The next morning, I wake up to Bing Crosby’s Christmas music. It feels a little odd, looking out the window and not seeing snow. But I’ll take the ocean any day. I grab my phone and hug it against my chest, wondering if Nolan has sent any messages. I flip it open. “Shoot,” I mutter. I still don’t have a signal—my hopes are deflated once again. I set my phone on the nightstand and drag myself to the kitchen. “Cheer up, Abby,” I say. It’s Christmas. Plus I can smell my mom’s quiche dish, and it’s one of my favorites.
“Good morning, Mom,” I say as I enter the kitchen and kiss her on the cheek.
She kisses me back. “Good morning, sweetheart. How did you sleep?” she asks.
I yawn and stretch my hands in the air. “Like a rock.”
She glances at me with a giddy look in her eyes as she cuts up pineapple. “I saw you talking to Daniel last night.”
“Yeah, he was sitting right next to me.” I try to avoid where she’s going with this.
“He’s very handsome.”
I exhale. “Yes, he is.”
“Did I see sparks flying between the two of you?”
I stand next to her and help cut the pineapple. I give her a look, and she chuckles.
“Okay, I’ll stay out of it,” she says.
I smile appreciatively. “Thank you.”
Mom opens the oven to take the quiche out. “But he is cute…”
I roll my eyes a little. “That’s not staying out of it, Mom, but I guess I should tell you that he invited me to a party he’s having on a yacht tomorrow.”
Mom’s eyes widen with intrigue. “Oh... Okay…”
I shake my finger at her playfully. “But don’t read into it. It’s just a party.”
She rubs my shoulder. “Darling, you know me better than that. Your life is your own, but I’m even happier when you’re happy.”
I pat her hand. “I know, Mom.”
We kiss each other again on the cheek and finish cooking. When we’re done, we set the table, and Dad and Brian join us for our traditional Christmas breakfast. Later, we go into the living room, near the big window overlooking the sea, and open our gifts.
My mom and dad give me a diamond pendant, and my brother gets an expensive watch. I give my mom a crocheted blanket that I bought from Miss Things, a store where everything is handmade. I give my dad a captain’s hat to wear while fishing, and Brian gets a state-of-the-art compass. Brian gives me a five-hundred-dollar American Express gift card.
We sit around and talk some more, and we even sing cheesy Bing Crosby Christmas songs together. Later, we watch It’s A Wonderful Life for what feels like the thousandth time. When evening arrives, we head down to the beach to build a bonfire and make s’mores, drink hot toddies, and sing more Christmas songs out of key.
As usual, this Christmas tops last Christmas. By the time the fire dies down, I’ve had one hot toddy too many, and I stumble to my bed. Then I’m out like a light.
I wake up late the next morning. Fortunately, I don’t have a hangover. Unfortunately, I have Nolan on the brain. I shake my head, trying to get him out of there, hop out of bed, and go brush my teeth and wash my face. This afternoon, I have a party on a yacht to attend. Suddenly, I’m sort of nervous about going. Part of me would rather skip the soirée, and part of me is in love with the idea of replacing Nolan with Daniel.
I put on a strappy sundress that has a floral pattern and skip to the kitchen to say hi to my parents. They’re not home, but they left a note on the table. I pick it up and read it.
“Abby, we’ve gone snorkeling with the Christensens. Brian is with us. Have fun at the party. Love, Mom.”
I put it on the counter and make myself a late breakfast—two pieces of toast, scrambled eggs, and a slice of leftover Christmas ham. After I’m done eating, I look at my watch—one hour before the party starts. I grab my gumption and my purse and walk to the docks.
One mile later, I see the boat. It looks like it is straight out of an episode of Lifestyles of the Immensely Rich and Famous starring Lloyd Bennet, that English actor. It has three decks and is five times longer than my house. I can hear the techno music from here. It’s loud. I want to run away from it, but instead I walk toward it.
I get onto the boat and see lights from a disco ball circling the main cabin, along with people dancing. I wonder if I’m late.
“You made it!”
I turn 180 degrees, and there’s Daniel. His eyes are red. It looks like he’s already started drinking, and heavily.
“I did,” I say with manufactured enthusiasm.
“Can I get you a drink?” he asks.
“After last night, I think I’ve had enough for right now. A water would be fine.”
He blinks as though I just spoke in a language that he can’t understand. “All right then, I’ll be back.”
I watch him walk away. I might be seeing things, but I think I saw him wink at a blonde in a red bikini. There are a lot of women wearing bikinis and mini skirts that are so short, they’re incredibly close to giving us a peep show. All of them are drunk, I think.
A long time goes by, and Daniel still hasn’t come back. More people have arrived, and they all seem to know each other, making me feel like the odd man out. Feeling antsy, I decide to look for Daniel, but first, I have to find the ladies’ room. A couple of guys wink at me while walking down the hallway. I make it to the stairs and walk down to the next level. It’s slightly quieter down here. There is a door to my left. It looks like it could be a bathroom. I knock on the door and wait a few seconds. No one answers. I turn the knob, and it’s locked. I move on.
I check a couple more doors. All of them are locked.
“Looking for something?” a guy asks. I turn around and look at the other end of the hallway. He’s not Daniel, but he’s drunk and grinning from ear to ear.
“Restroom,” I say.
“Oh, I can show you if you want,” he slurs.
“Nope. Just tell me where it is.” I’m getting irritated.
“You sure?”
“Never mind.” I lift a hand and hurry up and get out of his sight.
I take the stairs down to the bottom level. There are only two doors, one on each end. One has to be the bathroom. The one closest is locked. I try the next. It’s unlocked. I open it, and I cannot believe what my eyes are seeing.
Daniel’s face is between the blonde’s legs—the one in the red bikini—and he’s sniffing lines of coke from her vagina to her belly button.
He looks up at me and jumps off the bed. “Abby?”
My jaw is on the floor.
“I was just…”
I turn and run out of there as fast as I can. Up the stairs I go, pushing past party guests. Curious eyes watch me, but I don’t care. I race down the dock, along the boardwalk, until I reach the sand of the beach. I bend over and grab my knees to catch my breath. I look out into the ocean, and to my surprise, I see Brian waving at me. In his other hand, he’s holding his snorkel mask and fins. Suddenly, an emotion washes over me. I fall to my knees, put my hands over my face and cry.
Brian runs to me, kicking up sand in his tracks.
“Abby, what’s going on with you?” He takes me by the arms.
I press my face against his chest. “Everything is just wrong.”
“What’s wrong? Didn’t you go to a party on Daniel’s yacht? Where’s Daniel?” He sounds angry.
“I don’t care about Daniel.”
He pushes me back and looks me directly in the eyes. “What did he do to you, Abs?” Brian is steaming hot, ready to defend my honor.
“Nothing. It’s Nolan.”
“Nolan? Who’s Nolan?”
“He’s my boss.”
“Your what? Your boss is here?”
I can tell that I’ve confused the heck out of Brian. I’m frantic and out of control. I’m not even making sense to myself! I take a deep breath and rise to my feet.
“No, my boss isn’t here, and Daniel didn’t do anything to
me other than crush my ego.”
Brian sighs. “Come on, let me walk you back to the villa.”
I take the mask and snorkel from him. “At least let me carry these.”
He puts his arm around my shoulders, and we walk up the beach.
“So, what’s this about your boss?” he says.
I shake my head. “Nothing. I just made a mistake with him.”
“What kind of mistake?”
“The ultimate, Brian. The kind you’re not supposed to make with your boss.”
He looks at me with narrowed eyes. “You slept with your boss, Abs?”
I drop my face. “I did.”
“What were you thinking?”
“I wasn’t… I mean I was. I just thought we would become something bigger. And now I have to go back to that job.”
Brian gets quiet. I can tell that I just put a lot on his mind.
“What is it?” I say.
“I’m just wondering what you’re doing at that job anyway.”
“Huh, what do you mean?”
“Do you really like it there?”
“Yeah, or, I mean, I guess. It pays the bills.”
“Exactly.”
Now he’s got me confused. “Exactly, what do you mean ‘exactly’?”
He stops, faces me, and puts both of his hands on my shoulders. “After everything Mom and Dad taught us, isn’t it more than just about paying the bills?”
I think for a second or two. “Well yeah. Of course it is.”
“Then why are you doing it?”
I feel my whole face frowning as I process his question.
“Listen,” Brian says. “I bought myself a ticket for a guided hike up that.” He points to the top of the volcano.
My eyes follow his finger.
“But I want to give it to you. Is that okay?” he says.
I’ve been eyeing that volcano from the moment I arrived on the island. “Sure,” I say.
Brian takes his hands off my shoulders. “Good… Good.”
We start walking again.
“Thanks,” I say.
“You’re welcome, Abs. Just when you make it to the top, I want you to look down at the world below and remember how that feels. Then, I want you take that feeling back to your job—and if your job and your boss don’t make you feel the same way, then you should really consider ditching the both of them.”
The next morning, I wake up and get ready for my hike. It’s raining, but I’ve decided that nothing is going to stop me from getting to the top of that mountain. I ride my bike into town. Ten minutes later, I arrive at the guide shack. I’m surprised the tour guide is a woman, a female version of GI Joe. She’s sitting in a rusty jeep, drinking a cup of coffee, resting one leg on the dashboard while reading the paper. I knock on her window, and she just about spills her coffee.
“You startled me,” she says, rolling down the window. Her toothy smile is as big as today’s hidden sun. “Didn’t think anyone was going to show up.”
“Well, here I am.” I wave my hands cheerfully.
She looks me up and down. I’m draped in my rain gear, with purple socks sticking out of the top of my hiking boots.
She throws the paper in the back. “Hop in then!”
I get into the passenger seat and fasten my seatbelt, then she starts driving. Before long, we’re off the main road. The path takes us to the base of the volcano, where she parks.
The guide turns to me. “By the way, my name is Theresa.”
“And I’m Abby.”
“Excellent, Abby. I should have checked with you before. I guess I forgot because it’s raining. You do have water, correct?”
I shake my bag so that we can hear the two water bottles inside. “Yep.”
“Couple of rules, Abby.”
Her military tone makes me sit up straight. “Uh-huh?”
“First, stay on the trail. Second, follow my lead. And third…” She smirks. “Enjoy.”
I give her a thumbs-up, and we get out of the car. I look up toward the top of the volcano—it’s shrouded in mystery.
Theresa gazes toward the top and puts her hands on her hips. “Sure you still want to do this?”
I take a deep breath. It’s so far up, and the terrain looks overwhelming, but there’s no backing out. “Absolutely.”
She smiles. “I always like the extra adventurous ones.”
We start off, and the trail is relatively mundane. Soon the rain lets up, and we stop for a drink before heading into dense trees.
“Are there animals in there?” I ask.
“Mostly monkeys. The next leg of the trail is going to get more treacherous. It’ll be slippery. We’re going to have to cross a lot of rocks and roots, some of which are fairly large.” She sounds excited about the whole deal, and believe it or not, so am I.
We hike on. It’s dark and ominous under the forest canopy. Nature surrounds me. My heart pounds while we tackle the trail. I slip here and there, sometimes almost falling flat on my face.
Theresa looks back at me. “You doing okay?”
I look up at her, breathing heavily, and I give her a thumbs-up.
I’m impressed by Theresa’s pace and agility. “How did you start doing this?” I ask.
“My mom was in the military. When we lived in Germany, we’d take trips over to the Swiss Alps, and that’s when I fell in love with hiking.”
That explains so much about her style of guiding me. “How did you get here?”
“Fate, I guess. Followed a man down here. He broke my heart. He left; I never did.”
Ouch, I think, remembering my last encounter with Nolan. “Yeah, I know how that works.”
We’re getting close to the top, and it looks like the clouds are breaking. I look at myself. Half wet from sweat and half wet from rain, I’m practically standing at the edge of this volcano already. The base of it is hundreds of feet below me. My heart races with the idea of looking out over the top of the island, staring at an endless sea in all directions. We maneuver more bends and more gigantic roots. Then, for the first time, we break the forest’s canopy.
We’ve made it. I conquered a storm, a jungle, and a volcano to get here. I look out into the distance. In front of me are miles and miles of sea, and I’ve got the best view in the house. I feel as though I’m standing on top of the world.
“Wow… Brian was right.” This is what I came here for, and I didn’t even know it.
17
Nolan
Monday, December 28
11:43 a.m.
I gaze out the front window and across the snow-covered lawn. I just called Abby, and I’m waiting for her to answer. I wonder if she had a good Christmas. Since Bill died, the Patricks skipped the whole tradition of exchanging gifts, trimming the tree, and having the Christmas roast. My mother tried to convince me to drive to Madison, Wisconsin, to have dinner with her, Sam, my stepfather, and his four kids, but I declined. I’m not in a festive mood. It’s difficult to get over the fact that, for the first time in my life, my father and I do not live in the same world, and that realization makes me feel like shit.
Yesterday was the reading of the will. To my surprise, my father left just about everything he wanted me to have to me and Kelsey, even though she and I have been divorced for almost a year. Kelsey remained an angel in Bill’s eyes, and I loved him too much to shatter that illusion. She cheated on me twice before I filed for divorce. I’m positive that if I had revealed that to him, he would’ve seen through the good-wife and want-to-be-a-mother image she portrayed in front of him.
This call to Abby, like the others, goes to voicemail. “Shit.” I stop myself from lobbing the phone at the wall and chartering a flight directly to St. Kitts.
A navy-blue sedan pulls up into my driveway. “Liza,” I whisper and stuff my cell phone into my pocket.
Wearing a heavy coat, she gets out of the car then opens the back door to fiddle with a child’s car seat. She’s brought the baby, Aiden.
Since it’s so cold out, I dash to the closet, take out my coat, put it on, and rush out to help her. When I open the front door, Liza is standing in front of me, a bag in one hand, clutching the car seat with warm blankets covering the baby in the other.
“I was coming to help.” I step back to let her in.
She walks past me. “I know you were, but ever since Dad died, I’ve had to take Aiden here and there and everywhere with me. So I’ve become a pro at getting him and myself in and out of the car in record time.”
I follow Liza, who moves through my house as if she owns the place.
“How have you been?” she says.
“I’ve been okay.”
“Then why are you scratching your head?”
I realize what I’m doing and stop scratching my scalp. Liza sits down on the sofa. The blinds are open. She looks out over Lake Calhoun. She takes off her coat and pulls the blanket from over the car seat.
She looks up at me, grinning like a Cheshire cat. “Cute, huh?”
Aiden is cute, as well as little and red.
I smile. “Yeah…” I sit on the chair across from her. “So what’s going on, Liza?”
“I was worried about you. You’re here in this big house by yourself, plus”—she takes a bottle out of the baby’s bag—“I think it’s about time this gets consumed. Remember this?”
I squint at the label. “Is that Dad’s cognac?”
Her face lights up. “Yes, it is. Remember what he said to us?”
“Unfortunately, my memory is foggy.”
Liza looks at me as if she’s worried. “He called this one bottle of cognac ‘the fixer,’ and if we ever needed a fixing when he’s not around, to go get it, drink it, and when we’re finished…”
Suddenly, I can see our father holding the bottle and talking to Liza and me. “Forget all the shit that made us want to have a drink in the first place. But he called it ‘the elixir,’ not ‘the fixer.’”
Liza scrunches one side of her face. “Humph, I’m pretty sure you’re wrong, but never mind—elixir, fixer—go get a glass, and I’ll watch you drink. I’m breastfeeding.”
The Sexy Series: The COMPLETE SERIES Box Set Page 24