Wild Tropics: Christmas Key Book Two

by Stephanie Taylor

  “That might take your mind off everything else.”

  Holly looks back to the ceiling and slides an arm under her head for support. She stares at the sturdy beam of light from the moon.

  “Fee?” she says tiredly. “Do you think I’m going to pull this off?”

  “Girl, you are made of sturdy, adventurous stuff. Plus you have me,” Fiona reminds her, reaching out a hand and lacing her fingers through Holly’s. “So consider it pulled off.”

  “Thanks, doc.”

  “You’re welcome,” Fiona whispers.

  Chapter 6

  “Ooooh, that man gets me all fired up like the fourth of July,” Bonnie says, her back to Holly in the office of the B&B. Bonnie is standing at the giant picture window that looks out onto Main Street, arms folded across her chest. With her thick, southern accent, ‘July’ comes out sounding like Jooo-lahhh. “Do you know when he saw me standing here, he took off that damn cowboy hat of his and tipped it at me like we’re in some sort of cowboy movie?” She presses her lips together and shakes her head slowly.

  Holly slips a file into the tall metal cabinet against the wall and shuts the drawer with a shove. “You still watching Wyatt out there?”

  Pucci is resting on his dog bed next to the filing cabinet, and he looks up at his mistress questioningly, big, brown eyes following her around the office as she works.

  “Watching Wyatt,” Bonnie mutters, her dimples showing as her face twists into a mask of disapproval. “I’d like to watch him get right back onto the horse he rode in on and disappear into the sunset.”

  “That’d be interesting, given that he’d have to cross about fifty miles of water just to get to Key West.” Holly inhales and exhales calmly, trying not to look out the window and catch a glimpse of the scene on Main Street.

  “You know what I mean, sugar,” Bonnie says with mild irritation. “I’m trying to stick with the cowboy theme here. Keep up, will you?”

  Holly chuckles as she uncaps a marker and crosses an item off the to-do list on the dry erase board. “So what’s going on out there?” she asks, giving in to her curiosity.

  Bonnie frowns at the glass. “Looks like Cap is walking around with a clipboard asking people to sign it, and Wyatt is holding up a giant sign on a stick that says ‘Don’t be a sap, vote for Cap.’ They look like a couple of bloomin’ idiots if you ask me.”

  “Catchy slogan,” Holly says through gritted teeth. “I didn’t know he’d enlisted Wyatt as a campaign manager.”

  “Oh, honey. Don’t you pay them any mind. I heard from Gen and Gwen—or maybe it was Glen and Gen—dammit, now I’m not sure…” Bonnie’s brow furrows. Telling the triplets apart is nearly impossible without knowing the color schemes each woman wears as a clue to her identity. “Anyhow, two of the triplets were behind me in line at Mistletoe Morning Brew this morning, and they told me Wyatt’s only helping Cap to get my goat.”

  “To get your goat?”

  “Mmmhmm. Men.” Bonnie rolls her eyes. “They think they have flirting figured out the first time they chase a girl around the playground with an earthworm and make her scream. Most of ‘em never develop their technique much beyond that.”

  “Wow. You and Wyatt. Didn’t see that one coming.” There’s a layer of sarcasm in Holly’s voice that’s as thick as buttercream frosting.

  “You didn’t see it coming because it ain’t coming.” Bonnie shakes her head vigorously. Bonnie’s normal m.o. is to ogle and appreciate anyone of the male persuasion, but something about Wyatt agitates her like nothing Holly’s ever seen.

  “Okay. Whatever you say, Bon.” Holly takes her big straw purse off the hook by the door, fishing around inside for her baseball cap. When she finds it, she sets the hat on her head and puts her purse over one shoulder. “I’m going to run over to the beach and meet the crew. You good here?”

  “I’m fine.” Bonnie gives her a distracted wave. “Nice hat, hon. Mets today, huh?”

  “Yeah.” Holly readjusts the bill of her cap. “I’ll be back in a while.”

  River had sent the hat to her after his visit in August. Their initial meeting had been filled with friendly banter and attraction, but Holly—a die-hard Yankees fan with a much-loved and well-worn baseball cap to prove it—had been thrown for a loop when River’s fellow fishermen outed him as a former pitcher for the Mets’ farm team. Now that the hat is in her possession, she switches out her Mets and Yankees caps whenever the mood strikes.

  There aren’t many places to hide on Main Street, so Holly drives slowly out of the sandy lot behind the B&B, pulling into the street so she can make eye contact with Cap Duncan and Wyatt Bender. If she can’t duck and run from the humiliation of Cap’s cheesy slogans and his petition-on-a-clipboard, then she can at least face them head-on with a hard stare.

  “Gentlemen,” she calls out, giving a salute from behind the wheel of her golf cart. It takes all the fortitude in her bones to smile at them confidently. Holly’s had a few days to think about the situation with Cap since Halloween night in the B&B’s kitchen with Fiona, and she’s pretty sure Fiona is right: he won’t get the votes. More importantly, she won’t let him shake her.

  “How do, Mayor?” Wyatt yells out gruffly, lifting his hat. Cap is talking to Maria Agnelli on the sidewalk, and he doesn’t even bother to look up and greet Holly. She’s pleased to note the way eighty-six year old Mrs. Agnelli—with her little brocaded purse hanging off her elbow and her slightly-stooped shoulders—is lecturing Cap with an outstretched finger that’s dangerously close to poking him in the chest. Mrs. Agnelli is the fierce Italian widow of the island—a grandmother with a sharp tongue and a colorful vocabulary—and she adores Holly. There’s no way Cap will be getting her vote.

  Holly presses on the gas pedal as she turns onto Pine Cone Boulevard and cruises toward December Drive. A sand dune buffers the beach along December Drive and she parks behind it, leaving her cart out of view. On the beach, the crew has started erecting their tents, and people are dragging things to and fro, shouting at one another as they set up camp. Leanna Poudry is wearing a sunhat and a summer dress, pointing and directing the crew.

  “Holly!” Leanna waves, holding her hat down with one hand as she jogs across the sand. “This weather is so much better today than it was when we got here.”

  “A heatwave like that on Halloween is a fluke—you should be good now,” Holly assures her.

  “It’s still warmer than I’m used to, but you won’t hear me complain about getting a tan in November!” Leanna pulls her phone out of the black leather fanny pack that hangs loosely over her narrow hips. She taps on the screen of her phone. “Wayne is still at the B&B and I need to check with him on something.”

  “I just came from the B&B. I could have given him a ride over if I’d known you needed him.”

  “It’s fine,” Leanna says, holding up a finger to silence Holly as she puts the phone to her ear. “Hey, I’m at the site right now,” she says into the receiver. “Yep. Got it. No, I was hoping you had some idea of how you wanted that to work.” Leanna turns her back on Holly and starts wandering away as she talks.

  There are eight large canvas tents set up on the sand, and a fire pit is in progress away from the water and the sleeping area. Two crew members are carrying rocks to and from the fire pit, stacking them in a ring around the hole in the ground. Tiki-style torches on long stakes jut out from the ground around the makeshift camp, and each tent has a string of clear lights hanging around its perimeter.

  One of the tents is flapping open in the midmorning breeze, practically inviting Holly to take a peek inside. In it, there are two low cots. Rolled-up bedding lays at the foot of each cot, and a metal beam overhead runs the length of the large tent. From the beam hangs a gas lantern. Holly has no idea where it came from (or where any of this stuff came from) but a rustic nightstand sits between the two cots. She runs her hand across the smooth wood, admiring the drawer pull made of rope. Did the crew ship eight nautical-looking nightstands to t
he island along with their equipment? Did they build them from driftwood while the rest of the island slept? And what about the lanterns—have the triplets been selling them at Tinsel & Tidings unbeknownst to her? It’s amazing how good it all looks after only a few days of prep and set-up. Holly closes the flap and walks back to Leanna.

  “So, what do you think?” Leanna steps over a tangle of black and orange electrical cords. “It’s coming together, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah, it looks great.”

  “Here, Leanna—catch.” One of the crew members tosses Leanna a roll of duct tape. She catches it easily and pulls a Sharpie from her fanny pack.

  “I need to label some of the items in the tents so that the right contestant ends up with the right stuff.”

  “Isn’t it all the same?”

  Leanna pulls a piece of tape off the roll and bites it with her teeth so she can tear it. “Yeah, essentially. But there are slight—and important—variations to the items.” She tucks a wavy strand of hair behind her ear. Even with the drop in temperature, Leanna still has the overheated sheen of someone who isn’t used to working in the Florida sun all day. She opens the flap of a tent and walks inside, sticking the piece of tape to the top of a first-aid kit on the nightstand. The tent Holly examined had no first-aid kit.

  “Oh. So some of them have a slight advantage over the others or something?” Holly asks.

  Leanna is writing on the tape with a firm stroke of the pen. The tip of the Sharpie squeaks across the surface as she writes a number and two letters. “Ummm…unofficially, but yeah. That’s how it works,” Leanna recaps the pen. “But this is top secret reality show info, capiche?”

  “Of course. Got it.” Holly follows her into the next tent where Leanna opens the drawer of the nightstand. It’s stocked with energy bars and Advil. “So, what about Jake?”

  “What about him?” Leanna tears off smaller pieces of tape and sticks them to the backs of the energy bars. She divides the pile in half, writing a different number and different letters on each pile.

  “I mean, don’t you think he has an unfair advantage? He knows the island really well. Jake knows the tides and the types of fish that come near shore, he knows how to crack a coconut and get all of the meat and water out of it, and he’s really good with his hands.”

  “Oh, is he?” Leanna looks up at her from her perch on the end of the cot.

  Holly blushes and ignores the innuendo. “Won’t the other contestants think it’s unfair to play against a local?”

  “I’ve been meaning to get with you on that.” Leanna puts the energy bars back into the drawer. “Jake’s on board with the plan, and I wanted to let you know so you could spread the word.”

  There is a noticeable shift in the energy between them, and Holly knows she’s going to be asked to do something she doesn’t necessarily agree with.

  “Jake’s not going to let on that he’s a local; none of the other contestants will know.” From the seemingly bottomless fanny pack comes a pack of matches inside a plastic sandwich bag. Leanna pulls another, longer piece of tape, writes on it, and then gets on her knees next to the cot. She fixes the bag of matches to the bottom of the cot with the tape, her back to Holly. “More importantly,” she says, getting to her feet, “we’re going to offset that advantage by giving some of the other contestants a few tools that Jake won’t have.”

  Holly narrows her eyes at Leanna. In her gut, she’d been feeling that something like this was about to come along. “So you’re setting him up to fail?”

  “Not fail, Holly. He’s not going to lose every competition. And yes, there are some behind-the-scenes…machinations that are necessary, but they’re strictly to raise the interest level on the show.”

  “Huh.” Holly folds her arms, shifting her weight from one foot to the other. “So this is the kind of stuff that happens on The Bachelor?” She wants to understand—to believe—that Jake isn’t going to be put at a disadvantage solely for ratings and entertainment.

  “Oh, of course! Tweaking and pulling strings to make magic is what it’s all about. Everyone knows that Hollywood is made up of fairy dust and glitter with a whole lot of superglue to hold it all together.” Leanna smiles knowingly. She zips her fanny pack and pushes it onto one bony hip. “So I need you to A, let everyone on the island know that Jake being a local is a secret, and B, not tell Jake that the other contestants are getting a book of matches or a PowerBar when he isn’t, okay?”

  Holly shrugs. It’s probably okay. Television and movies aren’t exactly her area of expertise, but she enjoys the end result of their production as much as the next person. “Sure. I understand.”

  “Great.” Leanna rests a hand on Holly’s arm as her cell phone buzzes on her hip. “No rest for the wicked, huh? I’m sure that’s Wayne,” she says, stepping outside the tent to dig her ringing phone out of her pack.

  Everyone is still hard at work, fastening strings of lights to tents, filling the now-complete fire pit with camera-ready, perfectly chopped logs, and setting up scaffolding and ladders from which to shoot the scene with their videocameras. Production is in full swing as Holly walks back across the beach to her golf cart. She turns and gives the campsite one last look: the torch lights, canvas tents, turquoise waters, and the tall, green palm trees swaying over the site give the scene a remote, Polynesian feel, and it’ll look amazing as the show unfolds on television screens around the world.

  Even though Holly knows she probably shouldn’t—she has no permission, and would most likely get reprimanded for doing so—she pulls her cell phone out of her purse on the seat of the cart, turns it sideways, and opens the camera app. Looking out from under the brim of her Mets cap, she takes it all in on the screen of her phone and snaps a quick picture. One fast photo for posterity. After all, her little island home is on the cusp of becoming a household name—a famous, exotic travel destination that everyone’s heard of…hopefully for all the right reasons.

  Chapter 7

  “Morning, Carrie-Anne,” Holly says as she walks into Mistletoe Morning Brew. The sleigh bells tied to the doorknob jingle festively. The coffee shop is the first storefront on Main Street after the dock, and like every other business on the street, its large windows look out onto the sidewalks and right at the hustle and bustle of the main drag.

  “Morning, young lady,” Carrie-Anne says cheerfully. The shop’s owners, Carrie-Anne Martinez and Ellen Jankowitz, are partners in life and in business. They manage a tight schedule in order to keep the coffee shop open and running seven days a week, and neither has taken a vacation off the island in several years.

  “You know, sometimes it takes me weeks to pick up on the theme, but November is already feeling very Edgar Allan Poe.” Holly glances around at the recent changes to the store.

  “Right you are, chickadee.” Carrie-Anne pulls down the lever of the shiny espresso machine behind the counter. Carrie-Anne and Ellen are movie and literature buffs whose interests are reflected in the constantly evolving interior of the coffee shop, and they usually change things up so that each month has its own theme. “What gave it away?”

  “The giant raven painted on the front window was a pretty good clue, but the bookmark Ellen gave me yesterday with my coffee had a quote from The Telltale Heart and a drawing of a creepy-looking blue eyeball.”

  “You should see the coasters she spent the last month making. She used cork board, copies of The Cask of Amontillado, and a bottle of Mod Podge. They’re over there on the shelf.”

  “She cut up books? Isn’t that blasphemous or something?” Holly searches her purse for the change she knows is floating around the bottom of the bag.

  “Oh, she would never do that,” Carrie-Anne scoffs. “Her daughter made hundreds of photocopies at her office in Philly and mailed them down. It’s been quite a project.” Carrie-Anne snaps a lid on the espresso she’s been making and calls out to Heddie Lang-Mueller, who is sitting with her spine straight and shoulders back in a wooden chair at a bistro tabl
e. Heddie slips off the chair and leaves her novel facedown on the table while she retrieves her coffee.

  “Good morning, Holly,” Heddie says in her thick German accent, pulling a paper napkin from the dispenser on the counter. “How is everything coming with the television people?”

  “Not bad. I went out to the beach yesterday to see their set-up. They’ve got tents and a fire pit and all of their cameras and equipment. It’s really something.”

  “I heard Jake is participating in their game,” Heddie says formally, wrapping the napkin around the base of her paper coffee cup.

  Holly braces herself. She hasn’t given a lot of thought yet as to how she’ll deal with Jake’s absence from his police duties, or whether it’ll even be an issue at all. “That’s the rumor,” she says noncommittally.

  “I hope he’s prepared for the scrutinizing, unforgiving eye of the public,” Heddie warns. She adjusts the silky scarf around her throat as she holds her coffee in the other hand. Even in her seventies, Heddie looks every inch the film star she’d been in her youth. No one is quite sure why she gave up the spotlight in Germany and washed up on the shores of an American island that’s barely more than a speck on a map, but Heddie is a much-loved member of their community, and everyone loves to speculate about her glamorous past, though she’ll confirm nothing.

  “I hope he’s ready, too, but we haven’t talked much lately, so…I really don’t know.”

  “Speaking of ready, what can I get you, Mayor?” Carrie-Anne nods at the fistful of change Holly’s managed to cobble together from the bottom of her bag. “You know I could run you a tab if you didn’t want to give me your sweaty coins and pocket lint.”

  “I’d just as soon get rid of this change. It’s been jangling around in my bag like pirate’s booty, and I think I might have enough for a salted caramel mocha.”

  Carrie-Anne holds out both hands like she’s cupping them beneath a waterfall, and Holly pours the money into her palms. “Iced?” Carrie-Anne asks.