[Christmas Key 01.0] There's Always a Catch Read online

  Chapter 2

  Holly rushes through the door of the B&B, keys jangling in her hand, hair still wet from her lightning-fast shower. Instead of blowdrying it, she has her damp locks tucked under her New York Yankees baseball hat. Her clean bikini peeks out from under the shoulder of her white linen summer dress.

  “Hey, doll.” Bonnie Lane is behind the desk in the B&B’s back office, licking envelopes as she watches her boss breeze in. “We got almost everything done this morning, and I think I successfully sold those fishermen on the package deal with my irresistible Southern charm.”

  Holly drops her bag on the desk and sets her baseball cap on top of it. “Are you serious?”

  “I most certainly am. And I promised them that I will personally make sure they have a fabulous time here—especially the single ones.”

  Holly glances up from the pile of mail she’s sorting through. “Well, I hope your sass doesn’t confuse them about what’s actually included in their package deal.” She shoots Bonnie a look that is full of mock-disapproval. Their friendship—though unlikely—runs deep and strong, full of maternal undertones from Bonnie and daughterly teasing from Holly. Without ever saying so, they both know that Holly is the daughter Bonnie never had, and Bonnie is the mother Holly always wanted.

  “Oh, lordy, girl. In my vast experience, men always assume that the whole nine yards are included in the package deal.” Bonnie tosses a sealed envelope onto the pile she’s making, then picks up another.

  “Did they go for the price we pitched for the whole week? Do they want to do everything we offered?” Holly walks over to a cork board on one wall and stands in front of it, resting her hands on her narrow hips. On the board, she’s pinned a hand-drawn map of the island as well as lists of ideas and various angles she wants to explore as she plans for the future of Christmas Key. She reaches out and runs a finger over a list of possible business ideas.

  “Yes, sugar, they want to take you up on everything we talked about,” Bonnie says, looking her boss up and down. “Cute dress, by the way.”

  “Thanks,” Holly says absentmindedly, taking a business card off the cork board and putting the pin back in.

  “You ready for your big meeting?”

  “I think so.” She turns to Bonnie. “I mean, I’m nervous about what sort of reaction I’ll get, but I’m ready.” Holly shakes her oversized silver tank watch until it flips over on her wrist. The village council meeting starts in her B&B’s dining room in less than an hour.

  “Well, hon, I know people on this island are of two very different minds when it comes to progress, but you’ve got your grandpa Frank behind you, and pretty much everyone here loved Frank—he charmed the dickens out of all of us.”

  “I know.” Holly sinks into the chair across from Bonnie, leaning forward onto her elbows. “I just never imagined doing all of this without him, but I know I have to.” Frank Baxter’s gregarious personality and big dreams for his little island were what drew people to Christmas Key in the first place, and Holly has every intention of carrying on as if he’s still at her side. For her, there is no other option.

  Bonnie picks up a pamphlet and fans her ample cleavage. She narrows her eyes, changing the subject. “I’m sorry, honey, but before you go into that meeting, I think you should know that there’s been talk.”

  “What kind of talk?”

  “Keep in mind that people like to chatter, okay? And we mean no harm by it, but—”

  “I’m ready,” Holly interrupts, making a get on with it motion with one hand.

  Bonnie takes a deep breath. “The word around town is that you had a little run in with the Po-Po out on Main Street this morning.”

  “Oh, my God,” Holly sighs, letting her forehead fall against the desk. “Really? Already?”

  “Yes, already. These are the perils of living with old people, I’m afraid. We have nothing better to do than observe younger people, and then offer our unsolicited opinions and advice on how they should be doing things. So here’s mine: invite him over for dinner, make him a nice chicken parm, fill him up with red wine, and then beg him to take you back, sugar. You need him.”

  Holly closes her eyes and pounds her forehead lightly but theatrically against the edge of her desk.

  “I don’t need him, Bon. I don’t need any man. All I need is my island.”

  “Sweetie…” Bonnie says gently, reaching across the desk to touch the crown of Holly’s head. “Everybody needs somebody. Trust me.”

  Holly makes a humph sound, her face still touching the desk.

  “And just because your mother left, and Frank and Jeanie are gone, it doesn’t mean you need to pay some sort of penance by living alone forever. You deserve happiness.”

  Holly lifts her head from the desk and peeks at Bonnie.

  “Okay, what I really want to know, sugar, is did he get rough with you? Maybe take out the handcuffs?” Bonnie starts breathing heavily on purpose, her slightly plump arm outstretched, manicured hand splayed on the desktop. “Honey, did he take you in and frisk you?” She kicks her accent up a notch, her drawl as thick as buttercream frosting.

  “Whooooaaaa there, lady! Jake just wanted to ticket me for nothing so he could show me who’s boss.”

  “Who’s boss around here is you, darlin’,” Bonnie says. “But clearly he’s forgotten that you’re the mayor of this island. What an adorable jackass that man is,” she says under her breath, leaning back into her chair and dropping the pamphlet she’s been using as a fan. She picks up another envelope and licks it carefully so that she won’t get any of her red lipstick on the edges.

  Holly lets out a breath that she hasn’t even realized she’s holding. “Yeah, mayor-shmayor,” she says. She sets her chin in her hand.“I’m mostly just the head of the village council. It’s not like I can wield my massive power to overthrow law enforcement in my spare time. And he didn’t really mean it—he’s just being pissy with me because I won’t take his calls.”

  “Maybe it would clear the air between you two if you just called him over to your place and asked him to use his baton on you. No—I’ve got it!” Bonnie holds one glossy, red-tipped finger in the air. “Pin him to the sidewalk and tell him you’re making a citizen’s arrest because he’s carrying a giant, concealed weapon of love!” Bonnie nearly falls over in her chair with laughter as she wipes at her eyes.

  “Bonnie,” Holly says, lowering her chin and looking at her friend from under her eyebrows.

  “Honey, a roll in the hay wouldn’t hurt either of you, and who better to take a tumble with than someone who already knows just what you like?”

  There is a certain logic to the argument.

  Holly covers her face with both hands. “I already made that mistake once when I let him follow me home from the Ho Ho last month—now he won’t leave me alone!”

  Bonnie whoops loudly, slapping the desk with her palm. “Girl, no wonder he’s sniffing around you like a dog nosing under the table during Thanksgiving dinner. You threw him a scrap, and now he wants more!”

  This particular analogy leaves Holly shaking her head with amazement. “Not to change topics and give you whiplash,” she finally says, pushing her chair back from the desk, “but do you have the proposal printed and stapled for me to hand out at the meeting?”

  “Right here, sugar.” Bonnie pulls a thick folder out of the wire box on the corner of her organized desk and hands it over. “I also asked the kitchen to set out coffee and water, and we’re doing a spread of pastries and muffins, just like you asked.”

  “Thanks, Bon. I’m going to go make sure the chairs are set up so we can get the meeting started on time.” Holly sets her Yankees cap back on her head, pulling down the brim until it hits her where she likes it.

  “I’m sure you’ll get started on time, as long as Mrs. Agnelli doesn’t take the floor and cuss out Joe Sacamano like she did at the last council meeting.” Bonnie opens her laptop and shoos Holly out with the wave of a hand. “Now go on, and don’t y
ou worry about a thing around here. I’ve got everything covered.” Bonnie smiles up at her boss.

  “Okay, I’ll see you in there.” Holly scoops up her packets and heads for the door.

  “Hey, sugar? You might want to leave your baseball cap here so that you look less like a teenager headed to the beach, and more like the mayor of a soon-to-be major travel destination.”

  Holly gazes out at Main Street from inside her cozy office, her eyes dreamy. “A major travel destination…but only if things go my way.”

  “Just keep your eyes on the prize, love. Your grandparents wouldn’t have left you in charge here if they didn’t think you could handle it.”

  Holly believes her—she wants desperately to believe her—but she shoves her blue baseball hat into her purse, pulls her damp, auburn hair into a bun, and gives the desk two sharp taps with her knuckles for luck on her way out the door, just in case.

  Chapter 3

  Frank Baxter always held the village council meetings on the third Wednesday of the month at ten o’clock in the morning. It was his thinking that Wednesday was right smack in the middle of the week, so any potential visitors who’d taken a long weekend to visit the island would have cleared out after the previous weekend, or would not have arrived yet for the upcoming one. That meant they weren’t losing business at any of the island shops by shutting things down for an hour or two, assuming, of course, that all of the locals wanted to shut things down to attend. Most of the time they did, since it was really the only occasion each month that saw everyone gathered in the same place at the same time, and to be perfectly honest, they’d never had a mad rush of visitors to keep them away from village council meetings anyway. But Frank had always hoped that one day they would.

  Today’s meeting has an unusually full turnout. One hundred percent of the island’s residents have hung signs in their shop windows and set their DVRs (or VCRs, for those refusing to budge on technology) to record their midday shows. They’ve come to the village council meeting dragging oxygen tanks, liver-spotted spouses, and baskets of baked goods to share with neighbors. Mrs. Agnelli is making the rounds, hugging everyone as if she hasn’t seen them in years. Joe Sacamano is leaning back in his chair casually, chewing on a toothpick. People are filing into the B&B’s carpeted dining room through both doors, and there is interested chatter as they choose seats.

  Holly looks out at the crowd from behind the podium and sips her water. There is a slight anticipatory tremor in her hand as she tries to recap her water bottle. “If I could have your attention, please,” she says in a loud voice. It’s a challenge sometimes, trying to project an air of authority to people two or three times her age, but she musters as much confidence as she can and smiles at everyone as they turn their attention to the podium.

  The sound in the room dulls to a low buzz as people sit. It’s working. Holly forces herself to look her neighbors in the eyes with a steady gaze; she breathes deeply to calm her jangled nerves.

  “I’d like to call to order the village council meeting for July sixteenth,” Holly says, turning to Heddie Lang-Mueller on her right. Heddie sits with her back so straight that it looks as if she’s been strapped to a board from the waist up. Her pale gray-blonde hair is knotted in a tight bun at the nape of her neck, a silk scarf tied just so around her slim throat. She holds her pen over a notepad, giving Holly one firm nod to let her know that she’s ready.

  Holly turns back to the crowd. “May I have a show of hands of the registered voters in attendance, please?”

  Hands shoot up all over the room. Heddie counts them silently, her lips moving. She writes a number on the notepad.

  “Excellent. First of all, as always, I want to thank you for coming. Our fair island is well on the way to becoming everything my grandfather hoped it would be when he bought it and moved his family here almost thirty years ago.” Silence falls over the crowd. Holly can feel all eyes in the room trained on her, and she suddenly wonders if her purple bikini is visible through the white fabric of her sundress. She glances down at her torso as casually as possible, trying to assess the situation, but she can’t tell.

  Just then, she spots Jake standing at the back of the room, arms folded, sunglasses on top of his head as he watches her intently.

  She forges on. “As most of you know, my grandparents wanted to share this island paradise with people who had the same dreams of freedom and happiness that they did.”

  Gwen and Gen slip in through a side door and join their sister, Glen, (and all three of their husbands) in the second row. Heddie changes her tally of registered voters by two.

  “For those of you who knew my grandma, I’m sure you can attest to the fact that no one—and I mean no one—loved Christmas more than Jeanie Baxter.” Chuckles pepper the room, gray and white heads nodding in agreement. “As she fought cancer like the champion she was, it brought her great pleasure to ride around this island in their golf cart, Christmas lights blinking from the roof, tinsel blowing in the wind all year long. My grandma loved every view of the water from December Drive, and it always tickled her when Grandpa Frank took her ‘parking’ on Candy Cane Beach.” Joe Sacamano gives a low wolf whistle. “And she loved having lunch at the Jingle Bell Bistro, where Iris and Jimmy taught her all of the dirty holiday limericks they know.”

  The crowd erupts in laughter, and Iris Cafferkey turns to her husband Jimmy, wiping tears from her eyes.

  “Anyway,” Holly says, pausing to let the laughter die down. “What I’m trying to say here is that my grandparents had a dream. They imagined a secluded paradise in the Gulf of Mexico, far away from the crime and pollution of Miami. They wanted a place where people could retire happily, fish from sunup to sundown, and meander around the island on golf carts instead of in cars. In order to secure the autonomy of this island and to make sure that we weren’t annexed by any other city or town—”

  “Well, it’s not like anybody is lined up to take us over,” Joe Sacamano bellows from the center of the room with a hard laugh. A few people nod in agreement.

  “Yes, but like I said,” Holly continues, “in order to make sure that didn’t happen, Frank and Jeanie went through the process of making Christmas Key a municipality. We’ve officially been our own village since 1987, and with that privilege comes the responsibility of controlling our zoning and building laws, as well as governing our island and ourselves.”

  “Be nice if Mr. Sacamano did a little self-governing of his own,” Jimmy Cafferkey teases, sun-browned arms folded across his chest, a twinkle in his eye. Iris gives him a light whack on the shoulder. “Learn how to keep his bloody paws off of all the lasses as they roll into town.”

  “I’m about to deny you a tab at the bar, Jimmy Cafferkey!” Joe shoots back jovially. “Though the lovely Iris is always welcome at the Ho Ho Hideaway. Come to think of it, maybe I’ll make all of her pints on the house from now on,” he says, winking at Jimmy’s wife. “And I’ll charge you double.” The crowd roars with laughter.

  Holly laughs and takes another sip of her water as everyone settles down. “So, to that end, as mayor of Christmas Key, I want to always bring to you—my neighbors and friends—any ideas for development and expansion that might affect our village and our lives.”

  “Now, Holly,” Darwin Miller says, standing up next to his wife Gen. “If I may.”

  “You may,” she concedes.

  “Some of us have much to gain from any sort of development or expansion—or, dare I say it, progress—but others have much to lose.”

  “That’s right.” Maria Agnelli gets to her feet in the front row, but because Mrs. Agnelli isn’t more than a hair over four foot eleven, standing up doesn’t make her look much taller than sitting down. Everyone braces themselves for a blue streak of fiery Italian opinion and conjecture from a woman who’s known for speaking her mind. “Some of us retired here with the notion that we’d be living out our golden years on an island that time had forgotten. I don’t need any progress around here, young lady
. I don’t give a goat’s arse about attracting visitors and all that. I’m just as happy as a clam bumping around this island with the same old folks I see everyday. I don’t want a damn thing to do with your progress.”

  “And see,” Gen Miller stands up next to her husband, “I don’t mind the visitors. As you can imagine, my sisters,” she nods at her mirror images, Gwen and Glen, “and our husbands and I all benefit greatly from the tourists. We stay afloat by selling groceries and supplies to all of you, but what good is a gift shop on the main street of a perfectly lovely village if nobody visits?”

  “Very true. And, if I may bring us back to my main point,” Holly says, holding a finger up in the air, “I’d like to continue on in the spirit of what my grandpa set out to create. At the end of his life, we spent a fair amount of time talking about his dreams and visions for Christmas Key, and being the forward-thinker that he was, Frank encouraged me to always keep an eye towards controlled expansion.”

  “Now, Holly Baxter.” Mrs. Agnelli is still standing. “We all know your grandfather bought this island because your mother was a single teenager who was in a family way.” A few of the men chuckle behind their hands, and several of the women tsk-tsk (whether out of amusement or because they possess a modicum of decorum, it’s unclear). “And he and your grandmother wanted to raise the both of you around a bunch of old codgers so that she wouldn’t find herself up the duff again.”

  Jimmy Cafferkey cackles loudly; Iris swats him again.

  Holly is briefly stunned into silence. Her mouth opens and closes like a fish on land, and she blinks several times before recovering. “Thank you for pointing that out, Mrs. Agnelli.” She nods, warming to the topic. “Yes, my mother was seventeen and pregnant when they bought this island, and yes, my grandparents wanted to keep her out of trouble. But I think that desire right there is at the very heart of what Christmas Key is all about. I mean, is there a single one of you who moved here hoping for big city life? For crime?” She looks at each of them, locking eyes with every person in the front row. “Did anyone come to the island praying for a corporate career in a high rise? For traffic? For unfriendly neighbors?” Holly pauses, letting her eyes graze the rest of the crowd. “No. You moved here—we all live here together—because we want freedom from those things. We crave the natural beauty of the tropics, and we love supporting one another in our dreams, and sharing in our successes as a group.”