For All Their Lives

by Fern Michaels

Genres: Family Life; Sagas; Contemporary Romance

Synopsis

"Her most haunting and passionate novel yet." — Affaire de Coeur From the beloved #1 bestselling sensation Fern Michaels, a haunting portrait of love and war—and the passionate woman swept into an epic journey of desire, heartbreak, and destiny. Casey Adams, a dedicated nurse, loses her heart overseas to idealistic officer Mac Carlin, heir to an immense fortune. Then tragedy strikes. Believing that Casey has died in an explosion, Mac returns to San Francisco grief-stricken, to a life he never wanted. But Casey is still alive, keeping Mac in the dark after learning that he kept from her a shattering secret. Once home, Casey finds healing in the hands and heart of a brilliant plastic surgeon and forges ahead under a new name and with a new career. But fate charts a collision course for her and Mac, now a U.S. senator who doesn't recognize the compelling TV producer getting under his skin. For Casey, this full-circle journey cannot be denied, no matter what. For only by reclaiming the woman she was and the life she lost can she embrace the magic of unexpected love. Praise for Fern Michaels and Her Novels "Heartbreaking, suspenseful, and tender." — Booklist on Return to Sender "A big, rich book in every way. . ..I think Fern Michaels has struck oil with this one." —Patricia Matthews on Texas Rich 170,000 Words

Release date: December 1, 2013

Publisher: eClassics

Print pages: 482

Sample

HE WATCHED HER . . . with clinical interest.

And he wondered why he felt so removed.

The object of Mac Carlin’s intense scrutiny was Alice, the woman he’d been married to for eight years. He felt like a sneak, a Peeping Tom, watching her.

Mac’s index finger automatically rose upward to adjust his aviator glasses, which were slipping down his nose.

How was it possible, he wondered, for this woman to spend eight solid hours sleeping between lace-bordered satin sheets, and then wake up with every blond hair still in place? There was color on her high cheekbones and a smudged line under her lower lashes. And not one, but two diamonds winked in each ear. Her lips were a glossy deep pink that matched the polish on her exceptionally long nails. He wasn’t sure, but he thought the nails were artificial. He wasn’t sure about the glossy pink lips either. It had been awhile since he’d kissed his wife or even looked at her up close.

The peach-satin creation that swirled about her was one he’d never seen before. He knew that it must have cost as much as two good suits from an expensive tailor.

Once he’d thought her delectable as a bonbon. He’d wanted her, but the only way he could have her was to marry her. Which he did, the day he graduated from West Point. Crossed swords and all.

To his mind, Alice now more closely resembled a shellacked mannequin, and her personality, if she’d ever had one, was brittle and artificial.

When he’d first met Alice Summers at a pool party ten years ago, during his third year at the Academy, she looked like the girl next door. She’d been a flirt, a tease and a virgin. She told him in no uncertain terms that she was a “good girl” and didn’t “put out” for anyone. He’d done everything but howl at the moon in his desire to have her, but she wouldn’t even let him put his hand near her breast, much less inside her dress. He couldn’t really remember now, but he thought that back then he’d respected her for holding out.

Marriage to Alice had been, and still was, the biggest disappointment of his life. Alice’s idea of sex was: I give you something and you give me something back. What he had to give were material offerings: a new fur jacket, a gem, a trip, a sports car, trinkets, elegant handbags, lizard shoes, anything so long as it was expensive. With every promise of a new treat, Alice performed. Once a week. If he held out in the gift department, once every two weeks. If the check from his trust fund was slow in arriving, every three weeks.

It took him a full year before he got it through his head that he was buying his wife’s sexual favors, and another year before he realized Alice had married him for his money. He couldn’t recollect anything about the third and fourth years, but he did remember the fifth year because he’d asked for a divorce. Of course she’d said no, after she’d had a good laugh. “Do whatever you want, darling,” she’d said, “but please, be discreet.” He’d never touched her again, until a few months ago when he’d gotten stinking drunk and literally dragged her into his bedroom. He hadn’t raped her. You couldn’t rape someone who was dead from the neck down. In fact, he remembered her exact words: “Just do it and get it over with.”

The next day he’d volunteered for Vietnam. He managed to pull the same strings his father had pulled to get him stationed at the Pentagon. His father, Supreme Court Justice Marcus Carlin, had more strings to yank than a hot air balloon. It had worked for him just the way it worked for his father. Captain Malcolm Carlin was to depart the United States of America in two days. He felt like cheering. Maybe he would, after he told Alice.

Mac leaned against the wall. Alice hadn’t yet noticed him. Maybe, he thought, she hadn’t put the startling green contact lenses in her eyes yet. Cat eyes. All she needed was a tail.

For the thousandth time he wondered what it would take to make Alice give him a divorce. He’d already offered her the house in Palm Springs, the chalet in Aspen, this monstrous house in McLean, Virginia. He’d even offered her his prize stallion, Jeopardy. She’d laughed and said, “It’s not enough.” He’d raged, demanding to know what was enough. “Put a price on it, Alice.”

“Some day, Mac, when your father goes to that big courtroom in the sky,” she’d said, “you will be an incredibly wealthy man. When that happens we’ll discuss it, and not a moment before.” She’d stunned him with that. He’d called her a ghoul and she’d laughed again, a weird, tinkling sound that gave him goose bumps.

What bothered Mac even more was his father’s blindness with regard to Alice. The old man thought she was right up there with sliced bread. On those occasions when the old man needed a hostess, Alice willingly played the part, which gave her a perfect entrée into Washington society.

Mac had no illusions about his father, none at all. Marcus Carlin was a lecher, if a discreet one—a good ol’ boy, salivating, geriatric, ass-pincher.

The old man was as fit and trim as a frisky pup. He still worked out, jogged three miles every morning, had the wickedest backhand at the country club and could belt down a half bottle of Old Grand-Dad and never blink an eye. He was also the youngest Supreme Court judge on the bench.

Mac sighed. Time to get on with his day. He glanced at his watch. Just enough time for a quick cup of coffee and another minute to tell Alice he was leaving. He wondered now for the first time what his wife was doing up at the ungodly hour of seven-thirty. He allowed his eyebrows to shoot upward in surprise.

“To what do I owe this early morning breakfast?”

“It’s too early for humor, Mac,” Alice murmured.

Once again Mac wondered how she managed to talk without moving her facial muscles.

Mac poured his coffee into a fragile little cup, which looked like it belonged to a child’s tea set. He shrugged.

Alice looked down at the piece of dry toast on the gold-rimmed plate. Would it stay down if she nibbled on it? She rather doubted it. Panic coursed through her. She knew what was wrong, and she didn’t need a pelvic exam or a urine test to confirm it. She was pregnant. The whole idea was so repulsive, so abhorrent, she almost gagged. A baby wasn’t in her plans—not now, not later, not ever.

Last night in the privacy of her bathroom she’d wadded two towels into a ball and slipped them under her nightgown to see what she would look like with a protruding stomach. Her father-in-law would be delighted. Mac would be delirious. But she had gagged.

She needed to give her condition a lot of thought. It was only nine months out of her life. She’d demand a trip to the south of France, where she’d live out those months so that none of her friends would see her stomach grow fat.

“Dieting again?” Mac said, stalling for time.

Mac was such a disappointment to her. She’d expected wonderful things from him, and he hadn’t come through. He was still a captain working at the Pentagon. Nothing prestigious about that. He did look dashing in his dress uniform, but otherwise he didn’t stir her in any way.

“You should think about dieting yourself, Mac,” she said. “You look like you’ve put on a few pounds.” It was a lie, she thought sourly, he was as fit as his father.

“Alice, I have to talk to you about something, and no, it cannot wait. I’m leaving for Vietnam in two days. I volunteered. We’ll have time away from one another, and when I get back, if I still feel the same way I do now, I’ll file for a divorce. I want that clear and out in the open. If you still refuse, I’ll simply walk out.”

Alice raised her green eyes guilelessly and smiled. “I’m pregnant, Mac. So it’s hardly the time to think about divorce. Or for you to be going off and leaving me. Well, say something.”

He did, but it wasn’t what he intended to say. “Did you tell my father?” A baby. The thought was mind-boggling.

Alice’s brain raced. What did that mean? Did he suspect? “What a perfectly silly thing to say. Of course I didn’t tell him. You’re the first one I’ve told.”

“I’m having lunch with Dad. I’ll tell him. He’ll look out for you while I’m gone.” Jesus Christ! Of all the things in the world she could have sprung on him, this was the worst.

Mac found himself staring at his wife. She was beautiful, cold, and brittle. He now realized, of course, that he’d never loved her.

Alice’s long nails tapped on the dining room table. “How long will you be away?” she asked in a disinterested voice.

He didn’t want to tell Alice he would be in Vietnam a year, so he shrugged.

“Be sure there’s enough money in the account to take care of things. I don’t want to have to beg your father for handouts. I think I’ll go to France and have the baby there. I’m sure you have no objections. Of course, I’ll need enough money to rent a villa. And I mean carte blanche, Mac,” she said warily.

“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” Mac said sarcastically. He saluted her smartly before striding out of the dining room.

Alice wrinkled her forehead. She hadn’t counted on Mac’s being gone for the birth of the baby. The manicured nails tapped on the shiny surface of the dining room table. When Plan A doesn’t work, switch to Plan B. Or C or D.

While her mind raced, rejecting, sifting, collating, Alice’s eyes raked the dining room she’d inherited from Mac’s father. After their marriage the judge had turned over the Carlin homestead to Mac and moved into a house in the Georgetown section of Washington.

She remembered that day so well. She’d walked through the house, awed at the magnificence of it, but she couldn’t imagine Mac, as a little boy, scampering about the huge rooms. He certainly wouldn’t have been allowed to bounce a ball on the old, polished wood floors, or to slide down the banister of the splendid staircase. She’d only given the Carlin ancestry, which graced the walls, a cursory glance. They were history and had nothing to do with her.

She had never changed anything in the huge colonial mansion, because to do so would have angered Marcus Carlin, and if there was one thing she vowed never to do, it was to upset her father-in-law. In the beginning the heavy, antique furniture depressed her, but once she made it her business to learn its value, her attitude changed. Now she had it all catalogued, right down to the last silver spoon.

She’d also had her jewelry catalogued and appraised, which comprised all the fine pieces she had weasled out of Mac and her father on her birthdays and Christmas. She had the neck for diamond chokers, and just the right earlobes for the three-carat clusters that once belonged to Mac’s grandmother. Her wrists were slender and graceful enough for the several diamond bracelets she constantly wore. She had a total of seven valuable rings, so valuable that Marcus Carlin insisted she keep them in a safety vault, but it annoyed her that she and Mac had to pay the outrageous insurance premiums on them. Once she’d had to cancel a trip to the Virgin Islands because premiums were due. The following day she’d taken her entire jewelry box to Marcus Carlin and with tears in her eyes told him that she and Mac couldn’t afford to keep them. The judge had immediately written a check. Mac and his father had serious words over that incident. She and Mac had had serious words too.

Alice looked down the length of the cherrywood table, which was set with two magnificent arrangements of fresh tulips and greenery. It would seat sixteen comfortably. She fancied she had an eye for beauty, but none impressed her as much as her own. She presented a lovely picture sitting there at the head of the table in her elegant dressing gown, and she knew it. The fine crystal, bone china, and sterling silver inspired her eyes to sparkle. The Irish linen cloth and napkins felt like satin in her hands. Her eyes turned to the sideboard, where an elegant silver service stood. All this now belonged to her, the mistress of Carlin House.

And she was fucking pregnant.

The birth alone would be worth a palatial estate in Hawaii. Or perhaps a chalet in Switzerland. She did love to ski. Then again, she loved the sun.

The Carlin money was so old, it was moldy. It had been made in tobacco and cotton, which was another way of saying the sweat, blood, and tears of slaves. There was so much of it, it boggled her mind. And she wanted it. All of it. If she couldn’t have it all, then her child would get it. Either way, it would be hers.

On her way up the majestic stairway that led to the wide, central foyer, with its decorative balcony, Alice vaguely wondered, and not for the first time, about her feelings toward Mac. He’d certainly given her everything she’d ever asked for, even the family home. He’d grumbled about accepting it, of course, but in the end he’d given in, because he thought it would make her happy. And then he’d taken her around the world, again, to make her happy.

Alice removed her dressing gown and hung it carefully on a scented hanger. She wanted her own maid, someone to pick up after her, but so far that little treasure had eluded her. A cook, a housekeeper, and a gardener were all she had. Now, though, with the baby coming, she was almost certain she could cajole a personal maid out of her father-in-law. She would also have to give some thought to a nurse and a nanny.

An ugly look crossed Alice’s face as she ran her hands over her flat stomach. Soon it would bulge like a watermelon, and she’d have to wear those damn tent dresses. Maybe she could have Dior whip up something that wouldn’t shriek pregnancy.

Today was one of her nothing days, a day when she could sit and read, drink a mint julep, watch television, or go shopping. She hadn’t been shopping in two days. By now Garfinkle’s would have new merchandise. A day for herself. Or she could read a book on pregnancy, the one the doctor had given to her last week. As if she wanted to read about a uterus, ovaries, and the birth canal. Just the words were enough to make her heave.

She could have stopped by her father-in-law’s office and invited him to lunch to tell him the news, but Mac had already planned lunch with him. Better to let the judge come to her. Much better.

Poor Mac. Poor, poor Mac. Where had it all gone? She pulled on a sheer nylon, careful to keep the seam straight. She wasn’t certain if she had ever loved Mac. She rather thought she had, in the beginning. But maybe it had only been his dashing cadet uniform, his potential, his background, and all that wonderful, old, crackly, green money. Mac and his family were everything her family wasn’t. Her father was a landscaper, her mother a nurse. They’d lived in a square little house that was manicured and pruned, so much so that it screamed at you when you walked up the flagstone walkway to the little front porch with its two wicker chairs. She’d never wanted for anything. She’d had everything the other youngsters had, possibly a little more, as her mother worked. She’d had her own car at seventeen, a spiffy Pontiac with real leather seats. She’d even been popular in school, a cheerleader, and she had sung in the school choir because her voice was high and sweet. By the time she left for Syracuse University, she knew she never wanted to return to Rockville, Maryland. Instead she wanted to find a rich husband and get married as soon as she finished college.

The secret to anything, she thought as she twirled in front of the smoky mirror, was planning. For her anyway.

She had a plan now. It was committed to memory. Later, at some point, she would decide it was time to put it into effect.

Poor Mac. Poor, poor Mac.

Alice climbed behind the wheel of her Mercedes sports coupe for an exhilarating day of shopping at Garfinkle’s.

IT WASN’T UNTIL Mac parked in the lot nearest the Pentagon’s Seventh Corridor entrance that he started to wonder if Alice would deliver a girl or a boy. A baby! Son of a bitch!

It wasn’t that he didn’t like babies. In fact, he loved kids. As an only child, he’d often been lonely growing up and had always wished for a house full of siblings. He knew he’d make a good father if given the chance. He debated a full minute about the strings he’d pulled to get transferred out. He could pull them again and have his orders changed. If he wanted to. But he’d made a commitment and he would stick to it. Alice would survive as long as she had a housekeeper, a butler, a chauffeur, a cook, and round-the-clock nurses.

Mac Carlin turned more than one head when he strode down the corridor to the office he shared. He was tall, well over six feet, and he carried himself like a commanding general. The Academy did that to a man. Chest out, chin in. People called him handsome. He saw himself as clean-cut and all-American. He had the kind of bright blue eyes that women loved, and sinfully long eyelashes that swept upward and matched his unruly dark hair, which he threatened to brush-cut every time it fell over his eyes. He also had a sense of humor. He could laugh at himself and was fond of playing practical jokes on the secretary, Stella, who took it all with good grace.

Stella thought of him as a son and brought him cookies and brownies from home. She was Polish, and once in a while told him a silly Polish joke. She also told him, over and over, that if he wasn’t happily married, she could fix him up with one of her hundred cousins. Captain Carlin always laughed, but he never said he was happily married.

Stella wiped her eyes. She was going to miss him. How handsome he looked, she thought, as he strode past her desk and winked at her, something he did every morning. She pretended to swoon, as she did every morning. It was a standing joke between them.

The buzzer on her desk sounded. “Stella, will you get Phil Benedict on the phone for me and call my father to confirm our lunch date? By the way, you look beautiful today. That husband of yours must be treating you right.” He chuckled.

Stella beamed. “Yes, sir, I’ll take care of it right away. Stash always treats me right, Captain.”

“That’s because he knows a good woman when he sees one,” Mac joked. He was going to miss Stella and her sweet, homely face. He was going to miss a lot of things.

He thought about the baby while he waited for his old roommate to come on the line. He’d miss the birth, the first bottle, and everything that came afterward. Would Alice send him pictures? Out of sight, out of mind. He’d have to discuss that with his father.

Mac’s fingers drummed on the desk. The ease with which Alice had announced her pregnancy puzzled him. She’d made it clear early on that she didn’t want his children, even though she’d said otherwise when they were dating. Once she’d made the rash statement that she couldn’t wait to cook a meal for him. He was still waiting. Alice couldn’t boil water, much less cook a meal. Sometimes he wondered how she got herself together in the mornings. This whole thing was confusing, to say the least. The Alice he knew would have demanded he find a doctor to perform an abortion. She would have ranted and raved and blamed him. The Alice he knew would have thrown a fit at her circumstances, and more so when she found out he was leaving for Vietnam, but even that hadn’t bothered her.

“You son of a bitch, I just heard!” Phil Benedict hissed into the phone. “I want to go too!”

“Sure you do and sure you want to leave those twins and that cute little wife. Don’t shit me, Benny.”

“Sounded good, though, didn’t it?” Phil laughed. “Personally, I think you’re nuts. Let the marines go. They come by that kind of stupidity naturally.”

“I need to put some distance between me and here, that’s all. The thing at home, it’s not getting any better. My old man is leaning on me real heavy. I hate staff duty. This is nowhere to be, Phil, and we both know it. By the way, Alice told me she was pregnant this morning. Before I delivered my news.”

“But . . . You told me . . .”

“Yeah . . . Yeah, but I never told Alice,” Mac said tightly. “Since I exercised my conjugal rights one night when I had too much to drink, she thinks I’m responsible . . . or she’d like me to believe I am.”

Phil Benedict whistled. “Hey, why don’t you pull some of those awesome strings your father pulled the first time around?”

“I thought about it and decided against it. This is something I feel I have to do, Phil. I don’t want to deal with Alice and her pregnancy now.”

The faceless voice on the other end of the phone was silent for a moment. “I understand, Mac. Is there anything I can do, anything you want me to take care of while you’re. gone?”

“Write to me. I have a feeling I won’t be getting many letters. Alice said she’s going to rent a villa in the south of France and have her baby there.”

Phil whistled again. “Hey, you know what I always say, it’s probably meant to be. Listen, I can meet you for a drink after work if you want. We should at least shake hands and all that crap. You can tell your wife you had a flat tire.”

“The hell I will. I’ll say I stopped for a drink with the best friend a guy ever had. Sadie’s, right? Five minutes past five okay with you?”

“I’ll be there.”

Mac looked at his cleared desk. There really was no need for him to be here. He had his orders, and his time was his own. Something had prompted him to come in today, possibly the luncheon with his father. Marcus Carlin was the kind of person you had to make an appointment to see. Marcus Carlin didn’t believe in time off.

From childhood on Mac had always had to play the part of a little soldier for his father. He’d done it to please him, and when he pleased his father, his mother smiled. In his formative years he’d never said more than “yes, sir” and “no, sir” to his father. A regimented life, according to the judge, built character. So first there was boarding school, then prep school, and then the U.S. Military Academy and his commission in the army. “Ten years,” his father had said, “ten years and you’re out and headed for a bright future in politics.” Well, his goddamn ten years were almost up, and he didn’t want to go into politics, and Vietnam was his one and only chance to show independence from his father. Maybe, if he was lucky, he wouldn’t come back, and he’d never have to go into politics. Or he could take off and disappear when he mustered out after his tour of duty in Nam. The coward’s way out, he thought miserably, although in his gut, he knew he was a coward only when it came to confronting his father. Otherwise, nothing cowed or frightened him.

Where Vietnam was concerned, the old man would surely expect him to come home with every medal the army had to offer. Once, that is, he got over the shock of Mac’s decision.

Mac’s stomach rumbled ominously. A grimace of pain stretched across his face. Once the judge heard about Alice’s pregnancy, he would have a press release scheduled by three o’clock. It would be full of saccharine and bullshit.

Mac pounded his clenched fist down on the shiny desktop. A pencil skittered to the edge, teetered, and dropped to the floor. Dust particles swept upward. They reminded him of the sawdust in a carnival. He’d run away with a local fireman’s carnival when he was twelve. The carny people had hidden him for two months. That two months had been the happiest time of his life. He’d loved eating with the Fat Lady and all the roustabouts. His only concern was his mother, who was in failing health. He’d called her once from a pay phone to tell her he was safe, but he hadn’t told her where he was. The worst part was being found by state troopers and taken home. His father hadn’t done anything normal like taking a belt to his behind. Instead, he’d banished him to his room without a radio. The only reading material he was allowed to have was Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary and a book consisting of maps of the entire world. His punishment was to learn the spelling and the meaning of every single word in that dictionary. Every night for a year his father quizzed him. Weekends were spent drawing maps and penciling in remote places, half of which he couldn’t pronounce at twelve years of age. To this day he could close his eyes and pinpoint any place on the world map. It was his personal nightmare.

Still, he didn’t start to hate his father that year. The hatred started two years later, when he found out that his father was having an affair with a diplomat’s wife. He thought he was being a good son when he returned home from the city and told his mother about seeing his father with a strange woman. If he lived to be a hundred, he would never forget the awful look on her face. Two weeks later Elsa Carlin packed her bags and returned to her home in Charleston, leaving him behind. The old man had handled it by pensioning her off like a servant. His mother had taken the money too; she’d marched out of the house like a soldier, her head high, her eyes brimming with tears. How cold her face was. He had thought then that the hatred in her eyes had been for him. Even now he wasn’t sure that it wasn’t. What he did know now was that he was responsible for breaking up their family.

They’d never divorced, and his mother had died five years after she left. A coronary. The old man had given out some kind of piss-assed statement about his wife having had a breakdown and, good husband that he was, he had insisted she return to her family, where the atmosphere was conducive to a complete recovery. In the meantime, he and his son would manage to get along on their own. From that day, his father had totally ruled his life.

Now it was time for a change. When he got back from Vietnam, he would be mustered out and take his place in the civilian world. Then he could do whatever he wanted. He could get his divorce, provide for Alice and the baby.

His bottom line was his personal happiness. He wanted to be loved by someone, and he wanted to love that person in return. He wanted to watch sunsets, to walk in the rain, to discuss his old age, to raise a family born out of love with a partner he loved.

Maybe it would happen. Maybe it wouldn’t. Right now he had a luncheon to attend with his father, and then a year to serve in Vietnam.

MARCUS CARLIN WAS every bit as imposing in his Saville Row suit as he was in his black judicial robes. His peers described him as formidable. Friends called him distinguished. Women said he was magnificently handsome and they plotted and schemed to be seen with him. The President of the United States considered him capable and austere. Media reporters treated him with deference, while they mumbled and muttered among themselves that yes, he made good copy, but not good enough to lose your job over. Most of them had come close to the unemployment line when they’d taken his political dossier to their chiefs just as he was about to announce his entrance into politics. Publishers and television network presidents immediately descended on his home and suggested to him, as friends, that he should withdraw from the race. In his study, over Havana cigars and Jim Beam whiskey, he agreed to do exactly that.

With his political ambitions in ashes at his feet, Marcus Carlin got drunk and slept on the Persian carpet that night. When he awoke with a colossal hangover the following morning, he decided all the media were his enemy. But if he’d had to pay their price this once, he wouldn’t pay it a second time.

Now his son Mac would do what he, Marcus, hadn’t been able to do, the elder Carlin thought. There were no skeletons in his son’s closets. The boy had promised him ten years in the army. He had one to go, and then his hat would go into the ring for the governorship of the state of Virginia. With Alice at his side, the beautiful, dutiful wife, they would make a perfect couple. The idol-loving public would go wild over them, he was sure. He’d make sure, by orchestrating their private lives and feeding tidbits to the hungry press. Once he whet the public’s appetite, he would have the election in the bag.

Marcus rarely smiled, but he smiled now. Mac would be a figurehead, and he would be the power behind his son. It would be almost as good as being governor himself.

Judge Carlin stepped from his chauffeur-driven stretch limousine, and within seconds was ushered to his favorite table at the rear of the room. Almost immediately a drink was set in front of him. He nodded when a copy of the Washington Star appeared on the table. Carlin allowed himself one quick glance around the room. There was nobody of importance there. Not that it mattered. He rarely spoke to anyone, and he never invited anyone to join him at his table if he was lunching or dining alone.

He did like being seen with his son, however. Although they didn’t look much alike, Marcus felt he looked as youthful as Mac, and he wanted people to notice that. As far as he was concerned, the only sign that he was older than Mac was his hair, which was gray, while his son’s was dark chestnut, almost black. The judge was fit and trim, weighing exactly 180, which was also his son’s weight. He had blue eyes, like Mac’s, but his own were calculating and shrewd, where Mac’s were trusting and open. They both had the same straight nose and the same cleft in what one reporter called a Grecian jaw. Fully clothed, Marcus Carlin could easily pass for a dashing forty-eight, thanks to a skill