My Very Best Friend (60 page)

A
ROMANTIC
TIME
TRAVEL
ADVENTURE

THE
FINAL
NOVEL

By Georgia Chandler

McKenzie Rae Dean tilted her head back and let the Scottish rain stream down her face and hair.

She was soaked. She didn’t care.

The thunder pounded around her, the lightning racing to keep up, streaking crookedly through the black night. Her feet were one foot from the edge of the cliff. She would soon do what she knew she had to do.

McKenzie Rae had a chance to go back in time to the exact same time period in St. Ambrose, where Brodie was. The chance wasn’t surefire, but she had to take it. She knew she could be leaping into a whole new time period in the past, a dangerous one at that, but she was tired. She couldn’t live without him anymore. She had to try.

McKenzie Rae had flown from Seattle to Amsterdam to Edinburgh, then had taken the bus to St. Ambrose and a cab to her former home with the Scotsman.

Before she left, her dear, dense, clueless father chuckled and wished her an “exciting adventure in Scotland. See you in three weeks! I’ll miss you. I love you.”

Her mother was pale, worried sick. As a time traveler herself, she knew what obstacles her daughter faced.

The goal was to jump to the time tunnel that McKenzie Rae had whizzed through before. She had come in through the cliffs, had actually landed right here, in that spot, on a rainy, thundering night, and had walked to the Scotsman’s cottage for help. This was the exact day, and month, and time, as her previous visit, endlessly long ago.

Ideally, the cosmic energy from that time tunnel would envelop her as she jumped and yank her back in. There were gravitational dynamics and pull involved, the space-time continuum, Einstein’s theory of general relativity, time dilation, special dimensions, warp speed, and faster than light backward traveling, but McKenzie Rae believed it would work.

Probably. Maybe. It could, possibly.

She peered down the cliff, the North Sea a whipped-up, frothing mess below, the gray skies churning as if they were being twisted in a mixer. The storm was a brewing disaster, lightning brightening up the sky like a galaxy lightbulb.

She and Brodie had made love on that beach at night. They had watched the sun come up. They had danced on the sand. His cottage, the cottage they had lived in together, made of beige stone, was nearby.

It was ramshackle now, the garden she had worked so hard on an overgrown wreck, except for her purple clematis, which rode the leaning picket fence like a wave. She had called it The Purple Lush. The white window shutters were filthy and askew, the red door banged up, the roof partially cratered on one side, the brick walk bumpy.

An obese man lay prone near the kitchen chomping on a chicken.

She snuck inside when he went to sleep, the chicken carcass on his shirt. His snoring was an appalling roar.

The stench was overwhelming, hitting like an invisible wall when she entered. The home smelled of layers of dust and years of decay, as if a graveyard had moved in, followed by a gang of pigs, and farts.

McKenzie Rae’s stomach heaved as she silently moved through the home, a home where she had experienced so much happiness, love, and romance with Brodie.

A cat with silver-colored fur ran up and curled around her legs. She bent down and picked her up. “Hello, Silver Cat,” she whispered. Silver Cat meowed.

Not only did the house smell like rotting dung, it was jammed with junk.

The couch was clearly a mice home. She heard them scurrying, having a busy day. Two cushioned lounge chairs had dark brown spots in the middle. There were three kennels for dogs, but no dogs. Inside the kennels were blankets and Styrofoam. An aquarium full of algae, half filled with water, held three dead fish, floating.

There were broken lamps and three ice chests, empty beer cans inside. Boxes of junk, including old clothes that smelled like hell, had rotted. There was another couch, gray, spotted as if it had chicken pox. Two beds had old mattresses and seemed diseased. Same with the blankets and bedspreads on them.

She glanced down at what had to be years of porn magazines.

“How does a woman walk with boobs like that, Silver Cat?” she whispered. “It’s like she’s got watermelons with nipples attached to her chest.”

She turned a page, disgustingly fascinated. The magazines appeared to be the only things that didn’t have dust on them. “Oh, for God’s sake!” she thought. “That is perverted!” She shut the cover.

“Silver Cat, do not look at this, or it will rot your mind.”

McKenzie Rae gasped when she saw her dining room table. It had made it through the years!

It was covered with food wrappers, a bicycle tire, a truck bumper, and a medium-sized cage. Brodie had made it. Brodie had been a master craftsman, in addition to being a successful farmer with a massive amount of land. She and Brodie had eaten there, made love right on top of it. She had made bread, jams and jellies, and cut out sugar cookies. Brodie had played the bagpipes sometimes from the garden as she baked.

McKenzie Rae walked past the obese sleeping man and found two chairs Brodie made her, upside down, near a car engine, two shovels, a tent, and a tarp. Each had a wobbly leg.

She found her armoire, which was now crooked, clothes strung across it, a kitchen sink and handlebars of a bicycle on top. Brodie had carved a honeysuckle vine into the doors, as he knew she loved honeysuckle. She had kept her china in that armoire.

In the ten years she had lived with Brodie, people said she had the Scottish Second Sight. She had been in Scotland two other times during her time travels and she knew history, so she knew what was to come. Sometimes, though, she didn’t understand her predictions herself, they were often confusing, nonsensical. It had been a gift and a curse, both.

McKenzie Rae wiped impatiently at the tears that ran down her cheeks. The obese man was still snoring, like a jackhammer, the chicken bones on his chest. She headed for the cliffs through the curtain of cold rain.

The thunder was almost right above her now, a lightning strike, jagged and fierce, touching down north of her, splitting the earth.

When she was at the edge of the cliff, she peered down only briefly at the craggy rocks below.

McKenzie Rae Dean spread her arms out, as if she were hung on a cross, started chanting the day, the month, and the year in which she wanted to land, and jumped.

My grandma’s name was McKenzie Rae Mackintosh. Before she married my granddad, Brodie Mackintosh, it was McKenzie Rae Dean.

She and my granddad were wildly in love. I saw them dancing together, their arms around each other, her face tipped up to his. I loved my granddad and I loved my grandma, which is why I developed an entire character around her.

I loved her Second Sight, too.

Which has, with remarkable clarity, always been right. Every time.

I mailed three chapters of my tenth novel to Maybelle.

Maybelle called me. I heard a piercing scream in the background. Then a cackle of glee. She almost blew my eardrum out, which can happen in extreme situations. She said, “Cover me with rose petals and straight shots, I love it.”

21

I am selling my home on Whale Island off the coast of Washington. Toran and I will be returning to toss out all my frumpy clothes, give my furniture away, and transport Teddy J, Daffodil, Dr. Jekyll, and Princess Marie to Scotland.

I put Olive and Rowena in touch with my friend, Olga, who owns a gift shop, and she is selling Rowena’s Scottish Rocks of Love and Lore jewelry. It’s popular, and Rowena can barely keep up with the orders from Olga and other shops in Scotland.

I suggested to Olive that she try making knitted animal hats. Lions with dizzy eyes, elephants with trunks down the back, confused cats with drooping whiskers, inebriated raccoons with long raccoon tails. She loved the idea, Olga loved the product, and now they’re in business, too.

Rowena and Pherson had a date.

Apparently it was successful. When I dropped by Rowena’s a few weeks later, in the morning, to give her some cinnamon bread I’d baked, my mother’s recipe, Pherson answered the door.

I looked up at him and we laughed, then hugged.

Gitanjali and the Chief are adorable. That’s the word for it. He told me, “Dating befuddles me so I think it would be easier on Gitanjali and me if we were married. I do so hope she says yes. I have spent thirty days trying to find the ring. Here, Charlotte. Do tell me. What do you think of it?”

That diamond almost blinded me.

I will miss my garden and the view of the whales on Whale Island. I will miss living in Washington. I will miss living in America.

But I will miss more if I do not live in Scotland. Scotland is in my heart, with its hills that curve like green dough, the mysteriousness of the landscape, the sharpness of the ocean cliffs, the old churches that have held the prayers of people long gone, that will hold the prayers of people long after I’m gone.

The ruins of the cathedral, the ruins of the castle, are part of me, as is the village, and Bridget’s Park, A Place for Everyone.

Scotland is the land of my birth, it’s the land where I met my best friend and her brother, it’s the land where I fell in love, truly, for the first time in my life, with a farmer.

The farmer grows potatoes, blueberries, and apples.

He has a modern cottage that looks traditionally old.

He looks sexy in a kilt. I have peeked under the kilt.

He does not mind that I need to be alone a lot, to walk amidst the fog and the raindrops, or to feel the sun on my face in silence.

We have the same interests, the same passions. We are best friends.

He loves me. All of me, and he shows me that every day.

We like to make love. We have this wild and seductive love life, then he holds me close, the wind from the ocean curling around the house, the stars spiraling through the sky, the Scottish rain a trickle from heaven, the air scented with a dash of salt and a sip of mint tea.

Our wedding is in one week. Everyone we love is coming. We have agreed on five kids. Five kids, plus us, plus Gracie is eight, as my grandma predicted.

Toran Ramsay is a man of all men.

Scottish Warrior man.

I love him, I do.

Romance Readers and Writers Magazine
By Kitty Rosemary
Books For Chicks Reviewer

BITTERSWEET AND UNBELIEVABLE!

Well, ring my panties out, my tears have run down my chin and soaked them!

Brace yourselves, readers of this column!

Writer Georgia Chandler’s latest book,
Peppermint Tea, a Soul Mate, and the Scottish Leap, A Romantic Time Travel Adventure, The Final Novel
, featuring our favorite time-traveling heroine, McKenzie Rae Dean, is once again at the top of the New York Times best-seller list. I started reading it on Friday night. What? Did you expect for me to have a date on Friday night? I had one date in the last month. His name was Stephan. Steph. On. Sounds like that.

If you live in Los Angeles and a man named Stephan with a nose the shape of an owl’s beak and lips like a whale’s asks you out, say no. He is algae.

Anyhow.

When I came home Chandler’s book was waiting for me. I was up all night reading and did not get out of bed on Saturday. Decadent!

Yes, it gripped my ever-lovin’ heart like a studly Scottish man in a kilt grabbing me and slinging me up in front of him on his horse, all snug and tight.

For her millions of avid readers, I am warning you, ladies, this will be a bittersweet novel for many reasons. The ending, well, it surprised me as much as I would be surprised if honorable men over the age of thirty were suddenly in abundance.

Without any warning to her adoring public, including moi, Ms. Chandler ended her series after ten novels. Her editors and agent are no doubt crying into their coffees and popping tranquilizers.

When I called Ms. Chandler, she told me that it was time for her to take a break from writing. She said she had writer’s block for months and finally decided that McKenzie Rae Dean had finished her journey, for now. Time will tell if she comes back to us.

When I asked if the ending of this novel had anything to do with her moving to Scotland, where she lived the first fifteen years of her life, she said, “My life is changing and so is McKenzie Rae’s.”

When asked if she was in love, the usually insanely private Chandler said, “So in love I can hardly function.”

When asked who the man was, she said, “Let’s say that McKenzie Rae refound the love of her life, after many long and lonely years away, and so did I.”

I asked if the people in the town she lived in knew she was Georgia Chandler.

“Not yet. Please don’t tell them.”

It boggles my mind, boggles it, but we’re done, folks.

That’s it.

It’s a wrap.

I know you’re probably crying in your coffee and popping tranquilizers now, like Chandler’s editors and agent!