The Edge of Paradise: Christmas Key Book Three Read online

  The Edge of Paradise

  Christmas Key Book Three

  Stephanie Taylor

  Stephanie Taylor

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  About the Author

  Also by Stephanie Taylor

  Copyright © 2017 by Stephanie Taylor

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Created with Vellum

  For Holland Elise:

  Sweet potato,

  Pumpkin pie,

  Apple of her mother’s eye.

  "Why don't you tell me that 'if the girl had been worth having she'd have waited for you'? No, sir, the girl really worth having won't wait for anybody."

  —F. Scott Fitzgerald

  Chapter 1

  The ear-splitting sound of a cannon firing rocks the building. Holly reaches out and grabs the cup full of pens and pencils next to her laptop so that it won’t rattle and fall off the edge of her desk.

  “Oooh, that man better give his heart to Jesus, because his butt belongs to me!” Bonnie Lane says hotly, standing up on her side of the white wicker desk that she shares with her boss. “I’m about to go down there and give him a piece of my mind.”

  Holly lets go of the cup and resumes her typing. “Won’t do any good, Bon,” she says. “They warned us in advance that the cannon firing was part of the package.”

  Bonnie splutters and huffs, then tugs at the hem of her shirt a few times before she sits down again.

  “We’ve gone above and beyond here, sugar. Can’t we demand a little peace and quiet in the evening? It doesn’t seem unreasonable.” Bonnie pats her bright red hair.

  “It’s just for a couple more days,” Holly says soothingly. She hits ‘send’ on the email she’s been typing and closes her laptop. “Listen, the sun is setting and we’ve put in a full day. Why don’t we wrap it up here and head to the Ho Ho?”

  “I suppose a drink might calm my nerves.”

  The women shut down their computers and lock up the back office of the Christmas Key B&B for the day, stopping by the front counter on the way out. Holly normally forwards the phone to her cell for the evening, but because the B&B is busting at the seams with a group of men dressed as pirates, she’s temporarily hired on several of the locals to make sure the inn is fully staffed and running day and night.

  “Pirate coin?” Maggie Sutter offers Holly and Bonnie from behind the front desk. She holds up a bowl of Oreos that have been sprayed a shiny gold with edible food spray.

  “These are really cute, Maggie.” Holly picks up an Oreo and examines it.

  “We have grog, too,” Maggie says, pointing at a jug and a stack of mugs at the other end of the desk. “It’s really just apple cider,” she says in a stage whisper, one hand covering her mouth like she’s giving away top-secret information.

  Holly bites into the cookie. “This is actually good,” she says. “Where did you come up with this idea?”

  “Pinterest,” Maggie shrugs. “Not much else for a body to do when she’s retired and likes to sleep all day and stay up all night.”

  “I can think of a few other things to do with a body that’s up all night,” Bonnie interjects, popping a hip as she examines her make-up in the mirror behind the front desk.

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Holly says, finishing her cookie and brushing the gold flecks from the front of her shirt. “Let’s get you over to the Ho Ho and see if we can’t find a pirate for you, you old wench.”

  “Now, I don’t mind the wench part,” Bonnie objects as she follows Holly out the front door. “But I’m not a big fan of this ‘old’ business.”

  Holly rolls her eyes and waves at Maggie as she pulls the door shut. The porch lights on the front of the B&B have been switched out for special light bulbs that flicker like candles, and their orange-yellow glow is partially obscured by the black netting that Holly’s draped over the fixtures. She’s put an incredible amount of work into turning Christmas Key into a pirate’s paradise, and the special touches that her neighbors have added—like the gold Oreos made to look like coins—please her.

  “The only pirate I’m looking for tonight is that dadgum Sinker McBludgeon—”

  “Whose real name is probably Bob Kent or something. I bet he’s an insurance agent who golfs on the weekends and likes to dress up as a pirate once a month,” Holly adds, walking next to Bonnie on the sidewalk.

  “Exactly. And when I find old Sinker at the Ho Ho, drinking his rum and telling everyone what a good cannon-shooter-person-guy he is,” Bonnie says, getting amped up as she talks, “I’m going to give him a piece of my mind.”

  “As you should,” Holly says indulgently, climbing in behind the steering wheel of her hot pink golf cart.

  For the pirates’ weekend, Holly has taken down the tinsel and lights that she keeps up on her cart almost year-round, instead decorating her ride with more of the black netting that she used on the B&B’s porch lights. She’s set up a few flickering electric candles on her dashboard that can be turned on with the flip of a switch, and strapped two fake swords to the back of her cart, crossing the plastic blades so they point down because she read online that pointing them up means she’s ready for a fight. And inviting a brawl with Sinker McBludgeon or any of the other weekend pirates is not something she’s keen on doing.

  It’s just before six o’clock and the sun is making its final descent as the women pull away from the curb on Main Street and drive west to the beach. Holly turns on her cart’s headlamps and bounces off of Main and onto the unpaved, hard-packed road of Cinnamon Lane. It’s the street that leads to her house. Just beyond the plot of land her grandparents had built their family homes on is the stretch of sand where the Ho Ho Hideaway—one of the island’s two watering holes—stands under the palm trees.

  “Do you think Jake and Bridget will be there?” Bonnie asks casually, looking into the blackened depths of the thick trees around them as they rumble over Cinnamon Lane.

  Holly blows out a puff of breath. “Probably,” she says. “I feel like they’re everywhere.”

  Jake—Holly’s ex-boyfriend and Christmas Key’s only police officer—has been squiring his new love interest around the island like his life depends on it. It’s been a confusing six months for Holly, with the arrival of River O’Leary, a former pro-baseball player from Oregon with whom she’d had a well-intentioned fling, to the reality show that filmed on the island at the end of the year.

  Bridget had been one of the contestants on the show, and when the producers roped Jake into participating, the attraction between him and Bridget had bloomed. By Christmas, the show was over but Jake had aske
d Bridget to stay on the island with him. Had things worked out between Holly and River, she probably would be happier for them, but instead her feelings for Jake have grown more complicated.

  “Let’s just ignore them, sugar. Besides, we have Sinker to deal with, and from what I’ve gathered so far, that’s going to be a two woman project.”

  Holly pulls into the sandy lot behind the Ho Ho Hideaway. Joe Sacamano—the bar’s owner and a former traveling guitarist for some of the world’s biggest rock bands—agreed to let Holly decorate the open-air shack, and she’s gone a little crazy with it. As she and Bonnie walk up to the bar, she admires the fake guillotine that she asked her uncle to make from wood scraps, and she stops to examine the scarecrow from Halloween that Bonnie has repurposed and dressed like a pirate, his head and hands dangling from the wooden holes of the guillotine. Bonnie’s covered his straw hair with a red bandana and tied a patch over one button eye, and she’s dressed him in a striped boat shirt and knee-length black pants.

  “This looks great, Bon,” Holly says, touching the dry straw fingers of the scarecrow.

  “Eh. I made do. It’s not the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disney World or anything, but he looks alright.” Bonnie walks past the scarecrow and up the stairs, her shoulders squared for battle. She parts the black netting that covers what is normally an open doorway and steps into the bar. “Now where is that donkey’s behind?” she demands, hands on both hips. Holly is right on her heels.

  Inside, the bar looks like a pirate’s den of iniquity. Joe Sacamano has set his empty rum-making barrels around the bar, and Holly brought clusters of flickering electric candles to set on the barrels and the bistro tables. A giant ship’s steering wheel hangs behind the bar with a skull at the center of it and bones acting as its spokes. Around the edge of the wheel the words ‘Dead Men Tell No Tales’ has been carved artlessly into the wood. Joe is moving around behind the bar, pouring shots and mixing drinks. He lifts his chin at Bonnie and Holly and keeps working.

  “There he is,” Bonnie says, homing in on her target. She pushes her way through the bar, bumping into swashbuckling faux pirates as she goes. “Excuse me,” she huffs, pushing a man in a tattered black overcoat. He looks down at her from his considerable height with amusement in his eyes, holding his drink in one hand. His fingerless gloves reveal thick digits with moons of dirt under each nail, and his salt and pepper hair curls out from under a rakishly tied bandana.

  “Oh, ho, ho,” he chortles, taking in Bonnie’s heaving chest. She’s clearly gaining momentum, ready to dress him down in front of his group of pirate friends, but Holly can see that he’s not going to give her the chance. “Ye shout into the wind that a wench is just what ye need, and the wind blows one in on the waves,” he says, putting his highball glass to his cracked lips. “And a luscious wench she is,” he adds with a glimmer in his eye as he looks Bonnie up and down.

  “You know, the pirate talk is cute, but a little bit goes a very long way,” Holly says to him. She puts a hand on Bonnie’s back to show her support—and to remind her friend gently that punching a guest would be wrong. In response, Bonnie releases the deep breath she’s been holding.

  “Well, Jack Sparrow,” Bonnie says, “this ‘luscious wench’ rode in on a wave to tell you that the cannon nonsense stops here. I did not agree to have a group of unwashed, middle-aged doctors and lawyers show up here on my island to mess with my zen.”

  Holly takes a step closer to Bonnie and wraps a hand around her elbow. She knows Bonnie well enough to know that she can get a little hot under the hood, and Holly isn’t ready to watch her overheat in front of their guests.

  “Cool your jets there, Red,” Sinker McBludgeon says with a wicked smile. “I’ve got a thing for fiery women, so I won’t make you walk the plank tonight.” He clinks glasses with his laughing friends.

  From across the bar, Wyatt Bender is watching this exchange carefully. He and Bonnie have a long-running history of antagonization and flirtation that lasts the extent of his annual October-April stay on Christmas Key, and at the heart of it is Wyatt’s quiet longing for the feisty widow from Georgia. Holly keeps an eye on Wyatt’s face as Sinker McBludgeon moves closer to Bonnie.

  “Maybe we should give you a new name—after all, a pirate’s wench needs a name.” Holly prepares to grab Bonnie and pull her from the bar before she can take a swing at Sinker. “How about Bubbles Anchorbottom? Because I wouldn’t mind dropping my anchor on that bottom!” The other pirates howl with laughter.

  In an instant, Wyatt is across the bar and standing between Bonnie and Sinker. “Apologize to the lady,” he says, his face set in a scowl.

  “Who’ll make me?” Sinker sneers at him. “A scrawny dude in a cowboy hat and Wranglers? I don’t think so.” Without a lick of concern, Sinker turns his back on Holly, Bonnie, and Wyatt, and steers his group of friends over to the beach side of the bar.

  “These pirates aren’t gentlemen,” Wyatt observes, staring at their backs as they go. “But they’re our guests on the island, so I’ll behave myself—for now.” Wyatt puts both hands in the air in surrender before backing away from the women.

  “I don’t know what to say.” Holly watches the men reassemble near the stairs leading down to the sand. She turns to Bonnie, whose eyes are lingering on the sword that hangs from Sinker McBludgeon’s belt. “Bon?” Holly snaps her fingers to break Bonnie’s trance. “Hey—you in there?”

  “Hmm?” Bonnie says, still watching the pirates. “Yeah, sugar. I’m here.”

  But she isn’t. It’s subtle, but Bonnie’s attention has clearly shifted, and the banter she normally shares with Wyatt has been cranked up a notch and redirected towards Sinker. Holly can already tell that this isn’t going to end well.

  Chapter 2

  “I’m confused,” Holly says over the loud spray from the sink. She’s leaning back in a chair at Scissors & Ribbons on Main Street the next morning while Millie Bradford rinses the shampoo out of her hair. Across the room, Bonnie is sitting under a dryer with an open magazine in her lap.

  “What’s to be confused about, sugar?” Bonnie flips a page. She and Holly have both scheduled Saturday morning appointments at the salon, and Holly is trying to understand how a man like Sinker McBludgeon could possibly hold Bonnie’s interest.

  “You went over to the Ho Ho with guns blazing, and you left with your tail between your legs. How could you even be attracted to a man who talks to you like that?” Holly closes her eyes as Millie works a thick conditioner through her long, chestnut hair.

  “It’s all part of the dance, doll—it’s an act. Kind of like those married people who dress up and go to bars and pretend to be strangers so they can pick each other up and go home together.”

  “Um, role-playing?” Holly sits up, holding the towel around her shoulders to keep her wet hair from dripping onto her shirt. “Are you sure Sinker isn’t just an actual jerk?”

  Bonnie shrugs. “I don’t know. But my hunch is that it’s an act. It’s all part of the pirates and wenches bit.” She closes the magazine and tosses it onto the empty chair next to hers.

  “But if all you want is some verbal sparring that barely conceals an unbridled desire to be naked with the other person, why don’t you just break down and go out with Wyatt?”

  “Wyatt Bender?” Bonnie guffaws. “Oh, lordy, girl. I’ve known Wyatt Bender way too long. There’s no way I want to see that wrinkled old cowboy out of his Wranglers.”

  “Hmm.” Holly purses her lips. She doesn’t believe this for a second, but she plays along with Bonnie anyway.

  “I need a change, sugar.” Bonnie leans forward in her chair, talking loudly over the whir of the hair dryer. “I need a dark, sexy stranger with an unknowable heart. I need a hunk of a man with carnal desires who’ll rip the laces out of my bustier and ravage me.” She picks up the magazine again and starts to fan her face as she talks. “I think I need a pirate.”

  “You need a cold shower, honey,” Millie Bradford says sens
ibly. She points Holly to the chair next to Bonnie’s and sets her under a dryer. “I’m going to put you under this with the conditioner still on your hair,” she explains to Holly. “It’s a leave-in that will soften this hair after all of your salt water swimming, and then I want to give you a trim.”

  “Sounds good,” Holly says as Millie lowers the dryer over her head. She turns to Bonnie. “I honestly believe these guys are just weekend pirates—IRS employees with a swashbuckling fetish—but I still want you to be careful, okay? Promise me?”

  “I promise, Mom,” Bonnie says in a sing-song voice, holding up one hand like she’s being sworn in on the stand. “But nothing dangerous ever happens on Christmas Key. I’m ready for a little rough and tumble romance. I’m ready for some excitement.”

  Holly peeks out from under the hood of the dryer. “Hey, Millie, how’s the search for a masseuse going?”

  “Not bad.” Millie erases something from the planner on her front desk. “I’ve got a gal from Canada coming out here for an interview in a couple of days. Said she wants to bring her family and check out the island.”

  “Would she be full-time, or just seasonal?” Holly asks.

  “Full-time. She says they’re ready to leave the snowy winters behind.”

  “We haven’t had any new full-time residents in a while,” Bonnie says. “That would really shake things up.”

  “I wouldn’t say we haven’t had any new residents,” Millie says, cutting an almost imperceptible glance in Holly’s direction.

  “Right. Bridget.” Bonnie nods, holding one red-tipped finger in the air. “But we have yet to see whether she’s going to be permanent or not.”

  Holly shifts around under the dryer.

  “She comes in here once a week to get her nails done,” Millie says, putting her pencil back in a cup next to the register. “Talks a lot about how much she loves it here. She says the people remind her of home. Not of L.A., but of some small town where she grew up.”