This was Merry’s fault.
She should’ve stayed out of his business.
It had been nine hours since he’d seen her, but about sixteen seconds since he’d thought about her.
Her lips. Her voice. Her legs. Her mysteries.
He’d felt the lingering imprint of her breasts on his chest all afternoon. And then when he’d let Lindsey and Billy in to check out the Charger, he’d taken one look at his garage and thought about what it would be like to push Merry onto Trixie’s hood and kiss the hell out of her right there too.
The sound of distant carolers wafted over on a slight breeze. Christmas lights twinkled on the houses of the street behind him.
Across town, Dan and Rachel were probably settling in to binge-watch some girly-ass TV show. Maybe that British downtown monastery thing. Rachel would undoubtedly be wrapping Christmas presents or assembling packages for a fundraiser or debating the merits of purchasing a cow, a goat, or a llama through one of those farm charities for people in third-world countries. Dan would probably be snoring when he was supposed to be getting caught up with his duties as Knot Festival treasurer—a job inherited from their parents—at least until Rach made him go tell one of the kids to quiet down and go to sleep.
And Max got to sit here, freezing his nuts off, drinking a beer, alone, contemplating if he could afford to take a leap and start his own business.
Just him.
Alone.
No girlfriend. No wife. No kids.
Just him and his curse, devoting the rest of his life to jewels or cars.
“Max?”
He flew out of his plastic chair and upended it, beer sloshing, senses on high alert, ready to go ninja on her ass. Not knowing any ninja moves wouldn’t stop him either.
Merry stepped out of the shadows of his yard and onto the dimly lit patio, her steps hesitant, her arms tucked awkwardly at her sides. “You didn’t answer the door.”
“Pretty damn sure that was intentional.”
She sucked her lower lip into her mouth, then bowed her head. “I wanted to apologize.”
For what she’d done last year? Two nights ago? Yesterday? Today? “We’re good.”
“You don’t sound like we’re good.”
“What difference does it make?”
She rubbed a hand over her front pocket. “I suppose it doesn’t.”
Her soft words had enough vulnerability and regret in them to bring even a hardened criminal to his knees.
“Just go,” he said.
She hovered at the edge of his patio. “You made me happy.” Her voice was a whisper in the bitter air, a ghost, a fragmented memory. “For whatever it’s worth, that was real. And I’ll never forget it.”
“That’ll help me sleep at night.” He winced. He’d meant to keep that in his head, not let it slip out of his mouth.
“Making someone happy isn’t a curse, Max. It’s a gift. My mother’s about to marry her seventh husband. I moved every two years as a kid, and I quit trying to make friends every time because I knew we’d move, and what was the point? But you made me happy. You made me believe. And if you can make someone like me believe love’s possible, then you can do anything. Curse or not.”
She stepped back into the shadows.
“Merry, wait.”
She didn’t answer.
Max set his beer down and followed her. “Merry?”
Still no answer.
He flipped his phone out, turned on the flashlight, and scanned the yard, but she was gone.
She wasn’t out front either.
She’d simply vanished into the night, as though she were nothing more than a figment of his imagination.
* * *
Merry had one wary eye on the sky, watching for attack owls, and the other scanning her surroundings for Max while she picked her way through backyards on her journey back to the B&B, but so far, she’d seen no hint of either.
Although she put the odds of an owl attack far greater than the odds of Max chasing after her.
Again, she shouldn’t have gone to his house.
But she’d hurt him. Again and again. All he’d asked for was the truth. To know if they’d been real or if she’d been playing with him.
And if he’d truly had such a miserable streak of a love life, he deserved to know that he was a good guy and that he could make a woman happy if he let himself.
That he was worthy. That he was desirable. That he was lovable.
Just like she wanted to be.
It’s a messed-up life you lead, Merry Silver, Phoebe Moon said.
“No shit, kid,” Merry muttered.
Her phone buzzed in her pocket. She checked her surroundings once again, then answered while she stepped onto the sidewalk for the last two blocks. “Hello?”
“Amber! There you are. I’ve been trying to reach you for days.”
Merry’s pulse amped up at the sound of her agent’s voice. “Janice. Hi.”
“Can you do me a favor and keep this number for a few days? I want to be able to get hold of you. Nothing’s official, and the lists aren’t out yet, but I heard from your editor today, and your numbers last week were good. Really good.”
“I—yeah. Yes. I’ll have this number through the weekend.” Her elbows twitched, and the phone trembled against her ear. Normal people wouldn’t have agents calling to ask how long they’d keep their cell number. But she’d been with Janice through three phone changes, four new email addresses, and more physical addresses than she wanted to count. “When you say ‘really good’—”
“Ah-ah. Don’t want to jinx it. But have you checked your email? I’ve been forwarding the best reviews, and, Amber, they’re ah-mazing. And your ranking everywhere online is unreal. For all six books. I can’t even tell you how proud I am. Also, I need a good address. In case anyone wants to send you flowers Thursday. And did I mention at least four movie producers want to talk a deal?”
“Movie?” Merry whispered.
“Movies,” Janice said. “For all six books. Maybe more. I’m waiting until the lists come out to put us in a better position to negotiate. Also, we’ve exercised your last option on your contract with your publisher, so we’re in a fantastic position to negotiate for more on the next one too. This is huge, Amber. All of it. I’m utterly thrilled for you. I hope you have someone to celebrate with. No matter what, this was a fabulous launch.”
Celebrate? With who? She hadn’t even told her mother what her real job was.
“Of course,” Merry choked out. “Champagne and caviar. I’m hiring a manservant to rub my feet. Celebrating is a must.”
Between the cold air and the pressure growing in her sinuses, her nose dripped. She blinked three times, four—stupid winter wind.
“And you promise this is a good number?” Janice asked.
“Email’s better.” Merry swiped at her nose with the sleeve of her coat. The pressure wasn’t just in her sinuses now. It was growing like a balloon at the base of her throat. “But for this week, yes. This is a good number.”
“Merry Christmas, Amber. I’ll be in touch soon. Call if you need anything, okay?”
“Yeah. Thanks, Janice.”
Merry disconnected and shoved her phone in her pocket.
She’d come to a complete standstill across the street from Once Upon a Page. With barely a thought, she crossed to the closed bookstore.
A street lamp glowed overhead, giving just enough light for her to see the Phoebe Moon display in one window.
Phoebe Moon and the Ninja Hideaway. Phoebe Moon and the Sneeze Snatcher. Phoebe Moon and the Sinister Cloud. They were all there, artfully displayed with random tokens that were important in each book. A stopwatch. A skeleton key. A diary.
An announcement about Amber Finch being the featured author for this month’s book club sponsored by the store.
Merry swiped at the moisture on her cheeks.
She’d invented Phoebe Moon as an imaginary friend shortly after Mom divorced Daddy.
She’d been too old for imaginary friends by then, but she’d wanted someone she could count on. Someone she could take with her. Someone who wouldn’t judge her for loving her daddy even though he was a common criminal, or for hating her mom for taking her away from her daddy.
And while Merry had aged, Phoebe Moon had stayed the same. A thirteen-year-old girl who could do things Merry couldn’t.
She could stop Uncle Sandy from accidentally hurting someone in his misguided plans to take over the world. She could convince people to believe things that weren’t true, but made the world a better place. She longed for more friends, but she took solace in knowing that her mission was bigger than herself, since she was the only person in the world who knew fiendish Uncle Sandy well enough to foil his plans.
But Merry wasn’t like Phoebe Moon.
Merry couldn’t stop Daddy.
She was too afraid he’d give her up if she tried.
She pressed her fingers to the window. There was something of her father in every Phoebe Moon book she’d written. Uncle Sandy’s love of oysters. His soft spot for daddy longlegs. His insistence on driving black luxury cars.
And if Phoebe Moon didn’t battle Uncle Sandy, she’d have no stories to tell.
Admitting where her inspiration came from would’ve been akin to endorsing Daddy’s crimes, to justifying what he did. Even if his heart was mostly in the right place, his methods were still wrong, and she couldn’t condone his thieving. She couldn’t even tell her mother for fear the secret would get back to Daddy, even accidentally.
Phoebe Moon was everything she had that was just hers. The only thing no one could take from her.
And now, she was on the brink of an amazing milestone, and she had no one to share it with.
A sob came out on a hiccup. Then another.
She gulped in air, and—
Brut.
On the wind.
She tasted Brut.
“No,” she whispered.
Daddy couldn’t be here. She tried to sniff harder, to detect it again, but her nose was running too hard. Her vision was blurred, and she couldn’t catch her breath.
A rumble grew behind her. She spun toward the street, the familiar engine both comforting and terror-inspiring. The red car drew to a stop beside her in the darkness, and the passenger door opened for her. “I’m going to regret this, aren’t I?” Max called from across the seat.
Merry sniffed once more, trying to detect Daddy’s signature scent, but it was useless.
She flung herself into the car. “Just drive.”
Max hesitated. She buckled herself in, then dropped her head into her hands.
She had to pull herself together. There was movie interest in Phoebe Moon, even if the books didn’t top the bestseller lists. She could see her stories on the big screen. And if she did hit the bestseller lists—The New York Times list. The mother of all lists. And her name—Amber’s name—could be on it.
For the first time ever. Hopefully for the first of many times.
This was good news.
“Look, I’m sorry—” Max started.
She waved him off. “Not you. It’s good. Please drive.” Patrick was feeling well enough to take Mom out for dinner and get caught up on the wedding plans, so Merry wasn’t expected or needed anywhere until tomorrow.
Trixie slowly moved forward, her engine sending a rumble through Merry’s body. She shuddered and sank lower in the seat, wanting to absorb the vibrations, to lock this moment away and take it with her forever.
“This is…good?” Max said.
“Faster.” She hiccupped. She shivered, then hugged herself. The leather was cold, but warm air was flowing through the car, mingling with a subtle scent of pine and cinnamon and Max.
If Mom’s weakness was love, and Daddy’s weakness was jewels, Merry’s was fast cars.
“I sort of got a promotion,” she said into the darkness.
She didn’t have to look at him.
His suspicions and disbelief and questions hung in the air, palpable like summer humidity.
“Do you really work in medical billing?”
She shook her head.
“What do you do?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Are you in law enforcement?”
An honest laugh caught her off guard. “Even my mother would disown me.”
“Are you in the family business?”
That was decidedly less funny. “Can you—will you go faster?”
He slanted a glance at her, then shifted into fourth gear as they hit the town limits. Trixie roared—she apparently loved this as much as Merry did—and suddenly the world was flying by, a swirl of darkness with Christmas lights fading into the distance, nothing but pavement illuminated ahead.
Merry sucked in a deep breath, closed her eyes, and gripped her armrest on the door.
“I was barely seventeen the first time my dad pulled me into a job,” she said. “This guy—he’d asked me to prom, but he found out what Daddy did a week before the dance, and he told everybody. My friends. Teachers. A school board member. Everyone. Mom went in and had a conference with the principal, and she came home and told me no one would take my junior prom from me. So I—I went. And it was miserable. I ended up leaving after an hour because no one would talk to me, but I felt like everyone was talking about me, and every time I went on the dance floor, all the other kids cleared out. I couldn’t even hide in the bathroom, because they were whispering. All of them.”
Max rested his hand on her thigh and squeezed, and her tears threatened to erupt all over again. She willed them back and continued.
“When I got to the parking lot, Daddy was there. I don’t know how he heard—I never know how he hears anything—but he knew. He had a big bouquet of carnations, and he said he wanted to take me out for ice cream. We were halfway there when he told me to pull over quick, that he saw something. And because I was an idiot, I didn’t catch on until the house alarm went off.”
“He pulled a job on your prom night and used you as his getaway car?”
“The kid who dumped me. Daddy cleaned out his mother’s jewelry box. He came flying out of the house, jumped in with his pockets jangling, and told me it was just a dog, but I should probably floor it.”
Max rubbed a hand over his five o’clock shadow. “That’s…not something I can say I’ll ever do for my niece.”
She had put Phoebe Moon on paper for the first time that night. She’d been mortified, confused, and scared. She hadn’t told Mom—though the policemen who had come around asking if she’d seen Daddy was probably a clue—but Merry had announced the following Monday she wasn’t going back to school.
Ever.
“I dropped out,” she said. “I had my GED by the end of the summer. Mom got divorced—that one lasted like three months—and we moved to this little town in Wisconsin. I took a few classes at a community college and waitressed for a while, and two years later, Mom found me a medical billing job. I got my own apartment, Mom married stepfather number three, and life went on.”
Max didn’t say anything.
She glanced at him and found his jaw clenched and his fingers tight on Trixie’s wheel.
“When I was in grade school, before Mom divorced him, he used to listen to me tell knock-knock jokes for hours. Hours. He’d sing me the Full House theme song anytime I got in a mood. He told me my drawings and Play-Doh sculptures were the best he’d ever seen. He sat by my bed and read me books for four days straight while I was recovering from an appendectomy when I was seven. He made me feel like I was important. Like I mattered, no matter what. I thought when he told me that life didn’t do handouts, that you have to take what you want, that he was telling me to be tough and work hard to get what I wanted. I thought when he said that he stood up for the little guy, that he was a crusader. He was a good dad. I adored him. And I thought we were normal.”
Max whipped Trixie around a corner. Gravel spewed and the road crunched under her tire
s. Merry followed the momentum of the car, leaning into him, riding the wave of adrenaline that came from the sharp curve.
“I can hate what he does but still love him,” she said.
He stayed silent. He turned deeper into the grove of trees until the night sky broke through the canopy of spindled branches and the town’s lake appeared before them. The wedding cake monument glowed in the night across the way, and Christmas lights sparkled around town beyond it. He pulled Trixie’s brake, then angled himself to face her straight-on. “You’re not responsible for him.”
“Being an adult doesn’t always mean being independent. How long did you live with your grandparents to help take care of them?”
“They couldn’t help getting old. Your father? He chooses to be a criminal. And you choose to let his life rule yours.”
“I don’t—”
“Don’t sit there and tell me you disappeared because it was easier than telling me you wanted to break up. Don’t sit there and tell me you disappeared because your job demanded it unless you’re going to tell me what your job is. And don’t sit there and make excuses for a man who wasn’t the perfect father. Are you going to live your life, or are you going to let him run it for you?”
“Why the hell do you think I’m leaving the country?”
“Why don’t you just tell him you’re driving him straight to the cops if he ever fucks with your life again? Why are you the one who has to leave?”
“You—you’re—argh.”
He rolled his hands over the steering wheel. “Didn’t come here to fight.”
She rubbed her fingernail. She kept them cut short to make typing easier, but Mom had insisted on manicures this afternoon. Merry had picked silver polish in honor of Phoebe Moon, and the smooth texture was still foreign. “The second time I remember moving, I asked Daddy if we could move to Australia. I’d just seen The Princess Bride, and that line—the one about criminals in Australia?—I thought that sounded cool. Mom used to laugh and tell Daddy he was such a criminal, like that was a good thing.”
“Merry.” Max sighed.
“I know. Stupid. I was a kid. But every time we moved, we ended up in the same place. Somewhere we didn’t know anyone, somewhere to start over, somewhere that was different, but not. I’ve never seen the mountains. I’ve never seen the ocean. But I want to. I’m not just running away so I can have a life. I want to go. I want to see someplace different. I want—I want to go find out who I can be.”
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