Merry Mitchell novella: Mitchell - Healy Series

By jennifer foor

Come celebrate the holiday season with the Mitchell family. Noah is planning a surprise wedding for Shalan. Will you be attending?

 

This book should be read between Christian and Jake. It is classified as #3.5

 

 

Contains come adult content. 18+

• Language: English
• Publisher: jennifer foor
• Release date: Jan 14, 2015
• ISBN: 9781507096536

Book preview

Chapter 1

Shalan

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I didn’t mean to feel depressed, especially since I had so much to look forward to. There were certainly other things more important than a big wedding. Surely it was redundant to consider that everything would work out before the end of the year. We’d reached late November, and as the leaves on the trees turned autumn colors, I knew my hopes of becoming Mrs. Noah Mitchell before New Year’s was proving to be impossible.

I ran my hands over the chiffon fabric. At first I wasn't sure if white was the right shade for me. It was the most popular of choices. I'd read somewhere that the color only became favored after a queen wanted to incorporate lace with her own wedding gown. How it stuck was beyond me. It was the least flattering color on a woman, yet practically everyone chose it.

At least I was lucky enough to be blessed with a high metabolism and a cute figure, so I’ve been told. Don’t get me wrong, I love to eat. I prefer chips over vegetables and chocolate over pasta.

Reason number forty why I shouldn’t wear white, I was a sloppy eater. If I put something in my mouth, half would end up on or between my boobs. It never failed, and I  constantly had to pack double the clothes because of it. Noah always teased me that he was going to bring out a bib for me to wear at every meal.

I didn’t know why I was so worried about the color white anyway. My wedding had been postponed three times already, and once the holidays were over I'd leave the country to go back out on tour to promote my new album. By the time I got to wear this dress it would be out of style.

As much as I'd cried over it, I knew there was nothing I could do. My fiancé Noah's family kept having one catastrophe after another. First his cousin Bella got pregnant, and didn’t want me to have to change the style of her dress. Besides, with that pregnancy came a whole bunch of unforeseen drama. It took the whole nine months for her to get things figured out.

Since she’d become my closest friend, and obvious matron of honor, it was important that she was healthy, and less stressed to assist me in everything I needed help with.

It was my first wedding, and I wanted it all to be perfect. What bride doesn’t? With the family I was marrying into, there was no telling what kind of prank that one of the cousins were going to pull. In order for me to keep as calm as possible I needed all of my details to be in check, so that if I needed to kick some ass, I’d be capable of doing it well.

All jokes aside, I loved this beautiful family I was about to be a big part of. They’d showed me joy, brought me back to the lord, and given me back what I’d lost so long ago. I felt like I belonged, and my future mother-in-law treated me like I was her own daughter. I was in awe over them.

After Noah’s cousin had her baby, Sarah, we’d rearranged all of the details and sent out the revised invites for our big day. Everything was in order; the venue, the caterers, the entertainment, and the guest list. Then Noah’s youngest sister Addy had to go into rehab for a drug addiction. She’d been in trouble since the first time I met her, but I couldn’t imagine it had  gotten so out of control. I don’t think anyone could. She came from a big loving family, and had no reason to take the path that she did. Anyway, once she was feeling more herself, I’d promised her that we’d wait until she was all better, so she could still participate as a bridesmaid.

The second set of wedding postponement notices went out in the mail. It was terribly embarrassing for Noah and I, especially since everything we did ended up in a tabloid. Paparazzi speculated that we were on the outs, that I’d had a miscarriage, and that we’d both been unfaithful. If they could print a story, they’d use whatever would sell magazines, and unfortunately my life was open to speculation.

When things started to quiet down from that catastrophe, another reason to halt the ceremony came into play.

Noah’s other sister Christian was sexually assaulted, and there was no way that any of us could even mention a wedding, or being happy while she was in such bad shape.

After that it was like an omen. We knew we couldn’t celebrate being in love when such tragedy was surrounding us, even if we ran off and did it in Vegas. I couldn’t look at that poor girl that I’d come to love so much and see the terror in her eyes as she pretended to be happy for us. She needed to heal, and we were all going to be there to help her, no matter what we had to do. So even though it was what we both wanted, Noah and I promised everyone that we’d hold off.

They say all things come in threes, but after everything, it was hard for me to be able to even talk about a wedding in front of them. Settled with the idea that we’d just wait another six months, I focused on finally being able to take it easy at home, and maybe write another number one single for my new album.

When I heard someone climbing the hardwood stairs, I zipped up the dress bag and closed the closet door. I didn’t need any more bad luck