Merry Humbug Christmas (4 page)

marathon of Christmas movies starting at midnight. Joss shuddered at the thought.

“What about cell phone service?” she asked him. “Will I have any

trouble connecting? On the cruise I booked, the brochure said there wouldn’t be any problem.”

“You have a smartphone?” he inquired.

“Of course.”

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“Then you should be fine, even out at sea. You’ll just pay interna-tional roaming charges, which can be pricey, but . . .”

“That’s fine. Thank you.”

Joss broke away and closed her cabin door behind her.

With a deep, throaty groan she clamped her eyes shut, dropped

her bag and suitcase, and fell back against the door. Joss’s brain buzzed with thoughts of turning tail and running home to spend the next week behind closed doors.

Hey.

Her eyes popped open. Why couldn’t she? Everyone would think

she’d gone on a cruise. Her phone wouldn’t ring; no one would show up at her door. She could cancel the dog sitters and spend the next week of her life in the company of her favorite creature on earth. She and Caleb could curl up on the sofa with her silky chenille blanket, eat a chunk off the roll of sugar cookie dough in the fridge, and make good use of Reese’s early birthday gift as they watched the entire first season of
The Dick Van Dyke Show
on DVD.

This is sounding more like a plan by the minute!

Joss picked up her bag from the floor, then snatched the handle

of her overturned suitcase. She could be in a taxi, flying down the 101 on her way back to the rolling hills of Los Feliz inside of ten minutes.

Just as her hand hit the door lever, however, the unmistakable

blast of a plan going up in smoke pierced her ears.

Joss gasped.

“No.”

She jerked her head so hard toward the balcony window that her

neck snapped.

“Nooo!”

With her bag and suitcase still in tow, Joss loped across the length of the cabin. Dropping them to the floor, she threw open the glass door and clasped her hand over her mouth.

“Noooo!” she screamed, but the sound of it was completely lost

beneath the detonation of the final horn blast. Translation: We’re setting sail.

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Joss stood there, with no idea for how long, watching the scen-

ery glide by her in slow motion. Crowds of faceless people waved

their arms at her, wishing her a bon voyage.

How! How? How did this happen?

She dropped into the chair beside the window, her eyes glazed

over with a zombie-like astonishment, holding on to the arms of the chair with white-knuckled strength.

“Why?” she said right out loud. “Why didn’t I just grab a cab and turn around and go home as soon as they told me the humbuggers

had bailed on me?”

Speaking of bailing . . .

Joss’s thoughts darted to Sugarloaf as she wondered how Reese’s

episode of
Meet the Parents
was going. Maybe she’d give her a call later

. . . after the more important one she had to make first.

She grabbed the large Italian leather bag at her feet and produced her cell phone from the side pocket.

“Hey, Char. It’s Joss.”

“Is something wrong? I thought you were on a cruise.”

Joss scanned her surroundings with a grimace. “I am. Sort of.”

She glanced out the window and wrinkled up her entire face in disappointment. “Oh, man. Yeah. I am.”

“That doesn’t sound good.”

“My first stop is in Puerto Vallarta on the twenty-seventh. See if you can book me a flight out of there to Los Angeles.”

“Joss. Are you sure? You don’t want to finish the cruise?”

“Oh, I’m sure.”

“Well, do you—”

“Text me the itinerary as soon as you have it.”

“Okay.”

JOSS HAD TOYED WITH the idea of ordering a room-service

cheeseburger and eating it outside on the balcony, but as twilight set in, it became a little chilly out on open waters. The information packet she’d been given at check-in had included a flyer titled
What to
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25

Expect,
and amid tips regarding seasickness and a bulleted list of cautions, there was a warning about weather on the cruise. Apparently, warmer temperatures wouldn’t kick in until the second or third day.

Just about the time she decided on sharing her burger with

Matthew McConaughey, the star of one of the only non-Christmas-

related on-demand movies available, her cell phone jingled to let her know a text had arrived.

“Excellent!” She snatched the phone from the dresser and

dropped to the bed.

From: Char Hunter

So sorry. No flights avail out of PV to LA for the next 4 days. Ck the next port?

Joss groaned.

“I’m trapped!” she growled as she hit the reply button.

From: Joss Snow

Find me a way home, or I’ll swim.

As if on cue, just as she hit “send” and reached for the phone to call room service and order some dinner, a rap on the door interrupted her.

“Hey, sweetie pie!”

Christmas at Dollywood
had evolved into
Christmas at the Grand Ole
Opry
. Connie Rudolph’s full-length dress was red, except for the shape of a green Christmas tree from neck to knee, topped with a

silver star, all of it fashioned in sequins. Joss wondered where on earth the designer had found so many of the shiny little things. Or the audacity to design such a dress, for that matter.

“Well, just look at you,” she drawled as she moved past Joss into the cabin, her bracelet jingling all the way. “You haven’t even started getting dolled up for supper.”

Connie’s declaration and accompanying crinkled nose and shak-

ing head caused Joss to have a look at her reflection. She’d changed into gray sweats and pulled her straight hair into a ponytail at the top Merry Humbug Christmas.indd 25

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Merry

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of her head. She’d removed her contacts and perched her rectangular brown glasses on the bridge of her nose.

“You can’t go into the dining room like
that
.”

“You’re right,” Joss replied, padding across the length of the

room in bare feet that she tucked under her on the chair by the window. “If I planned on going to the dining room, I certainly wouldn’t go like this.”

“What do you mean?” Connie crooned. “You have to come to

supper, sweetie. It’s Christmas Eve. There’s an orchestra, and there’ll be dancing—”

“Perhaps you haven’t noticed, but I’m currently without a

partner.”

“—and a gift exchange—”

“I didn’t bring a gift.”

“—and a silly sweater contest.”

Joss grabbed her sweatshirt with both hands and pulled it away

from her body. “I’m afraid this is as silly as I get.”

“Oh, come on now. I’m just not going to take no for an answer,”

Connie insisted. She yanked back the folding closet door and tapped her index finger to the side of her chin as she scanned the contents.

“You don’t have a single Christmas color in here, Jocelyn.”

Joss sank deeper into her chair. “Hmm. What do you know about

that.”

“Well, we’ll either find something here, or you’ll march right

down the hall to my room and borrow something from my closet.”

“No!” Joss exclaimed, propelled to her feet by the sheer horror

of what she might encounter in Connie Rudolph’s closet. “Really.

That’s not necessary. I was just going to order something from room service and watch a movie.”

“You’ll do no such thing, you silly goose. You simply cannot sit

here in your cabin alone on Christmas Eve when there’s prime rib

and praline cheesecake in the dinin’ hall.”

“Did you say cheesecake?”

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On the third day of Christmas,

Murphy’s Law gave to me . . .

three French friends,

two hearty shoves,

and a Partridge with the first name Keith.

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3

Joss had only packed one “dressy dress,” as Connie called it.

And since she felt pretty certain this would be the one and

only function she’d be attending (even if she couldn’t escape the ship and fly home, she could certainly take stronger precautions against this happening again), she hauled it out of the closet in the name of praline cheesecake.

She’d bought this dress at the Beverly Center on a shopping trip

with Reese, who had said she looked like a beautiful ballerina when she put it on, and so she bought it on principle.

The dark gray velvet bodice had long sleeves and a round neck-

line that didn’t scoop too low and was trimmed with a thin row of iridescent beads. The skirt—light gray taffeta—flared slightly, with a black sash that tied in a bow at the waist. She wore it with black-beaded ballerina flats.

Simple and elegant,
she thought as she examined her reflection.

“Not too festive, is it?” Connie countered when she appeared

behind her with her nose scrunched up. “You know, I have a red

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feather comb with rhinestones on it that we could put in your hair at least—”

“Oh, no. Really. I don’t think so,” she said as she tucked a few

things into a beaded black bag. There was only so much Joss was willing to do for cheesecake, and wearing red feathers and rhinestones

. . . not so much.

“All right then. If you’re sure.”

“I’m sure.”

Connie suddenly gasped as an idea seemed to form. “I know! You

wanna wear my bracelet, sweetie?” She raised her hand and shook it in front of Joss, the bells jingling like a herd of reindeer landing on the deck. “It’s very festive.”

“Yes, it is, but . . . oh, no . . . thanks. You need to wear that. How else will I know where you are?”

Connie cackled and then snorted. “I’m not a cat, sugar. I don’t

need a bell around my neck, do I?”

“It can’t hurt,” she replied with an arched eyebrow.

In the elevator Connie gave Joss the good news. “I talked to

Hadji, and he’s changed your dinner seating to my table.”

“Hadji?”

“The sweet little Indian elf we met today. Our room steward?”

“Oh. Right. Can he . . . do that?”

“Sure. He can, and he did. You’ll be at my table every meal for

the whole rest of the cruise! Won’t that be fun? We’ll just have such a good time, Jocelyn.”

Connie slid her arm around Joss’s shoulder and grinned at her.

Those are really some white, white teeth you’ve got there, Connie.

Joss clocked it at half a mile or more from her cabin to the dining room, and she was thankful for wearing flats.

“We’re at table sixty-seven,” Connie told the penguin suit at

the door. “Connie Rudolph and Jocelyn Snow. Isn’t that adorable?

Rudolph and Snow?”

It sounded to Joss like a crime-fighting duo based at the North

Pole, a visual the décor of the dining room only encouraged.

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centerpieces that might have been really beautiful if not for the shiny little gift-wrapped packages, reindeer, and candy canes adorning

them.

“Isn’t it just like heaven?” Connie exclaimed.

But to Joss it mostly seemed like a place where retired Santas