“This company came to me a couple of months ago with the idea of bringing in bigger groups for day tours and smaller groups for multi-day stays. At this point,” she says, nodding at Bonnie so that she’ll move the slides ahead, “the B&B only has 20 rooms, and we have no plans to build any other hotels on the island. Which isn’t to say that we never will,” she adds hastily, “but right now we’re not equipped or prepared to start adding the potential for hundreds of guests to stay on the island at once.”
The next slide shows some figures that Island Paradise Excursions have given her with regards to the number of guests she can expect to visit Christmas Key during any given month, based on their historical figures. It’s a modest number compared to the huge waves of humanity that Coco has been hoping to see at the proposed casino, but it’s certainly enough to cause an uptick in patronage at all the local businesses and to bring some new faces to the island.
“The only concession we’d have to make in order to bring this plan together would be the construction of a newer, bigger dock. I’m not talking anything cruise ship-worthy,” Holly promises, sweeping a hand across the crowd to let them know that she has the building under control. “But we would need to be able to accommodate something larger than our ferries and delivery boats.”
“Permission to add my two cents, Mayor?” Cap stands up slowly, patting the pockets of his khaki shorts. “Not that I’ve ever waited for permission before.”
“You read my mind, Cap,” Holly says, leaning an elbow on the podium. “Go for it.”
“I think this sounds like a damn fine plan. You’ve got some good projections here for visitors, but no plans for them to stay. You get a gold star on this one.” Cap reaches for the chair behind him and sits back down, giving Holly a wink and a thumbs-up as he does.
“Controlled growth,” Fiona says from her spot next to Buckhunter. She’s nodding slowly as she thinks about Holly’s presentation. “I think that’s important for an island our size. We’ve tried a couple of wacky things—and I mean no offense, because they were both really fun and different—like the reality show and the pirate weekend, but those are one-offs. They might bring us residual visitors and visibility, but this is a long-term plan for continued tourism, and I think that’s an important factor here.”
Holly can feel the pleasure of her neighbors’ approval swelling in her chest as the nerves give way to excitement. “That’s why I wanted to give this proposal a second look,” she says, smiling at Bonnie. “We get several things that come across our desks and I normally just see the cons, but this one really seems to have potential.”
“So the next step is…?” Wyatt Bender, whose business has always been in oil and property, tosses out this open-ended question. It’s a practical one, and it gives Holly the opening she needs.
“The next step is to make it happen. Buckhunter and I are on the same page with this, and, well, frankly we don’t need Coco’s vote to make it happen, so I think we’re ready to move ahead with the construction of a new dock at the end of Main Street.”
The room buzzes as the meeting breaks up, and several people stop by the podium to talk to Holly and to express their relief about the fact that there won’t be a casino on Christmas Key, its gaudy beacon lighting the way for travelers like a Las Vegas lighthouse winking on their shoreline.
Holly is relieved, too—not just about the fact that Coco is done dragging investors around the island (at least for the time being), but also because the general consensus seems to be that they’re ready to move ahead on a project that she sees as productive and worthwhile. Her preparations with Bonnie have paid off, and the people at Island Paradise Excursions appear to totally understand her vision.
There are still a couple of things weighing on her mind as she leads Pucci down Pinecone Path later that evening, but for the most part, she feels lighter and happier than she has since the day she left Paris.
Paris. River. The strange way they left things. It all comes back to her now like a bad feeling that’s been pushed aside and temporarily forgotten. She still hasn’t spoken to him, hasn’t sent the email she’d started to write, hasn’t dealt with the fact that they traveled half a world away together and came up empty-handed. It’s been far too easy for her to come back and fall headfirst into island business and life, and she’s pushed him out of her mind as much as possible. But the time to deal with River is coming.
Pucci sees a marsh rabbit ahead in the underbrush and goes bounding off after it, his ears flattened as he tears through the grass in search of a playmate.
“Pucci!” Holly whistles, trying to call him back. “I’ve got your ball!” At the mention of his favorite toy, Pucci stops short, forgetting about the rabbit. He looks back at Holly questioningly. “Let’s hit the sand, and then I’ll throw it,” she says, breaking into a slow jog in spite of the syrupy-thick summer air.
On the beach, the sky is changing with the oncoming sunset, and Holly rears back and wings the red ball as far as she can, watching it sail through the air and land in the waves near the shoreline. It bobs there like an apple as Pucci gives chase.
“Holly!” A female voice calls her name. Holly turns to see Katelynn Pillory walking across the sand, her feet bare, her toned legs jutting out through the slit of a sarong that’s tied at her waist as she takes long strides. “Mind if I walk with you?” she asks as she draws near. “I was just out for a stroll myself.”
“No! Join me,” Holly says, waving her over. “Pucci was cooped up all day while we had the village council meeting and I got work done, so I thought I’d bring him down to the beach for a run.”
“Nice night for it,” Katelynn says, falling into step beside Holly. “Christmas Key is as beautiful as I remember it.”
“It never changes much.” Holly reaches down and takes the wet ball that Pucci offers her. “Watch out, this thing holds water,” she warns, nodding at Katelynn’s skirt. She pulls her arm back and throws the ball, and sure enough, the red ball sprays them both with sandy ocean water as it sails away again.
“I like your plans for the new dock, though. Sounds promising,” Katelynn says, watching as Pucci runs into the water again.
“This has been an ongoing thing for a while,” Holly explains, walking again as the waves crash and break just feet from them. “I’ve been trying to look ahead and see what our long-term vision for the island should be, but it’s a delicate balance of progress and sustainability.”
“I hear you.” Katelynn nods in agreement. They walk in silence for a minute. “Hey,” Katelynn says, “I wanted to thank you for taking Logan under your wing.”
“Oh, it’s nothing,” Holly assures her. “He’s a great kid.”
“Yeah,” Katelynn smiles, “he really is. And he seems to have taken a shine to you. I think Jake is calling it a crush, but of course no mother wants to imagine her sixteen-year-old falling head over heels for a woman twice his age. Though I can see why he would,” she adds, giving Holly a mock appraisal followed by a wink.
“Oh, jeez,” Holly says. “Stop. He’s just looking for a friend. It’s either me or the twins in terms of people he could hang with, and I’m the one who can kayak and approve his money-making schemes. I think I won by default.”
“Don’t shortchange yourself, Hol.” Katelynn says. “I can see why any man would be smitten by a fun-loving island girl with a pair of stems like that.” She nods at Holly’s tanned legs. “Hey, remember that summer when my parents let me bring my boyfriend down here for a week and he ended up falling for you?”
Holly squints as she thinks back to that summer: it feels like a million years ago and the image of a young Katelynn and the boy she’d been smitten with at seventeen comes rushing back to her.
“Justin, right?” Holly smiles, remembering the tall, skinny boy with the floppy, bleached-out bangs and the charming scar across his right cheek. He’d come down to Christmas Key with eyes only for his lanky, volleyball playing girlfriend, but had left with a huge crush on Holly, who wasn’t
the kind of girl to steal a friend’s man.
“Yeah,” Katelynn laughed. “Justin Cromford. I saw him at our ten year high school reunion, and he had a receding hairline, a drinking problem, and a pregnant wife. I think you and I both dodged a bullet there.”
“Whew!” Holly jokes, wiping a hand across her forehead jokingly. “I’ve been wondering all these years whether I missed my golden opportunity at true love that summer.”
“Well, you can stop wondering now,” Katelynn assures her, tucking her hair behind both ears. “Justin was definitely not the love of either of our lives.”
“What about Logan’s dad?” Holly asks boldly. “Where did you two meet?”
“History class. Right after I dumped Justin. I needed a prom date and I ended up with a corsage, burgers for dinner…and Logan.” Katelynn elbows Holly to let her know she’s teasing. “I guess Coco and I have that whole teen mom thing in common.”
“I think the similarities end there,” Holly says. “I take it you’ve been here long enough to see her in action?”
“I’ve had the whole Coco experience, yes.” Katelynn laughs. “When we first got here and I bumped into her on Main Street, she looked me up and down and asked how I’d managed to avoid inheriting the ‘Pillory tree trunk legs.’”
“Oh, she did not!” Holly’s mouth falls open.
“Believe it. And then she congratulated me on managing to keep my legs closed after Logan, because ‘having one kid as a teenager was enough punishment for a lifetime.’”
“You know, that does sound like her,” Holly says, wagging a finger at Katelynn. “And that voice you just used,” she shivers, “it felt too real to me.”
“She’s an original,” Katelynn says with a smirk. “But I have to say I’m kind of glad that her plan for the casino fell through. That sounded like a nightmare.”
“To you and me both.” Holly walks along next to Katelynn, her eyes focused ahead on the long stretch of sand and ocean. “But I think we’ve found a happy medium here with the boat tours—it’ll kick things up a notch in terms of tourism, but it won’t upset the delicate balance of the island too badly.”
The women stroll in easy silence for a while. Finally, Katelynn clears her throat and speaks.
“So, word on the street is that you and Jake were an item a while back—true? False?”
Holly mentally shifts gears. “True,” she says honestly. “We were definitely an item.”
“And now…”
“Now we’re just friends. Cop and mayor. Neighbors,” Holly says, feeling the words catch in her throat as she forces them out. She can sense from Katelynn’s stiff nod that she’s asked for a reason.
“Ah, I see. He’s a good guy, isn’t he? Jake?”
Holly takes a deep breath. “He is. One of the best.” She smiles and meets Katelynn’s eye. “We’re lucky to have him on Christmas Key.”
The turn in conversation leaves Holly with mixed emotions. She and Katelynn part ways at the end of the path that leads up to Holly’s house, and while she waves her off with the invitation to drop by for a drink on her lanai anytime, there’s a part of Holly that wonders—childishly—whether Katelynn’s interest in Jake has anything to do with getting back at her for Justin Cromford’s fickle heart all those years ago.
Inside her house, she flips on lights and turns on the stove. She hates making dinner (or any other meal for that matter), but it’s just late enough that a couple of scrambled eggs and a piece of toast will satisfy the hungry ache in her stomach. The canned light over the kitchen sink casts a glow over the countertop as Holly cracks three eggs into a bowl to whisk together with a splash of milk and a dash of salt and pepper.
“You ready for dinner?” she asks Pucci, looking down at his eager face as she tosses the eggshells into the trash can under the sink. “Let me get this on the stove and then I’ll feed you.”
The eggs sizzle as they hit the pan. Holly turns down the heat and uses a spatula to move the mixture of whites and yolks around on the hot surface. Across the lawn, the light in Buckhunter’s kitchen goes on, and she glances at his window as she rinses the egg bowl in the sink and sets it down under the faucet.
Her cell phone rings on the counter; Holly runs her hands under the water and grabs a dishtowel to dry them before picking it up.
On the screen is River’s name. She hesitates with her finger over the button, unsure about whether she should pick up or not. It’s May thirtieth. She hasn’t seen him or talked to him in nine days, but it feels more like nine months. The email she’d begun drafting to him the week before had gone unsent. Wiping her hand on the back of her denim shorts, she swipes the button and answers the call.
“River.” Holly holds the phone between her cheek and shoulder while she stirs her eggs in the pan.
“Hi. How are you?”
Holly sets the spatula down and takes the phone in her hand again. She stands in front of the sink and watches Buckhunter’s window absentmindedly. It’s still early enough in the evening that he should be at Jack Frosty’s, so the fact that his light’s come on is slightly puzzling.
“I’m okay. A lot happened around here while I was gone. Where are you?”
There’s a slight hiss on the line and Holly thinks she might have lost him when his voice finally comes through again. “Dublin,” River says.
“Ah. Sarah. Of course. I could see that one coming.”
“Hol—”
“No, it’s fine,” she says, turning back to the stove in a panic as the smell of rubbery, burned eggs starts to fill her kitchen. With a fast hand, she yanks the pan off the stove and sets it on a cool burner. “I could tell you were interested in her—”
“I wasn’t interested in her!” River interrupts defensively.
“If you would let me finish,” Holly says slowly. “I was going to say that I could tell you were interested in her offer.”
There’s silence on the line. She knows that River knows what she really meant: she saw the mutual interest between him and Sarah, and could sense an adventurous streak in the girl that mirrored his own. Would River have cheated on her? Dumped her for another girl and run off to Dublin? Certainly not. But the unpleasant rift that had grown between them throughout their time together had started to feel more like a chasm as she’d watched the way he gravitated towards the kind of adventures that put Holly off…the kind of adventures that a girl like Sarah would probably welcome with open arms.
“Yeah,” River continues. “Well, after you left I did some real soul-searching and some thinking, and I decided that it was time for me to keep moving.”
“To Dublin?”
“To wherever. We’ve had a good time, Hol. I loved visiting you on the island, and I think this trip to Europe was a good idea, but it was a real make-or-break kind of deal for us.”
“And I broke it.”
“Well, I wouldn’t put all the blame on you. We’re just different. I’m a wanderer and you’re tied to that island like a prisoner who’ll never escape.”
Holly’s face falls as she listens to his words. They sound so much like Jake’s. “But I don’t want to escape,” she says softly. “This island is all I’ve ever wanted.”
“You said it, kid.” River blows out a breath from across the ocean. “No man will ever hold a candle to Christmas Key, and no adventure out in the big, wide world can compare to what you have right there. So I’m choosing to accept that—finally. It’s not me you’re objecting to, it’s loving anything as much as you love the island.”
Holly has nothing to say to this, so she takes the spatula and pushes the slightly-burned eggs around in the pan. They’ve already gone cold.
“Anyway, I just wanted to put a period at the end of our sentence,” River goes on. “I couldn’t leave anything hanging, or I’d never be able to move on.”
Tears spring to Holly’s eyes as she realizes what he’s saying. He’s moving on—nine days after she left, and he’s already moving on.
“So
basically you need to close this chapter so that you can open up a new one with Sarah from Seattle?”
“That’s not what I said.” River’s voice is firm. “That’s not what I said at all.”
“You didn’t have to.” Holly walks across the kitchen with the pan in one hand and turns it over, dumping the eggs into Pucci’s bowl. She’s not hungry anymore.
“Listen, Holly…you’re amazing. And I’m really going to miss you.”
“But?” She tosses the pan into the sink with a loud clank.
“But this is for the best. For both of us. You see that, right?”
She stares out the window and sees Fiona walking through Buckhunter’s kitchen, totally unaware of Holly’s gaze on her.
“I see that,” she agrees. “And I wish you all the best. Really, I do. Have fun in Dublin, okay?”
River is quiet for a moment. “I’ll talk to you sometime?”
Holly smiles to herself. The tears she’d felt just a few minutes earlier have dried up. She knows he’s right and that this is for the best. “Yeah, we’ll talk sometime.”
They say their goodbyes and Holly sets her phone on the counter again. Without even slipping on her flip-flops, she wanders out the front door, leaving it wide open. Fiona throws open the door to Buckhunter’s house at Holly’s first knock.
“Hey, what are you doing?” Fiona searches her friend’s face. “Are you okay?”
“He’s in Dublin. With Sarah,” Holly says, walking up the steps and through the front door without invitation. Fiona opens her arms and wraps them around Holly, holding her close as she exhales deeply.
Fiona pulls back and looks up at Holly. “No tears?” She puts her hands on Holly’s cheeks and looks deeply into her eyes. “You saw this coming?”
“I did leave him in Paris,” she says. “So I guess it was kind of inevitable.”
“Still…it sucks.” Fiona shuts the door. “Come in. I’m about to make dinner for Buckhunter. Want to join us?”
Holly follows her into the kitchen where three bags of groceries from Tinsel & Tidings are resting on the counter. “I just burned my eggs,” she says, as if this answers the question. And for Fiona, it kind of does.
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