Heartache Falls Part 22

He visibly relaxed just a little at that. "In that case, I'd better get to work."

"I guess you'd better. Do you have a wine list?"

He named her favorite cabernet, and she nodded. "That will be fine."

Following that shaky start, she and her friends actually had a lovely meal. Mac did know how to grill a steak, and once everyone realized they weren't about to become part of an ugly marital spat, they relaxed, too. Conversation, laughter, and general good times flowed. Eventually Nic broke the dinner party up by saying, "I need to get home before I fall asleep right here."

"Well, sorry you find us so boring," Sarah fired back in mock offense.

"True." Nic's glanced at her watch, then wryly added, "The nighttime schedule of twins has nothing to do with it."

As her friends stood to leave, Celeste called out, "Mac, may I have the check?"

He came out of the kitchen and shook his head. "Tonight's meal was on the house, ladies."

Sage snickered and looked at Ali. "He needs a lot of help running a restaurant."

"I won't argue that."

At that point, everyone looked expectantly at Ali, and she realized they were waiting to see if she intended to stay to talk with Mac or leave with the girls. Part of her wanted to leave, but what good would that accomplish? "It's been fun, ladies. I'll see you all tomorrow."

After thanking Mac, her friends departed. Ali followed them to the door, then flipped the lock. The last thing she wanted now was to be interrupted by a curious citizen investigating why lights were on in an empty building.

Mac poured himself a scotch, leaned back against the bar, and said, "Well, then. Something tells me that this surprise ranks right up there with the electric broom I bought you for our second anniversary."

Mac alternated between feeling bad and feeling put out. His big surprise hadn't thrilled her like he'd expected, but for crying out loud, what was wrong with giving her something he knew without a doubt that she wanted very much?

After more than two decades of marriage, he knew this woman inside and out. So why did he so often miss the mark about pleasing her? Why couldn't he make his wife happy?

"I'm sorry for the flash of temper," Ali said quietly. "I shouldn't have embarra.s.sed us both in front of my friends."

He accepted the apology with a shrug. "So how badly did I screw up? Are you going to call it quits again?"

"No, I'm not going to call it quits again," she parroted, a snippy note in her tone. "That said, I have to ask. What in the world were you thinking, Mac? You are a federal court judge! You can't walk away from that to run a restaurant."

Working to maintain his patience, he spoke in a conciliatory tone. "Actually, I don't want to run a restaurant. That's your dream."

She dropped her chin to her chest and linked her fingers behind her head. Knowing Ali, he sensed that she was counting to ten. Quietly she asked, "How do you know that, Mac? You didn't ask me."

"You brought it up last summer," he shot back. "That's how I know. More than twenty years later and you still mention it-that's real."

Now she dropped her hands to her sides and walked toward him, stopping at the table closest to the bar, her hand grasping the back of a chair. "Let's s.h.i.+ft the focus for a minute. I think this might go better if I understand why you took a leave of absence from the federal bench."

Mac stared down at his scotch on the rocks and rotated the gla.s.s, swis.h.i.+ng the amber liquor over and around the ice. Maybe she had a point. "I have a laundry list of individual reasons, but they basically all add up to the fact that I was miserable." He glanced up. "I didn't like the job, Alison. It wasn't what I'd always expected it to be."

"It was the Sandberg case," she replied, shaking her head. "And the Desai case before that. You didn't feel that way until the high-profile trials took over your life."

"That's what I told myself, too, until I spent some time thinking it through. That's what I've been doing these last few weeks. I came up here where it is quiet and peaceful, and I examined every aspect of my life with the goal of a.s.sessing where I am now and how I want to go forward. It's something your friend Celeste suggested to me."

Surprise lit her eyes. "Celeste?"

"Yep.

Now she arched her brows in disbelief. "She told you to quit your job?"

"No." A smile played on Mac's lips. "She introduced the concept of the second half of life. It helped me realize that just because I wanted something when I was young didn't mean I still had to want it today."

"Well, as your wife of twenty-four years," Ali said, tugging a chair out from beneath the table and taking a seat, "I have to say I find that less than rea.s.suring."

"Stop it." Mac circled the end of the bar and joined Ali at the table. "I'm not talking about you and you know it. I'm talking about the bench. I don't want it."

For a long moment, she stared at him. "I'm sorry, but this just blows me away. Your goal of becoming a judge is ... who you are. It's what you worked to achieve for as long as I've known you. Every important decision of your life has been made to further that goal. And now that you have it, you're ready to throw it away?"

He sipped his drink. "Sad, isn't it, that I was so wrong about myself?"

"I don't get it." She drummed her fingers against the tabletop. "At risk of being as rude to you as you were to me last spring, maybe this is some sort of midlife crisis, a hormonal thing. Something you'll get past with a little distance."

For a long moment he simply looked at her. Then he observed, "Wow, if this is how it felt, it's a wonder you didn't throw something at me that day."

She shook her head. "I'm sorry, but this is simply wrong. You can't do this. Not when it's your life's goal." She rose from her seat and began pacing the room, staring blindly into s.p.a.ce. "This is my fault. If I'd gone straight home and stayed there after your first trip to Eternity, we wouldn't be having this discussion."

"Now, Ali."

"Don't 'now, Ali' me." She rounded on him. "I hate it when you placate and patronize and ... and ... pat me on the head. Can you deny it? Had I gone home with you, would we be having this conversation?"

"Maybe not, but-"

"No buts, Mac. Don't you see the problem here? Because I'm still involved in Eternity Springs, you jump off and make this decision precipitously. Then time will pa.s.s and your storm of weirdness will end and you will realize you made a huge, horrible mistake."

"Storm of weirdness?"

"And whose fault will it be?" she continued as if he hadn't spoken. "It'll be my fault. Mine. You'll resent me. Maybe you won't mean to do it, but it'll happen anyway. We'll be worse off than ever."

She walked over to him, and her eyes looked a little wild as she clutched his arm. "Tell me it's still a leave of absence. Tell me you haven't actually resigned!"

"No, Ali, I haven't resigned." He tried to pull her down into his lap, but she drew away. "Nevertheless, I have made my decision."

"See? That's another thing." She held up her index finger. She didn't quite shake it at him, but she did use it to punctuate her sentences. "You've made your decision. Let's get back to that part of this issue."

Grim, Mac swallowed the words Let's not and washed them down with another sip of scotch.

"I hate the way people have come to use disrespect as a verb," Ali said, "but I'm going to use it that way now. You disrespect me, Mac Timberlake. You disrespect me every time you make a decision that affects my life without including me in the process. I'm tired of it." She put her hands on her hips. "How dare you buy a building in Eternity Springs without consulting me beforehand! And the Heartache Falls property? Good heavens, Mac. You must have drained our savings completely."

"I financed most of it," he snapped back as he shot to his feet. Her charge touched a nerve. He was willing to take only so much grief. "And I wanted it to be a surprise. A gift for you. Actually, a really great gift. You loved that acreage. Don't pretend otherwise. I'm not going to ask your permission to give you a gift. It isn't like the old days when your family money propped us up. I bought it with my money and my credit."

"Okay, fine. Just what am I supposed to do with this gift? Live in a yurt?"

"Actually, the yurt is pretty great, too. Very comfortable. Can't beat the scenery. But no one is saying we have to live there. There's a spot near the falls that is perfect for a house."

"Oh? So now you've picked out the site for my next home? Gee, do you see a pattern here?"

"Wait a minute, Alison. I don't get it. I don't get you. You want to live in Eternity Springs, and you want to work in Eternity Springs. But when I provide you the perfect opportunity to do so, you pitch a hissy fit. What is it you want?"

"I want to be your partner!"

"You are my partner. You're my wife."

"Yes, and this isn't the 1950s anymore. You don't get to make all the decisions for me."

"I don't do that."

"You've always done that. I've just let you get away with it. My bad."

He raked his fingers through his hair in frustration. "You have to be the most frustrating, infuriating female ever born. Explain to me, would you please, why after all these years I still find you so utterly and completely fascinating?"

She stopped, stared at him, and he watched her anger deflate. "No fair."

"Sorry," he said with a shrug, even though he wasn't sorry at all. He took a step toward her. "I love you, Alison Mich.e.l.le Timberlake."

Now she pouted. At least pouting kept her mouth shut.

"I'm sorry that my effort to surprise you shocked you instead. I hear what you are saying about partners.h.i.+p, and I promise to consider that from here on out."

She sighed. "What about the leave of absence? Will you cancel it and return to work?"

He sighed right back at her and moved closer still. "You need to believe me, Ali. I'm certain about this."

"Well, I'm not." She wrinkled her nose. "Promise me you won't make this leave of absence permanent without talking to me about it ahead of time."

"I promise." He took her in his arms. She remained stiff until he buried his face against her neck and kissed her. As she began to relax, he murmured against her ear. "I don't want to be a judge anymore. I want to practice law."

"In Eternity Springs? You'd have one client a quarter."

"That'll give me more time to help you run the New Place-or whatever you decide to name it. It needs a better name, don't you think?"

Ali shut her eyes and shook her head. "Mac, that's crazy. Just flat out crazy."

"Why?"

"I don't know anything about running a restaurant."

"Sure you do. You raised three children, two of them boys. Tell me our house wasn't like a restaurant back when you had kids who needed feeding between football practice and car wash fund-raisers and band concerts and soccer practice and-"

"Okay, okay. Enough." She rested her head against his chest and closed her eyes. "I need to think about this."

"Isn't it lucky, then, that I have access to the perfect place to think? There's this spot near Heartache Falls where you can spread out a blanket."

"I said think, Timberlake, not have s.e.x."

"That isn't what I was thinking," he protested. When she gave him a look filled with disbelief, he added, "There's a nice big bed inside a comfy warm yurt for that. It's too cold for that this time of year. I'd shrivel up and be of absolutely no use to you."

"Hmm." Ali pulled out of his arms. "Is the cold really that much of a detriment to your, um, capabilities? I seem to recall one Groundhog Day in college ..."

His mouth twitched with a grin. "Oh, yeah. Unfortunately, I'm not twenty years old any longer."

"In that case ..." Her hand drifted down and cupped him. "We'd better not take any chances."

Recalling that she'd locked the front door, Mac eyed a rectangular tabletop. "I have an ap.r.o.n that would fit you."

"An ap.r.o.n?"

"Yeah. An ap.r.o.n. And nothing else."

SIXTEEN.

October Chase Timberlake slipped his key into his parents' front door, then glanced over his shoulder. "Don't worry about the cooler, Granddad. I'll come back and get it."

"Oh, just hush. The day I'm too old and decrepit to carry a cooler full of beer to a football game is the day I turn in my man badge."

"You brought me beer?" Chase asked as they went inside.

"Root beer. I have a nice German pilsner for myself."

"Gee, thanks, Granddad. I'll be sure to remember that next time you don't get the game because you have the wrong satellite provider."

"I didn't realize you were the gatekeeper to your mother's house." Charles Cavanaugh set the cooler on the theater room floor, reached into his pocket, and pulled out a ring of keys. Choosing one that matched the key Chase held, he observed, "I guess your mother gave me this just to placate me?"

Chase grinned. "It's not the key I control, Granddad. It's the surround-sound remote. I programmed it myself. I don't think Dad has figured out how to use it yet."

"Smart aleck," Charles said. "However, since you're so smart, get to work. I don't want to miss the kickoff. I have the feeling that the Buffaloes are gonna kick those Longhorns' b.u.t.ts all the way from Austin to the Gulf of Mexico."

"From your mouth to G.o.d's ear," Chase said. "The 'Horns are the luckiest team in college football."

"Their luck ends today. I can feel it."

As Chase and his grandfather settled in to watch the game, Chase couldn't help thinking about Lori, since she was at Texas A&M and the Aggies and the Longhorns were big rivals. Chase and Lori stayed in touch on Facebook and from all appearances, her undergrad years were going well. He was glad. Lori was a special girl, real special. He was a long way from wanting to settle down, but if he'd been older-if she'd been older-she was the kind of woman who would make a man a good wife. She sorta reminded him of his mom.

Lori did have her goals, though. She wanted to be a vet more than anything. He hoped she didn't let some Texas farm boy change that for her. Like Dad changed Mom's dream of going to cooking school in Europe.

His parents had never admitted it, but Chase and his sibs had long ago realized that Mom had been knocked up with Stephen when they got married. He'd sometimes wondered if his parents would have ended up together had the pregnancy not occurred. They seemed so different. When he was growing up, his mom had been laid back and easygoing. Dad was the definition of driven. That's what made this mountain man fantasy of his beyond weird. When the game went to a commercial break, he asked, "What do you think is going to happen with my dad, Granddad?"