Wild Tropics: Christmas Key Book Two

by Stephanie Taylor

  Bonnie follows along on her paper. “Sounds good, sugar. I’ll hold down the fort around here while you try not to melt out there.”

  Holly is up and on her feet again, hair still held in place with a rubber band. It’s too hot to even think about letting it down, and she’s forgotten about it anyway. “Be back as soon as I get things sorted out for the Halloween party at the Ho Ho,” she promises. “But I may need to shower and change my costume before then, because this old bed sheet can only handle being wrapped around a sweaty body for so long.”

  Bonnie’s eyebrows shoot up. “Oh? Do tell.”

  “Scratch that,” Holly says immediately. She slides her sunglasses on as she heads out the door. “I’ll be back.”

  “All right. You let ‘er rip, tater chip.”

  Chapter 2

  “You changed,” Jake shouts at Holly, jogging to catch up with her on the sidewalk outside of Jack Frosty’s later that afternoon.

  Holly stops in front of the open-air bar, hands in the pockets of her white cutoffs. “So did you,” she says. “And I’m about to start wondering whether you’re pulling a Peeping Tom on me when I get dressed.” Holly nods at the Miami Dolphins jersey he’s wearing and tugs at the sides of her own shirt for emphasis; his jersey is identical to the one she put on after her shower that afternoon.

  “Hey, how was I supposed to know what you were going to wear? We’re fifty miles from civilization. It’s not like we can run over to Target and grab Darth Vader masks or cat ears for a night on the town.”

  “Good point.” Holly takes a few steps toward the bar.

  “You look like a real football player in that jersey,” Jake says from behind her. “And the pigtails and eye black are too cute to ignore.” He smiles at her hair and at the smear of grease she’s streaked under each eye.

  “Jake.” She stops at the entrance to Jack Frosty’s, a sigh in her voice. “The NBC crew is going to be here in less than an hour and I’ve got stuff to do. I’ll see you tonight at the Ho Ho, okay?”

  “Joe made a batch of pumpkin-flavored rum for tonight,” Jake says as Holly walks up the steps to Jack Frosty’s. “The first round is on me,” he calls. “And if you promise to get up on stage and sing ‘Genie in a Bottle’ like you did last Halloween, the second and third rounds are on me, too.”

  “Sorry. I only do my Christina Aguilera impression when Halloween falls on a Friday,” she shoots back. “I’ll see you tonight.”

  Holly raises a hand in the air and waves over her shoulder.

  “Someone’s got a shadow.” Leo Buckhunter says, wiping the counter of his bar with a damp rag. He’s been observing the whole interaction with an amused smile on his lips.

  “Come on, Buckhunter. It’s just Jake.” Holly leans against the jukebox, scanning the song list; she punches a button and Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Glory Days’ comes on.

  Buckhunter pulls out a glass from behind the bar and fills it halfway with iced tea, then tops it off with lemonade. He jabs a neon green straw into the clump of ice cubes at the bottom of the glass and slides it across the bar to Holly. “You two looked like you wanted to tackle each other.”

  “It’s just the football jerseys. Trust me.” Holly takes a long, grateful drink of the Arnold Palmer.

  “Awww, come on. Tell Uncle Buck what’s bugging you,” Buckhunter teases, rearranging the bottles on his shelf.

  “It’s bugging me that you promised not to make me call you Uncle Buck, and you’re now referring to yourself as Uncle Buck.”

  “Jeez, woman, give me a break. It’s my first time being an uncle. I’m still getting used to it.”

  In a bizarre twist of fate, Holly had discovered over the summer that Leo Buckhunter—her next-door neighbor and frequent antagonizer—was actually the illegitimate son of her late, beloved grandfather. It was a shock to Holly to find out that her grandparents had kept something so important from her, but the realization that she had family living on the island softened the blow. The real added bonus was the fact that Buckhunter shares ownership of Christmas Key with Holly and her mother; his vote alongside Holly’s is currently the only thing standing between them and some corporate resort moving in, taking over, and turning the island into a giant lazy river, with signature cocktails and fake tiki huts on the beach.

  “All right, I’ll cut you some slack. But we need to talk business for a sec. Are you fine with the Wild Tropics crew running tabs here at the bar while they’re on the island?”

  “Sure. If they try to stiff me, I’ll send a bill directly to NBC.”

  “Perfect.” Holly sucks down the rest of her Arnold Palmer through the straw until she’s slurping at the dregs in the bottom of the glass like an eight-year-old. “Thanks for the drink, Buckhunter. I’m going to head down to the dock and see if they’re getting close.”

  “Find some shade, kid, or that eye black is gonna melt and leave you looking like you got caught in the rain wearing a gallon of mascara. You’ll look like Tammy Faye Bakker.”

  “Solid advice. But I am curious how you know so much about mascara…” Holly stands and tightens her pigtails one at a time.

  “I know you see me as nothing but a grubby hermit with an attitude problem,” Buckhunter says, palms flat on the bar. “But there’s been a lady or two in my life who’ve been able to see through the surly layers and find the tender, loving man beneath. These angels taught me everything I know about the fascinating world of eye makeup.”

  Holly snorts. “Okay. That’s odd. Odd, but sweet. See you tonight?”

  “Wouldn’t miss it.”

  “Will you be wearing a Halloween costume?”

  Buckhunter pretends to ponder this. “I was thinking of dressing like Matthew McConaughey,” he says, looking into the distance and holding his chin theatrically.

  “Messy blonde hair, wiry body, smelly cigar habit…you already are him. That’s too easy.”

  “You didn’t ask me which Matthew McConaughey.”

  “Okay, which one? Not the Magic Mike McConaughey, I hope…”

  “Nah, I was thinking more of the Dazed and Confused Matthew McConaughey. You know, like: ‘I love those redheads!’” he says in a convincingly McConaughey-like drawl.

  “Right, ‘redheads’ because of Fiona—I see what you did there.” Holly points at him, narrowing her eyes and nodding. Dr. Fiona Potts is Buckhunter’s girlfriend, but she’s also the island’s only doctor, and Holly’s best friend. “Okay, I’m outta here. Catch you later.”

  Buckhunter chuckles to himself and sets Holly’s dirty glass in the sink as she hits Main Street, her pigtails bouncing as she strides down the sidewalk with purpose.

  Chapter 3

  Eight golf carts wait in a row near the dock, each loaded with scratched, heavy, black cases stamped with the “NBC” logo on all sides.

  “We’ve got a boom mic, a few cameras, some editing equipment, and lights,” Wayne Coates explains, ticking off each item on his fingers. “But of course we’ll have a lot more coming with the next load of crew members—we’re starting with a skeleton crew now just to get things off the ground.”

  Holly nods in response, eyes wide above her streaks of eye black. It had felt perfectly natural to celebrate Halloween on Christmas Key as she always did: fully costumed and ready for an evening of music and dancing with her neighbors, but now she can only imagine how the ponytails and cutoff shorts must make her look to this cosmopolitan television crew. She runs her sweaty hands down the front of her white denim shorts self-consciously.

  “Cute costume, by the way.” Wayne nods at her Dolphins jersey.

  “Oh, thanks.” Holly looks down at the turquoise and orange jersey. “We’re kind of holiday junkies around here.”

  “Hey, Holly. Good to see you again.” Leanna Poudry steps off the boat and extends a hand in Holly’s direction. Leanna had come with Wayne when they’d first flown in by helicopter to check out the island in August, and Holly had been impressed by her big city fashion and her commandin
g attitude.

  “Hi, Leanna. It’s good to see you, too.” Holly shakes Leanna’s hand, taking in her olive green linen overalls and black tank top. The pants are cropped at the ankles, and Leanna is wearing black wedge sandals. Her toes are done in a bright fuchsia polish.

  “So, we’ll stay in the B&B for now,” Leanna says, hoisting a leather duffel bag onto one shoulder. “But when more of us start to arrive, they’ll set up the crew’s camp and quite a few of our staff will stay over there.”

  “Okay,” Holly says, nodding again. It’s not that she doesn’t know how to make conversation, but the excitement around Wild Tropics has been building for so long that having the crew there feels almost surreal. “Sounds good. When do the contestants arrive again?”

  Wayne and Leanna exchange a look.

  “Here, let me take your bag,” Wayne says to Leanna, reaching for her leather duffel. “That looks heavy.” He busies himself with loading luggage and equipment onto the back of the nearest cart. Leanna puts her hands into the deep pockets of her overalls, assessing Holly carefully with a studied smile on her face.

  “We’ve got everyone arriving on November eleventh at this point, which gives us less than two weeks to get everything set up.” Leanna starts walking alongside the golf carts, and Holly follows along obediently—almost as though she’s forgotten that it’s her island, and that these people are the visitors, not her. “By the time the contestants get to Christmas Key, we need it to be camera-ready. The goal is for them to see nothing but what we want them to see.”

  “What do we want them—I mean, you—what exactly do you want them to see?”

  “Well, we want them to see wild tropics, of course,” Leanna says, wrinkling her nose like Holly’s just made an intentional joke. “We’ll have them delivered to the undeveloped side of the island where they’ll find a campsite that looks like it’s somewhere in the South Pacific.” Leanna uses her hands to point out imaginary details in the air as she talks. “Rustic tents, torch-lights, a fire pit, lots of greenery—it’s going to be perfect,” she says.

  “You’re going to build all of that on our beach?”

  “Of course we are,” Wayne Coates says, falling into step with them as they stroll alongside the golf carts. “We’re in the business of making magic, and we’ve got great stuff to work with here.” He holds his hands out expansively, indicating all of Main Street. “Really. This is a dream location.”

  “But if all you want is a remote island to pitch tents on, you could have gone almost anywhere—why Christmas Key?” Holly’s face flushes deeply the second the words are out of her mouth; she doesn’t want Wayne and Leanna to think she’s ungrateful for the chance to have her island featured on their reality show, but she has been wondering what made Christmas Key stand out above the other islands they’d considered.

  “True,” Wayne says, nodding as he folds his arms across his chest. “True. But the real surprise is when the last competitors standing find out they’ve been living on a Christmas-themed island all along. A place filled with middle-aged people in Hawaiian shirts, iced coffee and fresh scones, and a beautiful B&B with hot showers and comfy beds. It’s going to be great.”

  “And hopefully there’ll be some sort of romance brewing between the final contestants. It would make for great TV if their stay in the B&B was a little steamy. It might even lead to a spin-off show of some sort.” Leanna’s eyes glint calculatingly.

  “Wild Tropics, Wild Hearts,” Wayne proposes, spreading his hands across the sky like he’s imagining the words emblazoned across a huge billboard.

  “They started out eating rice on a tropical island to survive, and they ended up catching rice on their wedding day,” Leanna intones. It sounds like she’s doing a voiceover for a television show.

  “Oooh, I like that,” Wayne says, slapping her bare upper arm with the back of his hand. “Write that down.”

  Holly laughs, but from the serious look on his face, Wayne is clearly not kidding. Leanna pulls out her iPhone and opens a voice app, repeating their exchange word-for-word into the mouthpiece of the phone as they wait. She clicks off the recorder and drops the phone back into the pocket of her overalls.

  “I can’t wait to get to the B&B and unpack,” Leanna says, raising both arms in the air as she stretches her spine. “We haven’t slept much these past few days, and I think it’s catching up to me.”

  “Of course. Let me get you guys settled in and you can rest. If you’re up for it, we’ve got dinner in the dining room at seven, and then we’re all headed over to the Ho Ho Hideaway for a little Halloween gathering—costumes are optional, obviously,” she adds, “but taking a shot or two of Christmas Key’s special pumpkin rum is probably not optional.”

  “That sounds great,” Wayne says, pointing at Holly’s pink golf cart. “Isn’t this you?”

  “You remembered.” Holly smiles. She’d ferried the crew around on their initial visit in her hard-to-miss hibiscus pink golf cart, showing them the holiday decorations and all of the best spots on the island.

  “Let’s get checked in, and then we can sort out the luggage and stuff later. I’m eager to get a fix on our home base for the next couple of months.” Leanna slides into the cart next to Holly. With her green overalls and toned biceps, she looks like she’s about to go on a safari rather than take a ten mile per hour ride up a roughly-paved road.

  “You got it,” Holly says, pulling the cart onto Main Street.

  Within twenty minutes, she’s got the crew checked in and pointed toward their rooms. The lobby is filled with boxes, bags, and equipment from the golf carts. The mad rush of adrenaline to meet, greet, sort, and appease the newcomers has abated, and Holly is left standing behind the counter in her Dolphins jersey and smudges of eyeblack, staring out at Main Street.

  She exhales and tilts her head to one side, watching Cap Duncan struggle with a giant poster on the opposite side of the street. He’s standing on a three-step ladder outside of North Star Cigars, taping what looks like a piece of butcher paper to the outside of his window, but the unwieldy poster keeps slipping from his grasp as he tries to affix it to the building.

  Holly comes out from behind the front desk and walks over to her own large window to watch, arms folded. Her first instinct is to race across the street and offer him a hand, but something holds her back. Cap has a fat cigar clamped between his lips and he appears to be swearing and muttering as the tape grips the glass for a minute, then gives way on both sides of the sign. The paper flutters to the ground three or four times and Holly frowns, more concerned with whether or not he’ll get the sign hung than with what the paper actually says.

  It’s only when he finally steps down from the ladder and stands on the sidewalk to check out his work that Holly reads the carefully painted words spelled out in thick block letters:

  CAP DUNCAN FOR MAYOR—VOTE FOR THE MAN WHO HAS NO PLAN!

  Chapter 4

  “Did you hear? I can’t believe it…”

  “I know—the nerve of that man!”

  “It’s like he fell headfirst into a bottle of scotch and can’t figure out which way is up.”

  Holly elbows her way through the small crowd that’s already gathered at the Ho Ho Hideaway, a hesitant smile on her lips. The bar is decorated with strings of blinking orange twinkle lights that Joe has roped through the railing all around the dance floor, and electric jack o’lanterns leer at everyone from the tops of the bistro tables. Holly tries to meet the eye of each person she passes, but she can’t help but overhear snippets of their conversations, which are—without fail—all about Cap’s newly announced bid for mayor.

  “Isn’t it too late, sugar?” Bonnie asks, grabbing Holly’s elbow and yanking her over to Joe Sacamano’s bar. “Tomorrow is November first…”

  Holly reaches for the shot that Joe sets on the counter, downing it in one gulp before she answers. She grimaces, feeling the burn of alcohol in her chest. “This isn’t a presidential election, Bon. We aren’t l
imited to the first Tuesday in November.”

  “But you’ve been doing this for a couple of years now—”

  “And doing a fine job of it, I might add,” Joe Sacamano interrupts, patting the top of his bar as an apology for butting into the conversation.

  “Thanks, Joe,” Holly says. She turns back to Bonnie. “Yeah, I’ve been mayor for almost three years, and I had no idea Cap was this unhappy with anything I’ve done.”

  “Until recently,” Bonnie reminds her, wagging a red-tipped finger. She’s referring to Cap’s uncharacteristic turn as the village drunk over the past couple of months. His outburst at their August village council meeting had both embarrassed Holly and potentially jeopardized their chances with the Wild Tropics crew, as they’d been visiting the island and were present at the meeting when Cap had stumbled in, loud and blustery and opinionated as all get out.

  “Right—until recently.” Holly wipes at the sweat on her brow with the back of her wrist. “Listen, the crew is right behind me.” She grabs Bonnie’s hand and glances back over her shoulder to see if they’ve followed her into the bar. “I need to put this on the back burner for the time being and focus on the show.”

  “You’re right, sugar. We’ve got our hands full here.” Bonnie gives her a concerned look. “You go and glad-hand these guys, and I’ll field questions from the locals.”

  “Thanks, Bonnie. I mean it.” Holly squeezes Bonnie’s hand and scans the bar for their guests.

  “Oh—wait, sugar?” Bonnie calls to her as she’s walking away. “What exactly should I tell people when they ask?”

  Holly pauses for a second, thinking. “I guess we should tell them the truth: our island’s charter says that if an elected official runs uncontested, they can be challenged at any point by any person who wants to run for the position.”