THE INHERITANCE
Author: JoAnn Ross
ISBN: 9781335418562
Publication Date: September
7, 2021
Publisher: HQN Books
Aberdeen, Oregon
Conflict photographer
Jackson Swann had traveled to dark and deadly places in the world most people
would never see. Nor want to. Along with dodging bullets and mortars, he’d
survived a helicopter crash in Afghanistan, gotten shot mere inches from his
heart in Niger and been stung by a death-stalker scorpion while embedded with
the French Foreign Legion in Mali.
Some of those who’d
worked with him over the decades had called him reckless. Rash. Dangerous. Over
late-night beers or whatever else passed as liquor in whatever country they’d
all swarmed to, other photographers and foreign journalists would argue about
whether that bastard Jackson Swann had a death wish or merely considered
himself invincible.
He did, after all,
rush into high-octane situations no sane person would ever consider, and even
when the shit hit the fan, somehow, he’d come out alive and be on the move
again. Chasing the next war or crisis like a drug addict chased a high. The
truth was that Jack had never believed himself to be im-mortal. Still, as he
looked out over the peaceful view of rolling hills, the cherry trees wearing
their spring profusion of pink blossoms, and acres of vineyards, he found it
ironic that after having evaded the Grim Reaper so many times over so many
decades, it was an aggressive and rapidly spreading lung cancer that was going
to kill him.
Which was why he was
here, sitting on the terraced patio of Chateau de Madeleine, the towering gray
stone house that his father, Robert Swann, had built for his beloved war bride,
Madeleine, to ease her homesickness. Oregon’s Willamette Valley was a beautiful
place. But it was not Madeleine’s child-hood home in France’s Burgundy region
where much of her family still lived.
Family. Jack
understood that to many, the American dream featured a cookie-cutter suburban
house, a green lawn you had to mow every weekend, a white picket fence, happy,
well-fed kids and a mutt who’d greet him with unrestrained canine glee whenever
he returned home from work. It wasn’t a bad dream. But it wasn’t, and never
would be, his dream.
How could it be with
the survivor’s guilt that shadowed him like a tribe of moaning ghosts? Although
he’d never been all that introspective, Jack realized that the moral dilemma
he’d experienced every time he’d had to force himself to re-main emotionally
removed from the bloody scenes of chaos and death he was viewing through the
lens of his camera had left him too broken to feel, or even behave like a
normal human being.
Ten years ago, after
his strong, robust father died of a sudden heart attack while fly-fishing, Jack
had inherited the winery with his mother, who’d professed no interest in the
day-to-day running of the family business. After signing over control of the winery
to him, and declaring the rambling house too large for one woman, Madeleine
Swann had moved into the guesthouse next to the garden she’d begun her first
year in Oregon. A garden that supplied the vegetables and herbs she used for
cooking many of the French meals she’d grown up with.
His father’s death
had left Jack in charge of two hundred and sixty acres of vineyards and twenty
acres of orchards. Not wanting, nor able, to give up his wanderlust ways to
settle down and become a farmer of grapes and cherries, Jack had hired Gideon
Byrne, a recent widower with a five-year-old daughter, away from a Napa winery
to serve as both manager and vintner.
“Are you sure you
don’t want me to call them?” Gideon, walking toward him, carrying a bottle of
wine and two glasses, asked not for the first time over the past weeks.
“The only reason that
Tess would want to see me would be to wave me off to hell.” In the same way
he’d never softened the impact of his photos, Jack never minced words nor
romanticized his life. There would be no dramatic scenes with his three
daughters—all now grown women with lives of their own—hovering over his
deathbed.
“Have you considered
that she might want to have an opportunity to talk with you? If for no other
reason to ask—”
“Why I deserted her
before her second birthday and never looked back? I’m sure her mother’s told
her own version of the story, and the truth is that the answers are too damn
complicated and the time too long past for that discussion.” It was also too
late for redemption.
Jack doubted his
eldest daughter would give a damn even if he could’ve tried to explain. She’d
have no way of knowing that he’d kept track of her all these years, blaming
himself when she’d spiraled out of control so publicly during her late teens
and early twenties. Perhaps, if she’d had a father who came home every night
for dinner, she would have had a more normal, stable life than the Hollywood
hurricane her mother had thrown her into before her third birthday.
Bygones, he reminded himself. Anything he might say to his firstborn would be
too little, too late. Tess had no reason to travel to Oregon for his sake, but
hopefully, once he was gone, curiosity would get the better of her. His girls
should know each other. It was long past time.
“Charlotte, then,”
Gideon pressed. “You and Blanche are still technically married.”
“Technically
being the operative word.” The decades-long separation from his Southern
socialite wife had always suited them both just fine. According to their
prenuptial agreement, Blanche would continue to live her privileged life in
Charleston, without being saddled with a full-time live-in husband, who’d
seldom be around at any rate. Divorce, she’d informed him, was not an option.
And if she had discreet affairs from time to time, who would blame her?
Certainly not him.
“That’s no reason not
to give Charlotte an opportunity to say goodbye. How many times have you seen
her since she went to college? Maybe twice a year?”
“You’re pushing
again,” Jack shot back. Hell, you’d think a guy would be allowed to die in
peace without Jiminy Cricket sitting on his shoulder. “Though of the three of
them, Char-lotte will probably be the most hurt,” he allowed.
His middle daughter
had always been a sweet girl, running into his arms, hair flying behind her
like a bright gold flag to give her daddy some “sugar”—big wet kisses on those
rare occasions he’d wind his way back to Charleston. Or drop by Savannah to
take her out to dinner while she’d been attending The Savannah School of Art
and Design.
“The girl doesn’t
possess Blanche’s steel magnolia strength.”
Having grown up with
a mother who could find fault in the smallest of things, Charlotte was a people
pleaser, and that part of her personality would kick into high gear whenever he
rolled into the city. “And, call me a coward, but I’d just as soon not be
around when her pretty, delusional world comes crashing down around her.” He
suspected there were those in his daughter’s rarified social circle who knew
the secret that the Charleston PI he’d kept on retainer hadn’t had any trouble
uncovering.
“How about Natalie?”
Gideon continued to press. “She doesn’t have any reason to be pissed at you.
But I’ll bet she will be if you die without a word of warning. Especially after
losing her mother last year.”
“Which is exactly why
I don’t want to put her through this.”
He’d met Josette
Seurat, the ebony-haired, dark-eyed French Jamaican mother of his youngest
daughter, when she’d been singing in a club in the spirited Oberkampf district
of Paris’s eleventh arrondissement. He’d fallen instantly, and by the next
morning Jack knew that not only was the woman he’d spent the night having hot
sex with his first true love, she was also the only woman he’d ever love.
Although they’d never married, they’d become a couple, while still allowing
space for each other to maintain their own individual lives, for twenty-six
years. And for all those years, despite temptation from beautiful women all
over the globe, Jack had remained faithful. He’d never had a single doubt that
Josette had, as well.
With Josette having
been so full of life, her sudden death from a brain embolism had hit hard.
Although Jack had im-mediately flown to Paris from Syria to attend the funeral
at a church built during the reign of Napoleon III, he’d been too deep in his
own grief, and suffering fatigue—which, rather than jet lag, as he’d assumed,
had turned out to be cancer—to provide the emotional support and comfort his
third daughter had deserved.
“Josette’s death is
the main reason I’m not going to drag Natalie here to watch me die. And you
might as well quit playing all the guilt cards because I’m as sure of my
decision as I was yesterday. And the day before that. And every other time over
the past weeks you’ve brought it up. Bad enough you coerced me into making
those damn videos. Like I’m some documentary maker.”
To Jack’s mind,
documentary filmmakers were storytellers who hadn’t bothered to learn to edit.
How hard was it to spend anywhere from two to ten hours telling a story he
could capture in one single, perfectly timed photograph?
“The total length of
all three of them is only twenty minutes,” Gideon said equably.
There were times when
Jack considered that the man had the patience of a saint. Which was probably
necessary when you’d chosen to spend your life watching grapes grow, then
waiting years before the wine you’d made from those grapes was ready to drink.
Without Gideon Byrne to run this place, Jack probably would have sold it off to
one of the neighboring vineyards years ago, with the caveat that his mother
would be free to keep the guesthouse, along with the larger, showier one that
carried her name. Had he done that he would have ended up regretting not having
a thriving legacy to pass on to his daughters.
“The total time works
out to less than ten minutes a daughter. Which doesn’t exactly come close to a
Ken Burns series,” Gideon pointed out.
“I liked Burns’s
baseball one,” Jack admitted reluctantly. “And the one on country music. But
hell, it should’ve been good, given that he took eight years to make it.”
Jack’s first Pulitzer
had admittedly been a stroke of luck, being in the right place at the right
time. More care had gone into achieving the perfect photos for other awards,
but while he admired Burns’s work, he’d never have the patience to spend that
much time on a project. His French mother had claimed he’d been born a pierre
roulante—rolling stone—al-ways needing to be on the move. Which wasn’t
conducive to family life, which is why both his first and second marriages had
failed. Because he could never be the husband either of his very different
wives had expected.
“Do you believe in
life after death?” he asked.
Gideon took his time
to answer, looking out over the vine-yards. “I like to think so. Having lost
Becky too soon, it’d be nice to believe we’ll connect again, somewhere,
somehow.” He shrugged. “On the other hand, there are days that I think this
might be our only shot.”
“Josette came again
last night.”
“You must have
enjoyed that.”
“I always do.”
Excerpted from The Inheritance by JoAnn
Ross, Copyright © 2021 by JoAnn Ross. Published by
arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
Author Bio:
New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling
author JoAnn Ross has been published in twenty-seven countries. The
author of over 100 novels, JoAnn lives with her husband and many rescue pets —
who pretty much rule the house — in the Pacific Northwest.
Social Links:
Facebook: @JoAnnRossbooks
Instagram: @JoAnnRossBooks
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