Angel Falls

“Ah, Mike,” he murmured, moving toward her. It was beyond him now, the simple routine he’d constructed so carefully—the potpourri, the pillows, the music.

He stared down at her.

She was still beautiful. Some days he could pretend that she was simply sleeping, that it was an ordinary morning, and any moment she’d wake up and reach for him. Not tonight, however.

“I fell in love with you the first second I saw you,” he said, curling his hand around hers, feeling the warmth of her flesh. Even then, he’d known she was running from something … or someone. It was obvious. But what did he care? He knew what he wanted: Mikaela and Jacey and a new life in Last Bend. A love that would last forever. He hadn’t known who she was—who she’d once been. How could he? He’d never been one to read celebrity magazines, and even if he had, he would have read about Kayla True, a woman who meant nothing to him.

After Jacey had recovered from her surgery, Mike had begun to pull away from Liam. He’d seen how tired she was, how frightened and worn out, and he’d slipped in to stand beside her. Let me be your buffer against the wind, he’d whispered. Let me keep you warm.

He’d known why she reached for hi

m, why she’d crawled into his bed and let him kiss her. She’d been a fragile, lonely little bird, and he’d built her a nest. Over time she’d learned to smile again. And every day that she stayed with him was a blessing.

He closed his eyes and culled memories, brushing some aside and savoring others. The first time he’d kissed her, on a bright and sunny day at Angel Falls … the way she snorted when she laughed really hard and cried at a good Hallmark commercial … the day Bret had been born and they’d put him in Liam’s arms, and Mike had whispered softly that life was good. The day he’d asked her to marry him …

That was the one that hurt.

It had been the year Batman exploded across theater multiplexes and the Exxon Valdez crashed in Prince William Sound.

They’d been at Angel Falls, stretched out on a blanket beside a still, green pool of water. There had been tears in her eyes when she told him she was pregnant.

He had known to tread carefully. It had been difficult, when all he wanted to do was throw back his head and laugh with joy, but he’d touched her cheek and asked her quietly to marry him.

I’ve been married before, she’d answered, a single tear sliding down her pink cheek.

Okay. That’s what he’d said, all he’d said.

It’s important.

He’d known that, of course.

I loved him with all my heart and soul, she’d said. I’m afraid I’ll love him until I die.

I see.

But he’d known that she was the one who could see. She’d known she was breaking his heart. She turned and knelt beside him. There are things I can’t tell you … ever. Things I won’t talk about.

“I didn’t care about all that, did I, Mike? I was forty years old and I’d seen things no human being should ever see.

“Until I met you, I had given up on love, did you know that? I had grown up in a great man’s shadow; I knew that everyone I met compared me to the famous Ian Campbell, and beside him, I was an agate pushed up alongside a diamond.

“Then I met you, and you’d never really known my father. I thought at last I’d found someone who wouldn’t compare me all the time … but you’d already had a diamond, hadn’t you, Mike? And I was still just an ordinary agate …”

But he hadn’t told her any of this when he asked her to marry him, when she told him she’d already found—and lost—the love of her life. All he’d said was that he loved her, and that if she could return even a piece of his love, they’d be happy.

He’d known that she wanted it to be true, just as he’d known she didn’t completely believe it. I will never lie to you, Liam, and I’ll never be unfaithful. I will be as good a wife as I can be.

I love you, Mike, he’d said, watching her cry.

And I love you.

He’d thought that over the years, she’d learned to love him, but now he was seized by doubt. Maybe she cared for him. Only that.

“You should have told me, Mike,” he said, but even as he said the words, he heard the lie echoing within them. She couldn’t have told him. She was right in that, at least. The knowing was unbearable.

She had loved him that much, anyway.

“I found the pillowcase, Mike,” he said, leaning close. “The pictures … the clippings. I know about … him. ”