Merry Humbug Christmas (2 page)

ho extravaganza. I know we always vowed we wouldn’t go to the

same place twice, but this might turn out to be an all-new tradition, Reese. We could do this every single year from this year forward.”

“Yeah. About this year.”

Joss’s jaw snapped shut, her heart began to palpitate, and her

mouth went dry. “Oh no. Uh-uh, Pendergrass. You wouldn’t dare.”

“I’m so sor—”

“No!” she objected, holding up both hands and leaning across the

table. “Do not be sorry. Because sorry is always followed up with
I
didn’t mean to disappoint you, BUT
—”

“But . . . I really
am
sorry to disappoint you.” Reese winced and raised one-half of her mouth in a sorry excuse for a smile.

“Then don’t,” Joss cried in hope. “We’ve been going away every

Christmas for five years now. We said we’d always rescue each other from holiday overload. The only thing that would ever change that was going to be—”

Joss froze, and she dropped her hands and slowly leaned back in

her chair and sighed.

“That’s your news, isn’t it?”

Reese nodded.

“He proposed?”

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“He proposed,” Reese confirmed, and she held out her left hand

and wiggled her fingers until Joss had to shield her eyes from the reflection. She wondered how she hadn’t noticed it before.

“Look at the size of that thing. I thought you didn’t do flashy.”

“I don’t,” she replied with a grin. “But fortunately . . .
Damian
does!
Isn’t it fantastic?”

Joss popped from her chair and rounded the table, sweeping

Reese into a bouncy embrace as her friend giggled like a schoolgirl.

“It’s great. I love Damian.”

“Me, too.”

She planted a kiss on Reese’s cheek and squeezed her arm before

taking her chair again.

“The two of you were made for each other.”

“Oh, Joss, I’m sorry about Christmas.”

Her heart dropped an inch or two at the thought of spending her

first Christmas/birthday in five years without the benefit of Reese’s fun-filled diversions.

“He wouldn’t understand?” Joss asked, squeezing her mouth into

a lopsided frown. “You couldn’t write it into the vows? You promise to love, honor, and cherish him fifty-one weeks out of every year?”

Reese shook her head and wrinkled her perfect nose.

“He’ll understand. Even pediatricians get Christmas off, don’t

they?”

“We’re spending the holiday with his folks in Sugarloaf. Can you

believe that? Isn’t that the cutest name for a town? Sugarloaf.”

“Where is it?”

“In the mountains above Big Bear. They have a place there. It’s

been in their family for three generations. Oh, and get this. There might actually be
snow
, Joss! Can you believe it? Me and my fiancé and his family and a white Christmas too?”

Joss fell back against her chair, tugging at the invisible arrow

through her heart.

“Ooh, but you could come with us!”

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Joss glared at her. Then, without a word, she stood up, shoved

the brochure into her bag, and drank the last of her coffee. “I have an event to plan.”

“Joss.”

She paused momentarily and shot Reese a serious expression.

“Can I try on the ring?”

Reese grinned. “No.”

“Then I’m leaving.”

“Joss.”

“Congratulations, traitor.”

“Joss!”

“Traitor! You’re a total traitor!”

JOSS PITCHED HER BAG over the back of the sofa before collapsing

with an armful of mail. She opened her electric and water bills first, then the dozen or so Christmas cards.

Joyous sentiments, warm wishes, and envelopes puffed with

faith, hope, love, and jingle bells. All very nice, but each of them completely Christmas-centric and particularly stinging right on the tail of discovering Reese would never again be available for their December tradition.

Don’t any of you people know me better than this? Joss skimmed

over glitter snowmen and embossed hillside scenes, the shiver of it all quickly annulled by a seventy-nine-degree Los Angeles winter on the other side of her bay window.

Caleb, Joss’s six-year-old sheepdog mix, lumbered into the liv-

ing room and peeked at her through a tuft of unruly white fur that blocked all but a fraction of one eye.

“Hey, buddy. You were napping on the comforter in the guest

room again, weren’t you?”

Caleb yawned in reply and plodded across the living room

toward her. First one enormous paw and then the other clawed the

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sofa cushion, followed by the long, slow crawl to drag his eighty-pound frame up beside her. Joss groaned when he tossed himself into her lap.

“You are one enormous lapdog,” she told him, smoothing back

the hair from his beautiful brown eyes. “Aren’t you, boy?”

He panted at her, and it looked very much like a happy grin. Joss leaned down and kissed him several times on the bridge of his nose.

When the telephone rang, it took her two tries to reach it overtop her smiling dog.

“Urgh,” she grunted when she finally snatched the handset from

its base. “Hello?”

“Are you all right? Did I catch you in the middle of moving heavy furniture?” Ryan Butler, Joss’s business partner for the last four years, could never resist an opportunity for a jab.

Joss chuckled. “No. I’m just pinned down by a guy who finds me

irresistible.”

“How
is
Caleb?”

“Hairy.”

“The same then.”

“Pretty much, yeah. What’s up?”

“Are you coming back to the office today?”

“I don’t think so. I’ve got those releases to write, and I can’t

think with all the volunteers there stuffing swag bags for the bash this weekend. I think I’ll work from the house for a few hours.”

“I’m making a run out to the hotel to see how things are com-

ing for the event. Char can keep an eye on the bag stuffers while I’m gone. Then I’ll get her started on gathering our stats for the meeting with Jenkins next week.”

“Thanks, Ry. I’ve got the proposal draft almost completely

worked up.”

Since the day they opened the door at Images Public Relations,

Joss and Ryan’s working relationship had been like a set of well-

oiled gears. The two of them, along with their assistant Charlotte Hunter——the glue that kept it all pulled together—seemed to be

separate appendages of the same body.

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“Did you get to see the good doctor?”

“Oh yeah,” she replied on a stifled groan.

“What did she think about the cruise idea?”

“She can’t go. Damian proposed. My December escapes with

Reese are officially behind me.”

Ryan fell silent for several beats. “So you’re not going away? Why don’t you come with us to wine country.”

“Oh, I’m still going.”

“By yourself?”

“Yep.”

“Joss, are you joking?”

“No, I’m not joking, Ryan. The only thing that’s changed is Reese as my wingman.”

“C’mon. We’ll ride all-terrains, sip some stuff; it’ll be a Top Ten list of fun. Oh, and we have this tradition where the kids—”

“As charming as that all sounds, Ryan, I have to pass.”

“Oh, come on. Come with us. You’ll have a blast.”

“Some other time,” she suggested. “But not at Christmas.”

“You know, you might be taking this whole thing a little over

the—”

“Yeah, so let me know how things are progressing at the Hyatt?”

“Joss.”

“Later, Ry.”

He paused. “Later, tater.”

Joss propped the handset on the back of the couch and combed

her fingers through the long fur at the base of Caleb’s neck. He

sighed and snuggled her knee before closing his eyes again.

“People think I’m a loon, Caleb,” she whispered. “But not you,

huh?”

No response, but Joss figured that might have been for the better.

She’d been running up against people’s expectations and judgments about her Christmas aversion for as long as she could remember. It was partially her own fault, she supposed. If she could find the inclination to explain all the gory details to every Christmas lover she encountered, perhaps the opposition wouldn’t be so tenacious. After Merry Humbug Christmas.indd 11

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all, what
ho-ho-ho-er
would try to perk her up to enjoy a happy little holiday that fell every year on the same regrettable date that had severed her family ties in one horrible moment?

Joss closed her eyes. While still massaging Caleb’s coat with one hand, she massaged her own thumping temple with the other and

wondered why those particular memories always had to return so

reliable and clear. Her parents had been on their way down from

Tahoe on Christmas Eve in the hope of spending the holiday—and

their only daughter’s birthday—with Joss in L.A.

Pouring rain, heavy winds, and holiday traffic all played a part in the pileup, the highway patrolman had said. But no matter what the cause, all Joss ever really knew was that an inebriated old guy in a Santa hat, with a red bag filled with wrapped gifts on the seat beside him, had deprived her of a lifetime of Christmas spirit in thirty horrible seconds. She occasionally felt sorry that the one who shared her birthday had been the baby Jesus thrown out with the Christmas bathwater, but she was inclined to believe He understood. She’d

made a decision long ago not to ask too many questions about the

why
of that turn of events. Instead of turning on God, she’d turned on Christmas, and it had worked fairly well for her until today.

The only living person who knew every private detail of her

defective holiday mental health, in fact, was Reese, and she’d been walking in silent loyalty, supporting Joss through Christmases ever since. Before Damian delivered the rock, anyway.

A smile crept across her face at the thought of it, and Joss let out a sigh from deep within her. She hadn’t even asked Reese about the proposal. Had he gotten down on one knee? Was it in a restaurant or some other public place? Were there flowers and promises of forever love?

Joss closed her eyes and tilted her head back against the cushion.

For some reason a fairy tale popped into her head: a once-upon-a-

time romance where the prince descended on one knee and asked

the beautiful princess to marry him and live with him happily ever after. Oh, how many times she’d dreamed of finding her own
once
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upon a time
. As happy as she felt for Reese, the hollow spot at the center of her rib cage rattled slightly with unmistakable regret.

Suddenly she was curled into the arms of her mother again, a

five-year-old with unruly auburn hair and wide, hopeful eyes, hanging on every word as Betsy read the fairy tale to her daughter and then closed the book. “There’s a handsome prince out there just

waiting for you, too, Merry,” her mother had promised.

“Do you think so, Mommy?”

“There will be a big wedding with lots of flowers and a shimmer-

ing dress, and then you’ll have children of your own. And your family will make memories together, and spend your birthday each year gathered around the Christmas tree, and Thanksgivings where three generations of Snows will hold hands around a big oak table with an enormous turkey and cranberries and pumpkin pie.”

“Living happily ever after,” little Merry finished for her, and

Betsy laughed.

“That’s right.”

Believing used to be so easy.

Her parents had died, taking with them any hope Merry

Christmas Snow had left for happy Christmases and family gather-

ings. In the years that followed, Joss’s closest friends had never once hesitated to include her in their holiday celebrations and spectacular, festive meals. But somehow, instead of being part of the jubilation, Joss only felt the sting of standing on the outside looking in while others embraced their children or looked lovingly into the eyes of their spouses. No matter how hard she tried to join in, Joss couldn’t manage more than the role of simple observer, never a participant, and the pain of it had finally backed up on her.

She hadn’t ever quite figured out why Reese had so readily

sacrificed trips home to spend the holidays with her quirky family, choosing instead to forgo all traces of Christmas ornaments, boxes, and bows to create an annual Christmas-free zone with her slightly pathetic orphaned friend. But they’d had a spectacular time doing it.

It had become a bit of a private joke between them, shooting

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behind shrubs. Joss’s December 25 birthday dinner had been the

same for the last five years: Chinese food eaten with the required chopsticks, a six-pack of Diet Coke, always preceded by a prayer of thanks from Reese, then a birthday cake and barefoot sing-alongs to their favorite old Motown tunes.

Joss’s heart squeezed slightly at the memory, and she picked up

the phone and dialed #1 on the speed dial.

“Reese? I’m so sorry. I didn’t ask a thing about how it happened

or what he said. Please forgive me?”

“Of course.”

“How did he do it? Did he get down on one knee?”