There's Always a Catch: Christmas Key Book One Page 13

  Holly looks down at her disheveled clothes, wishing she’d taken the time to shower first thing in the morning before heading out for her walk with Pucci.

  “I say this with all the love in my heart, but you’re looking a little worse for wear.” Bonnie wrinkles her nose and blows Holly a kiss. “Oh, and you might want to slap on some deodorant while you’re at it, sugar.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  “I don’t know that it will do their stomachs much good, but I could get them out there later in the afternoon,” Cap explains to Holly over the counter. They’re standing in his cigar shop, debating the timing of a boat excursion.

  “That could work,” Holly says. “I mean, I promised them world-class fishing, and I really need to come through at some point.”

  Marco flies from his perch in the corner of the store and lands on Cap’s shoulder. He turns one shiny, black eye to Holly and stares her down.

  Cap looks dubious. “I think you need to learn more about fishing, girl.”

  “Is afternoon too late to catch anything?”

  “Naw,” Cap says, chewing on a toothpick. “We could catch some tarpon after dark, but we’ve got a major storm headed our way that’s going to change everything.”

  “C’mon, Cap. You’re not talking about that Turks and Caicos storm, are you?”

  “Sure am, half-pint. You been watching the weather channel, or you too busy playing Barbies to notice something as insignificant as a tropical storm?”

  Holly takes a step back from the front counter, stunned. She looks at Cap from under the brim of her hat.

  “Really, Cap? Barbies?” Her face feels hot. That mentality right there is exactly the uphill battle she’s been fighting ever since she stepped into her position as mayor. Just because practically everyone on the island has known Holly since she was a toddler with a tattered doll in one hand, her round baby belly poking out above her bikini bottoms, it doesn’t mean that she’ll always be a little girl. She blinks her eyes rapidly and takes a few more steps away from Cap.

  “I’m busting my butt to do good work on this island, and I have everyone’s best interests at heart,” Holly says emphatically, jabbing a finger at him as she speaks. “You know what? Never mind. Just call Bonnie and make the arrangements for the fishing trip, will you?” She heads for the door.

  “Aw, kid, no.” Cap holds out a rough, square hand. “Don’t go. I’m sorry. Sometimes I say dumb things—you know that.”

  “Jamming” by Bob Marley comes on over the speakers in the shop, filling the air with mellow background noise. She pauses, one hand on the doorknob.

  “That’s a sign, you know,” Cap says, taking advantage of her hesitation.

  Holly takes a deep breath. She’s tired and stressed, and she doesn’t want to blow a gasket when it’s really her who’s out of sorts and not everyone else. Besides, she knows in her heart that Cap didn’t mean to get under her skin. “What’s a sign?”

  He points at the speaker on a shelf high up on the wall. “Bob’s on. Nobody can be mad when Bob Marley’s on, even if the person who made them mad is a total jackass.”

  Holly laughs in spite of herself. “Is that an official rule? That Bob erases all bad feelings?”

  “I think so.” He shrugs. “Oh, and also that you have to dance with whoever is closest when Bob comes on.”

  “Dance?” She looks at him with suspicion. He might be apologizing in his rough, Cap-like way, but she hasn’t totally forgiven him yet. “I’m not sure I feel like dancing.”

  “I bet you do.” Cap sets Marco on the back of his chair and comes around from behind the counter. He pulls her into a loose-armed embrace, the white hairs on his upper chest exposed by a rakishly unbuttoned Hawaiian shirt. Cap is so much bigger than Holly that it’s easier just to give in to his goofy, relaxed swaying than to try and resist.

  “See? You’re smiling on the outside. And I think on the inside you’re forgiving me, right?” He spins her around in a lazy circle, the ceiling fan turning slowly overhead like a tired dancer on her pole at the end of a long night.

  “Of course I forgive you, Cap, come on. It’s just that Coco is here, and the fishermen got sick, and now there’s this damn storm…”

  “Yeah, tough breaks all around. And having Coco here can’t be easy. Sorry, kid.” Cap turns Holly under his arm one time, setting her free as the song ends.

  “Yep. She’s on a mission to learn everything she can about the island and how we run things. It seems weird that she’s suddenly interested, but I’m trying not to read too much into it.” Holly leans across the counter, adjusting the bill of her Yankees cap.

  “Never read too much into other people’s actions—most of the time it’s got nothing to do with you anyway.” Cap reaches across the counter and taps the brim of her cap, knocking it down an inch so that it covers her eyes.

  “Solid advice,” Holly says, straightening her hat so that she can see him again.

  “Okay,” Cap says after a pause. “So what we have here is a tropical storm with winds at sixty-four knots, which is about seventy-four miles per hour.” He points at a big map of the Gulf, Caribbean, and Atlantic that’s hanging on the wall. “Last time it made landfall was near Nassau, so we’re looking at it heading our way in the very near future. We really need to think about battening down the hatches, as they say,” Cap says, running his hand over the wispy ponytail that runs down his neck.

  Holly presses her hands to her cheeks, staring at the tiny dots of land on the mostly blue map. “So…you think we’re going to get hit?”

  Cap sniffs, nodding his head firmly. “Definitely. I think we’re looking at a question of when, not if, and really—as is always the case with storms—how hard.”

  “This is unbelievable, Cap. I’ve got all this stuff planned, and it seems like every day some unseen force is turning it all upside down.”

  “Some people call that Murphy’s Law, my dear.”

  “Well, I call it shitty luck.”

  “That, too…” Cap clucks his tongue at Marco.

  “So do you think we have time to at least get them out on the water this afternoon before it gets too choppy? I can start rounding up the troops around here and thinking of things we can do while we wait for the storm to pass. And I need to meet the boat this afternoon and pick up our food delivery so that we have supplies.”

  “I can get ‘em out on the water for a while, but I have some bad news about that boat.”

  “What?” Holly’s stomach plunges like an elevator loosed from its cables.

  “That’s what I was trying to call you about all morning: they radioed to let us know that delivery is suspended until the storm passes. They don’t want their boats to get stuck out here.”

  “Because that would be terrible, right? To be stuck on Christmas Key?” She pulls an exasperated face. “Dammit, we need food! I was counting on that delivery, Cap,” she says.

  Cap’s thick white eyebrows jump into his hairline. “Yeah, I would imagine you were.” Marco flaps his wings twice before lifting his feathered body from the back of the chair. With a few lazy wing dips, he crosses the room and lands Cap’s shoulder. “But luckily for you, you have the best neighbors in the world,” he reminds her. “And, if I were mayor of this fair isle, I’d snap out of the ‘woe is me’ frame of mind as soon as possible and start calling on those neighbors for help.”

  Holly chews on the inside of her cheek, thinking. “You know what, Cap? You’re right.” She holds a hooked finger up to gently chuck Marco under the chin.

  “Yeah, sometimes I get it right,” Cap says. “Sometimes, but not always.”

  “Oh, you do all right, you old pirate,” she says. “Thanks for the dance.”

  Holly jogs back to the B&B, dodging slow-moving golf carts on Main Street. Now that she knows it’s coming for sure, she can already feel and smell the impending storm.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  The first order of business is getting the men out on a boat before
the storm sweeps in and keeps them locked up for at least another twenty-four hours. Holly heads straight back to the B&B and knocks on the door to the Seashell Suite. River throws it open; he’s grinning down at her, leaning lazily against the doorframe.

  “So the mayor delivers messages in person, huh? I was only expecting a phone call from your people, but this works too.” He’s shirtless. Lean, muscular, lightly tanned…and shirtless.

  Holly wills her eyes not to fall below his chin. “Yep. I deliver messages. I also bus tables, wash all of the linens around here, and answer my own phones.”

  He cocks an eyebrow at her.

  “Okay, sometimes my assistant answers the phones.”

  River chuckles. “Well, every good politician needs an assistant, and I hear you’re a damn fine mayor.”

  Holly can’t help it: she looks down. And back up again. On the taut skin that covers his strong, rounded shoulder is a tattoo of a baseball. It’s filled in with the vertical green, white, and orange stripes of the Irish flag. A few inches below the clavicle on that same side, in the fold of skin between his ribcage and armpit, is a thick, raised, pink scar. Her eyes linger.

  “So you’ve been hanging around the mean streets of Christmas Key, getting the four-one-one on our local governing body?”

  “Not really, but I might be interested in getting the four-one-one on the local governing body.” There’s just enough humor in his eyes to water down the suggestiveness of his words.

  “All right, all right,” Holly says, holding up her hands in mercy. She can hardly keep her knees from buckling beneath the weight of all this innuendo. “I think you’re getting stir crazy after being cooped up for too long.”

  “Maybe so,” he says, his eyes challenging her to back down. “Wanna come in? Or I could come out and take you for a drink at that bar down the street—what’s it called? Frosty’s?”

  “Yeah. Jack Frosty Mugs—or just Jack Frosty’s.” Holly picks at the paint on the doorframe with her thumbnail, avoiding River’s gaze. “But I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”

  “Right—business hours. I get it: politicians drinking midday is frowned upon.”

  Holly gives a quiet laugh. “Something like that.”

  “Nah, I understand.” He pushes away from the doorframe and puts another foot of distance between them. “It’s the cop, right?”

  Holly’s eyes fly to his face. “Is it that obvious?”

  River turns both palms up and the corners of his mouth turn down. “Kind of. I guess.”

  “God, that’s terrible.” Holly frowns. Her baggage with Jake shouldn’t be on display for everyone to see.

  “Relax—honestly.” River’s voice is reassuring. “It’s not that obvious. I saw him eyeballing me in the bar that first night after dinner, and I’ve been around the block enough times to know when a guy is trying to stake his claim.”

  Holly isn’t sure why she feels the need to explain, but she does. “It’s over between us. We’re just trying to figure out how to share this island.”

  “That’s cool. It just felt a little…complicated.”

  “It is.” Holly exhales and stops chipping away at the paint with her thumbnail. “Anyway, I wanted to let you know that Cap Duncan will be taking you guys out on the boat this afternoon.”

  “Really? That’s excellent.” River folds his arms across his bare chest, allowing her to change the subject without further comment.

  “If we get rain and storms—which we almost always do—they’ll probably end around three. Why don’t we meet in the lobby then, and I’ll have Cap join us.”

  “Got it, Mayor.” River smiles down at her again. “And thank you for arranging everything.”

  “Please. It’s no problem at all.” Holly turns away and tucks her hair behind her ears. She waves awkwardly over one shoulder, trying not to look at his naked torso again, but failing.

  About halfway down the hall, she stops and turns back; he’s still watching her. For some reason, all the talk she’s been spewing about not mixing business and pleasure is suddenly a distant memory, and the idea of Jake staking his claim makes her want to be extra clear about the fact that there’s no claim to stake.

  “Hey,” she says, suddenly feeling that same sense of elation and spontaneity that she had the other night while they’d tossed a coconut around on the beach.

  River raises his elbow over his head and leans against the doorframe, waiting.

  “I’ll see you in a couple of hours, slugger.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  The fishermen trudge back into the dining room at seven-thirty, wind-swept and boisterous once again, debating waves and marlin, ocean depths and mangrove snapper. Because they ate a late breakfast, Holly sent them out on the boat with brown bags full of snacks: granola bars, shiny apples, and bottles of water. Now their intended lunch is spread out in the B&B as an informal dinner, and the men grab plates at the head of the buffet-style offering, constructing sandwiches from the cold cuts and condiments as they go.

  Through the north-facing windows of the dining room, the sky is blue behind a backdrop of mangroves and palms. But after spending the afternoon monitoring the maritime weather service and manning the phones in the office, Holly knows that they’re in for at least a minor storm.

  With all of the men seated at the round tables, cans of soda or bottles of beer cracked open, and thick sandwiches piled high on their plates, Holly calls for their attention. She feels as anxious as she did calling the last village council meeting to order (though certainly less exposed, as her yellow and white striped bikini is well-hidden under black shorts and a hot pink Christmas Key B&B t-shirt.) Several strands of hair have fallen loose from her French braid, and her t-shirt sleeves are rolled up onto her shoulders so that it looks like a muscle shirt.

  “Thank you again for being here with us.” Holly looks out at the crowd, steepling her hands in front of her chest as she speaks. “We’re so happy that you’re here on Christmas Key with us, and we love your adventurous spirit and your patience as we do our best to get you out on the water for as much fishing as possible.”

  A few of the men raise sweaty bottles of beer at her in a toast before tipping them back to wash down their sandwiches.

  “I’m hoping that the short boat trip you took today is just the beginning of a great week, and that the rocky start we’ve had isn’t an indication of how the whole trip will go. That said, I do have some interesting news to share.” This gets everyone’s full attention. “As you may have heard from Cap while you were out on the boat, we’ve got a tropical storm headed in our direction.”

  The men lean back in their chairs, ready for more info.

  “While you were fishing, I got us completely prepared for the next twenty-four to forty-eight hours. Our normal shipment of food and supplies was supposed to come in today, but with the threat of an imminent storm, that got pushed back.”

  River sits at the table right in front of Holly. He catches her eye and then looks down at his sandwich with exaggerated sadness, his face contorted into a pitiful frown like it might be the last food he’ll see. Holly looks away from him so that she won’t laugh.

  “Now, lucky for you all,” she goes on, “not only have you landed on the most festive island in the Keys, but you also ended up with a bunch of people who aren’t afraid to chip in and act like neighbors. Several of our local ladies have offered up meals from their own kitchens, and they’re hard at work right now baking us lasagnas, frittatas, and banana bread, and everyone I know is checking their shelves for board games, flashlights, batteries, and extra pillows and blankets. We’ll make the dining room here our main gathering place, and for as long as we have wild weather to deal with, we’ll have home-cooked food, entertainment, and,” Holly folds her hands together, looking around at the faces of her guests, “we’ll have each other.”

  The men are quiet, digesting the sandwiches and the news simultaneously.

  “Well,” Bill Hammond says, standi
ng up and pushing his chair back. He pulls out the napkin that he’s tucked into the collar of his t-shirt. “It’s true, we did come here to fish. But we’re a bunch of old geezers—and a couple of young bucks,” Bill nods at River and at his own son, Josh, “who love adventure. And as long as we’ve got food—”

  “And beer!” calls a man from one of the other tables.

  “—and beer,” Bill agrees, “then we’re going to survive. And when it’s all said and done, I still plan to have caught me a bunch of big old fish!”

  The other men cheer loudly.

  “Now, how’d you all know I was coming?” Bonnie asks in a sassy drawl, sweeping into the room with Buckhunter on her heels. She bows and curtsies, pretending that the whooping and hollering is for her. “Actually,” she bats her eyelashes, “I know all of this hullaballoo is really for Buckhunter. Who am I kidding?”

  Holly turns back to the men, her hands poised like Vanna White showcasing a prize. “Here’s Bonnie with our good friend Leo Buckhunter, and Mr. Buckhunter with our good friend Bud Light.” More cheers and laughter from the crowd.

  Holly finally lets the breath she’s been holding escape from her chest. Everything is going to be fine. Her CD player is on a table at the back of the room next to a tower of discs to choose from, and she’s got a stockpile of batteries for flashlights and radios. The men carry on talking over sandwiches and beers, and the noise level in the room rises back up to where it was before Holly’s big announcement. She’s amazed at how flexible and easygoing this group of guys is: no one even batted an eyelash at the threat of being stuck inside the B&B while a storm rages outside.

  While Holly and Bonnie clear dinner away, islanders begin to drop in with supplies to give or to loan, and with covered dishes to stash in the kitchen. Some even decide to stick around and ride out the storm at the B&B for fun, and others have brought their own slippers and toothbrushes along so that they can stay amongst neighbors for safety and companionship. The triplets bring a bunch of pillows to sit on, and a rousing game of gin rummy starts up on the carpet near where Holly’s podium usually stands at village council meetings.