Merried

by Jamie Farrell

  Rachel and Olivia climbed back into the car, and Max was once again alone with Patrick. “Applesauce sandwich?” Max offered.

  Patrick shook his head.

  “Me neither. Think they’ll let us wait inside?”

  “Worth a try.”

  And if he were lucky, they’d let him mooch off their Wi-Fi while they waited. Because Max had his phone, and he had an outlandish idea playing out in his head.

  If he couldn’t talk to Merry, he could Google his suspicions to death while he waited.

  Chapter 28

  The gorge loomed deep before Phoebe Moon and Spike, with dastardly Uncle Sandy’s minion monkeys bearing down behind them.

  They were in serious trouble now.

  —Phoebe Moon and the Stolen Sound

  * * *

  The clink of metal and the swoosh of a door pulled Merry out of a fitful sleep. “Ladies,” a young officer said, “you’re free to go.”

  She sat up on the thin mattress and blinked at the harsh lights. Free? They were free? But she hadn’t even been questioned yet. Neither had Mom.

  They’d been fingerprinted and had their mugshots taken. They’d had to surrender their personal belongings and jewelry. But they hadn’t been questioned.

  Patrick must have some amazing lawyers, because Merry was guilty.

  She’d taken the ring.

  Or maybe Max had straightened everything out.

  Heat flooded her face.

  She’d stolen from his family. Done what she thought was best for everyone, without regard to the law or to the implications for Max.

  She was no better than Daddy.

  It didn’t matter where she went in the world, she would never be normal.

  Mom hustled out of her cell, dress swishing, heels clicking, and snapped her fingers. “Let’s go, sweetheart.”

  Merry didn’t deserve to go. She was a nuisance.

  Still, she trudged behind Mom and the cop, her dress swishing, her feet oddly achy for how much she hadn’t been on them this afternoon. They gathered their personal items, then silently followed their escort to the front of the station.

  Max sprang to his feet from the ugly cushioned couch beside the front door. Like Patrick, he was still in his suit from the wedding. His complexion was ragged, his suit rumpled, his eyes a soft blue, stark against his pallid cheeks and haunted with questions. Why? How? What next?

  Merry ducked her head and continued toward the door.

  “Vicky! Vicky, honey, are you okay?”

  “Oh, Patrick, it was awful. Just awful.” Mom collapsed against him. “I’m so sorry, darling. And on our wedding day. I’m never getting married in Bliss again, that’s for certain.”

  Merry’s fingers curled into her palms and more heat flushed her neck. Mom and Patrick would’ve been married by now if it weren’t for her.

  But if they were being set free, the Mrs. Claus diamond must be safe now.

  “Merry?”

  More questions in Max’s voice.

  And what was she supposed to say? Had a lovely time in jail. Thanks for sticking up for me back there. Have to run—I’m not fit to exist in this society. She shook her head and pushed out the door.

  “Merry.” Max kept pace with her. “Stop a minute.”

  “No.” But she drew to a standstill in the chilly black night.

  She had no car. No coat. No idea how much of her stuff was left at the B&B. How much the cops might’ve gathered as evidence.

  Oh, no.

  What if they’d taken her computer? Oh, jeez, the search history on that should’ve kept her in jail for another month. Thank God they probably hadn’t cracked her password yet.

  Or was this a setup? Had they let her go so she could lead them to Daddy?

  “You brought me the ring yesterday,” Max said. “I thought it was a dream.”

  “Stop talking.”

  “Merry—”

  “Stop. Talking.” She was stupid. She got it. Life wasn’t a Phoebe Moon novel. And whatever Daddy’s job was, it wasn’t over yet.

  Her bones never lied about Daddy’s jobs.

  It wouldn’t have mattered if she had told Max the truth. If she’d given him the ring a week ago. If she’d given it to Dan and Rachel yesterday. If she’d burned the damn thing, or if she’d mailed it to Max next year.

  Daddy had a job, and he wouldn’t quit until it was done.

  “I saw your father.”

  She whipped around to face Max.

  Headlights passed over his face, illuminating his solemn eyes, his downturned lips, his still-pallid cheeks. He dangled his suit jacket from two fingers, offering it for her bare shoulders.

  But not touching her. Because he knew she’d lay him out flat if he tried, or because he didn’t want to touch a woman who deserved to be behind bars? A woman whose father was a menace to the world?

  “I gave him the diamond,” Max said.

  A tremor rumbled in her core. “No.”

  Max was one of the good guys. The law-abiding, normal guys.

  “He told me you were in danger. That if he didn’t get the ring—”

  “No.”

  “Merry—”

  She held a hand up and backed away.

  “Merry, I love you.”

  No. No. This wasn’t happening. “Love can’t fix this, Max. You don’t even know me. And now you’re helping my father?”

  “I’m not so sure he’s the bad guy here.”

  No, she was the bad guy. Because she was the one who’d freaking stolen the Mrs. Claus diamond. “He wasn’t the good guy either. And you’re still a jeweler, and I’m still the daughter of a jewel thief.”

  “He wasn’t stealing it for himself. I gave him the ring.”

  “And now you’re an accomplice in the theft of the most important diamond in your family’s history. I don’t want you to steal things for me. I want you to be safe. I want you to be the upstanding, right-side-of-the-law guy you were before you ever met me. Before you knew who I was. You can’t go back. You can never go back. But you can at least not make it worse.”

  Mom and Patrick stepped out of the police station, Mom in theatrics, Patrick wide-eyed but there.

  Being a good guy.

  A guy who hadn’t been tempted to aid and abet a petty jewel thief. Who hadn’t fallen for a stupid story her father had made up in desperation to get his hands on one more score.

  “Go live your life, Max,” Merry said. “Call the cops on jewel thieves. Date normal women with normal families. And don’t ever talk to me again.”

  “Merry—”

  She turned around and walked away.

  “Amber!”

  Every cell in her body seized. Her breath whooshed out, and the mouthful of frigid air she tried to suck back in hit her lungs like a sucker punch. She ordered her legs to move, but her feet wouldn’t lift and her knees wouldn’t bend.

  He knew.

  He knew her biggest secret.

  Phoebe Moon and Zack Diggory and even dastardly Uncle Sandy were hers. Amber Finch was the one thing Daddy couldn’t destroy.

  But only because he didn’t know about her.

  Max had seen Daddy. If he told—

  “Do not ever call me that,” she breathed.

  She shot a look back at the doorway where Mom was still moaning to Patrick about their jail time. Max had crept up on Merry. She glared at him, her voice low. “You have no idea how hard I’ve worked to make sure no one can take this from me. Daddy can’t steal Amber’s jewels. He can’t take Amber’s friends. He can’t destroy Amber’s life. I swear to God, if you ruin her for me, you’ll wish stealing the Mrs. Claus diamond was the worst thing I ever did to you.”

  “Does Amber have friends? Does she have jewels? Does she have a life?”

  “Shut. Up.”

  “Why can’t you trust me?”

  She could turn around, close her eyes, lean back, and he would catch her.

  But Merry didn’t need anyone to catch her.
r />   She caught herself.

  And if she fell, she’d fall by herself. She wouldn’t take anyone down the way Daddy always did. She wouldn’t be Mom, so hung up on needing someone to fall on that she kept falling for the wrong men. Merry would catch herself.

  She was the only person she could rely on.

  And look how well you did that today, Phoebe Moon said.

  “Shut up,” Merry muttered again.

  “Stay,” Max said. “Trust me. Give me a chance. Give us a chance.”

  She couldn’t catch her breath. Her whole body trembled.

  She trusted her father would forever be a jewel thief. She trusted her mother would forever be stuck in a cycle of marriage and divorce. She trusted she could take care of herself.

  But she’d never trusted another soul with her deepest secrets. And she didn’t know if she could be trusted with anyone else’s.

  She also didn’t trust she could be the woman Max deserved.

  She couldn’t be the woman any man deserved. She didn’t know how to do anything beyond protect herself.

  Why prolong the inevitable?

  “I’m going to the airport,” she said. “I’m not going to France. I don’t know where I’m going. But it’s not here.”

  “I’ll go with you.”

  “No.”

  “I can—”

  “No. No, Max. No means no. And I mean no. Leave me alone. I don’t want you in my life. Not now, not ever.” She shoved his chest, the contact sending electric sparks down her arms and short-circuiting her heart. “How many times do I have to say it?”

  She didn’t want to go.

  She wanted to stay. With him.

  But how could she? She was a morally ambiguous middle-grade novelist with a messed-up family. If people here liked her, they’d like her for Amber Finch and Phoebe Moon. If people here never learned to like her, Max would lose all his friends. Probably his family too.

  God. What would his family think of him giving Daddy the Mrs. Claus diamond? What would everyone think of him dating the daughter of a jewel thief?

  “Phoebe Moon must be so disappointed in you,” Max murmured.

  Pretty much, the teenager in her head said.

  Merry’s teeth clenched, but she still forced two more words out. “Go. Away.”

  Max watched her a moment longer. She stared him down.

  And when his shoulders slumped, she almost slumped too.

  Fucking curse, the wind whispered.

  He cast his eyes downward and turned away, his head shaking slowly. “I’ll miss you, Merry Silver. Take care of yourself.”

  She sucked her lips into her mouth and forced the tears back behind her eyeballs.

  This was for the best. She’d made the right call. For both of them.

  Mom had apparently finished her tirade to Patrick. She stepped to Merry, swinging a look between her and Max’s retreating backside. “Where’s Matt going?”

  “I stole his family’s pride and joy, Mom. Where do you think he’s going?”

  Patrick gasped.

  “Meredith, not in front of the police station.”

  “Ms. Silver and Ms. Silver?” A guy in a dark suit, a five o’clock shadow, and doom in his eyes slid out of a black SUV and approached them. “A minute, please.”

  “We’ve been held prisoner in this godforsaken place long enough.” Mom marched past him. “If you want to talk, you can call my lawyer. Patrick, take us home.”

  “You’re Nicholas Raymond’s daughter?” the man said to Merry.

  She put her head down and limped on her heels to follow Mom, lips once again clamped tight.

  A badge flashed in her vision, but not a police badge. “Special Agent Cafferty, FBI. Mr. Raymond was assisting us with a case tonight when he was shot. He’s in surgery now.”

  Merry’s face whipped up. “What?”

  “I have a car waiting to take you to the hospital.”

  No. First of all, Daddy wouldn’t work with the FBI. And on the off chance this guy was telling the truth, Daddy certainly wouldn’t be able to keep it a secret. Secondly, he didn’t do guns, and he valued his own hide too much to put himself in a position to come face-to-face with a weapon. “I think you have us confused with another family.”

  “Ms. Silver, your father approached us approximately fifteen months ago when one of his colleagues made a threat to your well-being.”

  Mom stopped moving. Her complexion went gray. “Merry’s father was injured in the line of duty?” she whispered.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Is he—how serious is it?”

  “We’re waiting for word from the doctors, ma’am.”

  Merry’s palms itched. Her legs were heavy as dried concrete, and she couldn’t swallow past the rocks in her throat.

  Trixie’s engine roared to life on the other side of the parking lot. The pit of Merry’s stomach hit the pavement.

  Either Daddy had fooled the FBI too, or he’d been telling Max the truth.

  And if he’d been telling Max the truth, Max had probably been in danger too.

  And now Daddy could—he might—Merry wrapped her arms around herself and stifled a sob.

  “If you’ll come with me, ladies, I can take you to the hospital.”

  Patrick looked down at her, then reached a hand out to Merry. “Which hospital? I’ll drive them.”

  “Sir—”

  “With all due respect, Agent Cafferty, law enforcement hasn’t exactly been kind to my ladies today. I’m driving them.”

  “Thank you, Patrick,” Mom whispered.

  “Did you get the bad guy?” Merry said.

  Agent Cafferty lifted a brow. “Both him and his owl. You’d still be in jail if we hadn’t. Safest place in town since we couldn’t fit you in a PO box.” The agent nodded to Patrick. “Stay on my tail and don’t stop for lights.”

  Merry’s feet moved, and moments later, they were on their way to hold vigil for Daddy and wait for news.

  Chapter 29

  “Why do you do it, Uncle Sandy?” Phoebe Moon cried. “Why can’t you just be good?”

  “My dear, there’s no reward in being good.”

  —Phoebe Moon and the Secret Sister

  * * *

  The winter sun was too bright and happy for Max’s mood, but since he couldn’t stop the sunshine—he wasn’t bastardly Uncle Sandy—he put on a scowl and his darkest sunglasses, made two quick phone calls, then loaded Scout up in the car.

  Thirty minutes later, Lindsey showed him into a brightly lit living room in an old farmhouse tucked up out of the way a few miles outside of Bliss while Scout happily played outside with Lindsey and Billy’s dog.

  “Heard you’ve had quite a week,” Lindsey said.

  Max grunted and handed her a bag. “For the baby.”

  She lifted out a copy of Phoebe Moon and the Secret Sister, one of the six books in the series Max had picked up at the bookstore on his way. “Olivia loves ’em,” Max added. “So do my nephews, but they won’t admit it in public. Guess it’ll be a few years before your baby’s old enough to understand, but…”

  But every kid needed a copy of Merry’s books.

  She studied him curiously. “That’s so sweet. Thank you.”

  “Ask you something?”

  “Sure.”

  “You believe in curses?”

  She was supposedly a psychic matchmaker. If she didn’t believe in curses, then Max would give them up too.

  Her blond hair tilted, and she put a hand to her baby bump. “I believe in love.”

  “Love trumps curses any day, you ask me.” Billy strolled into the living room with a brown hat on backwards and his flannel shirt open over a T-shirt with one of his album covers on it. He shook Max’s hand. “How you holdin’ up, man? Sit on down. Get you anything to drink?”

  Max shook his head. “Just stopped by to tell you I’ll do the car.”

  “Yeah?”

  Max nodded. “Looking forward to it. Been a dr
eam for a long time to restore old cars.”

  Billy grinned. “Know a thing or two about dreams.”

  So did Merry, apparently.

  She was fucking Amber Finch. That whirlwind mind of hers had crafted vibrant characters and incredible stories. Art. Bestselling, critically acclaimed art. Max would never again be able to read Phoebe Moon to Olivia without hearing Merry’s voice. She put herself, her life on every page for the world to see and judge. She’d gotten some amazing reviews, but also some pretty horrific ones that made him want to throat-punch someone.

  But she kept writing. Kept telling her stories. Kept putting herself out there until a huge national newspaper suggested she was a computer instead of a flesh-and-blood person, since all her books were copyrighted to a company owned by another company in the Caymans, the owner of which even The New York Times hadn’t been able to uncover.

  If she could succeed and make a life of her own in a difficult profession without any support from her family, without anyone knowing it was her, while intentionally hiding that it was her, then what excuse did Max have not to take this opportunity to restore the old Charger for Billy?

  “Got most of the parts,” Max told Billy, “but if you want anything custom, we’ll need to get on that now.”

  “Nah, not for the Charger. But I’m getting this idea—”

  “Oh, no, you’re not,” Lindsey interrupted.

  He flashed her a smile that made Max’s heart hurt. “Shoot, lawyer lady, I can afford two cars.”

  There went Max’s butterflies. One car was a hobby. Two was getting close to career material, especially with a big name like Billy Brenton behind him. Billy wasn’t known for his love of cars, but he had several million fans and followers on social media. Three words from Billy could have Max in business for two years.

  At least.

  “Afford two cars for yourself?” Lindsey said. “Yes. Scare your wife half to death driving like Max does? No.”

  Billy wrapped his arms around her and rested his hands on her belly, and the butterflies in Max’s stomach turned into something closer to rancid milk.

  No means no, Max. I don’t want you in my life.