There's Always a Catch: Christmas Key Book One

by Stephanie Taylor

  “You’re like my sun, Holly. I know you’ve always been my shining star, my girl who hung the moon,” he said wistfully, his gnarled fingers and crooked knuckles trailing a shaky path across the dusky sky. “But in reality, you’re more like my sun.” He took her young hand in his weathered one. “Because no matter what, I know I can count on you to rise and set like clockwork. To light up my world and to do what needs to be done around here.”

  The tears in her eyes and the tightness in her throat stopped her from actually speaking, so instead she’d just nodded again, squeezing his hand.

  She meant everything she’d said at the village council meeting: in order to survive and prosper, they desperately need to be forward-thinking, to consider relying on revenue sources other than electric company pensions, Social Security checks, and nest eggs from years of frugal living. She doesn’t want to come right out and say that they won’t all live together on the island forever, that she plans on outliving them all and wants a back-up plan for herself and her beloved home, but it’s true—those are the cold, hard facts. Holly needs to know that her own future is secure, and that her island can sustain itself—maybe well into a future that even she won’t be around to see.

  “We’ve got an ad placed in The Herald,” Bonnie says, returning from her errand. She sits back down on her side of the desk. “And I made sure to have them add a footnote in teeny-tiny print to remind visitors of the bounty of beautiful, single ladies on Christmas Key.”

  “Fabulous. I can’t wait to have a bunch of old guys show up here, hoping to buy island brides and drag them back to civilization.” Holly rolls her eyes and balls up a Post-it note. She tosses it in Bonnie’s direction playfully like she’s lobbing a snowball at a friend. It misses and lands on the floor.

  “I was hoping more for lonely, wealthy retirees with sailboats—and preferably all of their own teeth,” Bonnie says, resting her chin on her hand as she gazes out the window.

  “Keep dreaming, woman. I’m just looking for visitors with some disposable income and a hankering for paradise.”

  “That would work, too. Hey, listen, sugar. We’ve been at it here for more than two hours. Why don’t you take Pucci-pooch-pooch for his walk before his eyes get any sadder. I’ll go check with the kitchen to see if they have the menus drawn up for the fishermen’s visit.”

  “Yeah, that sounds good,” Holly says, distracted. “My mother just called, and now I feel like I’m short a few pints of blood. I should probably get some air.” She saves the calendar of island events she’s working on to a folder on her desktop and stands up, stretching her arms overhead.

  “Oh, sweet molasses, child. Is it already time for a visit from Coco?”

  “So she says.” Holly sets her Yankees cap back on her head. “But she’s bringing Alan, so at least she’ll be occupied while she’s here.”

  “Hmph,” Bonnie says, looking at Holly over the frames of her reading glasses.

  “Okay, I’ll walk this old mutt while you figure out the menu situation. And then we need to map out the fishermen’s visit in more detail.”

  “Meet you back here in twenty?” Bonnie gets up and bends to scratch the retriever between his ears.

  “Yep. Want me to get you a sandwich?”

  “The usual, please. Just have Iris and Jimmy put it on my tab.”

  Holly clips the leash to her dog’s collar.

  “Oh, and a root beer!” Bonnie shouts at Holly, who is already in the hallway.

  She pops her head back into the office. “Got it. Tuna on wheat with extra onions. And a root beer.”

  “You’re an angel, Holly Jean.”

  Out on the street, Holly puts on her clear-framed sunglasses. The lenses are a reflective polar blue that turn the world into a cool, icy wonderland.

  Big band music pours from a speaker outside Tinsel & Tidings on Main Street as Heddie Lang-Mueller walks through the door, a paper bag in her arms. Tinsel & Tidings serves as the island gift shop for visitors, but it’s also the general store for the island. The triplets always stock essentials and treats on the shelves in the back of the store, from the fresh produce and frozen chicken breasts shipped in twice a week, to little luxuries like imported chocolates and wines. In spite of the fact that they live in the middle of nowhere, the triplets make it possible for a person to easily get their hands on a bottle of extra virgin olive oil or a knotty sweet potato in a pinch.

  “Hello,” Heddie says, coming down the walkway that leads from the door of Tinsel & Tidings and runs directly into the sidewalk. She’s waving one thin hand, a smile on her face. “How are you, Holly?”

  “I’m great—the vote went our way!” She and Heddie pause where their paths meet.

  “That is excellent news. Just wonderful. Your grandfather would be proud.” Heddie gives a small smile, which—given her efficient German countenance—Holly knows is the equivalent of a grin.

  “Thank you. I think it would make him happy,” she says. Pucci’s pink tongue lolls across his sharp incisors as he sits on his haunches next to her feet.

  “Indeed,” Heddie agrees in her crisp accent. “Well, I’ve got ice cream in my bag, so I should get it home.” She raises the paper bag with a smile. “It’s too hot today for anything else but frozen treats and air conditioning.”

  “True story.” Holly tugs at Pucci’s leash gently. “I’ll see you later, Heddie.”

  Even with the heat of the midday sun on his golden fur and the warm pavement under his paws, Pucci looks happy to be out of the office. Holly crosses Main Street and walks past Poinsettia Plaza, turning south to where the road merges onto Holly Lane at the Christmas Key chapel. The rustic, weathered, white wood of the church peeks out from beneath a cover of tall sand pine trees. Each side of the small building is inlaid with an intricate stained glass window, and the front door has a simple Oxford gate latch made of hand carved wood. Holly stops to look up at the modest steeple while Pucci sniffs around the fallen pine needles.

  “Do I need to ticket you for not picking up after your dog?” a voice says from behind her.

  Holly turns, though she doesn’t need to look to know it’s Jake. “Sure. That’s H-O-L-L-Y B-A-X-T-E-R. Just give me that ticket, and I’ll put it right next to the one you gave me the other day.” She holds out a hand, palm up, waiting.

  “On your fridge?”

  “Crumpled up on the floor somewhere. Probably under my bed.” Pucci runs back to Holly and folds his hind legs so that he can sit next to her feet obediently, looking back and forth from his mistress to his former master with curiosity.

  “Incidentally, I’m sorry about that. You can tear that ticket up if you want to.” Jake bends down to grab Pucci’s furry face between his hands, scratching him behind both ears. “She’s going to be feisty and impudent to the end, huh, buddy?” he asks Pucci.

  “Feisty, yes. I’m not sure about impudent.” She takes her sunglasses off and looks up at him. “But I do accept your apology.”

  “Listen, I promise I’ll try not to give in to my emotions so much—good or bad.” Jake puts his hands in the pockets of his shorts. They stand there for a moment, Pucci panting heavily between them.

  Holly nods and wraps the end of Pucci’s leather leash around her hand absentmindedly.

  “Hey, I’ve gotta run,” Jake says, taking a step back. “But congrats on the vote going your way.”

  “How did you hear about that?”

  “It’s already all over Main Street,” he says. “Just like everything else that happens on this island.”

  “Like us?”

  “Right—like every single detail about us.” Jake takes a moment, weighing his next words. “You never get tired of that? Really? You never just want to live in peace without people bird-dogging your every move?”

  She relents, her face softening. “Jake.” In the lilt of that one word is every thought and feeling she wants to convey to him. In his one-syllable name, Holly breathes sympathy, sadness, both wariness and weariness,
and more than a little disappointment. She understands what it means to long for things—sometimes things that can’t coexist—and she also knows what it means to stubbornly refuse to back down. “Listen, I get it if you want to leave here, and I don’t blame you…it’s not non-stop excitement, and sometimes it feels like we’re roughing it or living in another century, but I’m happy with my life just the way it is.”

  “And what about the idea of us getting married makes you so unhappy?”

  She can’t answer him. Ingrained deep within her is the knowledge that, ultimately, she’s on her own, and the only person she can truly count on is herself. That stubborn self-reliance is as much a part of the fabric of her being as the need to be both a planner and a doer, as Fiona said. Pucci and Jake both stare at her, waiting for a revelation that isn’t coming.

  “Alright. I know. We’re not talking about this,” Jake says, holding up a palm in surrender. “Will I see you tonight at the Ho Ho?”

  “I’ll be there.”

  “Good. First beer’s on me.” He slides easily into his official police golf cart and drives away.

  Holly watches him go, then makes a double kissing noise at her dog to let him know she’s ready to move again.

  Iris and Jimmy Cafferkey’s Jingle Bell Bistro sits on a stretch of white sand beach. It has a wraparound porch that looks out onto the water, and huge windows that face the ocean. Iris and Jimmy serve the best food on the island. Their seafood chowders are to die for—lobster, grouper, cobia, pink shrimp—no matter what’s available or in season, Jimmy whips up a creamy, delicious soup to go with his sweet Irish soda bread. Because the food is so good, and because most people want to mingle with their neighbors at least a few times a week, the Jingle Bell Bistro has a steady stream of customers most days, just like Mistletoe Morning Brew.

  Holly leaves Pucci in the shade on the porch, his head lowered onto his front paws. He pants to cool down, his big brown eyes following his mistress as she walks in the front door.

  Inside the bistro, Iris is busy rushing from table to table, her light, graying hair clipped up into a neat twist as she clears plates and takes orders. There are about ten people scattered around the small dining room, talking at tables for two, or reading newspapers and sipping coffee by the windows that look out at the sea. Jimmy is working in the kitchen, a yellow bandana knotted over his hair and a clean apron over his gray t-shirt, his stocky frame visible through the window where Iris drops off and picks up her orders. Their daughter Emily makes her way around the restaurant, pouring water into glasses and making conversation as people eat their lunches. Every so often, she gathers up the empty plates and soup bowls to carry back to the kitchen.

  “Hi, Em,” Holly says, giving her a tight hug. “How are you?”

  “Good,” she says. “Is Jake here?”

  “No, he’s not. But I just saw him on the way over.”

  “Did he ask about me?” Two metal barrettes pin Emily’s straight blonde hair back above her ears.

  “I told him I was coming over here, and he said to tell you hi,” Holly fibs easily, knowing how much a hello from Jake means to Emily.

  “Oh. Is Pucci here?”

  “He’s on the porch—you can go see him if you want.”

  Emily sets her pitcher of water on an empty table and goes outside to pet the dog, the bell over the door tinkling behind her. Emily was diagnosed with Down’s Syndrome at birth, when Iris and Jimmy were already in their mid-forties. By her eighth birthday, with their two older kids in college, they’d both quit their jobs at law firms in Dublin and moved to Christmas Key to raise their young daughter.

  Because she’s just two years younger than Holly, Emily had joined her in being tutored by the two retired schoolteachers on the island, and they’d gotten their high school diplomas without ever setting foot in a brick and mortar schoolhouse. It had been an ideal education, filled with real life science experiments in the island’s tide pools, reading classics like Robinson Crusoe beneath swaying palm trees on the beach, and learning the different ways to prepare and eat the island’s natural bounty of tropical fruits and plants.

  For much of Holly’s childhood and adolescence, Emily had been her closest friend. They celebrated their birthdays together, had sleepovers, and played endless games of mermaids or dolphins on all of the island’s beaches. When they got too old for mermaids, the girls shimmied up the trunks of the palm trees to watch the open seas for pirates, and cracked coconuts on the craggy rocks at Snowflake Banks to drink the sweet water and eat the coconut meat with their bare hands. Emily was the first person to congratulate Holly when she got engaged to Jake, though it was no secret to anyone that Emily would have preferred to be the one wearing an engagement ring from Officer Zavaroni.

  For his part, Jake loves having his own fan club, and he has a great time ferrying Emily around Christmas Key in his police golf cart, pointing out birds and wildlife and listening to her stories. The sweet things Jake does for other people always make Holly question her own stubborn need for independence.

  “Hey, stranger!” Iris says, wiping her hands on her apron as she breaks into Holly’s thoughts. “Lunch to go?”

  “If it’s not too much trouble. The usual for Bonnie, plus a root beer, and I’ll have a cup of chowder, a side of soda bread, and a sweet tea, please.”

  “We can do that,” Iris says. She steps behind the counter to ring it all up. “And I wanted to tell you that we thought your plan was really impressive, lass. The advertising, the budget you drew up, it all made sense to us.” The cash register dings with the total charge. “So don’t you pay any mind to the naysayers.”

  Holly hands over her credit card for Iris to swipe. “Thank you. I’m glad you guys are on board.”

  “We want this island to grow and prosper. If we were all independently wealthy then it might be nice to keep it a secret so that we could have it to ourselves, but we’re not. We need to plan long-term here, and we need to think about the younger people.”

  “Thank you for saying that, Iris. I know we’re a little underrepresented right now in terms of our numbers, but I’m just trying to be realistic. We need younger people around here to keep things moving forward.”

  “Agreed,” Iris says, pulling a pen from behind her ear and passing it to Holly.

  “I’m hoping to slowly attract some full-time and part-time residents—ideally some younger families with kids who appreciate living just a hair off the grid. It’s my worst nightmare to imagine Christmas Key as a ghost town someday,” Holly says.

  “And that’s why Jimmy and I fully support you boosting our visibility a lot and our population a little. It has to be done, lass.”

  “I’m glad you guys see it that way.”

  “We do. And whether we live here for thirty more years or drop dead tomorrow, we owe a lot of our happiness to this island. Jimmy and I’ll do whatever we can to make sure things move forward.” Iris slides the receipt across the counter for Holly to sign.

  “That means a lot.” Holly drags her pen across the signature line with a flourish. “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate how progressive you and Jimmy are when it comes to thinking about the future.”

  “Well, as you can imagine,” Iris raises her chin in the direction of the front window with its wide view of the porch and the beach beyond, “sometimes thinking about the future is all I do.” Outside on the porch, Emily is on her knees, petting Pucci and talking sweetly to him.

  The two women lock eyes, the front counter still between them. “Iris,” Holly says meaningfully, grabbing Iris’s warm hand in hers. “We’re all family here; we need each other. And Emily is the only sister I’ve ever had.” Iris gives Holly’s hand a squeeze, her eyes shining with unshed tears. Nothing more needs to be said.

  Holly walks back to the B&B slowly, juggling Pucci’s leash, the bags of lunch, and the drinks. Holly Lane is unpaved where it branches off of Main Street, the road really just a wide, sandy path. As she passes the chapel agai
n, Holly thinks about the conversation that she and Jake almost had there not twenty minutes earlier, and about what Iris said: with all the money in the world at her disposal, would she really want things to stay exactly the way they are? Maybe, maybe not. She loves Christmas Key wholeheartedly, but she’s equally in love with its potential. Even subtracting the need for it to financially sustain itself, the desire to mold it into her own vision of paradise remains.

  Holly’s loyalty to Christmas Key runs deep, and admitting that the island has faults—even ones that have nothing to do with the place itself—means acknowledging that something is lacking. At one point, when she’d grown tired of playing mermaids and dolphins but realized that Emily never would, Holly lamented the lack of friends and romantic prospects to the point that her grandparents actually considered sending her to a boarding school off the island. In the end, she’d chickened out at the thought of being away from them and from Christmas Key, but she’d been more than ready to leave for college—and more than ready to return to the island after graduation.

  Even now Holly sometimes fantasizes that she’ll walk into the coffee shop or the bistro, and that standing there will be a man she’s never seen. A handsome stranger who smiles at her crookedly through a rakish five o’clock shadow, holds the door for her, and says something incredibly witty. But most of the people who come to the island are honeymooners, families, or retired married couples, and their visitors are almost always friends-of-friends or relatives of the island’s residents. The few adventurous souls who set out to explore the Florida Straits and the uninhabited keys are usually interesting characters, but so far none of them have ever been single, attractive, available men in their thirties.

  Holly pauses for a moment before she rounds the bend, still holding everything in her hands as Pucci sniffs around. She takes another long look at the beach and the water, thinking about Jake while the dog does his business. Jake had come to the island fresh out of the police academy, and it hadn’t taken more than a week for them to realize that they were a pretty decent match—actually that they were the only possible match for one another on the island.