The Edge of Paradise: Christmas Key Book Three Read online

  Secrets. Love. Loss. Fear. Loneliness. Regret. Euphoria. Joy. It’s a rollercoaster that races through life, pulling its riders to gut-dropping lows, and then tearing them from the earth and hoisting them to unimaginable heights. Without the ride, it would be a long, eventless drudge from dark origins to dark endings. So will she take the ride and see River again? Probably. The promise of another unimaginable high on life’s rollercoaster is too great to resist.

  Fiona emerges from the water, red-skinned and dripping. With a thick towel in her hands, Holly jumps to her feet and races to meet her friend at the shore.

  Chapter 22

  Vance decides to put his plans for the bookstore on hold for the time being, and he and Holly agree to save their pitch for a different village council meeting. Their more immediate concern is how Vance and Calista will handle the care and education of their young boys on an island with no school and no daycare.

  “We got so used to having options in a big city. It seems like there’s a restaurant or a play center that caters to kids on every corner,” Calista says to Millie as they work together in the salon. Holly is sitting in the corner of the room, hands splayed flat on Millie’s manicure table. She’s chosen a bright orangey-coral color for her short nails.

  “Was the original plan for Vance to stay close to home and watch them while you worked?” Millie asks mildly, picking up Holly’s right hand and setting it in a dish of warm water to soften the cuticles.

  “I guess. We were just so excited to get down here and start living the island life that it seemed like it would all fall into place. I’d be here, Vance would be working on the novel he’s been writing for the past few years, and the boys would be growing up wild and free under the sun.” Calista dumps a small basket of freshly laundered towels on the front counter to fold as she talks. “It seemed ideal.”

  “It is ideal, sweetheart.” Millie picks a fresh emery board from a cup on the table. “It’s also unrealistic. They’re six-year-olds and they need someone to be accountable for them and to teach them how to read and write and divide and sit still for five minutes.” Millie has already experienced the whirling dervishes that are Mexi and Mori as they tore through Scissors & Ribbons on a visit to their mom’s workplace. She told Holly in confidence that it secretly made her a tiny bit glad to know that her own young grandchildren were a safe distance away and wouldn’t be dropping in for a visit unannounced.

  “What happened with your mother-in-law, Calista?” Holly asks, changing hands and putting her left one in the bowl when Millie taps the table and motions for her to switch.

  Calista snaps a towel with more gusto than is technically necessary, folding it into a crisp square. “Well,” she says.

  “Well?” Millie prompts, eyebrows raised.

  “She’s willing to come down.”

  “That’s great!” Holly says with enthusiasm, aware that it’s in stark contrast to the skepticism on Calista’s face.

  “Mmhmm.” Calista purses her lips, her light eyes clouded over as she continues to fold. “But mothers-in-law are tricky beasts. And make no mistake: mine is the trickiest of them all.”

  “How so, hon?” Millie asks, wrapping Holly’s hand in a small white towel.

  “She feeds my boys meat and tells them that God didn’t intend for little boys to grow up on nuts and forest berries,” Calista says. “And she cranks up Motown to top volume on Saturday mornings while she mops the floors—have you ever been woken up at six o’clock on a weekend by Diana Ross and the smell of lemon floor wax? She won’t listen to anything I say, and she always tells me that I’ll never make Vance happy if I don’t learn how to take an animal from alive and squawking, to cooked and glistening on a platter.”

  “We could have used your mother-in-law around here at Thanksgiving,” Millie says, giving Holly a look over the edge of her wire-rimmed bifocals. “The mayor here accidentally ordered ten live turkeys who are now living pretty high on the hog out at Ellen and Carrie-Anne’s place.”

  “Well, I guess you’ll have my mother-in-law around now for any of your livestock or floor-waxing needs,” Calista says, throwing up her hands in exasperation. “I’m ready for her to show up and start criticizing. She’ll tell me that my floors aren’t clean enough, that I should put on ten pounds, and that my boys need a haircut and a hot bath. But as long as it’s what’s best for everyone, then I’ll just deal with it.”

  “You could always put in more hours here,” Holly suggests. “I’ve heard from several people that you give amazing massages.”

  Calista’s frown melts. “Yeah? That’s good to hear, I guess.” She folds another towel. “Do I have you on the books yet, Holly?”

  “Oh, I don’t know if I’m massage material.” Holly shakes her head. “I can barely sit still for twenty minutes to get a manicure.”

  “She’s not lying. I end up fixing her smudges every time she comes in,” Millie says, pressing her palm against the top of Holly’s hand to keep her fingers flat on the table.

  “You should try it,” Calista presses. “If you aren’t good at relaxing and getting into a meditative state, then this would be the place to start. We could even do thirty minutes the first time, if you want.”

  Holly thinks about the bliss of being completely unavailable for thirty minutes. She’d have her cell phone switched off, and the door would be closed so that no one could barge in and rail at her about holes in the road, pirates with bad manners taking over the bars, or people who “don’t belong” on their island. It does sound tempting.

  “Okay, put me down for a half-hour. If it’s going well, we can stretch it out to an hour,” Holly decides.

  Calista pushes the pile of towels aside. “What day and time are good for you? I have keys to the salon, so if you prefer an evening when Millie isn’t open for business, we can always meet here and it would be totally quiet.”

  “That sounds nice,” Holly says. “Okay, how about tomorrow? I’m always tense the night before the village council meeting, so maybe it would help. Can you do seven o’clock?”

  “I can do seven,” Calista says, tapping at the computer keyboard and bringing up her schedule. “Okay, the lady is set up for her very first massage,” she confirms, saving the information and clicking out of the schedule. “Don’t eat or drink a lot beforehand, and feel free to wear anything you want on the table—or nothing at all, if you prefer.”

  “I usually need a few margaritas before I’ll climb onto a table in my birthday suit.” Holly watches as Millie drags the small brush over her nail bed, leaving streaks of bright coral behind.

  “Your choice,” Calista laughs. “Most people feel comfortable with just a sheet draped over them, but I’m cool with whatever.”

  The door to the salon opens and Cap steps inside. His shoulder-length white hair and imposing presence make him seem too large for the shop—kind of like a cat who’s squeezed himself through the door of a dollhouse. He stands there awkwardly, looking at the women.

  “Hey, Cap,” Millie says, still polishing Holly’s nails as she talks. “You here for a spa day?”

  “I don’t think I need a haircut or a polish job,” Cap says, holding up his hands and inspecting his nails.

  “I beg to differ,” Millie puts the brush back in the bottle, screws the cap on tightly, and rolls the bottle of polish between her palms to mix it up. “But you can’t force a man to part with a mane of hair he’s been cultivating since Reagan’s first term in office, so I’ll just keep waiting patiently for the day you ask me to chop off that ponytail.”

  “Won’t happen, Mrs. Bradford,” Cap says. He lumbers over to the counter. “I’m here to sign up for a massage with this lady here. I’ve got a knot in my shoulder that feels like a hot poker to the eye. When can you squeeze me in?”

  “Let’s see,” Calista says, opening her schedule on the computer again. “I don’t have anyone coming in until three today, so I could actually fit you in now, if you’d like. I just need ten minutes to prep my r
oom.”

  “Ten minutes? I could do that.” Cap looks at his watch. “I don’t think anyone’s going to have a cigar emergency in the next hour. Let me run down and close the shop. I’ll be back in ten.” He pats the counter twice and heads back down Main Street to put a sign in the window.

  “Word of mouth seems to be working,” Holly says to Calista. “When a tough old crow like Cap Duncan is ready to strip down and put himself in your capable hands, you know you’re winning people over. Good work.”

  Calista smiles knowingly. “Just wait and see, Mayor. After tomorrow, you’ll be a regular here, too.”

  “Maybe we can schedule a standing massage appointment for one evening a week so you can catch a breather from your mother-in-law,” Holly says, looking at the hand that Millie’s just finished polishing.

  “Aaaggghhhh,” Calista says in a strangled voice, throwing her head back and putting both hands in the air. “My mother-in-law…don’t remind me!”

  True to her word, Calista gives Holly a massage the next evening that leaves her feeling like a bowl of jello—a very happy, very mellow bowl of jello.

  She drives back to her house in the dark, and brushes past the saw palmetto with the side of her cart as she pulls into her driveway. Buckhunter’s house is dark and his golf cart is gone; Jack Frosty’s is still open for a few hours, so Holly will be alone on the property for a while. The fear she’d felt the night she saw the man foraging around in her bushes has dissipated, and being home alone feels comforting again.

  Holly lets herself in through the front door of the house, flipping on the light in the entryway. She kicks off her flip-flops and tosses her purse onto a rustic-looking white wooden bench next to the door. Pucci rushes to greet her, so she grabs his furry face in both hands and bends down to nuzzle the top of his head.

  “Are you hungry, boy?” she asks him, scratching between his ears. “Let’s get dinner. I’m starving.”

  In the kitchen, she turns on the light and pulls the bag of dog food from under the sink. She pours some into Pucci’s bowl before dumping and refilling his water dish. For her own late dinner, she pulls a box of pasta from the cupboard and puts a big pot of water on the stove to boil. Her phone lights up on the counter where she’s left it plugged in during the massage.

  There’s a text from River: How are things? It’s simple. To the point.

  Things are good. Just got a massage from our new island masseuse. She sets the phone on the counter and digs through the fridge for the cube of parmesan in her cheese drawer. From the cupboard she pulls a jar of extra virgin olive oil and the salt and pepper. It’s going to be a simple dinner, but with a glass of red wine, it’ll work.

  Is he hunky and ripped?

  SHE’S petite and waif-like, but surprisingly strong.

  Sounds like change is afoot.

  Holly stares at the message as she breaks the long spaghetti noodles over the boiling water on her stove. When she’s done, she wipes her hands on a dishtowel. I’m cooking dinner...talking would be easier. Can I call?

  I’ll Facetime you.

  In a panic, Holly runs to the mirror in her entryway, yanking her hair out of the messy bun she’d worn during her massage. She smoothes the lines on her forehead from being facedown on the table at Scissors & Ribbons, and wipes at the stray smears of mascara under both eyes. Of course he wants to Facetime, she thinks. The timer goes off on the stove at the same time her phone starts to ring, and Holly hurries back to the kitchen.

  “Hey,” she says, taking the call and propping the phone up on the windowsill so that River can see her as she moves around the kitchen. “Sorry, I need to drain my pasta.”

  “By all means, drain the pasta.” River is sitting in the cab of what looks like a pick-up truck. It’s only 5:30 on the west coast, and through the windows of the truck the skies are gray and heavy. Drops of rain run down the glass behind him.

  “Wait,” Holly pauses with the pot of steaming water and pasta in her hands. “Do you drive a truck?”

  River laughs. “Yeah, I do. But that looks hot—you should dump it.”

  “Right. Hold on.” Holly stands in front of the window over the sink and pours the water and noodles into a strainer. A cloud of steam rises up between her and the phone.

  “Are you going with marinara or alfredo?” River asks, zipping up the front of his dark green jacket so that the collar fits snugly under his chin.

  “Olive oil and parmesan. There isn’t much food in the house, and I don’t feel like going over to Jack Frosty’s for a burger.”

  “You’re out of food? I’m shocked,” he says, clearly not shocked at all. “Not even a frozen pizza to burn, or a box of cereal to douse with half and half?”

  “Funny, funny, funny, you are.” Holly dumps the strained noodles into a large metal bowl. “I have a couple of things around—I’m getting better at feeding myself.”

  “Hey, you’re only thirty. Don’t rush into adulthood, kid.”

  Holly takes in his rugged face and the spill of blonde hair that falls onto his forehead as he sits in the cab of his truck over three thousand miles from her. “This is nice,” she says, glancing at him shyly and then looking away. She unscrews the lid on the bottle of olive oil and pours some over the pasta. “I mean, us talking again.”

  River is quiet for so long that Holly finally looks at the screen to see if he’s still there. He’s staring off into the distance. “Yeah,” he says. “It is.”

  It isn’t flowery prose, by any means, but the simple acknowledgment makes them both smile.

  “So why are you sitting in your truck in the rain? Where are you?” Holly picks up the block of parmesan and digs through the utensil drawer for a grater.

  “Outside the grocery store. I was about to go in and find something for dinner, and it made me realize how much it sucks to be a single dude all the time. People always give you ‘the look’ when you go through their line with three bananas, a half gallon of milk, one chicken breast, and a single baked potato.”

  “Maybe ‘the look’ is actually the girl at the cash register checking you out—did you ever think of that?”

  “The ‘girl’ at the cash register is named Steve. He has a thick mustache and went to high school with my older brother.”

  “Oh, so Steve is on to your single guy lifestyle, huh?”

  “Steve is definitely on to me. In fact, he tried to set me up with his cousin Sheryl once.”

  “That sounds promising,” Holly says, grating a heavy layer of parmesan onto the pasta as she talks.

  “Sheryl also has a thick mustache and went to high school with my brother, so…she doesn’t really ring my bell.”

  Holly laughs and drops the grater into the sink. “Sounds like you have about as many options in all of Oregon as I have on Christmas Key.”

  “I think you have one more option than I do,” River says seriously. When Holly looks up from grinding the pepper mill over the bowl, he’s staring at her intently through the camera lens. She sets down the pepper.

  “River,” she says, walking over to the phone on the window sill. “That isn’t even an option.” And as she says it, she knows it’s true—finally, completely true. “Bridget is still here.”

  “And if she wasn’t?” He looks away from her. There’s a rough, unshaven shadow to his strong face in the evening light.

  It’s a valid question, and one that Holly knows she needs to answer. When River left on Christmas Eve, the palpable distance between them had been filled with her feelings for Jake.

  “There’s a lot of history there, and it would be easy to fall back into the same pattern and spend our lives disagreeing about the same things we always have,” Holly says carefully. “But it’s time for me to move on; the world is bigger than Christmas Key, whether I like to admit it or not.”

  A silence expands in the space of Holly’s small kitchen. Steam coats the window over the sink as the pasta cools on the counter. An equal silence overtakes River’s truck cab, a
nd the rain runs down the window behind him.

  “It’s cold in here,” he finally says, putting two red hands to his mouth and blowing into them. “I turned off the truck before I called you.”

  “You’re freezing!” Holly says. “How cold is it there?”

  “The high today was about forty degrees, and it’s been raining since November.” River gives her a half-smile. “I miss the sun.”

  “You could come visit,” she offers with the slightest hesitation.

  “Let’s go somewhere else.” River drops his hands. His eyes flash with possibility. “Let me take you someplace you’ve never been. Then we can see if there’s something there without all the other distractions.”

  “Really?” Holly reaches over and plucks a long-handled wooden fork from the canister next to her stove. She jabs it into the cooling pasta and starts to twist the noodles, coating them in olive oil and cheese. “Like where?”

  “Anywhere. You name it.”

  The possibilities are endless. The idea of escaping the too-quiet B&B office, Bridget and Jake’s lost pregnancy, and her day-to-day chores is beyond enticing.

  “Well,” Holly says, letting the fork rest against the side of the bowl. She folds her arms across her chest. “I don’t know.”

  “Come on, Hol. You know that place can survive without you. Someone else can take reservations at the B&B for a week or two, and we can go in-between village council meetings so you don’t miss anything.” Without her saying a word, River is checking the items off her list of objections like he’s reading her mind.

  “Well…” she says again.

  “Think about it. Promise? We could pick a time and place, and just go.” River’s eyes are faraway, and he’s obviously already left the cold, rainy Pacific Northwest far behind for a trip to somewhere more exotic in his mind.