Merried

by Jamie Farrell

  Merry, he suspected, had more scars than she realized. “You ever think about just telling people about him?”

  “What, like, ‘Hi, I’m Merry, and my father’s a jewel thief’?”

  “Yeah. Something like that.”

  She snorted.

  “At least they’ll know why you disappear.”

  “Do you have to keep bringing that up?”

  “Have you met Kimmie yet? Her mother’s a real piece of work. She doesn’t steal jewelry, but she does steal souls. Pretty sure she eats them with caramel sauce.”

  She twisted back to face him. “Kimmie, the pregnant bakery girl?”

  “Yep.”

  “Her mother—”

  “Is the formidable beast who runs Heaven’s Bakery.”

  Merry shuddered.

  “Ah, so you’ve had the pleasure,” Max murmured. “And she’s actually nice at Heaven’s Bakery.”

  “But Kimmie’s so—so—”

  “Not her mother? Like you aren’t your father?”

  Merry stuck out a petulant lip, and Max had half a mind to bite it.

  “Try it,” he said. “Next time you see Zoe or Pepper, mention your dad’s a jailbird. Tell them that’s why you disappeared. See what they say.”

  “He’s not a jailbird, and I’m not here to make friends.”

  “You could use the practice before you go to…where was it you’re going?”

  That raised eyebrow told him he was wasting his breath asking. “Are you enjoying yourself?” she said.

  “More like torturing myself.”

  Because she was leaving.

  And with every passing minute, he didn’t want her to.

  “Looks like they’re letting us go,” she said.

  Sure enough, cars were moving past the emergency vehicles in the parking lot.

  “We should go pay,” she added. “We finished our meal.”

  “I’ll text the manager and let him know I’ll swing by tomorrow.”

  Her eyes went squinty and displeased.

  Max stifled a sigh. “Get strapped in. I’ll be right back.”

  She shoved her two twenties at him.

  He ignored her money and climbed out of the car.

  When he returned five minutes later, having been chastised for suggesting he’d be paying for a dinner interrupted by a kitchen fire, he found her suspiciously quiet and serene, strapped into the passenger seat just like he’d told her to do.

  He pulled Trixie’s door shut and eyed her. The Merry he knew—both last year and today—didn’t do quiet, obedient, and serene.

  “Can we go back to your place?” she whispered.

  How could a guy say no to that?

  * * *

  If Merry were to list her top three favorite places on earth, Max’s bedroom might be on the list.

  Might, because putting it on a list would be admitting how much she liked it.

  It had changed since last year. He’d moved from a front room on the second story to the back master bedroom. A flat-screen TV hung over the fireplace, and the room smelled faintly of fresh paint, but otherwise, little was different. His gray plaid bedspread still covered flannel sheets on his low platform bed. The black wood chest of drawers was simple and utilitarian with his four scale-model Mustangs displayed in the glass case on top.

  She lay in the dark beside him, waiting, his arm a comforting weight across her belly, his breath steady and hot against her shoulder, his leg wrapped in hers.

  Max was a ridiculously light sleeper.

  But she wouldn’t stay here tonight.

  Mom needed her first thing in the morning for their final dress fittings. Merry’s dress had needed to be hemmed, and if she didn’t quit eating all this cheese, it would need to be let out too.

  But more—she’d given Max enough of herself already tonight. And last night. And last year.

  Not even Phoebe Moon was awake when Merry finally slid out of Max’s grasp. She had an overwhelming urge to press a kiss to his forehead, to thank him for—for being a friend, for being a lover, for being Max—but instead, she slowly lowered her feet to the wooden floor, gathered her clothes, and avoided making the floor creak as best she could.

  Scout pawed at her leg and whined. Merry put a finger to her lips, then hugged the dog tight.

  She couldn’t say I’ll see you again soon. No telling if it would be true.

  But she buried her nose in the dog’s fur, then snapped and pointed to the bed. “Lie down,” she whispered.

  Scout snorted, but her nails clicked against the floor as she obediently went back to her doggy bed on the floor.

  Merry dashed down the stairs and let herself out into the night.

  Max hadn’t set the alarm when they’d gotten to his place. Sure, he’d been occupied with getting his hand up her shirt and his tongue in her mouth, but she suspected it was a conscious decision.

  So she could leave if she wanted without setting off the sirens.

  The wind had picked up, and the moon was nowhere in sight. She pulled on her knit hat and her gloves, and she started the half-mile trek back to the B&B, straining for any hints of the owl—last she’d heard, it hadn’t been caught—or other nefarious forces.

  It was late, and all but the most die-hard Christmas fans had turned off their decorations for the night.

  Did the French decorate for Christmas? She hoped her French-English dictionary would be good enough to help her ask someone where to find a bûche de noël, the French log cakes, but there would always be next year.

  Merry was two blocks from the B&B when she heard an engine approaching from behind. Headlights sliced the darkness.

  It wasn’t Trixie. The roar of the engine was too catlike. Too modern. Too sophisticated.

  The hairs on the back of her neck stood at attention.

  And her hyperawareness was rewarded thirty seconds later when a black Audi sedan pulled up beside her.

  Of course.

  Of course he was here.

  She was too old to roll her eyes, but Phoebe Moon wasn’t, so Merry indulged her inner Phoebe Moon while she yanked the door open and peered inside.

  New car smell, Brut, and jazz music danced into the night and enveloped her.

  He couldn’t let her have one easy week, could he? Not that this week had been easy, but it was supposed to be her last week in the States.

  “Ah, there’s my angel.” Daddy’s whiskey voice rolled into her ears, soothing and monotonous and strong. His eyes crinkled in the corners. His prominent chin was stubbled, and his hair—a rapidly whitening salt-and-gray—was freshly cut and combed to the side. “Miss me, sweetheart?”

  She missed the man who’d read her The Monster At The End Of This Book when she was five. She missed the man who’d kept her stocked with coloring books and crayons. The man who had gone to school plays and dance recitals and award assemblies.

  But this man?

  “Carrying anything hot?” she said.

  He had the grace to flick his eyes downward. “No.”

  She didn’t entirely believe him, but she still climbed into the car and socked him on the arm. “What are you doing here?”

  He didn’t flinch but instead pulled away from the curb with a pleasant smile. “Merry-berry, what’s all this? You want your old dad to retire, don’t you?”

  Right. One more score, Merry-berry, and your old dad can afford to retire. She’d fallen for that line six years ago. Last year, at least, he hadn’t bothered lying. “So go after the Star of Knight. Or the Gator Tooth. Or—or, I don’t know, the Hope Diamond.”

  Daddy chuckled. “Ah, my little jewel. You always did believe I could do anything.” He steered the car toward the B&B. “Have faith, Merry. Your daddy’s doing the right thing. Now, you know I don’t like to ask you for help, but—”

  “Mom’s getting married again.”

  “Good, good. Your mother deserves to be happy.”

  He was as good at conning people as he was at stealing je
wels, but she knew him well enough to notice the hardening of his lips and the subtle tightening of his grip on the steering wheel.

  “You remember Horace, her fourth after you?” she said. “He left Mom a few mil. And a nearly flawless two-carat yellow diamond.” Mentioning Mom’s ex-husbands to Daddy was low, but Daddy was crossing a line in being here. Not the first line he’d crossed, but it would be the last.

  “Horace was a tool,” Daddy said. “And his Viagra didn’t work.”

  Probably true, given their legal arrangement. Still, nothing like a chat with Daddy to make Merry glad, once again, that she’d made Phoebe Moon an orphan. “That’s not what Mom told me.”

  Daddy pulled up to the B&B and put the car in park. He turned toward her, casually draping his left arm over the steering wheel. “Merry-berry, I need the fake.”

  Oh, hell no. “The fake…?”

  He angled his head, gave a slight thrust of his chin, eyes twinkling warmly. “The fake.”

  Ooh, Merry, a crime-stopping spree of your own! Phoebe Moon squealed.

  Merry shushed her, then lifted her brows and treated Daddy to his own classic I have no idea what you’re talking about face.

  Dad answered with a closed-lip movie-star smirk that could’ve earned him as many ex-wives as Mom had ex-husbands.

  If he’d been a drunk or violent or a deadbeat, it would’ve been so easy to hate him.

  But despite his criminal day job, when he was home, and when Mom would let him visit after she divorced him, he’d made her feel as though she and Mom were his world. He’d danced and sung along to all of her favorite boy band music. He’d made sure both his girls had Valentine’s Day presents every year, even if he hadn’t been physically present. He’d inspired Merry’s love of books, which he’d always insisted on buying instead of stealing. Authors aren’t rich, Merry-berry. We don’t take from the poor. Besides, he’d always added with his signature eye-twinkle, books aren’t jewels.

  He was wrong.

  About so much.

  She leaned into his space. “You stole from my friends. You disappeared for weeks or months at a time, and for all we knew you were dead. Mom had to change our names because of you. I thought I was settled last year. I had a home and friends and this—this peace, like I’d finally found where I fit, like maybe I could have a normal future, but once again, you waltzed into my life with all your chaos and you took it away from me. Again. I love you, Daddy, but I’m twenty-eight years old. I deserve the life I want. If you don’t leave Bliss right now, I will turn you in to the police myself, and then I’ll give them everything I have on you. I’m done being the daughter of a jewel thief, Daddy. Done.”

  Once again, he managed to exude charming embarrassment. “Merry, I need the fake to destroy it.”

  She froze, fingers clutched around the door handle. “You’re going to destroy it,” she repeated flatly.

  “Swear on the Hope Diamond.” He squeezed her shoulder. “You changed your number before I could apologize for what happened last year. I miss you, Merry-berry. Miss my family. Had a good run, but there comes a time when a man realizes what’s important. I’m going straight. Just cleaning up loose ends. The fake’s a loose end.”

  He didn’t blink. Didn’t fidget. One eye crinkled with his intentionally lopsided grin. “Gonna melt down the setting. Get rid of the stones. Last thing I have to do before I’m a free man.”

  He’d never be free. The jewels called to him, just as Merry’s stories called to her.

  “And what do you intend to do in retirement, Daddy?”

  “Get a little plot of land. Grow some grapes, try my hand at making wine.”

  “Wine?”

  “I hear it’s a big thing.”

  She didn’t believe it. She knew him too well. And it was too convenient an excuse mere hours after she’d had dinner with Max at the winery and spent half the day there with Mom. “So you’re going into selling fakes instead of stealing the real thing first?” she guessed.

  “Meredith—”

  “No. No, Daddy. Don’t lie to me. If you were done, you’d ask me to destroy what you think I have. If you were done, you’d retire and buy your winery and invite me to come visit. If you were done, you wouldn’t be here asking me for something you hid in my storage unit. If you were done, you wouldn’t have gone back to retrieve it.”

  “I—”

  “Don’t. Lie. To. Me. The manager called. He told me my unit had been broken into after I was there the last time.”

  “Merry, retiring from a life of procurement isn’t as easy as—”

  “Yes, Daddy. It is. You walk away.” Merry flung the door open. “Walk away, Daddy. Just walk away.”

  She thrust herself out of his car before he could answer.

  Daddy wasn’t dangerous. But he had an insatiable desire to continuously take what didn’t belong to him and a misplaced, overblown pride at getting away with it.

  And he was remarkably creative when it came to removing obstacles in his way.

  She had never been that obstacle. She’d never stood in his way.

  She’d also never asked him to love her as much as he loved the high of a big score.

  Merry didn’t bother checking her cash and ID. Cash had no emotional value to her father, and IDs were only beneficial to him if they allowed him easy access to something otherwise off-limits.

  Daddy loved her in his own way. And in his own way, he did what he did out of the good of his own heart.

  But he loved the thrill of getting away with a big score more. And that, as much as anything, put a lump back in her throat.

  She hadn’t just lost a home and budding friendships when Daddy had flung himself into her car this time last year, carrying hot goods, and asked her to floor it away from the scene of his last crime.

  She’d lost Max too.

  And when she’d lost Max, she’d severed her final thread of hope that she could ever have a normal future so long as Daddy was in her life.

  Behind her, the Audi pulled away.

  She bent her head over the keypad and punched the first number on the code for the door lock. The wind swirled up. She felt a presence, turned, and found herself nose-first in a mass of white wings and feathers.

  Again.

  She shrieked and threw her arms out, fending off the bird. Feathers flew up her nose and stuck to her lips. The thing lifted, and cool air rushed around her head.

  The owl had stolen her knit hat.

  “Bloody thief,” she yelled as the white figure disappeared into the sky.

  She swiped at the feathers in the air.

  Dastardly Uncle Sandy needed a hench-owl. And Merry needed Phoebe Moon to feed both of them their fictional nut sacks.

  It might not be publishable—Merry was thinking too many foul words for her middle-grade audience—but writing a bad guy’s demise would soothe her soul.

  Not long now.

  She’d chase Daddy out of Bliss, get Mom married off, send the fake Mrs. Claus diamond to Max and suggest he display it instead of the real thing for a few months—or years—and then Merry would be free.

  Free to escape her family, to start a new life in France, and to finally simply be herself.

  Whoever she discovered that might be.

  Chapter 17

  The underbrush scraped Phoebe Moon’s hands and knees, but she stayed on her path. There was only one way to stop defiant Uncle Sandy now.

  —Phoebe Moon and the Ninja Hideaway

  * * *

  Max was bleary-eyed and irrationally grumpy when he met Dan at the back door of With This Ring Wednesday morning. No reason to be—he hadn’t tried to stop Merry while he’d listened to her put her clothes on, whisper goodbye to his dog, and creak down the stairs and out of his house last night—but he couldn’t shake his foul mood.

  He was basking in it, honestly.

  “If that’s how you feel after a night with her, maybe she’s not the best thing for you,” Dan mused, eyes on the back door.


  Merry was good for him.

  Her family wasn’t. Not for Max, and not for Merry either.

  Not a conversation he’d be having with Dan today though. Not when everyone in his life was already determined not to like her.

  They slipped into their usual pattern—check up and down the alley, listen for anything weird, note anything out of the ordinary—then Dan slid his key into the back door, hit the security code, and the two of them went into the shop.

  Crime was rare in Bliss, but even without the daughter of a prominent jewel thief in town, one of the first lessons Max had learned about the family business was not to let your guard down.

  It was a lesson he’d forgotten too much recently.

  Dan flipped on the lights to his workroom and did his usual visual sweep. Max stepped across the hall to his own small office and did the same, then the two of them wandered out front to check the floor.

  If Max wasn’t in the family business, would Merry stay?

  He paused in front of the Mrs. Claus diamond. “Rach have big plans in January?”

  “Aside from figuring out a new way to break your curse?”

  “Curse isn’t real.”

  Correct, but you’re having doubts, aren’t you? replied a pompous voice that sounded how he imagined Zack Diggory from that Phoebe Moon novel talked. Max had meant to wait and finish the book with Olivia this weekend, but when Merry left last night, he’d needed a distraction.

  He liked the new character. Kid had a cool car.

  “Yeah, Rach doesn’t believe in curses either,” Dan said with a smothered grin.

  “Think she’d fill in for me for a month?”

  Dan looked up from inspecting the jeweler’s microscope they kept out for customers to use, his attention fully on Max. “A month?”

  “Thinking of taking January off.”

  Dan’s frown was too similar to Gramps’s old frown. “This about that car Billy asked you to work on?”

  “Thought you left the gossiping to your wife.”

  “A month’s a long time to take off.”

  “Got the time saved up.” If Max put in weekends and sacrificed sleep for the Charger, he was almost positive he’d have it in good enough shape that he could finish it by Billy’s deadline.