The Edge of Paradise: Christmas Key Book Three

by Stephanie Taylor

  “Looks nice,” Jake says, pulling up to the curb in his golf cart. “But I think you missed a spot.”

  “Where?” Holly squints at the shutters flanking the front window.

  “I’m kidding.”

  Holly lunges at him jokingly with the paint-tipped brush in her hand, pretending to smear him with turquoise.

  “Ah, ah, ah—keep the paint on the house, Mayor.” Jake holds out a hand. “I think that qualifies as assaulting an officer with a deadly weapon.”

  “A paintbrush?”

  “Specifically one that could turn me into a Smurf.”

  Holly considers the paint on her brush. “Smurfs don’t have this much green—they’re more blue.”

  “You say potato, I say po-tah-toe.”

  Holly freezes; River had said the same thing to her once, standing in her kitchen as she’d rinsed the seashells they’d collected on a hot summer night. She thinks of him standing there, pouring their root beers into glasses while she’d run her hands under the cold water in her sink. She’s been so preoccupied lately that she hasn’t even thought about River, and all the sensations of that moment come rushing back on the heels of Jake’s words.

  “Yoo-hoo,” Jake says, waving a hand in front of her from behind the wheel of his golf cart. “You in there?”

  “Yeah,” Holly laughs. “Sorry, I’m here.”

  “So the new family arrives today, and Bonnie leaves on Saturday,” he says, trying to prompt her.

  “Right. And Bonnie wants us to stop by her place every week or so and air it out.”

  “That seems weird, being in her house when she’s not even on the island,” Jake admits.

  “I know.”

  “How’re you handling her leaving?” Jake rests his wrist on top of the steering wheel.

  “Not well,” she says, looking at the paintbrush again. “But que sera, sera, right?”

  “Sure.” He looks at the pink house behind Holly, making no move to leave.

  Holly isn’t sure she’s ready to ask, but the conversation she had with Bridget the day of the village council meeting has been gnawing at her incessantly.

  “How’s Bridget?” she asks.

  Jake frowns. “She’s been acting different. Last night I found her crying in the kitchen, and when I asked her why, she said it was because we didn’t have any sourdough bread.”

  Holly’s stomach turns. “Huh.”

  “And remember how you always used to hate that I kept my gun in the house?” he asks. “She was giving me grief about that, too. Said I needed to build a shed for it with a padlock or something because it freaked her out.”

  “Huh,” Holly says again. “PMS, maybe?” she offers hopefully.

  “I guess. And she’s a little put out about having new people move to the island, I think.”

  “Which is weird,” Holly says more emphatically than she means to. “Because she herself just moved here and changed the dynamics of the island.”

  Jake blinks a few times before speaking and then puts his cart in gear. “But you and I have had this conversation already—more than once,” he says, rolling slowly along next to the house. “So I don’t want to go there again. Plus you’ve got things to do.” He points at the house and slides his sunglasses back on before hitting the gas and driving away.

  But she doesn’t, not really. The house has been deep-cleaned, the light bulbs checked and changed, the lawn mowed, and the paint fixed. All it needs now is a family to move in and give it life again. Holly stands on the lawn, the paintbrush dangling at her side.

  She wants to run into the street and shout after Jake, “Ask Bridget how she really feels about the new family moving to Christmas Key! Ask her what she said to me—just ask her!”

  But she doesn’t. She doesn’t do it because grown women don’t act that way, and because she knows that with enough rope, Bridget will eventually hang herself.

  “We’re exhausted!” Calista says, dragging both boys and multiple suitcases through the door of their new house. “And this place looks amazing, Holly.”

  “Good, I’m glad you like it.” Holly stands in the front room, watching as the boys break free of their parents and race through the house like cats with their tails on fire.

  Vance Guy comes through the door last, arms laden with backpacks, duffel bags, and suitcases. “I think we’ve got enough clothes to stitch together and cover the state of Texas,” he says, dropping everything on the tile floors with a thud. “Which seems unnecessary, because we’re living in the tropics and we don’t need much besides flip-flops and shorts.”

  Calista runs a smooth hand over her forehead and pats the blonde-tinged hair that haloes around her head. She’s got silver rings and several silver bangles on both hands, and she’s wearing a pair of wide-legged jeans and a tank top.

  “I can’t believe we’re here,” she sighs. “Like, I really can’t believe we did this.” For a moment, her face registers the shock of someone who’s just made a major life decision and is realizing the enormity of it. “We’re raising our boys on a tropical island.”

  “That’s a fact, my love,” Vance says in his deep, soothing voice. “And it’s going to be great.”

  They exchange a glance that makes Holly think of the look new parents must give one another in the hospital as they gaze at their newborn baby for the first time. She suddenly feels like she’s intruding on a private moment.

  “Well, you should have everything you need to get through the first couple days. We put together some casseroles and dishes and left them in your fridge,” Holly says, pointing to the kitchen the way a flight attendant points at exit rows. “And we stocked your bathrooms with toilet paper and bar soap.”

  Calista’s hands fly to her face. There are tears in her eyes. “You did?” she says, moving toward Holly. She opens her arms and wraps them around Holly’s neck, hugging her tightly and swaying back and forth. “Thank you. Thank you so much,” she says into Holly’s hair.

  “You’re welcome.”

  “That’s very kind,” Vance says, reaching out one arm and wrapping Holly in a side-hug after his wife has finished thanking her. “We appreciate the hospitality, and we’re really looking forward to getting to know everyone.”

  Not everyone, Holly thinks. But hopefully she can shield this nice family from the ugliness that she saw on Bridget’s face that day at the pool. And hopefully Jake will see Bridget for who she really is before it’s too late—unless it already is too late.

  “Listen, you guys get settled,” Holly says, taking a step back as the twins race through the room and around her legs. “I’m only a phone call away if you need anything. My number is on that piece of paper on the kitchen counter, along with Jake’s number.”

  The Guys walk out onto their new front porch to see Holly off. Vance and Calista stand there with their arms wrapped around each other, watching as she goes. Vance is so much taller than Calista that her head barely comes to his armpit. Mexi and Mori bound out the front door after their parents, somersaulting across the lawn and shouting as they dance around. Holly climbs behind the wheel of her pink golf cart and flips on the power. She notices a streak of paint on her left thigh and another on her forearm as she waves at the Guys and pulls onto the sandy road.

  The sun is about to settle in for the night behind the trees, and the sky is streaked with fading trails of purple and mauve. Sunsets on Christmas Key slip by unnoticed sometimes, but tonight Holly takes it all in, letting nostalgia fill her as she remembers the way she used to watch the sunset on the beach with her grandpa. She hopes he’d be proud of the choices she’s making, and that he’d approve of the things she’s done. When Frank and Jeanie Baxter had moved to this undeveloped island nearly thirty years ago, they couldn’t have dreamed of having a doctor and a cop—or of having a beauty salon and a cigar shop—on Main Street. They certainly couldn’t have imagined a reality show filming there, or a bunch of pirates anchoring offshore for a weekend of drinking and partying with the
locals. She’s pretty sure they’d be impressed.

  Okay, Holly thinks, pulling her mind back to the present. The new family has arrived and gotten settled, and tomorrow is Friday. Bonnie leaves on Saturday, and…but her mental check-list stops there, because as she turns right from White Christmas Way onto December Drive in the early evening twilight, she drives directly into another giant hole.

  Chapter 16

  Fiona cuts through the water early the next morning like the hull of a ship splitting the waves. Her strokes are long and graceful, and her red one-piece catches Holly’s eye every time she does a flip-turn in the B&B’s pool and starts another lap.

  Holly is on the second floor of the inn, delivering a stack of clean towels to the empty rooms, and the sight of her best friend in the pool lures her away from her work. She sets the linens on a cart and takes the stairs, cutting through the lobby and out the back door.

  “Hey!” Holly says, hoping Fiona will hear her as she comes up for air. “Fee!” With a final stroke, Fiona reaches the wall and pulls her upper body out of the water, leaning on her forearms and looking up at Holly.

  “Hey yourself,” Fiona says, trying to catch her breath. She slides her goggles off and tosses them onto the pool deck before hoisting herself up and out of the water. “What are you doing here this early?”

  “I woke up and wanted to start tackling my to-do list.” The pool area is still dim and slightly cool before the sun rises enough to warm it. “When are you swimming to Cuba?”

  “Not for two more months—the fundraiser is in April.” Fiona picks up her towel from the pool chair and wipes off her face. She tips an ear toward the ground and shakes her head.

  “Well, you look good.”

  “I’m a long way from ready, but fortunately it’s a relay, so I can take breaks and one of my teammates will take over for a while.” The ripples and waves from Fiona’s previous strokes spread out like rings in a pond, eventually settling into near-stillness.

  “I’ve been dying to talk to you,” Holly says, sitting on a pool chair. “But yesterday at Bonnie’s lunch didn’t seem like a good time.”

  Fiona wraps the large towel around her body and tucks one corner of it in under her armpit; she sits on the chair across from Holly’s.

  “I was out here the day of the village council meeting, and Bridget showed up.”

  “Here? She came to the B&B?”

  “Yeah. She walked right up to the gate.” Holly points at the street entrance to the pool deck. “She asked if we could talk.”

  “Okay.”

  Holly scratches at a bug bite on the front of her calf. “I’ve kept it to myself for the past week or so because I wanted to process the conversation and make sure I wasn’t twisting things around in my head.”

  “What’d she say, Hol? You’re obviously freaked out by this.” Fiona squints at her, tilting her head as she listens with concern.

  Holly takes a deep breath. “Has she come to see you? As a doctor, I mean.”

  Fiona pulls her lips in and holds them there for a beat. “Well.” Her pause speaks volumes. “You know I can’t talk about my patients with you—or anyone. I mean, we can joke in broad terms about silly stuff like hemorrhoid cream and Viagra, but I can’t name names. Or give details.”

  “Of course. It’s just…” Holly trails off. She’s back at square one, trying to swoop in behind the scenes and save Jake from potential disaster. It’s the same thing she’d done with the reality show crew in town as they’d tried to manufacture an on-screen romance between him and Bridget (clearly she’d been unsuccessful with that venture), and now here she is, trying to mentally will a potential human out of existence so that he isn’t saddled with a small-minded woman for the next eighteen years—or longer.

  “What’s going on? Just because I can’t give you details doesn’t mean that you can’t tell me everything. You’re my best friend, Hol,” Fiona says. “If something’s bugging you, I want to know.”

  The knot in Holly’s stomach unwinds a little. Fiona’s nearly ten years older than she is, and the fine lines around her eyes are off-set by the smattering of freckles on her lightly-tanned skin. Her long, strawberry-blonde hair is pulled into a wet braid, and without make-up, her blue eyes stand out like two chips of blue quartz.

  “She hinted that she might be pregnant,” Holly blurts out. “And she flat-out told me that she’s a racist.”

  “Whoa.” The softness in Fiona’s eyes disappears. “Are you serious?”

  “Yep. She said she was concerned about having people on the island who weren’t white.”

  “Whoa,” Fiona says again. “Damn.”

  “I know.”

  The women sit in silence for a minute, listening to the hum of the pool filter and the sound of carts driving down Main Street towards Mistletoe Morning Brew.

  “I understand that you can’t tell me whether she came to you for a pregnancy test—I get that. But I can’t sit by and let Jake tether himself permanently to a woman like this.”

  “And you’re sure he doesn’t know?”

  “No, I have no idea what he knows. Lately we either get along—almost to the point that it feels flirtatious—or we argue. We had it out over Bridget in front of Hal Pillory’s a couple weeks ago, and I always feel like he’s just waiting for me to say something bad about her.”

  “Then this news won’t be well-received,” Fiona says, shaking her head sympathetically. “He’ll probably accuse you of having it in for her.”

  “Exactly.” Holly stands up. “And I have another hole to fill over on December Drive—”

  “Wait, aren’t the pirates gone?”

  “They’re gone, but the holes keep showing up. Not as frequently, but I drove right into this one last night and I know it wasn’t there before.”

  “Let me get dressed and I’ll come with you,” Fiona offers.

  “No, it’s Friday. I’m sure you have work to do, and you need to shower after being in the pool. I’ve got this.”

  “You sure?”

  Holly nods at her friend, giving her a grateful smile. “I’m sure. I’ll catch up with you later.”

  The hole takes twenty minutes to fill with sand and dirt. On the drive back to the B&B, Holly turns onto Cinnamon Lane and sees a small sign with a skull and crossbones that she’s forgotten to take down. She’d hung the hand-painted signs on each street marker, and as she stops to remove it, she admires her own handiwork and the creativity that went into decorating the island. It isn’t just the money that tourists bring—it’s the planning and preparing for events and guests that really charges her.

  Planning stuff. Organizing. Solving problems. Keeping her hands busy. Holly thinks about all these things as she slows to a stop at the end of her own driveway. Pucci is out on the porch, head resting on his front paws next to his silver water bowl.

  “Here, boy!” she calls, giving a whistle. Pucci’s head lifts and his ears perk. “C’mon!” Without hesitation, he’s up and bounding across the yard to greet her.

  It’s Holly’s last day at the office with Bonnie, and she knows that having Pucci there for moral support will be comforting, and that having him there to take on short walks will give her an excuse to leave if she starts to get choked up.

  Holly pats the seat next to her and Pucci jumps onto it, settling quickly into his position as co-pilot. “All right, buddy. Let’s go to work.”

  Midday, Bonnie steps out to order a last working lunch from the Jingle Bell Bistro. Holly sits behind her computer, a pencil jabbed through the twist of hair she’s piled on top of her head. She’s managed to keep things professional and to hold the tears at bay all morning while she and Bonnie work peacefully. Jimmy Buffet is playing through the bluetooth speaker that Holly’s placed on the windowsill. She reaches down to pet Pucci, who’s curled up next to her feet.

  Her phone vibrates on the table next to her elbow. I’ve been wanting to say hi and to check in on you. Hope you’re doing well.

  H
olly’s heart stops. River. She reads the message three more times. When she doesn’t touch her phone, the screen fades to black again. She and River haven’t spoken in more than a month, and hearing from him now stirs up all kinds of feelings. Rather than grabbing the phone and responding, Holly gets up and slips her feet into her discarded flip-flops.

  “Let’s walk down to the dock and back,” she says to Pucci. He hears the word “walk” and is up and on all fours before Holly has her sunglasses on.

  Outside on Main Street, Vance Guy is strolling down the sidewalk a few steps behind Mexi and Mori.

  “Hey, men!” Holly says to the twins, ambling over to them with her hands in the pockets of her cargo pants. “What’s up?”

  “Mek-thee lotht a tooth,” Mori says in his adorable lisp, pointing at the gaping hole in his twin brother’s mouth.

  “The tooth fairy came,” Mexi adds, falling to his knees and petting Pucci’s face.

  “That’s pretty cool.” Holly leans forward to admire the missing tooth. “What are you guys doing today?”

  “We’re out for a walk while Mom works,” Vance says, “and I’m looking at this space right here.” He points at the narrow storefront next to Mistletoe Morning Brew. There hasn’t been anything in the space for years, though at one time an ambitious islander had hoped to turn it into a souvenir shop. Tourism hadn’t been plentiful enough at the time and the shop had come and gone quickly.

  “I’ve got an idea if this place isn’t being used, and I’d like to run it by you, Mayor.”

  “Shoot,” Holly says, watching from the corner of her eye as Mexi and Mori lead Pucci down the sidewalk to the dock. Vance seems unconcerned that the boys are heading for the water, so she turns her attention back to him.

  “I’d like to open a book shop.” Vance puts one of his large hands on the dirty window, cupping it so that he can see into the empty building. “It’s long and narrow, but I think I can fill it with shelves and put some tables and chairs out front here like they’ve got next door at the coffee shop. I might even be able to clear another area out behind the store and do a reading garden or a back deck on the other side of the building.”