The Dogs of Christmas (14 page)

Not for the first time, he stood regarding the finished product of the day’s efforts and wished that all the old decorations and lights from when he was young were still available to him. They’d been lost somewhere during the time when Josh’s dad had been renting the place. The new ones just weren’t the same. He had a Santa standing by a chimney that only vaguely resembled the one that had so captivated his Christmas fantasies as a child. Next to the Santa was a larger snowman who moved his head and monotonously raised and lowered a mittened hand, accompanied by an oscillating mechanical hum. The old one made a different noise.

He fell asleep that night rehearsing his dinner plans in his mind. It was all mapped out. Turkey with real stuffing. Banana bread. Baked potatoes. Kerri’s pie. Wayne’s wine. Canned peas. Canned corn. Canned pears.

Josh’s mom always served her Thanksgiving feast around noon, as if eager to get it over with so that everyone could focus on Christmas. Josh consulted the Web and set a six o’clock arrival time. Wayne, Leigh, and their daughter, Isabella, pulled up first, and Josh went out to greet them.

Wayne stood up out of the driver’s seat, grinned, and threw a football soaring over Josh’s head. “Dude!” he shouted, which probably meant “Catch!” The ball bounced under the front deck, where Josh supposed it would remain for a thousand years.

Wayne raked his fingers through his thick blond hair, which ignored his hand-delivered direction to stay swept back and instead fell forward into his eyes, which it had been doing since high school. The sloppy haircut was emblematic of Wayne’s life, which was disorganized yet attractive—for as long as they’d known each other, Wayne was getting his friends involved in some new business. Josh had, at various times, owned a piece of Wayne’s restaurant and of his bottled water–delivery service and his mountain bike store. Somehow Wayne seemed to never be broke nor successful. On balance, Josh had probably made enough money on the sum total of all of his investments to pay for the turkey that was currently cooking in the oven.

Isabella was five years old and, when she grew up, planned to go into the princess business. Her hair was a lighter shade of her mother’s blond, tied back in a red ribbon that matched her Dorothy-in-Oz sparkly shoes. Her eyes were the same startling green as her mother’s, too—Josh had often speculated that some survival instinct had caused Isabella to reject her father’s DNA in the womb.

Leigh’s style tended toward the layered mountain-wear look—simple sweater, jeans, sensible shoes with rubber soles. Josh had never seen her wear much makeup but with those amazing eyes she didn’t really need any.

“How’s the job situation? You still broke?” Wayne asked cheerfully.

Leigh shook her head at him and then turned to Josh. “Is she here?” Her eyes darted past Josh and into the house. She was practically hugging herself with excitement.

Josh hugged and kissed her while Wayne picked their daughter up like a suitcase. “Not yet and stop it.”

“Good.
Now
you can tell me all the details,” Leigh urged eagerly, her grin wide with anticipation.

“What if there are no details? What if I just met her and that’s it?” Josh asked.

“Impossible,” Leigh replied. “There are always details.”

Inside, the puppies reacted to Isabella as if she was a gift from the dog gods. Squealing, she sank to her knees as they climbed on top of her, pulling at the ribbon in her hair and jumping to lick her face. Her giggles made all the adults smile.

“Christmas tree up on Thanksgiving. As usual,” Wayne pronounced. He turned to his wife. “Josh’s family was the only one that had Christmas lights up the day after Labor Day, and left them up until when, Easter? Independence Day?”

Josh ignored him. “This is Lucy. Lucy, meet Leigh and Isabelle and their pet boy, Wayne.”

Lucy approached Wayne a little warily, but was instantly comfortable with Leigh.

“I want this one, Daddy,” Isabella announced, holding Lola.

“Told you,” Wayne pointedly said to Leigh.

“This is going to be so much
fun,
” Leigh predicted.

Josh shook his head. “Stop.”

“Will she be here soon?”

“
Stop.
”

They all turned when a vehicle pulled in the driveway. Even the dogs looked up.

“That’s her!” Leigh gushed.

“Leigh, quit smiling like that,” Josh warned her. “Just look normal, okay?”

The first thing out of Kerri’s car was a leg—she was wearing a red plaid skirt and a tight white sweater. Josh had to force himself not to gape at her through the big window. He met her at the door and took the pie from her. He introduced Leigh and Wayne, who were acting as if they’d decided to abandon adulthood and go straight back to junior high school.

“I am so glad to meet you!” Leigh sang, pulling Kerri into a hug.

“Well, hi, me, too,” Kerri replied, laughing a little. Leigh’s vibrant eyes were flashing with joy, and Wayne literally gave Josh a thumbs-up. Wincing, Josh pulled Kerri around the couch to where Isabella was sitting on the floor with the puppies.

“And this is Isabella. Isabella, this is Kerri.”

Isabella gestured to Lola, who was lying placidly in her lap. “This is my puppy.”

Kerri sat down next to Isabella and Leigh joined them, the puppies swarming them, overjoyed at the new arrivals.

“I’ll get some wine or something,” Josh muttered. Wayne followed him into the kitchen.

“Dude!” Wayne enthused.

“Stop.”

“No. Seriously.”

“No. Stop.”

“She’s really hot. Whoa.”

“Can we talk about this sometime when she’s not within earshot? And would you please tell Leigh to get that look off her face?”

“I can’t make Leigh do anything. That’s why I married her.”

“You married her because she was the only female who would go out with you in a six-state area. Please, okay?”

“You
like
this one,” Wayne computed. “Whoa.”

“If you don’t start acting like a normal person, I’m going to send you home with a puppy.”

Leigh came into the kitchen, smiling widely. “Oh my God, she’s fantastic,” she whispered too loudly for Josh’s taste.

“You make it sound like I picked out a nice sweater or something,” Josh complained.

“A very nice sweater. Especially in front,” Wayne volunteered.

“The way she looks at you? She adores you, Josh,” Leigh beamed.

“Hi!” Kerri greeted, coming into the kitchen. They all turned and looked at her. She stopped, glancing between them.

“Yes, we were all talking about you,” Josh told her.

Things loosened up a little after the wine was poured. Isabella decided the dogs needed a bath and Josh gave her a wet washcloth, amused that Lola and Oliver both sat still while she stroked them with it, singing softly to herself. He was surprised Oliver didn’t grow impatient and go off exploring, but he knew Lola would endure anything for human attention. The other puppies decided a bath wasn’t an approved Thanksgiving activity.

It was, Josh decided, going
perfectly
. Once Wayne and Leigh got over their little-kid-at-Christmas excitement about Kerri, they all felt very comfortable with one another. Josh kept an eye on his turkey and other dishes in the kitchen, but as he understood it nothing much happened until the timer went off. At one point he was standing in front of the open oven, delicious dinner smells wafting out on the heat wave, when Kerri came to join him.

“You’re not supposed to open the door while something’s cooking,” Kerri said.

“You’re not?” It hadn’t said anything about that on the website.

“What a cute little girl. My God. Will their parents take a couple of dogs in trade?” Kerri asked.

“No, but we could probably get Leigh to take a piece of pie for Wayne.”

It was a small, cozy kitchen. Kerri made it smaller and cozier by stepping close to him, smiling up at him. His arm went around her waist with no conscious effort.

“You really have no idea how handsome you are, do you?” Kerri whispered to him.

The phone rang, but for a moment they didn’t react, just looked into each other’s eyes. Then Josh’s expression flickered as it occurred to him it might be Ryan.

“Want me to get that?” Kerri asked.

“Sure.” Josh remembered the cold fury in Kerri’s voice the day he’d called to see if the shelter would take the newborn puppies, the day she said he might as well kill them himself. Let Ryan have a discussion with
that.

“May I tell him who’s calling?” Kerri asked. Wayne wandered into the kitchen, snagging the wine bottle and refilling his glass.

“Smells good in here,” Wayne rejoiced, his happiness reinforced by the wine.

“Just a second,” Kerri told the phone. She held it out to Josh. “It’s Amanda,” she informed him, her face expressionless.

“Oh. Okay,” Josh replied weakly. He glanced at Wayne, who was standing with a stricken look, absolutely no help at all.

“Hi,” Josh said into the phone.

“I’m calling to wish you a happy Thanksgiving,” Amanda greeted.

His stomach felt drop-kicked. Her voice was the same, deep and rich and sexy. He licked his lips. “Happy Thanksgiving,” he croaked back.

“Who was that who answered?” she wanted to know.

“Who?”

“The woman. Who answered the phone?” There was a shrewdness in her voice.

“Oh.” Josh spun in a circle, wrapping the coiled phone wire around himself. “That’s nobody. Just a friend.”

Amanda said something light in return but Josh didn’t hear it; his head was filled with a roaring sound now, a panicked, plaintive inner wail because no matter how very much you might want to take something back, once it’s uttered, it’s out there forever.

“I didn’t realize I’d be interrupting anything,” Amanda was saying.

When he looked up, only Wayne stood with him in the kitchen. Josh’s front door was still swinging on its hinges, and Kerri’s brake lights flared an outraged red as she backed up and swung her car around.

There was nothing to do but stand there and watch her drive away.

FOURTEEN

It was entirely possible that Josh said something intelligent and appropriate to Amanda during their brief conversation. All he could remember afterward was telling her that Wayne and Leigh were there and calling Leigh to the phone while he and Wayne gazed at each other with doomed expressions. Leigh pierced Josh with an unforgiving stare before grabbing the phone and smiling while she chatted with Amanda, who was an old friend.

Josh went to the front door and shut it, the cold outside air coiling around his ankles.

“Whoa, dude,” Wayne observed, combining his two most overused words into a grave proclamation. He shoved his hair out of his eyes and it flopped back.

“What happened?” Leigh demanded when she got off the phone. “What did you say?”

Josh shook his head. He sat on the floor next to Isabella and Lola climbed into his lap. Leigh turned her attention to her husband. “Wayne?”

Wayne acted as if he’d just been caught eating the last piece of pie, holding his hands out in ridiculous denial. “Hey, don’t look at me.”

“What’s going on?”

“Let’s just have Thanksgiving,” Josh muttered. Lucy, acting as if she sensed his mood, came over to him and licked his face. Lola went wild in Josh’s lap, trying to jump up to kiss her mommy.

“Was she angry that Amanda called? That seems a little overreacting to me,” Leigh observed critically. “You did tell her
about
Amanda, right?”

“Of course.”

“I mean, all about her. Your relationship and everything,” Leigh elaborated.

“Sure, I—”

“Because women hate it when you hide things about your past.”

Josh shook his head. “No, I didn’t—”

“Especially ex-girlfriends,” Leigh added.

“I’m not hiding anything!” Josh snapped, exasperated.

“Then what did you do?”

“He said that Kerri was nobody, just a friend,” Wayne piped in. Josh shot him a look and Wayne held up his hands again. “Dude, she always gets it out of me anyway.”

“You said that? Oh, Josh, why?” Leigh asked plaintively.

“I don’t know, I just clutched. I haven’t talked to Amanda since she moved in with that guy, and her voice just … I don’t know.”

Though nothing was mentioned about it on the website, it turned out that cooking the banana bread in the same oven as the turkey was a bad idea. “Banana soup,” Wayne proclaimed. And Josh must have missed the instructions to poke holes in the potatoes before zapping them—he would have said microwave preparations were something of a specialty for him, but with what sounded like a small-arms fire going off, the potatoes violently killed themselves. The dressing looked, in Wayne’s helpful words, “like used chewing tobacco,” and the turkey, alas, flowed pink juices when Josh sliced it.

“At least the pie will be good.” Josh sighed mournfully.

“Your oven doesn’t feel hot enough to me,” Leigh speculated. “At three-fifty, it should be really warm. How old is it?”

“I don’t know. I mean, it was here when my parents bought the place,” Josh replied. “It was my mom’s.”

“You say that like she’s dead or something,” Wayne observed.

Josh shrugged. “I just like having it.”

“Dude, who holds on to memorial appliances just because your
mom
cooked on it?” Wayne jeered.

Leigh gave him a sharp glance and Wayne shut up.

By microwaving the turkey slices, mashing the exploding potatoes and adding butter, and serving the canned vegetables, Leigh turned the disaster around—though everyone agreed that the best part was Kerri’s pie.

Isabella fell asleep on the couch, holding Lola to her chest. The other puppies were in a heap on Lucy’s pillow, Sophie with a small rubber toy gripped slackly in her mouth. Lucy sat with Josh in the living room. He and Leigh were drinking coffee while Wayne did the dishes.

“You need to do the dishes because you didn’t do anything else,” Leigh had explained to him.

“Whoa, what? What do you mean?” Wayne had objected, apparently believing that standing around in the kitchen watching Josh ruin the holiday meal and chase off attractive women counted as a contribution. He meekly did what Leigh told him to do, though, because that was how their relationship worked.