Heartache Falls Part 9

Nic fired back, "You're wrong. Princess Grace's gown would have looked gorgeous on lots of women. Liz Taylor's gown needed a body like Liz's to pull it off. That narrows the field considerably. Face it, you're just a Liz fan because of your eyes."

Sarah batted thick, luscious lashes over her gorgeous violet eyes.

Grinning, Ali decided to join the fray. "You're both wrong. Jackie Kennedy's wedding gown was the most gorgeous celebrity gown ever."

There was a moment of quiet while the group considered it. Then Nic said, "This is useless without pictures. I'm going to get my laptop."

"I'll get it, Nic," Gabe said as he walked into the room. "I want to look in on the girls. They're too quiet."

"They're asleep. They're supposed to be quiet."

"I don't trust it."

As Nic rolled her eyes at her husband, a knock sounded on her front door and she rose to answer it. Celeste walked in with LaNelle Harrison, the master quilter who had taken the group of novices under her wing. "h.e.l.lo, my dears," Celeste said. "Sorry we're late. I took LaNelle on a quick spin on my Gold Wing, and we had such a good time, we went farther than we'd intended."

"I thought I'd be afraid, but it was so exhilarating," LaNelle said. "I've driven the Alpine Trail many times, but it's different on the back of a motorcycle. She took me by Heartache Falls. I haven't been up there in years. It's almost like you are in a corner of heaven. Nothing in nature is quite so beautiful as an alpine meadow in springtime."

Celeste nodded. "Makes me want to put on a wimple and run across the fields singing."

Sarah and her daughter, Lori, home following her first year off at college, shared a look and a laugh. Lori explained, "Mom and I used to do that all the time. I so fell in love with The Sound of Music. I'd wrap the napkin from our picnic basket around my head and twirl my arms around and sing. I wanted to be Maria in the worst way."

"She can carry a tune," Sarah explained. "Unlike me. I wasn't much help with 'Climb Ev'ry Mountain,' but I did love my character's name: Mother Superior."

Lori gave an exaggerated roll of her eyes, and as Gabe entered the room carrying a laptop, Ali sang, " 'How do you solve a problem like Miss Lori?' "

"Whoa there, Ali," Gabe said as he handed the laptop to his wife and the women clapped and smiled. "You have a set of pipes."

"Thank you." She dipped her head to the applause. "They're rusty pipes, I'm afraid."

Celeste said, "Such a lovely, lovely voice. Are you professionally trained?"

"No." Ali shook her head. "My dad wanted me to take voice lessons, but I had another artistic pa.s.sion. I wanted to go to cooking school in Europe."

"Me too!" Sarah said, her voice turning wistful as she added, "It was one of my biggest dreams. I planned it from the time I was in fifth grade. I had files stacked to the ceiling-financial aid, travel budgets, tuition, living expenses. It was ..." Her voice trailed off, then she shrugged. "Not meant to be."

"Because she got knocked up with me," her daughter, Lori, drawled. "I'm a dream killer."

"Not hardly. I found my dream when the doctor laid you in my arms, young lady."

"Ah, that's so sweet," Sage said.

Lori rolled her eyes, but Ali could tell that the young woman was touched. As Sarah blinked away tears, Nic diverted everyone's attention by asking, "How about you, Ali? Did you find your dream? Did you make it to Paris?"

"Rome. Our cook when I was growing up was Italian." Ali picked up her sewing needle and smiled wistfully. "No. I've traveled to Europe, but I never made it to cooking school."

"What happened?" Sage asked.

"Not what happened, but who. Mac Timberlake happened. I fell head over heels in love."

Sarah nodded knowingly. "Gave up your dreams for a guy, huh?"

"I don't know that I'd say that. My dreams changed. I was happy with Mac." She paused a moment, then repeated softly. "We were happy."

Starry-eyed, Lori Reese asked, "You met him in college?"

"I did."

"Tell us about it."

A tender smile played upon Ali's lips. She hadn't thought of that time in so long. "I was dating someone else at the time, but I noticed him around campus. He was hard not to notice. Mac played baseball-he was at Notre Dame on an athletic scholarship-and he had shoulders that took a girl's breath away. We never had a conversation until I saw him and his dog at the park in my neighborhood one afternoon.

"I was dog-sitting for a friend for a couple of weeks, and I took her corgi to the park in the afternoons." Ali shook her head and added, "I think I fell in love with him because of Dusty."

The crispness of autumn hung in the air as Ali ambled through the park, allowing Crandall the corgi to sniff his way along a dirt path covered in fallen leaves. Someone in the neighborhood had steaks on a grill, and she teased herself by drawing a deep breath as her mind fluttered back to this morning's economics exam. "I should have studied the graphs better, Crandall. Need to remember that next time."

The corgi halted in his tracks and lifted his head. For a second Ali thought the dog had reacted to her comment, but then she saw the little dust mop of white fur trailing a bright red leash race toward her-on three legs.

Crandall started barking and straining at his leash. The dust mop loped forward, amazingly graceful on only one foreleg. Ali was only vaguely aware of footsteps pounding up the path behind the little dog; she couldn't take her eyes off the poor thing. It ran right up to Crandall, who quit barking, and the two said h.e.l.lo by sniffing each other's b.u.t.t.

"Would you grab the leash for me, please?" a voice called out.

Ali bent down, scooped up the leash, and rose to greet ... that too-cute guy she'd noticed on the steps of the student union.

"Thanks." He flashed her a grin. "I was beginning to worry I'd never track her down. I don't know how a three-legged dog can run so fast."

He took the leash from her then held out his right hand. "I'm Mac Timberlake."

"Ali Cavanaugh."

"Nice to meet you, Ali. I'm lucky you and ..." He gestured down at the corgi. "Who is this?"

"Crandall."

"I'm lucky that you and Crandall were here to stop Dusty. Otherwise I think she might have run for days."

"She's amazing." Ali knelt down to scratch the dog behind her ears, receiving puppy kisses on her wrist in return. "What happened to her leg?"

"I don't know. She was that way when I adopted her."

Ali looked up at him, amazed. "You adopted a disabled dog?"

His grin turned rueful. "As embarra.s.sing as it is to call that little thing a dog, yeah. I went into the pound looking for a Lab. I'm still not sure how I walked out with a dust mop."

Ali went all warm and gooey inside. He must have a tender heart.

"These two are getting along good. Mind if we walk with you for a bit?"

"That would be nice," Ali said. "I'm dog-sitting for a friend who has another dog in addition to Crandall. Someone else is watching that dog, so Crandall is lonely."

"We don't want that."

Ali looked up the path, then down, and asked, "Which way do you want to go?"

He stared into her eyes and smiled. "Whichever way is longest."

Ali Cavanaugh, coed, shivered.

Ali Timberlake, estranged wife, sighed. "He took so much ribbing about that dog, but she was such a sweetie. When the kids came along, Dusty made the best pet. I really think it made them look at special-needs people differently than other children their ages did."

"I thought you said your family dog needed a wheelchair," Sarah observed. "Was that after Dusty got older?"

"No. That was our second disabled dog, Draper."

"You had two disabled pets?" LaNelle asked.

"We did. I admit it got to be a pain. That's why when we finally lost Draper, Mac swore he was done with pets."

But that vow hadn't lasted, had it? He had a new dog. A springer spaniel mix. Vows didn't seem to mean as much to Mac Timberlake as she had believed.

More than ready to change the subject, Ali addressed Nic. "Have you found a photo of Jackie Kennedy's wedding gown, yet?"

"Oh, yeah. I found it and Princess Grace's and Liz Taylor's. People magazine did a best-and-worst wedding fashion issue, and it's archived. So here you go." She turned the laptop screen around so that the other women could see. "I still say I win."

"What's the contest?" Celeste asked.

Sage gestured toward the box at the end of the table. "Ali brought her wedding gown to donate for the cause, and it started an argument about which celebrity had the most beautiful wedding gown."

Ali expected Celeste to join the other women in viewing the photographs and debating the question. Instead she walked to the end of the table and lifted the wedding gown from its box. "Oh, Alison, this is lovely."

It was yards and yards and yards of satin and Chantilly lace and tiny white pearls. The style appeared dated today, but twenty years ago she'd been on the cutting edge of fashion. "I knew it was mine the moment I saw it."

"Tell me about that day."

"Oh, Celeste, I don't want to-"

"Indulge me, dear."

What was this, trip-down-memory-lane day?

Celeste fluffed out the dress, spreading out the train. "Where did you buy this?"

"Marshall Field's on the Miracle Mile in Chicago. One of my sorority sisters went with me and we made a day of it, shopping for my gown and the bridesmaids' dresses. She was my maid of honor at our wedding. She told the salesclerk to bring something sophisticated but romantic. I knew the moment I saw it that it was my dress. I put it on and I felt as glam as Jackie, Liz, and Princess Grace put together."

"You were happy."

"I was so very happy." That day, and for a long time afterward.

Celeste touched her arm. "Are you certain you want to donate your gown to our quilt project?"

"I'd love to see us make something beautiful out of it. It's hopeful, in a way. That something old and tired can be transformed into something new and wonderful. Does that make sense?"

"It makes perfect sense." Celeste squeezed her hand. "The wedding gown quilts the Patchwork Angels have made reflect the positive energies of Eternity Springs, this special place where we are blessed to live. When I place a wedding gown quilt on a bed in Angel's Rest, it's as if the fabrics we used, the st.i.tches we made together, offer love and hope and dreams, friendship and laughter and compa.s.sion to those who come to this valley in pain."

"That may be a little too much symbolism for me, Celeste. My marriage is in serious trouble. I don't know how much hope the fabric from my wedding gown has to offer. In the other quilts we did, the fabric represented marriages that lasted forty and fifty years."

"You don't think a marriage that has lasted more than twenty years has value? You don't think that a marriage that lasts forty or fifty years has rough spots?"

"I ..." Ali snapped her mouth shut. All marriages had rough spots. She knew that.

"You need to remember ..." Celeste's voice trailed off as she looked inside Ali's gown and pursed her lips. "What do we have here?"

She reached inside the bodice and pulled out a little stick-on green shamrock. Seeing it, Ali caught her breath in surprise.

The scenery in Rocky Mountain State Park took one's breath away. On this last full day of Mac's first visit to Denver, she'd taken him up to Estes Park for a drive through Rocky Mountain National Park. At his suggestion, she'd packed a picnic basket and they'd found a spectacular, clover-covered meadow on which to spread their blanket and enjoy their lunch.

"It simply doesn't get any better than this," he said, stretching out and resting his weight on his elbows, his long, denim-clad legs crossed at the ankles. "Beautiful scenery, beautiful weather." He glanced over and gave her a steamy look. "Beautiful woman."

Ali grinned. "Don't even think about it," she warned. They'd been sleeping together for more than a year now, and she recognized that look. "This meadow only seems isolated. We could be overrun by a station wagon full of tourists looking to get an upclose and personal look at nature."

"Hey." He rolled over onto his side and allowed his gaze to slowly trail over her. "What's more natural than a big h.o.r.n.y goat in a mountain meadow?"

"That's bighorn sheep, city boy."

"No." He reached out and traced the vee at her neck with an index finger. "I'm definitely a goat."

Ali shivered at his touch and considered cutting the tour short and finding a room to rent near Estes Park. "I wish I were going back with you tomorrow. I should have gone to summer school."

"No, it's good for you to have this time with your dad. I like him. It's clear that he loves you a lot." He hesitated a moment, then asked, "What has he said about me?"

The nervousness in his expression touched her. "I think he likes you. I know he enjoyed debating the death penalty with you at dinner last night."

"When he wasn't eyeing his steak knife as if he wanted to plunge it into my heart."

Ali laughed. "You have to understand that he's very protective of me, and he's always been a little chilly to the guys I've dated."

"Chilly? I'd say icy better described it." Mac took hold of her hand and brought it to his mouth to press a kiss against her palm. "That's okay. I can't blame him. It's only natural for him to resent me because I am the luckiest man on earth."

"Lucky?"

"Yep. Don't look now, Ali, but we didn't spread our blanket in just any old field of clover. These are four-leaf clovers."

"Oh, really?" she replied, playing along.

"That's right. Perfect setting for a guy to get lucky, don't you think?"

"Stop right there, Timberlake. I already told you that you're not getting lucky here."

"See, this is why I'm gonna be the lawyer. Whereas you are considering only one definition of the phrase, I have something else in mind. For now, anyway."