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James Patterson has had more New York Times bestsellers than any other writer, ever, according to Guinness World Records. Since his first novel won the Edgar Award in 1977 James Patterson's books have sold more than 300 million copies. He is the author of the Alex Cross novels, the most popular detective series of the past twenty-five years, including Kiss the Girls and Along Came a Spider. He writes full-time and lives in Florida with his family.

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The Christmas Wedding

Little, Brown and Company

PROLOGUE

You’re Invited,
or Else

GABY’S FIRST VIDEO

Only twenty-four days until Christmas, and this Christmas is going to be one you won’t forget.

Need proof? I think I can give you proof.

I want all four of you to take a good, long look at the screen and your mom.

Everybody watching? Emily? Claire? Seth? Lizzie? Emily? You see anything unusual or, well, kind of stunning?

Okay. Let me turn around for you…Turning…?Turning again.

Yes. Your eyes tell the truth. I have lost twelve pounds and several ounces.

Stop, stop! No worries, no frets or fears. No neurotic theories about my health.

I’m not sick or anything like that. Maybe a little sick in the head. As always. Part of my charm.

I just gave up Ben & Jerry’s Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough and the occasional beer before bedtime. And I banished mayonnaise—low-fat or otherwise—from the house. And white bread. Dunkin’ Donuts for sure. It made me somewhat miserable…and hungry. But it also made me thinner. And, I must admit, happier. Yes, I’m happier than I’ve been in a long time.

I needed a big change. Everybody needs a change. If you don’t change, you’re stuck in a rut.

I know that people around here always say, “Oh, Gaby, you lead such an interesting life…You run that farm of yours pretty much by yourself. You write a food blog that isn’t too egotistical or boring. You teach the local kids to read and write.”

Oh, yes, I do…and I love it…but honestly, it just wasn’t enough for me.

I was in a life rut that was only getting deeper. R-u-t. Put on boots and a loden coat the morning after a snowstorm and trudge to the henhouse to collect four eggs. Start adding nutritional facts to the recipes on the blog and people you never even met accuse you of being a nutrition Nazi.

Teach English, or at least try to make the kids love reading. I know this is going to come as a bit of a shock, but most teenagers think that Great Expectations—to use a phrase—“blows,” but that any book with a vampire in it is brilliant. Especially if the vampire is darkly handsome and promises eternal love with every bite. Great Expectations does kind of blow, by the way.

So anyway, I promise you, I’m not going through the dreaded midlife crisis. I’m not even at my midlife.

And, hey, the first one of you who makes a crack about my being way past midlife gets tossed out of the will. I’m serious, kiddies.

I do need some excitement, though. I think the wildest thing I’ve done in the last three years is to ask your kids to call me by my first name. I disliked being called Grandma. Made me itchy all over.

Back to the subject…I’ve lost twelve pounds.

After all…

I want to be able to fit into my wedding gown.

Anyone who’s fainted should please get up off the floor. And don’t start telephoning one another until this video is over.

Yes, you heard right. I said wedding gown. As in wedding. As in bride. As in wedding in our barn.

You’re looking at the bride right now, and she’s actually smiling. She’s happy. Very much so. You know I don’t complain, but there was a long, dark time after your father died and I’m finally out of that black hole.

You’re probably wondering who the lucky groom is. Well, as you used to say when you were just little brats, that’s for me to know and you to find out.

Everybody is coming home to Stockbridge for Christmas. Claire, Emily, Seth, and Lizzie. You and your children, your spouses, your lovers, dogs, cats, whoever and whatever. We haven’t been together as a family since your dad died.

So it’s Christmas in Stockbridge.

Then you’ll find out who the lucky man is. Till then. I love you. And I’m so happy I almost can’t believe it.

See you at Christmas…when all will be revealed.

BOOK ONE

Christmas Dreaming

Chapter 1

CLAIRE AND HANK

Claire Donoghue, Gaby’s eldest daughter, had just finished her mother’s video, and, well, wow. Go, Gaby! For the moment, though, Claire was paying her household bills, and bill paying was kind of like playing “I love you, I love you not” with hand grenades. Sooner or later, Claire knew, one of them was going to blow up in her face. In everybody’s face.

“I love you, South Carolina Electric and Gas,” she said, placing that bill in the stack she intended to pay.

“I love you not, emergency root canal.”

It was as good a system as any for deciding how to parcel out their slim income to pay the usual fat stack of bills. It was only during the luckiest of months that Hank’s money from construction work, and Claire’s income from tutoring, covered most of the bills. This was not one of those months.

Claire sat at a small, wobbly oak table in the chilly sunroom. She wore two Shetland sweaters in two different shades of dark blue, white painter’s pants, and fingerless woolen gloves....