In less than thirty seconds, his phone rang. “Werner. Yes, sir. I can do that. I’ll be there in an hour.” When he concluded the call, he said, “Chuck and I are meeting at Starbucks in Chevy Chase.”
All the previous times Meredith had seen David, he’d worn a black suit and cap. Now dressed in the MacKlenna Farm uniform of khakis, polo shirt, and a green Barbour jacket, he seemed more relaxed and less threatening. With the musculature of a body builder, the agility of a dancer, and the facial bone structure of a romance cover model, he created an imposing impression regardless of what he wore.
Louise yawned. “In half an hour, I’ll probably be asleep.”
“Do ye’ have a car, Ms. Montgomery?” David asked.
“Elliott’s Mercedes.”
“I’ll take Louise to the farm before I go meet Chuck. Where’s Kevin?”
Meredith shrugged.
Elliott punched the nurses’ call button.
“Can I help you, Dr. Fraser?”
“I’m looking for Kevin.”
“He’s on his way in.”
Kevin entered before she finished her sentence. “Hi, David. Hi, Lou.”
“I’ve got an appointment and should be back in a couple of hours,” David said to Kevin without acknowledging his welcome. “Ms. Montgomery is leaving town this evening. I want you to stay until they give Dr. Fraser his night-time meds. Then you can take off.”
Kevin lifted his chin, giving a nod to Elliott. “I’ll be waiting in the wings, if you need me. I’ve got a clear view of the door.”
“Thanks, Kev.”
“I’ll call and give you a status report after the meeting,” David said. “Come on, Louise. I’ll take you to the farm.”
Louise kissed Elliott’s cheek. “I won’t be back tonight. I’ll see ye’ in the morning.”
When they left, Elliott patted the side of the bed. “Before we were so rudely interrupted, I think I was trying to talk you into getting into bed with me.”
While David and Louise had visited, Meredith had remained stilted, arms folded. Now that they were gone, she pushed up her sweater sleeves and said, “No. You. Weren’t. You were insisting my job wasn’t important enough to hurry home and put out fires. You might not think wine’s important, but there’re millions of people who do. And I,” she pointed to herself, “am one of them.”
“That’s not what I said. Of course your job is important, but catering or dress decisions could be made remotely, leaving you free time to enjoy your holiday.”
Free to be your playmate.
She grabbed the railing to keep her hands occupied, so she wouldn’t smack him. “Are you so full of drugs you can’t hear what you’re saying? I’m president of a multi-million-dollar winery with several hundred employees.” The pitch of her voice grew higher and louder. “I have responsibilities. I can’t toss them aside because it’s the holidays.”
“Calm down. You know I didn’t mean it that way.”
His patronizing tone irritated the hell out of her. The slow burn that had started in her stomach inched up her throat. “I don’t see how else you could mean it. You’re in the hospital. I have work to do. I’m going home.”
He threw up his hands. “Fine.”
A nurse’s aide came in with a pitcher of water and patient hygiene products. While she stored them in their appropriate places, Meredith peeked through the blinds and hurled her thoughts into the darkness where they had unlimited space to spin and form a funnel cloud. The cloud was about to touch ground and cut the fragile bond between her and Elliott.
The aide left, and the silence in the room was rock-band-loud.
“Let’s talk when you get out of the hospital,” Meredith said. “You need to focus on getting well, and I need to—”
“Work. You’ve made that perfectly clear.”
His attitude scraped her patience with ragged fingernails.
There was a knock at the door.
Tears pressed against the back of her eyelids. She had to get out of the hospital. The constant reminders of what had happened to Jonathan and worry over Elliott had given her a massive headache that got worse by the hour, and the ticking clock tracking her probable hospital admission in a few weeks had tapped out her reserves.
“Go away,” Elliott yelled at the intruder.
Lyles strode into the room, penetrating the fog of dissension Meredith knew was palpable in the air. “Your temper hasn’t improved, has it?” he said.
A deep emptiness opened inside her, and her composure crumbled. She ran a nervous hand through her hair. “I’ll leave you to your patient. I’ve got a plane waiting for me.” Her own harsh breathing sounded above the silence as she stared at Elliott staring at her. She reclaimed her coat and bag off the sofa. “I’ll call you.” Then she left. It wasn’t a grand exit, but she didn’t embarrass herself either.
“I’m not even going to ask what the hell happened here,” Meredith heard Lyles say as she hurried from the room.
A part of her wanted to go back and talk to Elliott about what was going on, but she had to get away from the medicinal smells and the annoying paging system.
Yes, she could handle the problems at the winery without going home, but ever since meeting him, her orderly life seemed to be unraveling at a time she desperately needed to hold all the ends together. She needed distance to sort out her feelings and put their tenuous relationship into perspective.
She hurried down four flights of stairs, avoiding eye contact with hospital personnel. At the bottom of the steps, she hit the exit door with both palms against the push-pull door latch and stumbled out into the frigid December night. Why did I come here? As she walked toward Elliott’s car, she saw the answer scrolling in an old-fashioned ticker-tape manner across the inky sky. She came to find out if Christmas Day was a fluke.
She thought she had her answer, but until her health was factored in, it didn’t matter what her heart believed.
Chapter Thirty-Five
MacKlenna Mansion – December 27 (Early Evening)
THE MOUTH-WATERING SMELL of roasting meat hit Meredith as soon as she entered MacKlenna Mansion on what had to be the longest day of her life.
During the drive from the hospital, she’d compared herself to a wilted flower, brown around the edges and too far gone to be revived, but a melt-in-your-mouth, home cooked meal proved her wrong. She all but leapt into the kitchen.
Mrs. Collins had left a note on the counter with instructions on warming up sweet potatoes and apples to accompany the pork tenderloin, along with a bottle of a Montgomery chardonnay chilling in an ice bucket. Meredith touched the sides, testing the temperature. Cold to the touch but not freezing—castle temperature. “Perfect. What a precious lady.”
“If—” A disembodied voice came from the far end of the kitchen. “—ye’ can ever get her to shut up.” Meredith jerked her head toward Louise’s voice. She sat at the kitchen table, thumbing through a magazine.
“I thought the MacKlenna spirits were answering me,” Meredith said.
“That would be a boisterous conversation. There’re several haunting the farm, ye’ know.” Louise closed the magazine and walked over to the counter. “Kit got a ghost of her own when she turned ten. A handsome nineteenth-century lawyer type. There’s a closet full of pictures of him upstairs.” Louise glanced at Meredith, giving her a pointed look. “Black hair, blue eyes just like yers.”
Meredith uncorked the bottle. Instead of filling their glasses, she stopped, caught in a memory of a handsome, dark-haired man dressed in nineteenth-century clothes—her great-great-grandfather. As a child, she stood in front of his portrait trying to mimic his enigmatic smile. She shook off the memory. “How did Kit feel about her ghost? Was she scared?”
“Maybe at first,” Louise said. “Later, his presence became normal to her. I don’t think she thought much of it.”
“Did you ever see him?”
Louise sat on a barstool and wiggled her butt to get it settled on the cush
ion. “He never showed up for anyone else. The day Kit fell off her horse and broke her back was the first time she ever saw him. The ghost plopped down beside her and held her hand, or tried to. Can’t very well hold the hand of a ghost. She fell in love with him that day. Ten years old and in love with a ghost.”
Meredith rested her hip against the edge of the counter, crossed one leg over the other, and removed the cork from the opener. “What did Elliott think of that?”
“Oh, he teased her. Finally, she quit talking about her—” Louise made air quotes with her fingers. “—see-through-person.”
“If I see a ghost, I won’t tell him.” Meredith rolled the cork between her fingers, noting it was one of the winery’s new corks, sporting the Twitter name. The neckband also carried a new design for the varietal color bar—amber yellow for chardonnay. The changes made her wines more distinctive, and they had been Gregory’s marketing initiatives.
Louise turned the opened bottle around to look at the label. “Montgomery Winery. This is one of yers.”
Meredith smiled. “Very thoughtful of Elliott. Do you want a glass?”
“I thought ye’d never ask.”
Meredith bit her tongue to keep from making a catty retort, poured, then handed Louise a glass. “Chardonnay is like a rainbow. It brightens up the drabbest day.”
“Just like a cocker spaniel.” Louise saluted Meredith with her glass. “Shall we go to the den and put our feet up? Ye’ can tell me about yer new amber elixir?” Louise led the way to the room behind the kitchen. “My taste buds are rather finicky. Do ye’ think I’ll like it?”
“If you’re interested in the nuance of a chardonnay, but less oaky and with a brighter fruit flavor, then yes, I think you will.”
Louise sat in an overstuffed armchair, upholstered in a green and yellow vintage chintz fabric. “Elliott won’t come in here unless he has to. He gets all jumpy and loses his temper. Finally, bolts after a few minutes.”
Meredith glanced around. The large, open fireplace held enormous logs that crackled, spitting red and gold tongues of fire, giving the room more than a whisper of masculinity. “What’s not to like? There’s a sixty-inch flat screen TV with surround sound, paintings of stallions, and an extra-long, deep-seated cushioned sofa to stretch out on for naps. There’s no wet-bar, but surely he can carry his whiskey from one room to another.”
Louise shrugged one shoulder. “He says the room makes him uncomfortable.”
The large picture window overlooking the pasture and floor-to-ceiling French doors leading to a screened porch gave the room an open yet intimate atmosphere. Elliott’s reaction baffled Meredith. She sniffed the air. “There’s an older woman’s presence here.”
Louise’s face appeared stony. “What makes you say that?”
“I smell it. Feel it. Are you going to tell me there’s an old woman’s ghost, too?”
Louise chuckled. “Not that I’ve heard, but there is an old sea captain.”
Meredith raised an eyebrow. “A confederate soldier I could believe, but a sea captain?”
“Sean’s the only one to report the captain sighting, and I think Sean only saw him once, a few months before he died.”
“Well, I don’t think the room holds the scent of the open sea. It smells more like roses.”
“Kit called this her granny’s room, and Granny Mac loved her rose garden. The two of them would sit for hours and chitchat while Kit sketched and Granny Mac knitted sweaters and socks and scarves that she gave away at Christmas.”
“Elliott had on a knitted black sweater the other night. Looked gorgeous on him.”
“Granny Mac. She hated him in black, but that’s what he wanted. She was the most gracious southern woman I’ve ever met. Born and raised in Rock Hill, South Carolina. She had an accent as sugary as sweet iced tea. Elliott thought of her as a surrogate mother. She adored him. When she was dying from lung cancer, he never left her side. Cleaned up after her, sang to her. He did the same for me when I had breast cancer—”
Meredith’s breath hitched.
“—Ye’ couldn’t ask for a better caregiver,” Louise continued.
Meredith clasped her hands as if that would control her heart racing to string a thread of hope that Elliott would accept her disfigurement. “When did you have cancer?”
Louise patted her chest tenderly as if it had residual pain, and Meredith mirrored the reflective touch.
“Three years,” Louise answered. “Evelyn won’t talk about the mastectomy, but honestly, I live in fear the disease will come back.” Louise sipped her wine and fell into what appeared to be a meditative trance. After a moment she said, “I should have had the other breast removed, too, but my doctors didn’t recommend it, and Elliot asked why I’d want to be mutilated even more.” She shrugged. “He’s such a boob man.” Her voice sounded indifferent, but there was a level of hurt there. A level of hurt in Meredith, too. The reference stung the first time she heard it. This time she felt attacked by a sea full of jellyfish.
“He wouldn’t hug me for months afterwards,” Louise continued. “I never knew if it bothered him because I lost a breast or if the surgery reminded him of how close he came to losing his leg. It doesn’t matter. It’s all behind us now.” Louise unfolded an afghan and spread it across her legs. “I worried that I wouldn’t be attractive to Evelyn, but she isn’t bothered by my scars.”
Meredith tried to swallow the thickness in her throat and catch hold of her unraveling thread of hope. She took a deep breath and changed the subject. “You’ve met Harrison Roberts, haven’t you?”
“Odd fellow. I don’t have much use for him. Why?”
“I met him this morning—”
A Maine Coon cat about the size of a small dog scampered into the room and leapt up on Louise’s chair. “Hello, Tabor.” She ran her fingers through the tabby cat’s long fur. “Elliott inherited Tabor and Tate after the MacKlennas died.”
“Elliott mentioned their deaths. What happened to them?”
“A drunk driver ran into them a hundred yards from the entrance to the farm. Sean and Mary died instantly. Kit’s friend died in her arms.”
“She was a paramedic. That had to have been so hard on her.”
“She felt guilty for surviving and guilty because she couldn’t save them.”
The soft ticking of a clock on the mantel created a not-so-gentle reminder that life continued in spite of tragedy, in spite of cancer. “Do you know why Kit’s living in seclusion?”
Louise whirled a curl on the side of her head as if stirring a cauldron of secrets. “She’s been gone three months. I didn’t know her plans beforehand, and of course, Elliott won’t talk about her other than to say we have to respect her decision.” Louise sipped her wine. Her face seemed locked in concentration, gazing inward. A few moments later, she continued, “Kit softened Elliott’s rough edges. We all need someone to do that for us, else we’ll wander around lost in a maze, disillusioned by inadequacies we refuse to claim. Without Kit . . . well, ye’ve seen his temper.”
Meredith gave a quick laugh, and not because the comment held any humor. “He’s in contact with her, isn’t he?”
“If anybody is, he is.”
“Wouldn’t she want to know he’s in the hospital?”
“Lordy, if you only knew. This isn’t Elliott’s first surgery. It’s his fifth, and each time he’s gone right back into the hospital.”
“He doesn’t want to get better,” Meredith said under her breath, but loud enough for Louise to hear.
“He hangs on to the guilt of what happened that night when he got hurt.”
“Lyles said he lost most of his calf muscle in a knife attack, but that’s all he said.”
“Elliott was attacked by a man Kit fired and Elliott wouldn’t rehire. It was brutal. He beat Elliott up, stabbed him in the chest, sliced his leg for meanness, and then he attacked Kit.” Louise’s voice trailed off and tears pooled at the bottom of her eyes, waiting for the tipping poin
t when the glistening drops would spill and splash down her cheeks.
Meredith crossed her arms, clutching them in front of her. She sensed where the story was going and wasn’t sure she wanted to hear what Louise had to say.
“The man’s name was Wayne Gates. He cut the side of her neck, threw her to the ground, and attempted to rape her. Her friend Scott arrived a second before Gates . . .”
Meredith fell back against the sofa. “Dear God. They both went through hell.”
“Gates died in jail before he went to trial. Spared Kit the agony of reliving the ordeal in public.”
“And Elliott.”
Louise emptied her glass. “He blocked it all out. If ye’ ask him what happened, he’ll recite the article in the newspaper without emotion. He flatlined on the operating table—”
Meredith moaned, shuddering at the memory and shock of a monitor going flat and silent.
“It’s a miracle he’s alive.”
She gulped the last of her wine then glared at the empty glass, feeling betrayed that her wine abandoned her when she desperately needed to be grounded in the familiar. “I need a refill.” She staggered into the kitchen while vivid memories of the man who had carried her into the unfamiliar erotic world swirled in her mind, stirring up a rumble of timpani rolls against a backdrop or a silent monitor with a straight line crawling across the bottom.
“I’ll join ye’,” Louise said, following on Meredith’s heels.
“Why hasn’t Kit reassured him?”
“Dearie, that precious child tried for years. She sat by his bed twenty-four hours a day while he was recovering. Seeing the pain in her eyes probably made him feel even guiltier. He’s one complicated man.”
After hearing Louise’s stories, Meredith understood why. She refilled their glasses. “Are you hungry? Shall we eat?” She didn’t know what else to do.
The Last MacKlenna Page 21
