A Little Christmas Jingle (21 page)

Parents eased closer as Kat stood back, watching the mayhem. Louise, in an elf outfit, stood by Santa to help distribute presents. With the people in the way, she couldn't see or hear Santa's conversations, but clearly the kids liked whatever he said for she heard them squeal and laugh.

“Seems like we got a good Santa,” Kat told Angela.

She nodded. “Oh yes, this one's special. Came highly recommended.”

“We'll have to get him again next year.”

“Play your cards right and that won't be a problem,” Angela said. She turned to a young mother and child who wanted to purchase a dog collar. “Here, let me help you with that.”

Kat leaned back against the counter, her white lab coat draping about her tan chinos. She lifted a cup of hot cocoa to her lips and wiped the whipped cream off her lip with a napkin. Strains of “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town” mixed with laughter, barking, and conversation.
Another successful event. And thanks to Jack, they'd keep coming.

She pushed away the returning melancholy. The crowd thinned as people left, and she set her empty cup down. She walked toward the tree and stopped short.
She knew that voice.

“Jack?”

“Nope,” he chortled. He had a five-year-old on his lap. “She thinks I'm Jack Frost,” he told the young girl, who giggled. “Do I look like Jack Frost?”

“No,” the girl shrieked with glee. “You're Santa!”

“Of course, he is,” Kat recovered, giving the little girl a wide, reassuring smile. Behind round wire spectacles, Jack's blue eyes twinkled. “Santa always makes a stop here before he starts his sleigh rides,” Kat said.

“He likes to see the doggies,” the little girl said with an all-knowing nod.

“Yes, I do,” Jack said in his deep Santa voice. He tickled the girl's arm and she giggled. Then he set her on the floor and she raced back to her parents, who'd finished taking pictures on their smartphones. She held up her candy cane and her present—a doll Kat had purchased at Five Below. These weren't huge presents, but the kids didn't care about the value, they cared about the experience.

“Thank you for doing this,” the mother told Kat before they left, their well-behaved Doberman at their heels. “We just moved into the neighborhood and I'm so glad to find you. We'll bring Brutus in for his yearly checkup next week.”

“I'm glad to meet you,” Kat replied

She faced Jack, who'd welcomed another child onto Santa's lap, keeping them from speaking. She watched him for the briefest moment, before being called away by one of her clients who wanted to say good-bye. What was he doing here? And in a Santa suit, no less?

“How did you do it?” she asked Angela at five minutes to one. The event would clearly run over.

“You mean get Santa?” Angela smirked.

“No, Jack. He hates Christmas.”

“You'll have to ask him. It was all his idea.”

Kat frowned. “That makes no sense.”

“Call it a Christmas mystery … or miracle,” Angela said, but before Kat could press her further, a customer who'd decided to buy a Thundershirt for her dog had captured Angela's attention.

So Kat waited by the counter for when she could talk to Jack. At last the clinic cleared, and Angela locked the front door. The lobby quieted, except for staff conversations and the music piping through the speakers.

Santa was on his feet, and Kat headed over. “Jack. Wait.”

“Ho ho ho. Santa's late.” He reached into his sack and withdrew a red envelope. “However, Santa would love for you to read this.”

“Jack.”

But instead he left, leaving her standing there holding the envelope. She turned it over in her hands, feeling the smooth texture and noting the round gold seal where the back flap reached a point. She slipped the greeting card into her coat pocket as Dr. Marshall came back so they could give their staff their holiday bonuses. As Christmas was on a Thursday, the clinic would be closed until the day after, excepting emergencies, of course.

“Aren't you going to open it?” Angela asked later, after the staff party. Around Kat, the staff bustled about, cleaning up.

“I will.” Kat grabbed a garbage bag and began clearing away residual trash. While the card had been burning a hole in her pocket, she hadn't wanted to read it until she had time to be alone. The right time came thirty minutes later, when she finally sat down at her desk around three o'clock.

She slid her finger under the heavy paper, the ensuing tear creating a jagged edge at the top. She pulled out a glossy white card, which read simply “Merry Christmas” in red-embossed lettering above a green fir tree with red ball ornaments.
It looked like her tree
.

She slid her finger under the edge, opening the card sideways to her left. A piece of cardstock fluttered out, and Kat made a grab for it, noted it was a ticket to the Mayor's Black & White Ball, and set it aside. The inside of the card was also white, and the red printing read “Wishing You a Wonderful Holiday and Happy New Year.”

But it was what was underneath, in Jack's black-ink scrawl, that captured her attention. “Let's start this over,” he'd written. “Are you willing to attend one more event? I'd love it if you say yes. J.”

She looked at the ticket to the Black & White Ball, one of the most exclusive New Year's Eve invitations in the city. The dress code was formal—black or white tuxedos and women in black or white dresses, or a combination of the two. She'd heard the event was like something out of Hollywood. If she went, she'd need to buy a dress, and the part of her that loved retail therapy thrilled at the idea.

Plus it meant spending New Year's Eve with Jack, instead of drinking a glass of sparkling wine with her cats and watching the ball drop in New York City on TV.

She turned the ticket over between her fingers. He'd sent one. Did that mean she meet him there?

She hated mysteries about as much as she hated games, although she was certain this was the former, not the latter.

Her stomach grumbled as Kat rose. She'd figure out what to do at home. She planned on attending nine o'clock Christmas morning mass, which meant she needed to be up early to check on Jingle and the other animals first. Since it was Christmas, Kat, not one of her employees, would go in.

She did the final check of the clinic and left around four o'clock, darkness beginning to blanket the city. A storm front had rolled in, and the weathermen were predicting two inches of powdery snow to fall tonight, enough to make everything magical without coating streets and paralyzing traffic. The moist, blustery air certainly felt like snow, she thought as she climbed into her car. She picked up some Chinese food and carried that and the bag of presents her employees had given her up the stairs. Her tenants had gone to Kansas City for the holiday, so she'd house sit their two cats, feeding them first thing tomorrow.

She flipped the lights on, and was enthusiastically greeted by Pippa and Ty, who rubbed in between her legs in the hopes of securing some of the meat from her beef and broccoli order. She sidestepped them, set the bags on the counter, and brought her dinner out into the living room, where she first watched
Jeopardy
, the local news, and then
NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams
.

As the next local news broadcast began, Kat sighed and checked out the offerings on Netflix. Tonight she'd normally be with her parents or some of her friends, but everyone was out of town, and with being so busy at work, she hadn't made any arrangements to do something productive, like volunteer to serve dinner at the one of the homeless shelters.

There were worse things than being alone, but being alone on Christmas sucked.

Her front doorbell buzzed, and Kat set her plate of half-eaten dinner down on the coffee table, to the delight of the hovering cats with the twitchy noses.

A group of shadows stood outside her door, and as she got closer she heard a chorus of voices. Christmas carolers. She turned on the front porch light.

As she opened the heavy wooden door, the chorus grew louder as the group of men and women and children began “God rest ye merry gentlemen, let nothing you dismay, remember Christ our savior was born on Christmas Day …”

Wind swirled in around her slipper-covered feet, but Kat didn't feel cold. They sang the complete song, then began “Silent Night.”

As the song came to an end, Kat realized she didn't have any money. “Let me run upstairs and …”

A round, pink-cheeked woman put out her gloved hand. In it was a green envelope. “Oh no, ma'am. No money. We're the City Players and we carol for charity. We received a donation to come by your house. We're to give you this.”

Kat took the offered envelope. “Thank you.” She stood there awkwardly. “Are you sure I can't get you anything? Hot cocoa? Replenish your coffee?”

The woman shook her head. “Thank you but we must be off to our next stop if we're to keep our schedule. You have a blessed Christmas.”

“And a Happy New Year,” someone else called, which was echoed by the others, and with that the group shuffled down the sidewalk to enter two huge passenger vans.

Kat closed her front door and shuffled back upstairs. She flopped on the couch, movie choices frozen and waiting on the TV screen. She tore into the envelope. This card was white like the other, but the outside had a gold-embossed trumpet, complete with decorative holly, that almost completely filled the five-by-seven horizontal space. She lifted the flap, and the inside read “May Your Christmas Be Filled with Joyful Noise.”

There was just a J for a signature.

And with that, Kat burst into tears.

Sitting across the street and parked slightly down from Kat's, Jack watched the carolers leave. Had she liked them? Was his plan even working?

He'd never done anything so crazy, but his mother the expert matchmaker insisted he follow her instructions to the letter. Still, he'd itched to answer Kat's texts and voice mails. But Mike, now his full-time partner and the second member of the task force, stood as a testament to Joyce's abilities. Jack had to trust his mom knew best. So he sat in a darkened car with his sister Brenna, who looked over at him.

“Okay, it's time. Get out and go.”

“You're sure about this?”

She shrugged and started the car. “I'm nineteen. I have no idea. But Mom is legendary, and you agreed to play along. So out.”

Jack reached for the door handle of Brenna's compact. He'd folded himself inside, and getting out seemed even more painful. He'd left his SUV in his parents' driveway. Normally he'd be in the old neighborhood tonight, for his mother and Nelson always hosted a Christmas Eve open house that lasted until everyone went to midnight mass.

“So, she's the one, huh?”

Jack pulled his down parka tighter. A few snow flurries had started to fall, and being without a car was a calculated risk, one his mother had insisted upon. “We'll come get you if it fails,” she'd announced. “But it won't.”

He clutched the gold envelope in his left hand and pulled the door handle with his right.
Now or never. Stand or fall.

Boot hit curb, and as soon as he'd closed the passenger door, Brenna was off like a bullet. Jack inhaled a deep breath, his exhale creating a misty white cloud. He crossed the street and went up to the house covered in Christmas lights and holiday inflatables. Frosty the Snowman gave Jack a friendly wave, which Jack hoped was a good omen. He'd live with this memory the rest of his life.

He prayed it'd be a good one.

#

Kat sniffled and wiped her eyes on her sleeve. Was that the doorbell again? She grabbed a napkin from the takeout order and blew her nose. The cats had eaten some of the beef and licked the sauce clean, avoiding the broccoli like children do. Unlike the cats at the clinic, Kat's home cats weren't as well trained. She knew she shouldn't have let them eat people food, but this one time would be okay. She didn't have time to check her face, and as she went downstairs, she hoped her eyes weren't too red and puffy. She'd left the porch light on, and she could see one silhouette through the stained glass insert. She unlocked the door and drank in the man she loved, then had lost because of her own stupidity and fear. “Jack.”

“Hey, I wanted to give you this—” his words stopped cold as he took in her appearance. He shoved something in his coat pocket. “You've been crying.”

“I'm fine,” Kat lied.
Wallowing in self-pity, yes. Fine, no.

He used his left forefinger to wipe away a stray tear, the tip turning black. Kat saw it. “Oh no! I must look like a raccoon!” She turned and fled back up the stairs, leaving Jack to close and lock the door. He turned off the porch light. Well, she hadn't kicked him out on sight. That was a good sign, right?

He unzipped his coat as he climbed the stairs. She wasn't in the living room, and he noted the suspiciously clean, abandoned plate, the scrunched napkin, and the oyster pail still half full of white sticky rice. She'd poured a glass of water, and the ice was partially melted. She'd been perusing romantic Christmas movies, he noted, although in the recently viewed column he saw the poster for the first
Die Hard
. He smiled at that. Yes, she was the woman of his heart. He shoved his gloves into his coat and draped that over the back of a chair. Pippa instantly claimed the garment by positioning herself dead center, curling up for a nap.

Kat returned, sans the fuzzy pink slippers she'd been wearing. And she'd wiped down her face. “Jack. What are you doing here?”

He heard the slight tremble in her voice, imperceptible to anyone but him, for he knew her, and wanted to know her forever.

“I wanted to deliver this one personally,” he said.

Kat took the gold envelope from his outstretched hand. “Thank you.”