by Ava Miles
A Forever of
Orange Blossoms
by
Ava Miles
~ The Merriams ~
Flynn & Annie
© 2020 Ava Miles
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International Bestselling Author Ava Miles’ feel-good series, The Merriams, is back with a humorous and heartwarming story about a playboy without a cause and a woman whose dreams were diverted by family responsibility—and, of course, everyone’s favorite matchmakers to guide the way.
Flynn Merriam has it all: a glamorous job he loves, a model in every port, and loads of siblings he adores. Turning the big 3-0 shouldn’t be a big deal, but suddenly he’s questioning everything. There’s got to be more to life than fun and diversion, right?
Annie Loudermilk’s life hasn’t turned out the way she wanted. She’d planned to travel the world as a sought-after makeup artist, but when she found herself unexpectedly pregnant, everything took a different track. Now she’s a single mom, living in a small town, making and selling her own cosmetic line. But she still longs for more.
At his brother’s bequest, Flynn goes to acquire Annie’s boutique skincare company. But when he meets her, the only kind of business on his mind is monkey business. Annie knows Flynn’s offer is the answer to her prayers: the shot at the life she’s always wanted. But her family doesn’t think so, and they thwart her dreams—and her powerful connection with Flynn.
Fortunately, Flynn’s got an ace in the hole to help seal the deal: his Aunt Clara and Uncle Arthur. Between the three of them, he’s certain to get the company for his brother—and the girl for himself.
A book to help you believe that no heart-felt dream is ever lost and how love can bring it into reality.
To Martha, for showing up at the right time, for exceeding all expectations, and for having such a big heart.
And to my divine entourage... All I can say is, "BOO-YAH!"
Matchmaking services aren’t usually part of a butler’s repertoire.
Having been in service to Clara Merriam Hale for many years, I shouldn’t have been surprised at the addition. Since reconciling with her family and marrying Arthur Hale, Madam has finally come into her own. It’s splendid to see. While I didn’t mind serving in an orderly, quiet house, Madam’s unhappiness was heartbreaking. Her Merriam nieces and nephews are bringing a new radiance to her, like the light in a Gainsborough portrait. For that reason alone, I would help her matchmake this new generation.
The next Merriam match should be interesting. Master Flynn has a reputation for being affable but also somewhat driftless. He’s a notorious playboy, with a social card brimming with romantic dinners and holiday weekends with international models. Turning thirty—a milestone for anyone—has him questioning his true purpose in life. It’s a question any reasonable person asks themselves at such a crossroads. Who will he become? And moreover, who will he spend his life with?
As a bachelor of eighty years, I’ve long put such questions aside. Yet seeing Madam discover her true purpose has inspired questions I’d thought were those of a younger man.
Like Madam, the Merriam children are inspiring me to see life again through a new and colorful lens. I’m eager to see what Master Flynn will show me and how I can be of service to him through our matchmaking efforts.
Clifton Hargreaves’ Diary Entry
Chapter 1
Somehow Flynn Merriam hadn’t expected to be greeted by a thundering unicorn.
This trip to a small dairy farm in the Ohio countryside was already a total lark, which was exactly the kind of expedition he liked best. A friend had gifted him a basket of boutique skincare products good enough that his straight-laced brother, Quinn, had agreed to make a massive order for their family company’s holiday baskets. And although the small business owner, Annie Loudermilk, had hung up on him on their first call three days ago, thinking someone named Steven was pranking her, they’d since reconnected.
This meeting was their chance to talk logistics. Right now, watching as a little blond girl raced toward him behind a squat white pony with a glittering clip-on horn, he couldn’t be happier with the arrangement. And the pearlescent sky was spewing magical snow, fluffy enough to have come straight out of a holiday movie.
A lark, indeed. This was exactly what he needed to start his thirties off right.
“Flynn! You came!”
The sweet shout reached his ears as he closed the door to his Range Rover. This little girl had to be Annie’s four-year-old daughter, whom he’d spoken to on that first call about the gift baskets.
“Hey, Amelia!” he called back. “You playing in the snow with your pony?”
His gaze quickly swept across the yard. Annie’s one-story gray house stood a short distance away from a smaller outbuilding, both decorated with Christmas lights. A plastic Santa and reindeer set sat beside the house. Across from her drive was a red barn and side pastures with cows and goats. A two-story white house stood beyond it, with a black pickup truck in the driveway, and a smaller blue A-frame stood to the right.
The pony reached him, and it playfully shook its head up and down as if greeting him. It stood about three feet tall with a broad head, compact body, and lush mane and tail. The glittering unicorn horn put him in mind of his brother Trevor’s pet alpaca. Buttercup totally needed an accessory. Maybe a top hat or something. It would be a funny gag gift for Christmas.
Amelia arrived just after her pony, puffing after her trek through the two feet of snow on the ground, her cute rosy cheeks a picture alongside her full-out grin. Her blond braid stuck out of a baby blue hoodie covered in a snowflake pattern that matched the rest of her snowsuit. God, she was adorable.
She flung out her arms. “You’re finally here! Mom and me have been waiting all morning. This is Carrot. He’s my unicorn today, not my pony.”
“I happen to love unicorns,” he said, bending over to her level. “In fact, I was thinking I need one myself. So, if he’s a unicorn, are you playing someone special too?”
She put her hands on her hips, frowning. “Can’t you tell? I’m Elsa, the Snow Queen, silly. It’s snowing, so I needed to be her today. Maybe tomorrow I’ll be Rapunzel since your name is Flynn. You can be Flynn Rider. He’s a brigand, you know.”
Now he was really fighting a smile. A brigand, huh? Some of his siblings would probably agree with that description. “I’m behind in my Disney movies. When you’re as old as I am—”
“How old are you?” Her big blue eyes studied him through the light snowfall. “You look like my mom’s age. She’s thirty, and boy, is she unhappy about it. You’d think she was at death’s door, Grandma says.”
He almost snorted. “I just turned thirty too, so I understand. Is your mom around?”
Carrot chose that moment to step forward and nuzzle the pockets of his tan cashmere coat. “Well, hello to you too, gorgeous.”
“Ponies aren’t gorgeous.” Amelia pulled out three carrots from her pocket. “He’s only hungry. He can’t stop eating carrots. Isn’t that funny? Carrot eats all my carrots.” She started giggling and then fell back in the snow, making the pony neigh, although to Flynn’s ear it sounded more like a chortle.
Their affection for each other was heartwarming. Flynn’s family had always cast him as the easygoing brother, the one who never took anything too seriously, but when was the last time he’d giggled in the snow? It had been ages. His version of play lately tended toward partying and living large arou
nd Europe. Fun, undoubtedly, but it lacked…joy. He smiled as he watched Amelia make a snow angel where she lay. When she was ready to get up, he gave her a hand and drew her upright, and she hugged his leg.
“Will you help me fix our snowman, Flynn? My mom and my sisters and me made one like Olaf yesterday, but Carrot here ate his nose. I figured I’d give him a couple now so he won’t eat the replacement nose. Right, boy?” She rubbed his wet mane with her gloved hand.
Flynn checked his watch. His meeting with her mom was technically in about five minutes, but he eyed the snow. He hadn’t worn snow boots for their meeting, wanting to look more professional. He’d (wrongly) figured the sidewalks would be cleared so he could wear his insulated Italian ankle boots, the ones he wore in the Alps. “Where’s the snowman?”
“In between our house and my mom’s lab,” she said, grabbing his hand. “Come on! It won’t take long. Besides, I like you. I told my mom you didn’t punk us about those holiday baskets. That’s why she agreed to meet with you.”
That and a call from Valentina, the friend who’d given him the Bilberry & Co. gift basket. She was the one who’d arranged this meeting, in fact. Although they hadn’t said so to the business owner, they weren’t just interested in procuring the Christmas baskets. If everything went well, his brother, Quinn, the new CEO of their family company, had okayed him to make an offer for Annie’s boutique hair and skincare company. “I’d never punk you, Amelia. Now, show me this snowman.”
He shrugged off the damage to his shoes as he let Amelia tug him through the snow. His gaze swept his surroundings again, landing on the red barn and two houses farther off in the distance. “Do your grandparents live in one of those houses?” he asked.
The company website was warm and personal, and it talked about the family farm.
Amelia trudged through the snow with pure determination, and he thought about asking if she wanted to be carried. “Yes, in the white one. Before Daddy died, he built us a bigger house next to Mom’s lab. I didn’t live in the blue house, but Iris and Eloise said it had shaggy green carpet and Mom didn’t like it very much. It flooded with water this summer after a crazy storm, so we can’t play in it anymore.”
He hadn’t thought to ask Valentina about Mr. Loudermilk, and he was sad to hear this little girl had lost her father so young. “Are you a Loudermilk like your mom?”
She nodded so enthusiastically the snow on her suit cascaded off. “This is the Loudermilk farm, but Grandpa doesn’t make us milk the cows or goats since he says we take too long. I’m glad. We’d have to get up crazy early.”
Another piece to the puzzle—Annie lived on her in-laws’ land. Did that feel weird for her now that her husband had passed? “I don’t like getting up early either. So are you going to kindergarten next year, Amelia?”
“Yep! I can’t wait. My sisters say school is okay. I think it will be fun to have more friends, but I’ll miss my mom and Carrot. Mom says we need to treasure our time together because we can never get it back.”
She obviously repeated the adults around her, but even so, she seemed keen and loquacious for four. Of course, his younger sister, now Dr. Michaela, used to use a microscope to examine bugs and flowers when she was about Amelia’s age. Maybe he was the slacker…and didn’t that ping his current existential question.
What was he doing with his life?
He needed to figure it out because he knew there was more. Heck, he loved his life—it was a constant adventure, and he was never short of beautiful company—but the jaunts to European cities and short-term affairs…they’d grown stale. And when pastimes like that grew stale, a man knew he needed to make a change.
“Amelia Loudermilk! Have you taken our guest hostage? I’m so sorry, Flynn.”
He turned his head in her direction and felt his heart thud in his chest. If he’d felt like he was in a holiday movie before, that sense doubled, tripled, when he saw her. All the snow seemed to hover around her as if suspended, and was that an honest-to-God glow around her? He must be seeing things.
Annie was bustling down a shoveled path from her lab, her curly blond hair trailing behind her in her haste. Even from a distance, she was so lovely it staggered him. He’d known many beautiful women, and he’d had relationships with several of them, but this was a different kind of loveliness—it was a sort of luminosity. He squinted through the light snowfall, wanting to make out her features more clearly. Did she have dimples? Freckles? What color were her eyes?
Amelia pointed in the distance. “Flynn’s going to put a new carrot in Olaf, Mom! Carrot ate it this morning.”
“Oh, good heavens! He did?” She put her arms around her middle since she didn’t have a coat on, dressed only in a navy blue suit jacket and white blouse with gray slacks.
He had the urge to take his coat off, charge toward her, and wrap her up in it. But that wasn’t the kind of thing you did before a business meeting, or at least Quinn would have told him so.
“It’s fine, Annie!” Flynn yelled back with a wave. “I get to be the hero who saves the day. We’ll handle the snowman and then come your way.”
And didn’t he want to be the hero charging into her life like in the movies? A little grandiose, sure, but he’d never stood in the way of his imagination.
“Would you like some coffee?” she called out. “I’m heading back to the house. I thought we could start with coffee.”
“That would be wonderful. Thanks. Okay, Amelia, where is this snowman?”
They headed off in the direction she’d pointed, and sure enough, the poor guy did look funny without a nose. After he boosted Amelia up to insert the new one, Carrot immediately bustled forward and started nibbling on it.
She pushed the pony’s head away. “Oh, no! Carrot, stop that! I have more carrots for you right here.”
The pony gave her an unimpressed look before chomping off Olaf’s nose. “Seems Carrot isn’t willing to give up his treat of choice.” Looking for another solution, he spotted a pine tree and trudged over to grab a prickly oval cone. “It’s not a perfect nose, but at least Carrot won’t eat it.”
They put it on the snowman together, and then Amelia threw her arms around his neck, delighting him. “Oh, thank you! I like this nose much better, although it’s huge. I knew we were going to be friends the moment I saw you. Mom always says you know.”
“I felt the same way when I saw you, Amelia. I’m happy to be your friend.” He tapped her on the nose. Funny, but that’s how he felt about people too—that you could quickly take their measure. He’d always made friends easily, with women especially. They were easier to connect with emotionally than men, or at least the men in his family. He and his brothers hadn’t been the closest friends growing up. All of them were older, and the two closest to him in age were twins, always more inclined to spend time together than with anyone else. They were their own unit. Caitlyn, just above him in birth order, had been Flynn’s partner in crime. She was still his best friend.
“Come on, Flynn.” Amelia took his hand and did a little happy dance that had Carrot prancing in place. “It’s time you talked business with my mom. It’s the lifeblood of our family, you know.”
Another statement she’d no doubt picked up from her mother. “Hang on. I’ve got to grab something from the car. I brought you guys a gift from the Big Apple.”
“A big apple?” Amelia asked as she trailed behind him. Carrot’s ears seemed to perk up. “How big? And is it a green or red one? Oh, Carrot will love it! We have loads of apples in Licking County, you know, but they only come out in fall.”
Shoulders shaking, he opened the passenger door and drew out the gift basket he’d brought with him. “It’s not really an apple. It’s a city. New York City. Where I live.”
Her brows scrunched. “Why do they call it an apple then?”
He shrugged. “I honestly don’t know.”
“Oh, let me see!” She ran forward. “Bagels! What’s that orange stuff?”
“Smoke
d salmon,” he said as they walked down the sidewalk to their house. “It’s a type of fish.”
“Yuck. Fish. Grandpa stopped bringing us the bass he found in the south fork of the Licking River since we gagged every time we tried it. Oh, I shouldn’t say that to you, should I? Sorry. I’m sure this orange fish will be nice. Why is it orange? I thought fish were white.”
“I have no idea why it’s orange.” My God, he could create a trivia show based on her questions alone. “How about chocolate bread? Does that sound good? It’s one of my favorites.”
She peered through the cellophane with Carrot beside her, sniffing in a way that made Flynn glad the gift basket was wrapped.
“Never had it, but I love chocolate. We all do, even my sisters and they’re picky eaters. It drives Mom crazy.”
“I’ll bet. Before we go inside, I’d like to take a picture of us to send to a few people in my family. Okay, Amelia?” He set the basket on the hood of his rental and reached into his coat for his phone.
She gave a winning smile as he took the photo, her arms around him and Carrot. He couldn’t wait to send it to a few of his siblings, especially Trevor. He already knew what he’d text. Move over, Buttercup. There’s a new girlfriend in town, and her name is Carrot. Forget that the pony was a male. If anything, it would make them laugh harder, and that’s what he loved to do. Laugh and make people laugh. If that made him shallow, so be it.
After he put his phone away, Amelia reached for his hand. So he tucked the basket under his free arm, and they walked to the house hand in hand. The moment stole over him as the wind danced around them. He realized he felt oddly at peace, walking through a scene plucked from a snow globe. A little girl was holding his hand as if he were her new best friend. And they were accompanied by the stoutest unicorn known to man.
