Merry Humbug Christmas (8 page)

slightly, and her lovely eyes wide and round as sugarplums.

“What?” he asked her.

“What on earth is that on your plate?”

He looked down at it. “Eggs. Pota—”

“No!” she interrupted. “That!”

He cackled. “You mean this?” he asked, picking up the last sar-

dine and dropping it into his open mouth. “It’s a sardine in mustard sauce.”

“Ohh!” she groaned. “How can you eat that?”

“I agree with you, dear,” his mother chimed in. “My son has ques-

tionable tastes when it comes to cuisine.”

“I’ve eaten half a dozen of them with my eggs,” he told her, finding ridiculous amusement in her repulsed reaction. “Try one? I’d be happy to go and fetch a few for you.”

Leaning forward around him, his mother cut him off at the pass

by asking Joss, “So what are your plans today?”

“I don’t really know,” she managed. One more shudder, and she

added, “I hadn’t thought that far ahead.”

“My friends have invited us to a screening of
It’s a Wonderful Life
on the top deck this afternoon. Would you like to join us?”

Patrick noticed the flash of agony that passed over Joss’s expression before she masked it with a polite smile. “I appreciate that, Kathleen, but I’m kind of looking forward to being on my own

today.”

“Translation,” Patrick said with a grin. “She’s avoiding all things Christmas.”

“A little hard to do on a Christmas cruise,” his mother pointed

out, and she gave Joss a concerned glance.

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“I . . . know.”

“I have a feeling she’s up to the challenge,” he said.

“What about Christmas dinner?” his mother added. “You will

join us for dinner, won’t you?”

“Of course, she will,” he cut in. “She has to eat.”

Joss tossed him a fleeting glare before she turned away from him

and smiled at his mother. “I’ll be here.”

“Oh, good.”

“Now if you’ll excuse me, I want to go and say hello to the

Jenkins family.”

“Of course, dear.”

She didn’t even look back at Patrick as she navigated her way

over to the table of the von Trapps, but that didn’t stop him from watching her weave her way through the crowded tables. When the

wife invited her to join them, Joss sat down between her and the husband. He envied them a bit for landing in the sunbeam of that toothy white smile of hers, slightly crooked on one side where the corner of her lips dipped ever so slightly.

“She really doesn’t like it?”

Patrick snapped back to the moment. “I’m sorry, Mother. What?”

“Miss Snow. You said she’s trying to avoid Christmas.”

“Oh. Yes. She mentioned it when I escorted her back to her cabin

after dinner last night.”

“It seems like an odd place to spend your holiday then, doesn’t

it?”

“It does.”

“Very mysterious.”

“Wrapped in a conundrum,” he added.

When he looked back toward the von Trapp table, Patrick didn’t

see Joss sitting there anymore, and he scanned the area to find her.

When he finally spotted her, she was almost out the door.

“Mother, will you be all right here for a while?”

“Lilibeth said Douglas can push my wheelchair, dear. You go

about your business for a bit.”

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He stood up and pecked her cheek before rushing off. Once he

reached the doorway, he sprinted through it and looked around until she strolled across his line of sight.

“Joss!” he called out as he jogged toward her. “Where are you off to?”

She smiled as he reached her. “I was browsing through the guest

services catalog in my cabin this morning, and I saw there’s a little shopping mall onboard. I thought I’d give it a look.”

“Want some company?” His pulse thundered in his ears as he

awaited her reply.

“Sure. But I’d like to run up to my cabin first.”

He grinned, waving her in front of him to board the elevator

as they reached it. The car was a full house this time around, and Patrick stretched to reach around the apparent honeymooners standing so close to one another that air couldn’t even pass between them.

“Sorry,” he finally said. “We need to stop on Frosty. Could you

push the button for us?”

“Oh, sure,” the groom replied. “Sorry.”

“Frosty,” the bride mused. “Isn’t that cute, honey?” Looking to

Patrick, she told him, “We’re on King Wenceslas. We don’t even

know who that is, do you?”

“He was the Duke of Bohemia,” Patrick answered. “Became king

at eighteen.”

The couple exchanged curious glances before the bride inquired,

“What does a Bohemian king have to do with Christmas? I wonder

why we didn’t get a fun floor name like Frosty the Snowman.”

“He was just the subject of the carol because of his generosity

toward orphans,” he continued, and then he noticed their indifference toward old Wenceslas’s history reflecting off Joss’s utter amusement. “Well, no matter. Your inquiry was rhetorical, wasn’t it?”

The elevator doors slid open, and Patrick reached back and took

hold of Joss’s wrist.

“Happy Christmas then,” he told them, tugging her along after

him.

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A few yards down the corridor, Joss turned back toward him and

began to laugh before pointing at the ceiling. He looked up to find nothing out of the ordinary, and then she began to sing along with the instrumental music piped in from the overhead speakers.

“Good King Wenceslas looked down on the feast of Stephen.”

“He looked out. Not down.”

“When
Joss Snow
lay round about . . .”

Patrick joined in, fracturing the correct lyrics right along with her. “She was deep and crisp and even.”

“Brightly shone, the moon was bright . . .”

He grabbed her arm and gently shook it. “Do you know the right

words to any of it?”

She ignored him and ceremoniously continued to sing, “. . . and

then Joss was cruuuu-el.”

“The frost!” he exclaimed. “The frost was cruel.”

As they reached the door to her cabin, Joss continued to laugh.

“What are you, the king’s personal historian, Patrick?”

He straightened and pasted a mock-serious expression on his

face. “I just think you should care a bit about accuracy, that’s all.”

Their merriment came to a screeching halt as a uniformed crew

member approached them with a silver-domed plate in his hand.

“Merry Christmas, Miss Snow.”

“Oh. Same to you, Hadji.”

“And happy birthday as well,” he added, and Patrick watched

Joss’s expression wilt like a watercolor painting set out into the December rain.

“Oh . . .”

“Is it your birthday?” Patrick asked her.

“. . . thank you.”

“This is for you,” the steward told her, and he handed her the

plate. “There’s a card fastened underneath.”

“Thank you,” she said as she took it, but she looked anything but grateful.

Joss swiped her room key and gave Patrick a nod as an invitation

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the plate and lifted the dome, and she stood there staring down at a small, decorated cake with
Happy Birthday, Joss
flourished across the top of it.

“You were born on Christmas Day,” Patrick said as he stood next

to her, also looking down at the cake. “Maybe . . .
thirty
years ago?”

She turned to him and smiled. “Nice try. A good combination of

an attempt at getting information glazed with unabashed flattery. I like it.”

“Ah.
Fifty
years ago then?”

She stuck her tongue out at him. “Thirty-four years ago, nosey.”

“Well, you wear it well. And I might bet this has something to do with your aversion to all things Yule related.”

“A little something,” she replied. After a moment she sighed and

looked up at him. “Do you think this cake has to be refrigerated, or can I leave it on the table until later?”

“I think it will do fine on the table.”

Joss chuckled. “We could always make a game of it. I could toss it off the balcony, and we could try to guess how many seconds it will take to hit water.”

“A sad waste of cake.”

“This is a floating smorgasbord,” she pointed out. “I don’t think they ever run out of cake.”

“You might want to read the card first.”

“I don’t have to.”

“Oh, you have a third eye, do you?”

“No, I just know Reese.”

Joss sat down on the bed and picked up a discarded square of

adhesive. After straightening it, she placed it behind her ear.

“Nausea patch,” she told him with a limp shrug. Standing, she

added, “Okay. Let’s spend some money!”

“COFFEE. BLACK.”

“Skinny vanilla latte with a double shot and two sweeteners.”

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Patrick saw Joss’s wheels turning, and he reached out and

touched the young waitress on the wrist. Her jingle bell bracelet clinked in reply. When she looked back at him, he nodded toward

Joss just an instant before she spoke up . . . as he somehow had anticipated that she would.

“And maybe one of those red velvet cupcakes in the case up

front.”

The waitress gave him a knowing smile, and Patrick shrugged.

“Apple pie?”

“Dutch or plain?”

“Dutch.”

“A la mode?”

He shook his head. “No, thanks.”

He waited for her to jingle away before he told Joss, “I’ll be back straight away.”

The gold flecks in her brown eyes glinted with curiosity as he

pushed out of the booth and hurried after the waitress.

“Do you have a birthday candle to put in that cupcake?” he asked

when he’d caught up to her.

“Ohh,” she cooed. “It’s her birthday? On Christmas?”

“Let’s make a real fuss and really light it up,” he suggested. “She’ll love that.”

He chased away the devilish smile from his face before slipping

back into his spot across the table from Joss.

“What was that all about?” she asked him. “Trying to get a date?”

The tiniest hint of jealousy thrilled him to no end, but a date?

With the waitress?

“I think I went to school with her granddad,” he said. “A little

perspective if you please.”

Joss chuckled, and it sounded musical, like the bracelet on the

kindergarten waitress’s wrist.

When the girl reappeared, she carried a tray with two cups and

the sweets they’d ordered, Joss’s cupcake ablaze with at least half a dozen little candles. Three additional employees of the café followed, all of them singing.

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“We wish you a Merry Christmas, we wish you a Merry

Christmas, we wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy Birthday

too.”

Joss rubbed her face with both hands, and then she glared at him

through open fingers. Patrick burst into laughter, mostly drowned out by the singing.

“Blow out your candles,” the perky young waitress added as if

part of the song. “And be sure to make a wish!”

Joss thought it over for a moment before looking Patrick dead in

the eye and grinning. She closed her eyes tight, and said, “I wish . . . I could get Patrick Brenneman really close to the ship’s railing.”

Before he could react, she blew out the candles and thanked the

quartet of singers.

When the festivities commenced and the wait staff retired to

their corners, Joss picked candles from the cupcake, licking each one clean before dropping it to the plate.

“Well, that was fun, wasn’t it?” he said, and he gulped his coffee.

“Yeah,” she said with a broad smile and a nod. “The kind of fun

where somebody gets chased with a power tool.”

Her sarcasm delighted him, and Patrick grinned. “Does that

make me the electric nail gun?”

“If the Black & Decker fits.”

“Hey,” he said with a chuckle, raising his hands in surrender. “I was just filling in for your candy friend.”

“My what?” Her brown eyes became spotlights searching the

room, and then golden sparks flickered as realization dawned. “Oh.

Reese. Well, no more of this, all right? And no letting on to Connie that it’s my birthday. The next thing I know, there will be a neon blinking light over my head, and I’ll become an honorary elf held in captivity.”

“I see your point,” he conceded. “It’s our little secret.”

“Ours and the café staff,” she said dryly.

“Oh, and Hadji, the cabin steward who brought your cake.”

“Yeah. I forgot about him,” she said. “I think we may have to kill him. The net’s getting too wide.”

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“Maybe after dinner. We’ll need our strength.”

The amusement in her brown eyes blazed into a sort of terror,

and Joss suddenly began scraping the candles from the plate and

scooping them into the palm of her hand.

“Here,” she said, pressing them into his and yanking her hand

back across the table as a small contingent of the von Trapp family appeared tableside.

“Marla!” she cried. “You’re . . . here! With . . . your kids! Hi, kids.”

“Merry Christmas,” the woman said. “I see you had the same idea