on the healing center’s grounds for the birthday barbecue. Ali used the opportunity to attempt to reach Mac. Again he didn’t answer. For the next hour and a half, she tried his phone every fifteen minutes or so. Nada. What was going on with him?

A call to the neighbor’s house informed her that Mac had packed up and left and taken the dog with him. That made her want to drop everything and head for Denver, and she might have done just that had she known where to look for the man.

She told herself that Mac wasn’t one of her children. He was an adult. He could take care of himself.

Next time she saw him, he’d be taking care of the black eye she was going to give him for worrying her to death.

By one o’clock, four different people had come up to Ali to ask her why those Hollywood people were undoing all the improvements she’d made to the Bristlecone. By one-thirty, she had upset her father by snapping at him for waxing on about lovely Lorraine’s smile. When two o’clock finally rolled around, after she’d stood on the Angel’s Creek footbridge and watched the television people carry armload after armload of her carefully chosen items out of the restaurant to be thrown carelessly into the bed of a pickup truck, Ali was ready to forgo the iced tea and head straight for the bourbon.

To top it off, despite having left fully a dozen messages, she’d yet to hear a word from Leave-of-Absence Mac.

At two-thirty, Celeste stood on the front porch of the old Cavanaugh Mansion and rang the big brass bell, inviting her guests to gather around.

“Welcome friends, neighbors, special guests, and”—she winked at Lori Reese who was on a visit home from college—“coeds. God has blessed us once again with a spectacular day, has he not?”