Chapter 21
“Stop, Uncle Sandy!” Phoebe Moon cried. “The world needs its sneezes!”
Duplicitous Uncle Sandy laughed his maniacal laugh. “Ah, my impressionable little niece, you have so much to learn.”
—Phoebe Moon and the Sneeze Snatcher
* * *
Present day…
Merry tore through Max’s cabinets, digging for soup and crackers. Scout had followed her into the kitchen, whimpering. Her food bowl was empty, but the dog practically had worry wrinkles around her eyes. “I know, sweetie. We’ll get some liquid back in him, and he’ll be okay.
She’d done it. She’d gotten here.
She’d about hit the roof when she realized Max’s front door was unlocked, a situation she’d quickly rectified. She’d made a thorough sweep of his house, then changed the code on his alarm—who didn’t change the code on their alarm when they found out their vanished girlfriend’s father was a jewel thief?—and left a sticky note to that effect on the back of his front door, where only Max could see. She’d also texted it to him.
But then she’d found him feverish and restless upstairs, and every bit of fear and adrenaline she’d felt since leaving With This Ring had swung back around like a boomerang, except bigger.
But he’d listened to her, irritation popping up in his beautiful sea-green eyes when she confessed to stealing the Mrs. Claus diamond, then disappearing as she explained about Daddy being in town and that the real diamond was safe in the passenger seat of his scale-model Mustang.
And then he’d held her.
Forgiven her.
Understood her.
And now nothing was more important than helping him get better. Not what any of Bliss’s citizens thought of her being here, not Daddy suspecting she’d hidden his precious ring here, not even knowing that every moment she spent with Max would make it that much harder to leave.
And she was leaving in forty-eight hours.
She called Kimmie Cakes and ordered chicken noodle soup, which Kimmie’s dashing husband delivered without an ounce of judgment. “Take care of him,” Josh said. “We need him healthy for the bachelor auction this weekend.”
When Merry walked back into Max’s bedroom half an hour later with a bowl of soup and a soda that wasn’t quite flat yet, he lifted his head. “Phoebe Moon?” he croaked.
The bowl wobbled, and warm soup sloshed over her hand.
She caught herself and drew in a deep breath.
Max didn’t know. Of course he didn’t. But she knew he’d been reading to his niece, so maybe Phoebe Moon was on his mind.
Duh. I’m unforgettable, Phoebe Moon said.
“You be a good boy and drink something, and I’ll read you a bedtime story,” Merry said to Max.
He blinked at her once, twice, three times, those dark lashes fluttering. “You’re still here.”
Guilt and regret rolled in her belly. “I’m taking care of you today.”
He grunted.
She lowered herself to the edge of the bed, put the soup beside his alarm clock on the small wooden bedside table, then held the soda cup for him. She nudged it against his lips until he took a small sip.
“You remember?” she said.
“Yeah.”
“Are we still good?” she whispered.
“You’re my Merry.”
Her hand wobbled again, but her heart cut the strings tying it down and swelled.
“Drink some more,” she forced out around the watery lump in her throat.
He obliged, his hot fingers covering her shaky hand around the cup.
After two small sips, he dropped his head back to his pillow.
But his hand stayed on hers around the cup.
“Your belly okay?” Merry asked.
“Stay,” he said.
She touched his feverish skin.
Taking care of people was usually Mom’s domain. But Merry couldn’t be anywhere else today.
Not if Max needed her.
“Read,” he mumbled.
Phoebe Moon and The Sneeze Snatcher was on his dresser. “This is so weird,” she whispered to herself.
But she grabbed the book, then climbed onto Max’s bed. “I’m only doing this because you’re dying,” she said.
He turned his head and buried his face in her thigh, and it was the most natural thing in the world to let her fingers comb through his deceptively soft dark hair. Scout leapt onto the bed and snuggled against her other side, and for the first time in her life, Merry opened a print copy of her own book and began to read aloud.
“‘On a day when most children were in school, at a time when most children were at recess, in a place where most children dared never go, Phoebe Moon and her iguana, Spike, whom she liked to pretend was a dragon, set out on a doomed mission to save the world…’” There was that surprise watery lump again, this time with the added bonus of pressure behind her nose and a sting behind her eyeballs.
She hadn’t visited Phoebe Moon’s beginning in at least four years. Four years in which Phoebe Moon had grown and changed, battled real and imaginary enemies, and grown into a strong, capable, mature superhero.
Four years in which Phoebe Moon’s audience had grown and changed until they’d put her on the biggest bestseller list in the world.
While Merry herself had stayed the same.
Max grunted, his breath hot against her thigh.
No, check that. Merry wasn’t the same.
But she wasn’t done yet either.
* * *
A pounding on the house pulled Max out of a deep sleep.
His stomach was so hollow it was swollen, his tongue glued to the roof of his mouth, and something sticky was sealing his lips shut.
There was also a body pressed against his, a hand in his hair, and a warm, flowery scent tickling his nose.
The pounding came again.
Max pried his rusted eyelids open, and the body beside him jolted.
“Oh, crap! The rehearsal dinner!” Merry said.
“Mmmerrr.”
“Liquid. Here, sweetie. Drink.” A cup was thrust at his lips, and more of the sickly sweet stuff dribbled down his cheek. “Max?” Cool fingers brushed his forehead. “You feeling any better?”
He smiled. Merry called him sweetie.
An annoying click, click, click echoed over the sounds of his dog snoring. “Can I take your picture?” she said. “You look like hell, and that’s really the only thing that’ll get me out of trouble with my mother for missing her rehearsal dinner. And the only thing that’ll keep her from banging through your door down there, because if she thinks you’ll give her the plague right before her wedding, she won’t want to come in.”
Max steadied the cup at his lips and sipped. The soda hit his stomach like a rock, but it didn’t threaten to come right back up.
Good sign.
“Thank you,” Max rasped.
She’d stayed.
She’d read to him. And fed him soup.
“You stayed.”
“I was afraid if I didn’t, Rachel would come over, and I couldn’t bear to sic her on you like this.”
Max flung a wooden arm over her leg. “You’re a good friend, Merry Silver.”
“No one should die alone.”
He wasn’t dying.
Not yet, anyway. The next time she left? Distinct possibility.
And the fact that she was joking about him being sick enough to die was evidence she was probably leaving soon. “More soup?” he asked.
“It’s cold. Want me to go warm up a new bowl?” Her fingers threaded through his hair, the simple gesture enough to bring him to his knees if he hadn’t already been on his stomach.
Merry was a firecracker in bed. She was a spitfire when she was riled. Cheeky as a general rule.
But Merry as his nursemaid—maybe he’d already died.
This was what he wanted. His best friend. Here. Home. Always. For everything.
“Max?” she whispere
d.
“Stay.”
Her fingers hesitated, but they didn’t retreat. “We’re really still good?” Her voice was so soft, it almost wasn’t there at all. “With—with the thing?”
Women and their things. “We’re always good.”
A suspicious sniffle sounded above him. Max pried his rusty eyelid open again. “Merry?”
“Don’t pretend to die on me ever again, you big lump.”
He felt his lips turn up. Wasn’t that what what’s-her-name said to Zack Diggory? “Yes, Phoebe Moon.”
“And stop that.” She slid off the bed, and his arm thumped to the mattress. “Nothing’s changed. Nothing’s settled. I still have secrets. My daddy’s still my daddy, and he’s still a jewel thief, and you’re still the Mrs. Claus diamond jeweler, and I’m going to France on Sunday. Sunday, Max. I shouldn’t be here at all, except I—I couldn’t—I couldn’t leave you to die. And…you know. And soup. You need warm soup so Pepper can bid on you in the bachelor auction on Saturday.”
She disappeared out the bedroom door.
Scout nosed Max’s elbow.
“Women,” Max muttered. He buried his hand in Scout’s fur and rubbed her side while she licked the soda off his face. “Think she’s coming back, girl?”
“Did you not hear me say I wouldn’t leave you to die alone?” Merry called up the stairs.
“Pretty sure she’s madly in love with me, Scout,” he said.
Or that was delirium talking.
Yep, probably delirium.
But if it wasn’t—then she needed to know a few things before she left for fucking France.
He rolled over, his limbs and back stiff, his belly grumbling, and reached for his phone.
Sixteen missed texts.
Most asking if he’d be better before the bachelor auction.
Crazy town.
He scrolled until he found a message from Dan and then punched out a reply. Need to talk. Come by tonight. Wear a hazmat suit.
Merry appeared in his doorway, cheeks flushed, wearing her tough-girl walk while she stalked into his room with one of Gran’s old green-flowered Corelle bowls. “Patrick’s nephew wants to have a stepcousin romance with me.”
Max tossed his phone aside and forced his achy body into a sitting position. “I suddenly have an overwhelming urge to go to your mother’s wedding.”
“There’s no punching at my mother’s weddings.” She sat before him and stirred the soup. “Well, there was the time she married Roscoe, but that’s why she has the rule now.”
“If he touched your butt, would you go ninja on him? I want to watch.”
“Have I told you you’re adorable?”
“Not today.”
She held out a spoonful of soup, and he dutifully swallowed it. “Really good,” he said.
“Secret family recipe.”
He stared at her.
“From Kimmie’s family,” she grumbled. “Or maybe her husband’s. It wasn’t entirely clear.”
He tucked a strand of her dark hair behind her ear, and she raised wary mocha eyes to him. “You realize all of Bliss knows you ordered me chicken noodle soup by now, right?”
“And where was all of Bliss fighting over who’d get to read the eulogy at your funeral and bringing flowers and casseroles to console your absent family in your final hours on earth?”
“Lot easier to just say, ‘I was worried about you today, Max.’”
She huffed. Closed her eyes.
Her shoulders slumped funny, one lower than the other.
Max put a hand to her thigh, and Max Jr. stirred. Apparently he wasn’t feeling any ill effects from the past day or so.
“You get to me, Max Gregory,” Merry whispered.
He took the bowl from her hands and set it aside, then looped his arms around her back and pulled her close. “You get to me too, Merry Silver.”
“I should let you get your sleep.”
“Slept all afternoon.”
“And you still look like reheated liver and onions.”
Max buried a smile in her hair. “All right, all right, quit begging. I’ll go to your mother’s wedding with you. But only if you promise to defend my honor if Patrick’s nephew grabs my ass.”
“You’re impossible.”
“I’m cursed, Merry. And nearly dead. Give a corpse-in-waiting one last thrill on this earth.”
She laughed into his shoulder. “I’ll miss you, Max.”
Her voice cracked, and Max’s stiff limbs tightened around her.
He couldn’t fix her father, but he could fix how she saw herself. He could fix her misconceptions about her situation, about what made family, about acceptance.
And he’d start with his own family.
Chapter 22
Phoebe Moon watched the young orphans dance at their new parents’ feet. How she would’ve loved parents.
But her family gave her a greater mission in life.
—Phoebe Moon and the Secret Sister
* * *
Merry left Max’s house after getting some soup and water in him, then reading him more Phoebe Moon until he fell asleep again. She rushed to the B&B, changed into her wool skirt, a comfortable silver sweater, and heeled black boots, then headed out into the frigid evening.
Mom and Patrick were having their rehearsal dinner at a private dining room in the chapel off The Aisle, where they would say their vows tomorrow. By Merry’s calculations, she’d arrive just before the cheesecake dessert.
In other words, right on time.
But when she hit the parking lot of Lilac Mills Chapel, a gorgeous renovated paper factory with wood pine beams and antique glass windows, she barreled headfirst into a cloud of a familiar scent.
“Merry,” Daddy said from his perch between his Audi and a big black SUV.
Her heart clawed her throat while her belly dove for cover.
You’re a ninja, Merry Silver. You got this, Phoebe Moon said.
Merry folded her arms, but they shook. “Go. Away.”
He flashed his warm Daddy-smile and held a hand out to her. “Not here to make trouble. Just miss my girl.”
“You could’ve told me that at the B&B.”
“You weren’t at the B&B.”
“Or maybe I didn’t want to see you.”
“Sweetheart—”
“You know what I miss, Daddy? I miss playing Scrabble. I miss tea parties. I miss believing you were safe. That I was safe from you.”
“Merry—”
“But you won’t change. You didn’t love Mom enough to change. Why would you love me enough to change?”
“If you’ll listen—”
“Leave. Leave me alone. Leave Mom alone. You know when I needed to talk? About ten years ago, when I was a brokenhearted kid running away from my prom. But you don’t talk, Daddy. You pretend to be Robin Hood when you’re really no better than King John.”
“Meredith,” he called, but she turned her back on him and marched into the chapel.
He didn’t follow.
Inside, in the elegantly rustic lobby, she ran into Patrick, who was leaving the men’s room. “Merry! You made it.” He pulled her into a loose, squishy hug. “How’s Max?”
“On the mend.” And having Patrick ask easily, without judgment, made her ache for both herself and Mom.
They would both one day lose really great men, though Merry’s would be gone long before Mom’s would.
“Do you have a minute?” Patrick asked.
“Sure.” And then she’d text Max and remind him to keep all his doors and windows locked.
Patrick tugged at the knot of his red holiday tie, and she realized he had a light sheen of sweat along his receding hairline.
Uh-oh, Phoebe Moon said.
Don’t jump to conclusions, Phoebe Moon, Zack Diggory answered.
Merry shushed them both.
“I know I’m not your mother’s first husband,” Patrick said, “or even her third, but I’d honestly like to be her l
ast.”
Oh, swoon! Phoebe Moon said.
Oh, crapadoodle, Merry answered. This wasn’t awkward at all.
“She makes me feel like I’m a better man,” Patrick rushed on into the uncomfortable silence. “She makes me believe I can do things I’ve never done before. And I—I want to do that for her. But she’s so competent, and so lovely, and so perfect, I don’t want to suggest she could be improved, because she can’t, but I think if she could feel how much of a difference she’s made in my life and let me fill whatever holes her other husbands couldn’t, then I—then I—” He shook out a handkerchief and mopped his forehead. “Your mom—I just adore her, Merry. I don’t want to mess up and lose her.”
“Have you told her that?” she said.
“I tried, but she—well, you know your mom. She told me I was special and perfect, and I believe her, I do, but—”
He stopped with a sigh, and a ruddy hue crept up his neck.
“None of her other husbands have ever been that astute, Patrick.” She squeezed his hand. “You’ve already got a head start.”
But he’ll still never be your father, Zack Diggory wisely pointed out.
“Thanks, Merry.” Patrick’s smile didn’t quite reach his pure blue eyes. “I hope I can be everything you need in a stepfather too. I know you don’t need one, but I’m here for you.”
I’d give up orphanhood for a dad like that, Phoebe Moon said.
“Surprise her,” Merry said. “Keep her on her toes. Treat her to an afternoon playing paintball. Go bungee jumping. Or—I don’t know—blindfold her and take her to dinner at the top of the Sears Tower.”
“Merry, we’re practically senior citizens.”
“But Mom likes fun.”
You mean adrenaline, Zack Diggory intoned.
Avocado, armadillo, Phoebe Moon chanted.
Patrick rubbed his index finger over his lower lip. “You sure?”
“Think of the makeup sex if I’m wrong.”
His mottled ruddy hue went more purplish. “I don’t think we’re supposed to discuss that.”
“I’m rooting for you, Patrick.” Merry patted his arm, then stepped around him. “I probably need to get in there.”
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