Merry Humbug Christmas (10 page)

“Same to you,” he returned.

“Send my love to Marla.”

Once he’d retreated, Kathleen turned toward Joss. “How many

children does that man have?”

“Seven,” Patrick answered.

“Oh, my. Can you imagine?”

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Joss leaned back against her chair and sighed. “No. I really can’t.”

“No, I can’t either,” Patrick concurred. “I’d still like to have children one day, but as much as I’d like my own small hockey team, I’m fairly certain I’ll have the good sense to stop after three or four.”

“What if you fall for someone who wants an even dozen?” Joss

asked him with a straight face. “You’ll just nix her whole dream?”

He froze for a moment. “A dozen?”

“You like hockey,” she said dryly. “I’m a fan of soccer myself.”

Kathleen snickered from the other side of her before whispering

to Joss, “I like your spirit, child.”

THE DECK GLISTENED BENEATH the twinkling strands of lights

hanging over their heads, and the section of railing where they’d chosen to stroll after dinner shimmered with red foil garland looped around it in a candy cane pattern. Joss slipped her arm through Patrick’s, and his pulse began to race.

“Isn’t the water beautiful?” she asked him softly. “It seems to go on forever.”

“The reflection of a full moon doesn’t hurt,” he added.

“It’s a perfect night.”

Patrick cleared his throat and ran his tongue along his front

teeth in the hope that no turkey dinner remnants had stuck around.

Screwing up the bravery to do something he’d wanted to do almost

since he first met her, he came to a stop and looked at Joss. The ocean breeze caught her hair and nudged all but one lone strand away from her pretty face, and Patrick picked up the dark auburn lock with the tip of his finger and combed it away.

“A schoolmate of mine owns a winery in the Napa Valley,” he told

her as he traced the curve of her jaw with his finger. “I spent the New Year with his family last year, and at midnight he opened a very special bottle of their wine . . . a sparkling variety of white. I don’t normally enjoy the sweeter wines, but this one was spectacular, largely because of the gold flakes meandering about in it.”

Joss grimaced. “Gold.”

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He nodded once. “Twenty-two karat gold flakes. Floating right

inside it.”

“I think I had a piece of wedding cake once with edible gold leaf on it,” she told him. “So I guess your friend’s wine won’t kill anyone.”

“I’m still standing,” he replied as he rubbed her temple delicately with his thumb and gazed into her eyes.

“Were you making a point?” she asked. “Or did you just find

yourself thinking about wine?”

“Oh.” He dropped his hand from her face and snapped back to

the moment. “Your eyes. They have gold flecks in them.”

She connected the dots. “Like your friend’s wine.”

“Exactly.”

She paused for a few beats before she looked as if she might make a move to continue their stroll around the deck. Patrick couldn’t let the moment pass, and he slipped his arms around Joss’s waist and

pulled her closer.

“Can I?” he asked.

He could feel her warm breath on his face in the silence that followed. Finally, “Can you what?”

“Kiss you,” he clarified.

The corner of her mouth twitched. “You want to?”

He sighed and replied, “Very much.”

“Why?”

Patrick could hear his own heart pounding in his ears, and he

wasn’t entirely sure he hadn’t misheard. “Why?” he repeated.

“Yes. Why do you want to kiss me?”

He snickered. “The usual reasons, I suspect. I’m attracted. . . . I find you quite charming and unexpectedly beautiful. . . . Oh, and if I don’t, I’m not sure I’ll be able to stand it.”

Joss’s smile spread across her entire face like warm butter on a

hot roll.

“Then I guess you really should,” she said.

He moved closer. “I think you’re right.” Patrick took her face

into both of his hands.

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“What does that mean,
unexpectedly beautiful
?” she asked him with a grin.

“I’ll explain later,” he replied, and he pressed his lips against hers.

He’d wondered if the moment would ever arrive. Feeling like

he’d known her several years already—and been deprived of her

kiss for all of them—Patrick indulged at last. And Joss slid her arms around his neck and surrendered.

“DON’T MAKE ME PUT you over my shoulder and carry you up

there.”

The way Joss twisted up her beautiful face at him made Patrick

laugh right out loud.

“Come on. Do you want me to carry you up there?” he asked her,

and the tangled knot of her expression transformed into a full-on glare. “Because I’ll do it.”

“I’ll tell you what,” she told him, nearly shouting over the karaoke rendition of “Wind Beneath My Wings” screeching from the

stage. “You go first.”

“Can I get you folks anything else?” the waiter bellowed at them.

“Another Diet Coke for my friend,” Patrick yelled. “She needs to

lubricate her voice. She’s planning to sing.”

“No!” she broke in, smacking his arm. “I’m not!”

“Would you like to see the catalog?” the waiter asked.

“The what?” she called.

“The catalog of song choices,” he answered, pulling what looked

like a menu from his back pocket and setting it between them on the table. “You can make your choice, and I’ll deliver it to the DJ. Then he’ll call your name when it’s your turn.”

“No, no,” she insisted. “I’m really not—”

“Just leave it with us,” Patrick asserted. “We’ll talk it over.”

The waiter nodded, and the moment he headed toward the bar

to retrieve Joss’s cola, she clamped the fingers of one hand around Patrick’s forearm and squeezed until he folded into the pain.

“Hey! Stop it! What are you doing?”

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“I’ll tell you what I’m
not
doing—”

“Come on, where’s your sense of adventure? Just have a look,”

he said, pushing the catalog toward her. “Maybe you’ll see something that appeals to you and change your mind.”

She pouted at him for a moment before opening the booklet and

glancing over a random page.

“I don’t karaoke,” she told him, but the catalog clearly had her

attention. “Although, if I was actually going to do it—which I am not!—you would be doing it with me, I assure you.”

Patrick chuckled as he gulped the last of his coffee, and she

scanned the song listings. He watched as something grabbed her

attention. She squinted and looked closer, the corner of her mouth twitching with amusement.

“Let’s pretend then,” he suggested. “If you were going to, what

song would you sing?”

“Well, this would be it,” she declared, slapping the catalog to the tabletop. “Hands down!”

He looked at the listing beneath her tapping index finger.

“C’mon Get Happy”—the Partridge Family

“You’re joking.”

“I never joke about David Cassidy.”

The waiter returned and set another large glass of soda on the

table. As he removed Joss’s empty one, he asked her, “Have you

decided?”

“This one,” Patrick snapped. “The Partridge Family.”

The waiter cackled. “Good choice. No one’s done that one in

forever.”

“No, really, I—”

“Her name is Joss,” Patrick informed him.

“Joss. Got it. There are three others in front of you, but Lonnie will call your name when you’re up.”

“Wait! Really . . .”

“Oh, come on,” Patrick teased. “You’ve made your choice, and

it’s David Cassidy.”

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Joss began gathering her things, an expression of sheer terror

commandeering her demeanor, and she stood up from her chair in

such a rush that her purse emptied on the tabletop.

“Simmer down there, Sparky,” Patrick said on a laugh as he

helped her pick up her belongings and stuff them into her purse.

“It’s all in fun. You wanted to put thoughts of Christmas behind you, didn’t you? How far can you get from carols than Partridge Family karaoke, huh?”

“Really, Patrick, you’re maddening. I said I don’t want to.”

“Why don’t you tell me about your fascination with David

Cassidy,” he proposed. “Come on. Sit down.”

She plopped back into the chair and glared at him, clutching her

purse to her chest and twisting her hair around her finger.

“Keith Partridge,” she muttered, and he hardly heard her over

the transition onstage to a middle-aged couple’s off-key rendition of the old Peaches & Herb song, “Love Is Strange.”

“Keith Partridge,” he repeated, and she nudged her purse back to

the table. “Aren’t you a little young for Partridge Family references?

Wasn’t that show over in the seventies?”

She glared at him and shrugged. “1970 through ’74.”

“You were like . . . what? . . . a decade shy of even being born?”

“Not that much.”

“So where did your love for him originate?”

“Where else? Nickelodeon. It was in syndication in the nineties.

And I fell hard.”

“For David.”

“No. For Keith.”

“Keith Partridge,” he clarified.

“Yes. I had pictures of him all over my closet door, and my mom

got me a vintage pillowcase with Keith on it. I slept with that thing every night until I went away to college.”

Patrick chuckled, and Joss slipped with an accidental smile in

response.

“It’s framed and hanging on the wall in my office right now.”

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“Oh, you’re joking! That’s brilliant!” he cried, wondering how

much more adorable this girl could get.

A couple of twenty-something girls stepped up onstage and

kicked into a rather silly rendition of Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Call Me Maybe.”

“The brain worm song,” Patrick interjected. “No matter how you

try not to, you’ll be hearing this one in your sleep next week.”

Joss giggled and leaned back into her chair with a groan. A

moment later she leaned forward and told him, “Three years ago,

for our annual escape from Christmas, Reese and I went to Las Vegas and saw David Cassidy in concert.” She blushed as she added, “I stood there and waited for him after the show like some sort of stage-door groupie.”

“Did you get to meet him?”

She narrowed her eyes at him, as if she might be wondering if

she could trust him with state secrets of some kind. After a long few moments, she produced a cell phone from her purse and navigated to a photo that she held up before him: Joss Snow, beaming so brightly that Patrick’s sweet tooth ached, and a surprisingly fit-looking—

albeit advanced in age from his Keith Partridge days—David Cassidy.

Patrick guffawed, snatching the phone from her hand to get a

closer look.

“Be careful,” she said, tugging on his wrist until she could get the phone back from him. “And don’t mock.”

“Oh, I’m not going to mock,” he said with a chuckle. “I just can’t wait to see you singing his song!”

“Us.”

“Us, what?”

“
Us
, singing his song.”

Patrick turned stoic as he considered her words. “Well,” he finally said, “I don’t even know that song. I can’t sing it. But you can. Just lean into it. You’ll enjoy it.”

“You know, that’s the great part about karaoke,” she told him,

pointing toward the stage. “They put the words up for you. All you have to do is read it and sing along.”

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Patrick slowly turned his head toward the stage as a probably

intoxicated balding gentleman took the microphone and proceeded

to serenade his uncomfortable date. His version of
“Merry Christmas,
Darling”
became an epic fail in the first two lines.

“I think we’re up next, genius,” Joss called to him.

“Not me. You.”

“We.”

“You’re the one with the Partridge in your pear tree,” he quipped.

“Yep. And you’re the one who shook him loose from the tree. So

you’re singing with me, my friend.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Ohh,” she growled. “You’re singing with me.”

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