“You really know how to play that thing?” she whispered, scrolling through the karaoke machine to the song lyrics before taking her seat next to him.
Not that she really needed the words in front of her, but it was nice to have them as a backup. There’d been a time in her life when she’d routinely sang every holiday song known to mankind, whether it was as a featured performer in the nightly tree-lighting ceremony or in the school concerts and plays. Her crooked father had encouraged those performances, no doubt. But she’d enjoyed them. Singing was one part of the holiday festivities that didn’t make her allergies act up.
“No, but it’s my prop.” He shrugged as he twisted a tuning peg. “Unless you want to swap and give me the tiara?” He extended the guitar, offering the trade.
“Er. No, thank you.”
“Good.” He put the instrument back on his lap. “Girls dig guys who play guitars.”
She was pretty certain the girls would have been interested in Gavin no matter what, but as he said it, she had a flash of memory of him from the first time she’d met him. Her father had brought him into the fold when the townspeople had undertaken Santa’s Playground. They had been saving money by volunteering hours to build much of it themselves. Even the middle school kids had a role in raking out the site, and a scrappy loner of a boarding school boy had been lurking around the perimeter until her father called out to him and put a hoe in his hand.
Tonight was the first time in years she could remember focusing on one of the good things her dad had done. Maybe it was inevitable being back home in the town he’d helped to build.
“Are you ready?” Clearing her throat, she adjusted the height of the microphone.
A huge Christmas tree twinkled multi-colored lights across the room, an array of Santa Claus ornaments cavorting around the branches while a silver star winked on and off. Her increased dose of allergy meds seemed to ward off any reaction to the tree.
“One, two…” Gavin mouthed a silent count for her, finger hovering over the karaoke machine.
She missed her cue.
He counted again and she launched into the lyrics.
The opening words about it being early in the game sounded full and sultry, a gift of her voice that had taken her by surprise as much as anyone else when she’d been a kid. But singing was easy for her, a pleasure to share even with a hostile crowd.
Especially with Gavin strumming along to the background music beside her, keeping an easy time. Coming in for the second verse with a smooth voice that didn’t try too hard. He was a pleasure to listen to, the tone surrounding her like a hug. Or maybe it was the way he held her eyes when he sang about being held in someone’s arms.
The words made her own response a little throatier for the third verse. She didn’t bother looking out toward the gathered guests any more. The song was for him. And her.
He joined her for the final verse.
Not ready to let go of the moment or the song, she held up a finger to ask for a second round of the chorus. He let her sing that one alone and she added a flourish at the end, lingering over the words and letting the question dangle between them for a long moment as he held the last note.
Then, breaking the romantic duet with a nod to the living room and a smile, he strummed all that tension away in a quick holiday reprise—a stolen snippet of “Jingle Bells.” No matter what he said, he knew how to play a guitar.
The living room erupted in applause. Or at least, more applause than she’d been anticipating. That was for Gavin though. Yuletide loved their adopted son. He might have been born in Colorado and gone to school in Lake Placid, but as far as anyone here was concerned, he was a Yuletide native.
Seeing their obvious affection for him, she regretted letting him put himself through this for her sake. If he’d shown up at the Garretts’ front door alone tonight, he would have been ushered right inside and warmly embraced. Her presence here only made things awkward for everyone at a time that should be the happiest in Kiersten’s life. It hadn’t escaped Rachel’s notice that Luke was nowhere to be found in the crowd watching them.
He was avoiding her on purpose.
“I should get going.” She stood as the applause died down, tugging off her tiara and tossing the plastic crown into the prop box. “The Tinsel Trolley runs past here a few times at night. I can catch a ride home.”
She felt itchy again and guilty for keeping everyone from having fun.
“Whoa.” Gavin set down the guitar as she wove past a family with three small children coming up to the stage to take their turn at karaoke. “Wait up.”
Eye on the front foyer, she would have kept walking except that her sweater vest caught on something. Halting, she turned to see one of the little girls gently tugging the fabric to get her attention.
“You sang so pretty,” the child said shyly between gapped front teeth. Dressed in a festive green sweater covered with snowmen, she wore her hair in barrettes with white satin bows. One sagged lower than the other in the drooping red curls.
Rachel couldn’t hold back a smile despite her panic to leave. “Thank you, sweetie.” She tapped the girl’s nose gently. “You’re going to sing beautifully, too.”
The child shook her head hard, red curls flying and making the barrettes slip even lower. “I don’t sing good, so I ring the bells.”
Rachel sensed Gavin step down from the stage behind her, easily catching up to her now that she’d been waylaid. Not that she’d been running from him, exactly. But a little, she had been.
“That’s a very important job,” Rachel assured the girl. “Good luck.”
“Hurry up, Lily!” an older sibling with matching, perfectly perched bows in her hair hissed from the stage, holding out her hand. “Come on.”
Lily stuck out her tongue briefly, but let go of Rachel’s sweater and hopped on the stage with her family. Rachel watched her go, missing the one fan she’d made today in an otherwise uncomfortable room.
“You can’t leave without me.” Gavin spoke into her ear, his voice—or maybe it was the message—making her stomach flip in a good way.
“I don’t want to drag you away,” she pleaded with him quietly, all the while moving toward the front door. “But Luke isn’t going to talk to me of his own free will, and I don’t feel right making him uncomfortable at a party in his honor.”
The partygoers had stopped staring at her, at least.
“So we can work on Luke one day at a time before the wedding. If you’re ready to go, we leave together.” He opened the hall closet door to retrieve their coats. “Normally, I’d say we should thank the hostess, but in light of our reception tonight, I’m going to say that’s a bit of etiquette we can safely skip.”
As the family on stage began the opening bars of “We Wish You a Merry Christmas,” Rachel peered back toward the big living area where little Lily stood in the center of her siblings, a red leather strap of bells in one hand.