The Last MacKlenna
A Novel
Katherine Lowry Logan
©2013 Katherine Lowry Logan
Kindle Edition
This book is a work of fiction. The characters and names are entirely the product of the author’s imagination and there are no references to real people. Actual establishments, locations, public and business organizations are used solely for the intention of providing an authentic setting, and are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
First Edition 2013
Cover design by Oceana Garceau:
www.editorialdepartment.com
Dedicated To
My sisters-in-law who battled breast cancer during the writing of this book
Donna Conley Lowry & Rhonda Jean McMillin Lowry
~*~
In Memory Of
My sister-in-law
Sarah Manning Lowry
who lost her valiant twelve-year battle with breast cancer on October 29, 2012
And
My mother
Anne Lyle Poe Lowry Brown
October 1, 1926-June 30, 2013
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
In Memory
Acknowledgements
PART I
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
PART II
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Chapter 81
The Ruby Brooch Cover
Note From The Author
About The Ruby Brooch
About The Author
Thank You For Reading
One Last Thing…
Acknowledgements
After completion of The Ruby Brooch, I had intended to start writing The Sapphire Brooch, but a character in The Ruby Brooch demanded his story be told next. I am deeply indebted to the following people. Without them, The Last MacKlenna would have remained only an idea.
Special thanks to:
Kathleen Rice Adams and Cindy Nord who helped to shape a secondary character into one who could carry his own story.
Horse experts: Dr. Frank Marcum, Robin Reed, Cathy Foster, J.M. Madden, and Lizbeth Selvig for answering dozens of questions about Thoroughbreds, medications, and injuries.
Members of Kentucky Romance Writers (Teresa Reasor, Amy Blackman Durham, and Kim Jacobs) who stayed up late one night and brainstormed the opening to this story.
Early readers: Amy Blakeman Durham, Angie Rueckert, Christoph Fischer, Deborah Taylor, Donna McDonald, Eryn LaPlant, Gail Morris, Joan Childs, Judith Natelli McLaughlin, Shirl Deems, Shirli de Saye, Theresa Snyder, Tahalia Newland, Maria Lenartowicz whose comments and suggestions were invaluable.
Mark Wilson of Edinburgh, Scotland, for keeping me supplied with Scottish words and for his videotaped reading of the first chapter so I could hear how the story sounded with a Scottish accent.
Kendall-Jackson personnel for an incredible afternoon at the winery and for answering dozens of questions about wine.
Maria Lenartowicz, Kevin Berry and Jacy Mackin for their editorial assistance.
Paul Salvette with BB eBooks for formatting assistance.
My sisters-in-law Rhonda Jean McMillin Lowry, Donna Conley Lowry, and the late Sally Manning Lowry for sharing their breast cancer stories, and to my friends Sandy Hippe and Becky Hicks for sharing theirs.
My daughters Lorie Logan and Lynn Hicks whose belief in me is astounding, and my granddaughter, Charlotte, who proudly announced to a teacher that both of her grandmothers had run a marathon and published a book.
And finally, my special thanks to Ken Muse, M.D., for his medical advice, love, support, and taking me to Edinburgh this summer. This story couldn’t have been finished without him.
My love and thanks to all for being a part of this three year journey.
Part I
Chapter One
Montgomery Winery, Napa Valley, California – December 21
MEREDITH MONTGOMERY FLOATED above the ground as she ran. She didn’t bounce. She glided with perfect form, using her energy to propel herself forward, watching the horizon like a rock-steady pan-cam in a movie.
The worn path snaked through ten thousand acres of Montgomery Winery’s dormant vines. She tried to push her stress and fear aside to enjoy the sense of well-being that came with running. Today, it wasn’t working for her. There were too many items on her to-do list. Number one had her stomach tied into triple knots. As soon as she got home, she’d check off the item, not because she wanted to, but because she had no choice.
It was a matter of life or death.
That sounded divaesque. The Lord knew she wasn’t a diva, but she was a breast cancer survivor. To most women like her, monthly breast self-exam day was a big deal, and she performed it religiously. She raced forward, trying to suppress her fear. Unfortunately, that didn’t work for her either.
The Italian-style villa where she’d lived for most of her life came into view. She sprinted the last quarter mile toward the residence that had perched on top of a private knoll for more than a century. The sun glinted off the copper gutters and the gold streaks in the Portuguese limestone walls. The estate vineyards that surrounded the villa showed rows of bare trellising. Wild mustard flowers wouldn’t bloom among the vineyards for another couple of months. By March, they would awaken and begin to bud. The new growing season filled her with hope and renewal every year. Thi
s year even more so.
When she hit the driveway, she slowed to a walk and checked the time. The unplanned nine-miler put her behind schedule on a day packed with appointments. If her assistant couldn’t rearrange her commitments, Meredith’s afternoon flight to Scotland looked dicey.
She entered the house through the kitchen, grabbed her iPhone off the counter, and snatched a bottle of chocolate milk from the refrigerator. The phone’s home screen listed several text messages marked urgent.
“So what’s new?”
The Master Wine Maker needed to meet with her. She wiped sweat from her forehead and neck, thinking. The results of the field trials were in, and he wanted to start a vineyard on the south-facing slope. He had yet to get his one-track mind around the fact that launching Cailean, the winery’s new chardonnay, was too important to be sidetracked by a new project. What would an expansion mean for the winery? If he could develop a new vineyard without draining resources, she might agree. But that was a huge might.
The breast exam needed to wait five more minutes while she forced herself to stretch. She hated stretching. Instead, she took two yoga classes a week. The odds of finding a class in Edinburgh over the holidays seemed unlikely. So she stretched, hating every minute. She didn’t have time to waste. Not today.
In the bathroom, soaked clothes fell into a pile at her feet. She kicked them aside and stepped into streams of hot water pulsating from top and side-mounted jets. Her schedule for the next few hours came into focus. Ask Cate to confirm the reservations at the B&B in Edinburgh and the National Archives.
Meredith lifted her left arm and placed her hand behind her head. The soapy pads of three fingers rotated up and down her breast, using overlapping dime-sized circular motions, feeling for lumps in the soft tissue. Get the agenda for the meeting with the web designer. Her fingers traced the same path they had followed every month since cancer took her other breast. Call Hank to find an exercise rider for Quiet Dancer while I’m—
Her hand froze. Fear, bitter and fire-hot, coated her tongue.
Do it again.
She retraced the edges of a lump. An irregular-shaped one she would never have discovered without being extra sensitive to the feel of her small breast. Dizzy and tingling, she gulped in lungfuls of air and clutched her chest with a trembling hand.
Do it again.
The lump remained—hard and rooted in the breast. The floor buckled beneath her feet. Her vision blurred. Shampoo and soap bottles became little more than blotches of white and pink and yellow. The clammy wall slapped her back, and she slumped against the marble. Snap went the tether to her anchor, sending her sliding down the wall and into despair.
Not again. Please, not again.
Time stopped. Nothing existed but heart-racing fear. The water turned lukewarm, yet she remained in a stupor. When the water turned cold and she still hadn’t moved, a voice tunneled through the haze. Move your ass. Now. The internal voice had pushed her through endless training miles, five marathons, and cancer surgery. It had also kept her company during the bleak days at her late husband’s bedside and the final hours with her father. She never ignored it, and she never, ever quit.
The voice cranked her up the wall, vertebrae by vertebrae, until she came to her feet, grabbing the lever handles as if they were lifelines. She turned off the tepid water.
The phone rang, shrill and intruding. Meredith stumbled out of the shower stall, cupping her breasts. God made one; man made the other. While it wasn’t a bad imitation, it had scars and a fake nipple.
The answering machine picked up, and her executive assistant left a message. “You’re probably in the shower. I was tracking you on MapMyRun. Why’d you do a long run today? That’ll put you behind schedule. Let me know if you want to postpone the ten o’clock media call. That newspaper reporter is still stomping through the vineyard hoping to be the first to write a review of Cailean. Call me.”
Meredith lifted a heated towel from the warmer and dried off, patting her breast, nice and easy. “The winery is all that matters,” her father had said. “Put it first and everything else will fall into place.”
Will it, Daddy?
When the flow of tears slowed, she squared her shoulders and called her assistant.
“Hey, why’d you run this morning?” Cate asked. “It’s a rest day.”
“Jetlag messes with my schedule.” An icy finger traced Meredith’s spine as she debated whether to tell Cate about the lump. Not this time. It was more important to keep her assistant focused on the launch than to confide in a friend.
Meredith snugged the warm towel around her, comforted by the heat. “I’ll get there before the conference call, but I might need to delay my departure a few hours, maybe forty-eight.” She grimaced, waiting for a barrage of questions.
In her trademark clipped voice, Cate asked, “Why? What happened? Are you hurt? You fell, didn’t you? You re-injured your knee.”
Meredith massaged the lump buried deep in her breast. “No, I didn’t fall, and it’s nothing that can’t be fixed.”
“Are you sure?” Cate asked.
Meredith took a shaky breath. A lie, no matter how small, was still a lie even if it was meant to protect someone. Her hand went to her face, close to her mouth. “Yes,” she said with a muddled voice. She could be fixed, couldn’t she? The doctors fixed her last time. Surgery and reconstruction, no chemo or radiation. If she had cancer again, treatment would go just as smoothly.
Chapter Two
Napa Valley Medical Clinic – December 22
MEREDITH SLAMMED THE outer door of the Napa Valley Medical Clinic with one hand, slipped on her sunglasses with the other. She didn’t need glasses on the overcast day, but the shades hid her sunken, bruised-looking eyes caused by a crying jag and a sleepless night.
The fine needle aspiration was suspicious but not conclusive. The uncertainty created tension in her neck and an explosive headache. She had expected to get results before she left the doctor’s office like she had five years earlier, but this time she had to wait on pathology to issue a report.
“You can stay home and fret over the holidays, Meredith, or you can go to Scotland,” her doctor had said.
That’s what she intended to do. Get the hell out of town. It didn’t matter where in the world she was when the call came. The news would be the same, and odds were good she’d be alone regardless.
Her cell phone rang, flashing Cate’s name. Meredith pasted a smile on her face, hoping it’d come through in her voice. “Hello.”
“What’d you decide? Are you going or not?”
Meredith opened the car door and tossed her purse to the passenger’s seat. “Heading to the airport now. Will you contact the B&B and let them know I won’t be there until late?”
“I’ll call before I leave,” Cate said.
“I’m not even out of town and you’re taking the day off?”
Cate huffed. “Yeah, right. I’m looking at the stack of work in my in-basket. You cleaned off your desk last night and put everything on mine.”
Meredith climbed into the driver’s seat and fastened her seatbelt. “Not everything.”
“Could have fooled me.” Cate shuffled papers. “Oh crap. I spilled coffee.” More papers shuffled and something hit the floor with a thud. “Okay, I’ve got your itinerary now. Yep. You’re confirmed for a late arrival. Anything else you need before I go to the meeting?”
Meredith swallowed her second Aleve of the day with a swig from a bottle of water. The pinched nerve in her neck decided to act up and irritate her. She grabbed an instant cold pack from her purse, squeezed the sides together, shook it up, and the pack instantly turned cold. She tucked it into the collar of her sweater, pressing it against her neck. “I hope there aren’t coffee stains on the letters I signed.”
Cate chuckled. “If there are, I’ll white out the stains.”
Meredith started the engine and put the car in gear. “I should be going to that meeting. The latest slicks for
the gala and the new website pages are ready for review. Chances are they’ve screwed them up.”
Cate hissed, shuffling more papers. “That gorgeous picture of you that’s on the cover of Wine Digest will be on the home page.”
Meredith hit the brakes, stopping inches from a car backing up behind her. “Damn.”
“Don’t you want to use that picture?” Cate’s tone fell squarely between disappointment and confusion.
Meredith said, “I’m sorry,” but the driver only glared at her with beady eyes and flicked his middle finger against the window.
“Well, screw you, too,” she said.
“What?” Cate snorted what sounded like a mouthful of coffee.
Meredith forced her fingers into a fist, so she’d refrain from returning the driver’s obscene gesture. “Whose idea was it to use that picture?” she asked.
“Are you mad at me?”
“I was talking to another driver. Tell me about the picture?”
“Your marketing VP says you’re beautiful and your face sells wine.”
“Pshaw. You know what Daddy would say if he was still president.”
“Oh, I can hear him now,” Cate said. “‘A skinny, forty-two-year-old, childless widow isn’t the right image for my winery.’ But he’s dead, and your name is on the door to the president’s office.”
The memory of her father’s thunderous voice and sharp-edged words sent a shiver in a death spiral down her spine. “I’ll make the decision after I see the web pages. Email copies as soon as you get them.”
“I will, but only if you relax. Take a few days off. Work twenty-two six instead of twenty-four seven. And quit worrying about what’s happening here.”
“I might as well stop breathing.”
“At least then you’d rest. Your stomach is in more knots now than that Chinese butterfly knotwork hanging on your wall.”
“As soon as the launch is over, I promise to take a vacation.”
“I’m marking out the last two weeks in February as we speak,” Cate said.
“Well, I’m not on vacation yet.” And I’ll probably spend those two weeks in the hospital. Meredith pulled out of the parking lot and headed toward the highway. “Call Hank and tell him I’ll be gone a few days. If I call him now, he’ll be between lessons and will keep me on the phone. Ask him to find someone to ride Quiet Dancer. Also, call the florist. I ordered flowers for Daddy and Jonathan’s graves. I want to be sure they’re delivered to the cemetery before Christmas.”