Merried Read online

  Merried

  Jamie Farrell

  To my dear friend Angele McQuade.

  Merry loves your books.

  Contents

  Introduction

  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

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Epilogue

  The Complete Jamie Farrell Book List

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Merried

  * * *

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  He’s the Spare Heir of Bliss’s most famous jewelry shop

  Max Gregory’s family is best known for creating and displaying the infamous Mrs. Claus diamond ring, but here in the bridal capital of the world, Max is best known for having a cursed love life. Not that he believes in curses. Or he didn’t, until he met her.

  * * *

  She’s the daughter of a notorious jewel thief

  Merry Silver's parents have wreaked havoc on her life. After her last romantic disaster—thanks, Daddy—she’s fleeing the country for a chance at normal. But first, she has to avoid her favorite ex-boyfriend while she gets her mom married off. Again.

  * * *

  And their Christmas miracle might be a second chance at love

  Max was horrified when he discovered why Merry disappeared last year. Now she's back in Bliss for a wedding, and her father may be after his family’s most prized possession. But is it the diamond Max is worried about? Or is he afraid of losing the only woman who’s ever made him want to settle down?

  * * *

  Either way...the family jewels are in danger.

  The Misfit Brides Series:

  Blissed (CJ and Natalie)

  Matched (Will and Lindsey)

  Smittened (Mikey and Dahlia)

  Sugared (Josh and Kimmie)

  Merried (Max and Merry)

  Spiced (Tony and Pepper)

  * * *

  For news and updates from Jamie Farrell, subscribe to Jamie’s VIP Reader newsletter HERE!

  Chapter 1

  Phoebe Moon would never be a normal girl, but sometimes she wished she had a normal uncle.

  —Phoebe Moon and the Sneeze Snatcher

  * * *

  While everyone else at the Snow Bride Festival in Bliss, Illinois, watched Santa and Mrs. Claus step onto the stage beneath the massive wedding cake monument, Merry Silver was contemplating theft.

  The internet, she decided.

  In her next middle-grade novel, Phoebe Moon’s diabolical Uncle Sandy would try to steal the internet, which would be housed in a five-story-high wedding cake monument.

  No, too obvious. Maybe…a gingerbread house? Yes! A gingerbread house, and—

  “Earth to Meredith.” Victoria Silver, also known as Mom, tugged on a lock of her hair.

  Merry instinctively checked her front pocket beneath her dark blue bubble coat. Phone, ID, and cash were still there. She knew better than to zone out in public places. “Sorry, what?”

  Fairy lights twinkled on the bare trees around the illuminated wedding cake monument. Flurries danced through the darkness as though they’d been ordered specially for Bliss’s Snow Bride Festival. Patrick Dean, Mom’s next victim—er, latest fiancé—winked at her and lifted his paper cup higher, which he’d apparently been dangling for a while. “More hot chocolate for my favorite girls?”

  Merry handed her own paper cup to impending stepfather number six. “I’d love some. Thank you, Patrick.”

  While Patrick trotted off, Mom graced her with an indulgent smile that was thankfully unsuspicious. “Dreaming of your own wedding cake?”

  “Wondering if there’s a medical billing code for treatment for injuries sustained after becoming trapped beneath the world’s largest eyesore.” Merry shifted her weight to her left foot, the lie coming easily.

  “Hide it all you want, darling. I know you’re a romantic at heart.”

  She humored her mother with a smile, then scanned the crowd around them, subconsciously cataloguing earrings, scarves, and purses. She didn’t see Daddy.

  Not that she expected him to let her spot him easily. If he were here. He’d only shown up for one of Mom’s other weddings—not that Mom had known he was there—but she had a feeling.

  A suspicious, tingly, Daddy-had-been-too-quiet-for-too-long feeling.

  Especially since she knew there was something else he wanted in Bliss.

  Speaking of Daddy and things he wanted, she eyed Mrs. Claus onstage. The blonde woman smiled indulgently and passed a treat to a kid in the crowd, her tiara glittering atop her hair.

  Merry sincerely hoped those sparklies in the tiara were rhinestones.

  “What’s with the skunk?” she asked. The black-and-white creature—large and stuffed, thank goodness—sat behind Santa’s magnanimous red velvet throne, its dead, beady eyes trained on the crowd. Oh, Phoebe Moon’s dastardly Uncle Sandy could be training a skunk to help steal the internet. She’d name it—

  “Merry.” Mom sighed. “It represents the kindly old skunk that showed Felix Blythe the way to Bliss back in 1841 when he founded the town, and then blessed his marriage to his mail-order bride. You haven’t been listening at all, have you?”

  And reviewers said Phoebe Moon’s adventures could never happen in real life. Obviously, they’d never heard of Bliss. Merry fluttered a hand toward the monument. “Sorry. It’s distracting.”

  “I can only imagine the number of calories in a cake that size.” Mom shuddered. She’d kept her girlish figure, which she usually showed off with waist-high skinny jeans, heeled boots, fitted silk blouses, and an ivory peacoat. Her once strawberry-blond hair was now intentionally dyed silver and stylishly trimmed. Anything else nature had taken, her ex-husbands’ bank accounts had paid to give back.

  “Pretty sure concrete calories aren’t absorbed well by the human body,” Merry said.

  Mom sighed again, but then she clapped with all the glee of someone fifty years younger. “I’m so glad we got here in time to see the end of the Snow Bride Festival. I can’t wait to see the wedding reenactment. Weddings are fabulous, aren’t they?”

  Hmm. Phoebe Moon hadn’t investigated any reprehensible crimes at a wedding.

  She filed that away to consider later. “Amazing,” she agreed.

  “You should have one someday.”

  “Um, no.”

  “Oh, honey, don’t grimace. It’ll give you wrinkles.”

  Wrinkles were the least of her worries.

  With parents like hers, she was more concerned with ulcers, anxiety, and accidents.

  “You can’t fool me.” Mom’s perfectly plump lips spread in a grin, but thanks to Botox, none of the rest of her face smiled. “I know there’s a romantic heart in there. Who was it I caught daydreaming over wedding flowers this afternoon?”

  “I wasn’t daydreaming. I was marveling at the complexities of flower
production during the darkest part of the year.”

  “And swaying to those romantic songs the wedding planner played for us?”

  “Must’ve been my evil twin.” Phoebe Moon had an evil twin, but Merry had sometimes thought she might need a morally ambiguous secret triplet too.

  Or maybe that would be better for a conversation with a therapist rather than a plot thread to spring on the unsuspecting, mystery-loving tween population of the world.

  Not that it would take a therapist to figure out what was wrong with her.

  “Can’t find a husband if you don’t date, sweetheart,” Mom said.

  “Dating is an activity that typically requires a person to stay in one place for an extended period of time.”

  Mom’s eye twitched. “The right man would move with you for any reason. In the meantime, that’s what the internet and all those smart phone appetizers are for.”

  “Applications, Mom. Apps stands for applications.”

  “Regardless, as my only child, it’s your duty to give me grandchildren. A woman shouldn’t have more ex-husbands than grandbabies. It’s not natural.”

  “Then quit getting remarried.”

  “Meredith Cordelia Silver, hush your tongue.”

  Merry burrowed her hands into her jacket pockets. She could feel her phone in her jeans. Overall, Bliss seemed to be a proverbial safe Midwestern town, but she knew firsthand that nowhere was safe.

  Daddy had taught her that well. Daddy and karma.

  A presence at her back made her jump.

  Patrick the winker winked a slow wink that made his right cheek wrinklier than his left. “More hot chocolate for my favorite ladies.”

  As far as husbands and prospective husbands went, Mom had done worse. Patrick was in respectable shape for a man in his sixties. His gray hair was thinning, but he didn’t drink or smoke to excess. He’d made a fortune by patenting a special type of shoe leather used in military boots, and as such, his shoes always matched. Which couldn’t be said for all of Mom’s ex-husbands. The rich part, yes. The matching part, no.

  “Thank you, Patrick,” Merry said.

  Mom took her hot chocolate and planted a smacker on his lips.

  If Phoebe Moon had had to watch her poor mother kiss a man on the lips, she might have considered suggesting occasionally-heroic-in-his-own-way Uncle Sandy break said man’s kneecaps.

  But lucky for Phoebe Moon, she was an orphan.

  A rumble grew in the crowd.

  Merry did a quick sweep, checking her surroundings, subconsciously registering hiding spots, easy marks, and shadows before she let her attention turn to the stage.

  “But what do we have here?” Santa said. “Oh, ho, ho, ho! It appears my elf has found a naughty boy.”

  A massive elf in red-and-white-striped tights, jingle-bell elf shoes, a green tunic, and a floppy elf hat—complete with fake ears—dragged a handsome, well-dressed blond man onto the stage.

  But it wasn’t the man in black slacks and a wool coat that made Merry’s heart twist and her breath flee her lungs in a puff of white mist.

  It was the elf.

  The thick dark hair beneath his crooked felt hat.

  His muscled legs.

  His shoulders, broader than Santa’s.

  Memories swirled thicker than the snowflakes. His hands on her body. His laugh. His sleepy bedroom eyes.

  Her favorite memories.

  Experiences she’d never have again with a man she never should’ve dated.

  “Someone’s been very naughty, Santa,” Max Gregory said.

  He wasn’t hooked into the microphone system, but his voice carried through the night anyway, a resonant sound that sent a jolt through her belly.

  She wanted to bottle the sound. To take it with her when she left Bliss for the last time. When she left the country.

  When she left behind being Merry Silver.

  The crowd laughed, some clapping, some whistling, while a chant slowly grew. “Marry her! Marry her!”

  Max grinned, and Merry’s heart suddenly felt as though someone had stabbed it with the sharp end of a half-eaten candy cane.

  He looked happy.

  As he should be.

  Was he dating someone? Had he moved on?

  Did he hate her?

  He had every right.

  He delivered his captive to Santa, then stepped aside, blending into the background. A commotion broke out near the stage, and suddenly two older couples and a handful of people around Merry’s age joined Santa.

  “Ho, ho, ho, ladies and gents,” Santa said. “It appears we’re parting with tradition this year, and instead of reenacting Felix and Annie Blythe’s wedding, we’ll be marrying off one of our favorite Bliss daughters.”

  The cheers were near-deafening. She was jostled from behind and pushed into her mom. She instinctively checked her phone, ID, and cash again, and swept a glance about for any unsavory-looking characters.

  Not that unsavory characters ever looked the part. Rule number seven in Phoebe Moon’s handbook: You can’t detect an evil overlord by his beard alone.

  “Oh, Merry, look.” Mom pointed behind them.

  The crowd parted for a horse-drawn carriage carrying a curly-haired, wide-smiling, visibly pregnant bride. Her white gown draped around her, with a faux-fur shawl on her shoulders and her veil floating behind her. The white steeds pranced up the walk while cameras and camera phones flashed.

  “I didn’t know you could get married at the Snow Bride Festival,” Mom said.

  “Most people can’t,” a nearby woman with pearl drop earrings said, “but Kimmie—that’s the bride—she’s Felix and Annie’s great-great-great-great-great-granddaughter.” Pearl Earrings beamed as though Kimmie were her sister or best friend. “Kimmie could’ve said she wanted to get married while bungee jumping off the wedding cake monument, and there wouldn’t have been a soul in Bliss who would’ve told her no.”

  “Even her fiancé?” Patrick asked.

  “Especially him. He’s been begging her to get married for months.”

  On the stage, the debonair groom helped his bride from the carriage, his smile so broad and uninhibited, Merry’s chest ached. And when the groom pulled her in for a pre-wedding kiss, Merry had to physically look away.

  She’d been to every one of her mother’s weddings. But there was something different—something potent and intimate and real—about this couple.

  Something too close to a fairy tale.

  And those, Merry knew, weren’t real.

  She huddled closer into herself and stole another glance at Max.

  He was still smiling at the bride and groom.

  Odds were good he’d never smile at Merry again.

  What were the odds she could avoid him the entire week?

  It had been inevitable that Mom would eventually have a wedding in Bliss. But this was exceptionally poor timing.

  She forced herself to sip her hot chocolate and act normal. Santa chastised the groom for kissing before marriage. The crowd laughed, everyone jostling closer to the stage, tighter around Merry, pushing her and Mom and Patrick closer to the stage too.

  A gust of wind nipped at Merry’s cheeks, and the swirl of snowflakes thickened.

  So did the knot growing in her throat.

  “Patrick, did you notice the lines at the port-a-johns?”

  “Now?” Mom’s lips turned down, but thanks to Botox, her frown didn’t reach the rest of her face. “Honey, you’ll miss the wedding.”

  Merry kissed her smooth cheek. “But I won’t miss yours, and that’s the important one.”

  Mom studied her while Santa thanked all the dearly beloved for being gathered here today.

  “How often do you get a short line at the ladies’ room?” Merry said.

  “I suppose that’s better than you standing here worrying over pickpockets and jewel thieves,” Mom murmured.

  Busted. Only partially, thank goodness. “For the record,” Merry said, “I didn’t say a
word about you bringing your purse.”

  Mom shook her head. “Text me if you head back to the B&B.”

  “I will.”

  Merry slipped through the crowd, noting pearls here, opals there, sapphires and diamonds and rubies. Bliss’s hometown feel, along with their focus on the joy of bridal events and weddings, gave a false sense of security. There was a police presence, but it was minimal. The private security guard near the edge of the crowd gave her pause until she remembered Mom mentioning some country music superstar having a second home here.

  Had Merry been raised by anyone other than Nicholas Raymond, she probably wouldn’t have noticed the guard.

  Or the jewelry.

  Or the nearest escape routes, the easiest-looking mark, or the fact that her mother was not, in fact, in love with her fiancé.

  Mom stole hearts.

  Daddy stole jewels.

  But not tonight. And not here. Not on Merry’s watch.

  She had just gotten to the street when gasps and shrieks erupted behind her. The private security guard took two steps toward the stage, then stopped, everything about him alert, his attention on the stage. Merry twisted around, panic and purpose colliding in her veins.

  “It’s an owl!” someone shrieked.

  “Mrs. Claus! Is she okay?”

  “It got her tiara! That owl stole her tiara!”

  Santa grabbed Mrs. Claus and hovered over her while he stared at the sky. Max was suddenly at center stage too, chest broader, his whole body large and intimidating, even in his elf costume. Merry suppressed a shiver. Could any other man pull off that sexy, confident warrior look while in elf tights?