There's Always a Catch: Christmas Key Book One Read online

  “Same, probably.” Buckhunter lifts the plank of wood that serves as a gate to get behind the bar, setting it down behind him once he’s in position. “But I might have punched someone.”

  “I was tempted,” she admits.

  “Yeah, I could tell.” He smirks at her. “So, one burger. Medium-well, with onions and cheese?”

  “No, I’m good. Just the Arnold Palmer, please.”

  “You got it. Too early for a beer?” he offers, nodding at the tap.

  “I’m still on duty.”

  “As you wish, Mayor,” Buckhunter says, firing up the grill behind him. It fills the air with the scent of charred meat and grilled vegetables. Holly wanders over to the jukebox and picks out a Springsteen song to break the silence.

  Buckhunter turns his back on her and throws a meat patty on the grill for himself. “So.” He lays the opening out there for her, then busies his hands so that she can talk when she’s ready.

  “So, number one, I’m not calling you Uncle Buck,” she says, sticking a straw into the iced tea/lemonade combo he’s set on the bar for her.

  Buckhunter throws his head back, laughing heartily. “Oh, Uncle Buck—don’t I wish!” He flips the hamburger patty on the grill.

  Holly stares at the back of his head. “Anyway, I figured we should talk about Coco’s plan to sell the island, and I wanted to make sure you know the same things I know about the way things are divided up.”

  Buckhunter flips his burger neatly in the air, catching it on the edge of his metal spatula and setting it back on the grill. “I know enough,” he says, reaching for an onion that he’s already cut into spirals. He tosses it on the hot surface next to the burger.

  “I called our attorney in Miami.”

  “Okay.” He keeps his back to her.

  “She says that after my grandmother passed, Frank made a trip to Miami to see her so that he could split everything three ways.”

  “Huh.” Buckhunter turns his head so that she can see his profile; his face is thoughtful. “That’s a doozy, innit?”

  “Yeah, it is.” Holly picks up her drink; the melting ice cubes clink against the glass. The heat of the late afternoon fills the open bar, and the overhead fans push the warm air around just enough to keep the beads of sweat from rolling out of her damp hairline.

  “So you’re thinking you and me against Coco means she’s got no chance of selling us off and making us a corporate-owned slice of vacation paradise?” He flips the switch on the grill to turn it off, and shovels the perfectly done burger onto a bun, dumping the fragrant onions on top of the pile and then squirting ketchup over the whole mess.

  “I’m thinking—” But suddenly the words are caught in her throat. The magnitude of everything that’s happened so far that day hits her like a wall of humidity; it actually takes her breath away. “I’m thinking—” she starts again, tears welling up without warning. “I’m thinking that I don’t actually know my family at all,” she finally whispers.

  Buckhunter keeps the counter between them, chewing the first bite of his burger. He leans his weight against the polished wood countertop, a clean dish towel tossed over one shoulder. “Hey, girl,” he says softly, setting his burger on a plate and leaning toward her ever so slightly. “I know it’s a lot to take in. It came at you out of left field,” he says, voice laced with a calm sympathy that she’s never heard from Buckhunter. “But just because you found out something you didn’t know about your family doesn’t make them strangers. We all have things we keep under wraps.”

  Holly sniffles, trying to smile through the tears that she can’t hold back. “Yeah,” she says, wiping under her eyes with the pads of her fingers. “I guess.”

  “I’m not lying. Just because people do things they aren’t proud of doesn’t mean they’re terrible people. Your grandparents loved you enough to let you grow up without their baggage. Maybe they figured having Coco for a mother was bad enough.”

  Holly snorts at this.

  “Here.” Buckhunter tosses her the towel from his shoulder. “Now wipe that snot off your face, kid—we’ve got plans to make.”

  Holly’s laugh turns into a hiccup. She uses the towel to wipe her cheeks. “Thanks, Leo,” she says quietly. He fills her glass up with ice again and dumps tea and lemonade in from two different pitchers.

  “Anytime, kid. Now drink up, and let’s talk strategy.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Wayne Coates is insistent about flying out to the island with the NBC crew and being on hand for the village council meeting in August. Holly isn’t convinced that this is the best way to spring the idea of a reality show on her neighbors, but she’s worked hard to keep Coco’s talk of selling the island under wraps, and she’d like to present the islanders with what she sees as a positive opportunity before any gossip about mega-resorts and mass relocation gets out.

  Holly has avoided talking to Coco directly since their email exchange, but she and Buckhunter have been in cahoots, building the case that they’ll make to everyone else to convince them that a reality show is an excellent way to showcase the island to the rest of the world. Holly half expected Buckhunter to shoot down the whole idea himself, but he seemed intrigued when she pitched it to him, and even more so when he realized that it might catapult them into the stratosphere in terms of making the island financially solvent. Their hope is that the reality show—if it comes to fruition—will help Christmas Key to become profitable enough that Coco won’t want to sell, but if she still does, they’ll certainly be able to make a stronger argument against it.

  In the meantime, Holly and Bonnie have entertained requests for a possible family reunion on Christmas Key over Thanksgiving weekend, and they’re talking to a gourmet cooking magazine about putting together a food and wine festival retreat on the island in January. With all that’s going on, it’s been easy to avoid Jake almost entirely, but Holly’s managed to squeeze in a phone call or a text here and there with River, and he knows all about the reality show.

  In the past week, Holly has spent most of her waking hours eating bar food on her lanai with Fiona and Buckhunter, creating flowcharts and covering posters with sticky notes of ideas and plans for the island. Instead of sleeping at night, she’s mostly lain awake, listening to the hum of the air conditioner in the dark, and thinking about what will happen if Wayne Coates and the NBC crew like Christmas Key.

  Holly processed the new twist in her life as quickly as possible, adjusting to the fact that she’s been living next door to her uncle without even knowing it, but so far she’s only told Bonnie and Fiona the news. She and Buckhunter agreed right away that Fiona should be in on their planning, not least of all because it would seem strange if the man Fiona was seeing suddenly started spending all of his waking hours with his next door neighbor—who just happened to be her best friend. So they sat her down and gave her the background on their family tree, answering as many questions as they could and watching her face while she went through the levels of shock and surprise herself.

  There is grief for Holly to work through, but she mostly does that during the long, sleepless nights that she spends working on her shell wall. She has to say good-bye to her grandfather again—has to let go of who she thought he was—and learn to love and accept him for who he really was: just a man—a flawed, imperfect man like any other. After Buckhunter’s initial revelation, she poured over the prospectus for the better part of forty-eight hours, searching for hidden meanings and clues. She let herself wonder if he’d felt guilt, keeping all that he had from her. In the end, she had to accept that he probably didn’t think much about it at all. And if his own wife had forgiven him (and from the relationship Holly had observed all of her life, it appeared that she had), then who was she to let this one secret taint his memory?

  Holly, Fiona, and Buckhunter are finishing off a pizza, three sets of bare feet up on her table as the sun sets over the ocean in the distance. It throws off rays of blinding light through the mangrove trees, and a g
entle breeze moves the wind chimes on Holly’s lanai. They’ve been talking about the reality show and planning for the NBC bigwigs to come and check out the island when Buckhunter leans back in his chair and looks right at Holly.

  “They broke the mold after they made your grandmother, you know. But I do see a lot of her in you,” he says.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Frank may have waited until Jeanie passed before he asked me to move out here, and maybe she didn’t agree about him wanting to split the island three ways, but she did have a big heart. She cared about people, and I see that in you.” It’s the most Holly has ever heard Buckhunter say about her grandparents. “When my mom was sick, Jeanie was the one who called me to see what they could do.”

  “My grandma called you?” The idea that her grandmother could not only forgive Frank, but also accept his son with another woman is almost inconceivable. “What happened to your mom?”

  “Breast cancer. About twenty years ago.” Buckhunter’s voice goes soft. “I wanted her to try every treatment she could.” He stops speaking then, tapping the brown glass of the bottle in his hands with the silver ring on his middle finger.

  “I’m sorry, Buckhunter,” Holly whispers. “I didn’t know.”

  “It’s fine, kid. Of course you didn’t. But your grandma—she was a real lady. A class act. When she found out how sick my mom was, she insisted that your grandpa pay all of the doctor’s bills, and he did.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Every couple of months, Jeanie would call me in Miami—because we’d moved down there from Savannah by then—and tell me which bank to go to. I’d pick up the cash and pay for her chemo. She wouldn’t have lived as long as she did if it hadn’t been for Frank and Jeanie.”

  “Wait,” Holly says, setting her glass of water down on the table. “Five thousand dollars to a First Union bank in Miami?” She stands up. “Hold on.” Inside, she picks up the prospectus from her nightstand and flips through the pages to find the slip of paper.

  “Here—look at this,” she says, out on the lanai again. She thrusts the scrap of paper with her grandpa’s familiar handwriting on it at Buckhunter. January 13, 1994—Call L.B. today…$5,000 First Union Bank, Miami. “Was this you? ‘L.B.’ for Leo Buckhunter?”

  Buckhunter holds the scrap of paper in his hand, examining it. “January 1994—that would be about right, yeah.”

  “It’s been driving me crazy!” Holly says, taking the note back from him. “I couldn’t figure out what it meant.”

  Buckhunter shrugs. “It means that your grandparents were good people.”

  The idea that they would pay for Frank’s mistress’s medical care blows her away. Holly stares at the slip of paper. Another wave of longing for her grandparents washes over her.

  Fiona reaches out and takes her hand.

  “They were great people,” Holly says quietly, pressing the slip of paper to her heart.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Holly and Buckhunter stand on the shore of Candy Cane Beach. There’s a stretch of undeveloped land on the north side of the island, and Holly chose this spot—with its empty stretch of sand and sea grass—as a perfect landing spot for the NBC helicopter. They would have preferred an actual helipad, but Holly assured them that the spot she’s chosen is far enough from the water that the tides won’t touch their helo as they visit the island.

  For the past three days she’s been making lists of things to change or fix: she’s put new lightbulbs in all of the lamp posts on Main Street; cleaned up the foliage down by the dock; and added a fresh coat of paint to the front door of Mistletoe Morning Brew, the shop closest to the waterfront. She talked to Cap again about setting up a website for North Star Cigars, and tried to convince Joe Sacamano to do the same for his homemade rum. Getting all of their ducks in a row to maximize visibility for the island and its businesses has kept her totally occupied.

  Holly and Bonnie have spent the morning making last minute tweaks to her speech for the village council meeting, and she’s already mentally set up the day. It’s easy to envision the producers of Wild Tropics touring the island and admiring the colorful holiday lights on all of the cottages and bungalows, and she’s having Iris and Jimmy cater a huge dinner for the crew—fresh seafood and Key Lime pie, of course—and they’ll toast the end of a great day with salty margaritas at Jack Frosty’s. Buckhunter will man the bar, and she’s already set up the playlist so that a steady stream of reggae and calypso will pour out of the jukebox.

  Fiona, Buckhunter, Bonnie, and the triplets (who Holly let in on the reality show plans) have been eagerly pitching in to get the island looking its best, and consequently, Holly was able to climb into bed the night before the NBC execs’ arrival with a feeling of calm preparedness. She slid between the sheets in the darkness, thinking of the way she’d felt the night before she left the island for college. She’d lain awake that night, too, but with a stomach filled with creaky pipes, her brain too busy to wind down and give her any peace. And even though she knew she was on the verge of another big event in her life on this night, there was the sensation of being on the edge of a different kind of cliff, and of turning a corner that she wouldn’t be able to un-turn. With college, Holly had known that she could just pack up and go home if she hated it. But with this, she has to fully accept that she’ll be taking herself, her neighbors, and her entire island on a trip that she can’t easily change her mind about. There won’t be any boxing up of posters and books, no sailing back home to Grandma and Grandpa this time if things don’t work out.

  In the distance, they hear the chop of the blades and see the black dot approaching in the sky. Holly shields her eyes with one hand as the helicopter comes into sharp view.

  “They’re about three minutes from touching down,” Buckhunter says, leaning into her. Holly nods in response, trying to smile even though she’s anxious and excited.

  The copter approaches, hovering just overhead. As the pilot looks for a good place to land, the force of the blades whips their hair around.

  Holly reaches up to put her hand on top of her Yankees cap so that it won’t get ripped away, but then she remembers that Bonnie made her leave it in the office. “Doesn’t go with the outfit, sugar,” Bonnie had declared.

  The gauzy dress Holly’s wearing over her short leggings blows around wildly, and she wraps her arms around her waist to keep everything covered. It’s so loud that when she tries to yell something to Buckhunter, her words get lost in the wind.

  The blades spin to a stop. Three men and a woman climb out of the helicopter and step onto the sand. The woman is wearing an emerald green silk shirt dress with gladiator sandals and piles of gold bracelets; the men all wear plaid Bermuda shorts, collared golf shirts under blazers, and brown boat shoes. They look like they stopped in at Saks Fifth Avenue on their way to the airport and had a personal shopper dress them for a day of yachting or island-hopping.

  “Wayne Coates,” the shortest man of the group says, stepping forward and offering a hand. “I recognized you from your Instagram page,” he says, shaking her hand enthusiastically.

  “It’s nice to meet you,” Holly says, shaking everyone’s hands in turn. “Thank you for coming.”

  “Beats the hell out of a day of meetings with the suits in the city,” Wayne says. The other NBC producers laugh politely. Wayne has stubby, muscular legs and a five o’clock shadow. He smells of expensive cologne and gives the impression that he’s used to being in charge.

  Buckhunter introduces himself to everyone, and they lead their visitors across the beach and onto December Drive, where they’ve parked their golf carts. Wayne and the woman, Leanna Poudry, hop into Holly’s cart. Buckhunter takes the other two men. In a mini-caravan, they cut through Turtle Dove estates, showing off the cute bungalows with pink flamingos staked in the lawns. The palm trees are wrapped in colorful Christmas lights that have been checked and re-checked for burned out bulbs, and giant, shiny ornaments dangle from the branche
s.

  On Main Street, Holly points out the various businesses to her passengers. “This is Mistletoe Morning Brew, and that’s North Star Cigars,” she says, slowing as they pass the clean windows of the shops. At Tinsel & Tidings Gifts, the triplets are out front working in tandem to hang a new garland over the front door of the store.

  “Whoa!” Wayne Coates says. “Triplets?”

  “Yep. Gwen, Gen, and Glen are our unofficial welcoming crew. They own the gift shop with their husbands, and they always know what’s happening on the island. If you want to know who just arrived by boat, or who has company visiting for the weekend, come by the gift shop. Three of the funniest, friendliest women you’ll ever meet—guaranteed,” she says, slowing to a stop and waving at the ladies.

  “So do they already know who we are?” Leanna Poudry asks from next to Holly.

  “Not everyone on the island knows that you’re here or why, but the triplets do.”

  Gwen, Gen, and Glen leave the garland dangling over the doorway and approach the cart with their identical grins. “Welcome to Christmas Key!” Gen says, waving at them. “Did you all fly in from New York today?”

  Wayne Coates leans forward in the back seat so that he can see the triplets. “We got to Miami yesterday and met with our affiliate station there. We’re only on the island for the day.”

  “Oh, you can’t even stay for one night?” Gwen asks hopefully.

  “We have one other island we need to see before we head back to New York for a meeting, so we’ve only got today,” Wayne apologizes. “But I’m hoping we can see it all, and we want to meet as many locals as possible.”

  “Oh, you will!” Glen promises, standing behind both of her sisters. “Enjoy your visit!”

  The women wave them off and go back to hanging their garland.

  “This is Jack Frosty Mugs, our Main Street open-air bar,” Holly continues, giving the cart some gas and rolling forward. “Leo Buckhunter is the owner and bartender here,” she says, hooking a thumb over her shoulder at Buckhunter’s golf cart just behind hers. “It’s open for lunch and dinner, and Buckhunter mixes a mean margarita.” They pull up to the B&B. “And this is the only place to stay on the island—”