Accidental Rebel: A Marriage Mistake Romance

by Snow, Nicole

  But soon, with so many distractions, I can’t focus on anything except my soon-to-be-husband.

  He lifts a dark brow, and a giggle tickles my throat, knowing he’s undressing me in his mind.

  It’s only fair, considering I’m doing the same to him. We both know how important a healthy sex life is to a marriage. Good thing we’ve got that part down pat, plus a lifetime of delirious practice ahead.

  We have so much more than just great bedroom acrobatics, too.

  Today, Miller becomes my best friend. My husband. My everything.

  He keeps the adventures coming every single day, and I suspect they’ll only be coming faster and more furious after we’ve said our vows. That should be scary for someone who’s been one with a hen her entire life, but it’s not anymore.

  Because I’m no longer afraid of anything. What could I possibly have to fear, hitched to a hero?

  Our union, the ceremony, is a short, heartfelt service.

  Traditional vows. Promises. Totally us.

  He’s a man of few words, and I’m so freaking nervous and giddy I’m scared I wouldn’t be able to remember a single line with everybody staring at us. He holds my hand the entire time, fingers laced through mine, squeezing with a grip that promises me fifty, a hundred, a thousand years.

  It promises forever.

  And it binds us together as we share our first kiss as husband and wife.

  He kisses me with such fierce, proud passion I’m beet red by the time it’s over. But I’m actually happy when I come up for air and see his grin, hearing the raucous cheers around us, with two screaming kids louder than anyone.

  Before we exit the gazebo, we let our announcer do his thing. He tells everyone that besides marrying their father, I’ve officially adopted Shane and Lauren, making me their legal mother.

  The guests go ballistic as Miller shakes Keith’s hand one more time. Then, along with Shane, a groomsman, and Lauren, the maid of honor, we strut back down the aisle. One family.

  My perfect family.

  There’s a huge spread of delicious food, prepared by Mother’s chef. Drinks running over, dancing everywhere, and a gorgeous cake that looks so divine, part of me doesn’t want to cut it. It’s been personally baked for us by Wendy Forsythe, Miller’s new boss’ wife, and her adorable family shop in St. Paul called Midnight Morning. If there’s anyone who knows a thing or two about perfect weddings, it’s her.

  It seems like there’s a hundred hands to shake and even more things to taste. I should be absolutely exhausted, but as the night draws on, I wonder if marrying this incredible man gave me a second wind for life.

  While the party’s still in full swing, Miller and I wind up a short distance away from the pool, talking with J.T. and his adorable wife, Margaret, when a group of children runs past us. A little boy, no more than three, trying to keep up, trips.

  “Joey!” Margaret screams as the child tumbles into the pool.

  Without a hint of hesitation, Miller does what he does best.

  Spinning, leaping, and still in his tux, he swan dives into the pool and goes after the kid, surfacing with him a second or two later.

  J.T. takes the boy from Miller’s hands, muttering endless apologies. I kneel down next to the pool as Miller grabs the ladder railing to climb out.

  God. Just when I thought my heart couldn’t be fuller, or my admiration any stronger, there it is.

  I’m so flipping proud of this man.

  Proud to be his wife. So proud that every time he growls mine, I can give it right back.

  Planting a grateful kiss on his lips, I reach for his dripping tie, pulling him closer. “You just had to do it again, didn’t you?”

  Shaking the water from his hair, we both laugh as I get splattered.

  “Do what, Gingersnap?” he whispers, coming in closer for the next part. “Get you all wet?”

  “No, but yes. I mean...make me love you even more.”

  Yes, it’s sappy as all hell, but who cares?

  I kiss him again with the full force of my own pulse, lost in rapture. I don’t even care that he’s getting my dress all wet, or that everybody’s staring and smiling at us, or that the kids can’t stop bouncing up and down and chattering at how awesome it was.

  Nothing else matters besides the man lovingly attached to my lips, tangling his arms around me.

  It’s amazing to remember how one messed up call put us here. But it’s his kiss that’ll keep messing me up for a long, long time to come, in all the best ways.

  That’s my freaking hubby.

  My hero. My rebel. My best mistake.

  * * *

  Thanks for reading Accidental Rebel!

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  Unfinished Business (Bella)

  My nerves can’t take much more of this.

  I close my eyes, take a deep breath, and cringe because it’s only the beginning.

  Oh, Gramps, I miss you so much already. But a big teary-eyed part of me is glad that you aren’t here to see all this bickering.

  I don’t know what’s worse. My grandfather being gone, or the fact that his death hasn’t made a dent in my parents’ egomania.

  Using a wadded-up Kleenex to wipe at the tears slipping out of the corners of my eyes, I open them slowly and take a good, long look at reality.

  You’d think the sadness would be dried up by now, if only for a few hours.

  But it’s like I’ve been crying for years rather than days. Grandpa Jonah was the only stable, sure thing in my life.

  Now, the bottom just fell out. There’s nothing left to paper over this circus.

  My parents want money. Nothing new. It’s all they’ve ever wanted, but they didn’t even wait until the funeral was over to start making big plans.

  Dad’s new pet winery in Northern California.

  Mom’s new sauna, complete with a Japanese garden that will no doubt be assembled by the very best crew flown in from Tokyo.

  New harebrained investment schemes that’ll just leave them poorer and angrier, trying to turn a certain fortune into a golden goose bigger than their appetites.

  God. You should’ve cut them off years ago, Gramps.

  A twinge of guilt strikes me. I’m hardly better than them.

  My college, my failed business ventures, always had one patient financial backer. Jonah Reed.

  My parents claim they paid for it all, but I know better.

  Gramps did. The greatest man to ever walk this earth.

  The mold was broken several times over when he was born, and there are days, like today, when I wonder if Dad inherited a single good gene from his father.

  If I had the energy, I might chastise them for being so shameless, so greedy, so...predictable.

  But it wouldn’t do any good.

  They’d barely arrived in time for the funeral. Not that there was anything for any of us to do.

  Gramps had his goodbye meticulously planned.

  One of his employees, along with his lawyer, had all the details taken care of. Including today’s meeting.

  At least I’d arrived in North Dakota yesterday rather than rushing to the funeral home five minutes before the service started this morning. That dishonor belongs to my parents.

  Both so eager to get to the lawyer’s office for the will, they didn’t even go to the cemetery for the burial.

  No church service for Gramps, of course. No loud, chest-thumping eulogies. He went out of this world with the same amount of pomp and circumstance as he’d arrived. The quiet, simple kind.

  The countless flowers, plants, and cards that people sent from every corner of the country were
proof of how many lives he’d touched, though. I read every one of them this morning, alone, at the funeral home, sitting beside the small urn that contained the last remnants of the only person I’ve ever had a true connection with.

  The only person I knew who loved me, unconditionally, flaws and all.

  “Please, if you’d quit interrupting,” Reynold Sheridan says. The lawyer whose office looks as staunch and sterile-looking as he is points a finger at my parents. “I could get the answers to your questions much faster.”

  Mother huffs. Father pats her arm. I pinch my lips together.

  Ugh.

  I sort of like this lawyer guy, though. His no-nonsense attitude at least makes them work for it.

  They’re used to getting their way, and you’d think they’d both witnessed a sacrilege when the lawyer politely checks them. Gramps probably warned Mr. Sheridan about that.

  Another big sigh. I let it out quietly.

  Why am I even here? I can only imagine this meeting going down one way.

  Dad’s an only child, so everything – a vast fortune that includes the sprawling ranch and an oil company worth ten figures – goes to him. To them.

  They’ve been married longer than I’ve been alive. I came along years after they’d gotten married and were set in their ways. I’ve always believed I was the only oops that they couldn’t buy their way out of. Or that Gramps couldn’t pay their way out of.

  I’ve heard more than once that they’d already have a third home on Lanai or some other exotic island if I hadn’t accidentally come along.

  But neither of them felt like raising a child overseas anyway.

  Raising one in the States hasn’t been so good either.

  Another tinge of guilt strikes.

  I get it. We’re loaded, even without Dad getting a hundred times richer today. I should be grateful.

  I’ve never wanted for anything, and as far as parents go, they haven’t been total monsters. Not compared to some. And I always had Gramps.

  But not anymore. Now, we just have his assets. And soon, I won’t even have the one place I always considered home.

  The Reed Ranch.

  When I was little, I loved hearing my parents say they were going on vacation because that meant I was going to stay with Gramps. I spent every summer there for as long as I can remember, and practically every school break, too.

  I even missed school during the times when my parents ‘just had to get away for a while.’

  I’ve never figured out exactly what they had to get away from. Neither of them has ever worked a normal job. Dad sits on the executive board of directors for North Earhart Oil, which is really just a made-up position, yet it sounds better than simply admitting his father’s company sends him a check every month to stay away.

  Another mystery. I don’t know what happened between them, why there’s bad blood, other than Gramps told me once that it didn’t work for him and my father to spend too much time together. He more or less paid him to stay away.

  Family dinners full of love and laughs weren’t our gig. Or holidays where someone would have a little too much wine and wind up spilling some shocking secret over the table.

  It was always just me and Gramps, or me and my parents. Two exclusive worlds running forever parallel, never to meet.

  Except...I hadn’t spent much time in the world I loved with Gramps, had I? Not recently.

  There’s that pesky guilt again.

  It’s not like anyone paid me to stay away. But somehow, in a flash, it’s been six freaking years since I was here, visiting Dallas, North Dakota.

  Time has no chill. I spent my last summer with Gramps after my high school graduation. Then I moved to California and started college.

  Summer vacays became a thing of the past. Hell, so did vacations of any kind. Six years blurred by in a flash flood of life of attempted adulting.

  That thing they tell you not to do in life? I did it.

  I blinked.

  And when I was done, I already had one failed business and was working frantically to save my second. Now, I just dissolved my third.

  Three strikes, Bella – you’rrrrre out!

  I wish I’d known the first two times.

  Real estate, plus California, plus me? That’s an equation even Einstein couldn’t fix.

  No, I didn’t lose my shirt, as Gramps would’ve put it, but I barely made enough scratch to pay my parents back each time – something Gramps, my true backer, always insisted I use for my next 'adventure.'

  More accurately, my next failure.

  If I had a dime for every time I ever wished I was home, at the ranch, I’d be richer than my parents are, or will be once this godforsaken meeting ends.

  I’m pinching my thigh under the table, imagining the next six months of misery.

  They’ll sell the old ranch first thing. That’s for sure.

  Mom hates the place, so Dad does too. She’s the reason he left it in the first place, and never came back. She’d wanted out of this town and knew my father was her ticket to the moon. It worked...and it’s been 'working' for more than twenty years in the screwiest family unit imaginable.

  Mother’s gasp stops my rabbiting thoughts.

  “Now, see here!” Dad yells, holding up a finger. “You’re a smart man. There’s no way – no goddamn way – my father would’ve ever set it up this way. There’s been a mistake.”

  I hold my breath, wondering what I’d missed.

  Talk about going well. So they’ve blown right past annoyed into screaming mad.

  “No mistake, sir. You can read it for yourself right here,” Sheridan says, lowering his glasses on his nose. “Jonah’s will is remarkably straightforward. Every asset, every account, every penny, every stake in North Earhart Oil, and every earthly possession all goes to his granddaughter, Ms. Bella Reed.” He gives me a pointed gaze over the rim of his glasses. “Annabelle Amelia Reed, to be technical.”

  Eep. That’s me. Annabelle Amelia Reed.

  Named after the famous Amelia Earhart, who Gramps always swore was a distant relative. He was the only one who combined Annabelle and Amelia into Bella and called me that. For that reason alone, that the will says Bella, I have to ask, “Wait. What?”

  “Jonah Reed was senile!” Mom retorts. “Ever since the first day I met him. I don’t believe it’s a mistake at all, Gary.”

  Her eyes flash to my father. He pinches the bridge of his nose, muttering something under his breath that sounds like here we go.

  “It’s a sick joke. One last way for that old fool to toy with us beyond the grave. Listen, Mr. Sheridan, and listen good. No way. There’s no earthly way Annabelle gets everything. She’s too young.”

  I try not to snort at how ridiculous she sounds. Worse, her latest Botox rounds still don’t allow her to make proper facial expressions. But she doesn’t need to.

  It’s in her tone. She’s always been petty and jealous over my relationship with Gramps.

  Never when it benefited her, of course, but when it didn’t. Whenever she had something to lose by Gramps flying me out to Dallas, or in her words, 'sticking his wretched beak where it doesn’t belong.'

  It wasn’t pretty. Like now.

  “She’s over twenty-one,” Sheridan says. “So legally, under federal and North Dakota law, she inherits it per Mr. Reed’s wishes. All of it.” He almost cracks a smile when he looks at me. “Including Mr. Edison.”

  Edison! My heart skips a beat. “Oh my...he’s still alive?”

  “Alive and more trouble than ever,” Sheridan tells me with a sly grin.

  Edison might be the smartest horse on earth. He has to be over thirty, which is ancient for a horse.

  I smile, seeing him like it was just yesterday. Coal-black with a white streak on his forehead, the horse is practically Houdini – a born escape artist.

  Gramps hadn’t mentioned Edison in any of our last phone conversations. I’d been afraid to ask, didn’t want to know if he’d died.

&nbs
p; He loved that horse, the same as me. How else would a grown woman ever feel about her favorite playmate growing up?

  “Ridiculous! What’s she going to do with a ranch and an oil company out here in the middle of nowhere?” Mother snaps.

  Sheridan lifts a grey brow. “Whatever she pleases, Mrs. Reed.”

  “Well, she can’t. The girl has commitments in California.” Mother’s dagger eyes drift in my direction, her lips pursed sourly, expecting me to fly to her rescue. Say something, damn it, I can almost hear her beaming.

  “Actually...no, I don’t. I had obligations until last week, when I submitted the papers to dissolve my latest company.” I flinch, knowing I shouldn’t have spoken.

  This is already bad enough. But Gramps would want me to have a little fun, wouldn’t he?

  Dad just shakes his head and averts his eyes. He’s drained, in disbelief, thoroughly done with all of this.

  “Ms. Reed, you should know there are a few stipulations, which you and I will address privately.” Sheridan then casts his stoic and somewhat tired gaze back at my parents. “That, too, is in the will.”

  “I’ll stipulate you,” Mom whispers under her breath, sniffing loudly. “And after all we’ve done for her, too.”

  Then she snatches her blue and white dimpled Gucci purse off the floor. It’s a perfect match for her outfit, as always. “Enough! I’ve never been so insulted in my life.” Standing, she snaps, “Come on, Gary.”

  That’s Dad’s signal to follow, and he will.

  The look he gives me as he stands up is almost sympathetic. For the briefest second, I see a resemblance to Gramps, mainly in the eyes. Lush green, just like mine.

  He turns to the lawyer. “I’m assuming you want us to wait outside?”

  Sheridan stands up, a movement that seems to take forever since he’s nearly as tall as a telephone pole and almost as skinny.

  “That’s up to you,” the lawyer says. “You’re perfectly welcome to return to your hotel, or visit the cemetery.”

  For a second, they freeze.