Wild Tropics: Christmas Key Book Two

by Stephanie Taylor

  “It was slightly more crazy than usual.” She fills Fiona in on all the details about Jake and Bridget, and about Leanna’s request for information that might help Bridget get closer to Jake. She explains why she broke into Jake’s house, and tells her about Leanna’s “deal” to smooth things over with the network after the less-than-delectable Thanksgiving dinner as long as Holly gives her the info she wants.

  Fiona swirls the wine around in her glass. “That sounds like blackmail, Hol. And not even good blackmail.” Her upper lip curls in disgust. “She really asked you to do a B&E and betray your ex just because you decided not to slaughter some turkeys? That seems extreme.”

  “I know. It was dumb—I see that now. I mean, what’s the worst they could have done to me? They’re already here and filming, so it’s not like they’d pull the show over a lackluster Thanksgiving dinner. I panicked. What should I do now?”

  “You should watch out for her. And don’t let her hornswoggle you into doing anything else you don’t feel good about, because if there’s one thing I know about this island after being here for a couple of years, it’s that we take care of our own. And even if he’s not yours, Jake is still ours.”

  Holly nods grimly. She knows Fiona has hit the nail on the head.

  “Now let’s get in line with everyone else and fill our plates with bark chips and gravy, then when all of these people have gone home, we can make bacon and eggs in the kitchen like we did on Halloween, and I can tell you how great things are between me and Buckhunter.”

  Holly throws an arm around Fiona’s shoulders and makes a face like she can’t bear to hear anything too gooey and romantic about her own uncle.

  “Oh, come on, you big lug,” Fiona teases, looking up at her tall friend. “If we hurry, maybe we can score a table all the way across the room from your mom.”

  “Dr. Potts, you’re my hero,” she says in the adoring voice of a lovestruck teenager.

  Fiona wrinkles her nose as they fall into the line for the buffet that snakes through the dining room. “Did you seriously tell her that Jake goes to a psychic and listens to the Carpenters? Because he would die if he thought anyone had him pegged as a mystic with a collection of cheesy 70s vinyl.”

  “Hey,” Holly says, holding up her wineglass in a little toast to her own creativity. “A girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do. On this island, we look out for our own.”

  Chapter 17

  Rather than trying to have a conversation at Mistletoe Morning Brew on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, Holly picks Coco up at the B&B and drives her back to the family property. She’s invited Buckhunter to join in on the meeting, and they’ve privately kicked around their potential responses to what will surely be a contentious discussion with Coco about selling the island.

  “I don’t know how you can stand that second house being so close to the main one,” Coco says as they pull into Holly’s sandy driveway. The tall palm trees lining the road sway overhead, and the morning is mild and cool.

  “It’s not bad.” Holly skids to a stop in front of her bungalow. “Ready?”

  Coco swings her knees daintily to the right so she can set both feet on the ground at the same time like the queen stepping from a horse-drawn carriage. She’s not as dolled-up as she gets for dinners at the B&B, but she’s certainly not dressed for roaming the unpaved streets of a desolate island in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico.

  “Nice ensemble, Mom,” Holly says, eyeing her mother as they walk up the front steps to her house. Coco is dressed in a pair of culottes with a bold orchid print, an off-the-shoulder wrap top in a purple that matches the flowers on her pants, and a pair of cream-colored wedge sandals. She’s carrying a small purse over one arm, and her nails and toes are painted a glossy fuchsia. After becoming a teen mom, Coco’s Act II had been a stint as a traveling cocktail waitress who visited her young daughter on Christmas Key only when her own parents demanded it. Her third act has been a long-running gig as a well-heeled corporate wife. Coco has taken on this latest incarnation with verve, and her plumped, waxed, smoothed, toned, tanned, and entitled exterior never cease to both amaze and intimidate Holly.

  Inside the house, Coco sets her purse on the table next to the front door and immediately begins examining every room without invitation.

  “I never asked what color you were painting this room,” she calls out from the hallway, flipping on the light to the guest room.

  Holly kicks her sandals off in the kitchen and walks through the house to find her mother. “Either coral or lime green,” she says, standing behind Coco in the doorway. At this point, with Buckhunter's work to take everything apart and to line all the windows with painter’s tape, Holly figures she might as well put down a drop cloth and open a gallon of paint. In fact, she’s already imagining the room in a bright, tropical hue before she remembers that the remodeling is all a ruse to keep Coco at the B&B and away from camping out at her house.

  “Too cliché,” Coco decides, resting one narrow shoulder against the doorframe. “How about a light, toasty brown—like sand?” She walks into the room, her wedge heels clicking against the wood floors. “And you could do a really crisp, white duvet and pillows, with green accents throughout the room. It would remind your guests of palm fronds and sandy beaches. You could even bring in a couple of small potted palms to add some foliage. I can see a framed print over here,” she walks over to a wall, spreading both hands out to show how big the artwork should be, “and maybe a headboard made of driftwood.”

  Holly nods, breathing in deeply through her nose as she silently counts to ten.

  “This is fun!” Coco says, clapping her hands together. “You could let me pick everything out. In fact, that’s what I’ll do. When I get back to New Jersey, I’ll talk to my decorator and get a few drawings and samples to FedEx to you—”

  “Hello? Anyone home?” Buckhunter’s voice rings through the house. “Holly?”

  “Coming!” Holly says loudly, walking down the hall toward the kitchen. She’s thrilled to have Buckhunter interrupt the onset of Hurricane Coco. Dealing with her mother’s ideas about redecorating her house on top of whatever discussion they’re about to have is already wearing her down.

  “Mom, Buckhunter brought breakfast,” Holly shouts down the hallway, taking the waxy bag from his hands. Buckhunter sets a cardboard drink carrier that holds three hot cups of coffee on the counter.

  “Good morning, Leo,” Coco says without much enthusiasm. She’s picked up her purse in the front room and is holding it over the crook of her arm again as though she doesn’t trust its safety now that there’s a third person in the house.

  “Hey, Coco. Hope you like bagels and cream cheese,” Buckhunter says, offering her a steaming cup of coffee with a lid. “And I got you a latte.”

  “Thank you.” Coco takes the coffee from him and watches as Holly puts the half-dozen bagels on a small platter. There are two wheat bagels, a jalapeño, a blueberry, one onion, and a garlic and sesame seed. Holly takes the plastic lid off the tub of full-fat cream cheese and sets the container on the platter. She hands it all to Buckhunter and nods at the lanai.

  “I’ll meet you out there,” Holly says to Coco and Buckhunter. She grabs a cutting knife for the bagels, three butter knives, three small plates, napkins, and placemats. She looks around for Pucci and finds him hiding under the little table in the hallway, his body so big that his paws hang out from one end, his tail from the other. “I don’t blame you, buddy,” she coos. “She won’t be here long, I promise.”

  Out on the lanai, Coco is brushing at the seat of her patio chair, still holding her purse in one hand. “I see dog hairs on this,” she says, fluffing the throw pillow and turning her head away as if the offending stray hairs will fill the air around her like a dust storm. “You know I’m allergic.”

  “Yes, I’ve heard.” Holly sets the placemats and napkins on the table and lays the knives and plates out. “Pucci is in the back of the house—he won’t come out here and
bother you.”

  Coco sniffs and perches on the edge of the chair, her purse settled near her feet. “This is an interesting wall you’ve got going here,” she says, holding her coffee with both hands and staring at Holly’s half-finished shell wall. “Maybe my decorator can think of a creative way to…fix this. I’ll ask him.”

  “I don’t need it fixed, Mom. I need to finish it.”

  “Huh,” Coco says, eyebrow arched. She sips her coffee. “So, let’s talk about the matter at hand.”

  “I vote for the jalapeño,” Buckhunter says.

  “Pardon me?” Coco sets her cup on the edge of her placemat.

  “Breakfast is the matter at hand for me. I thought we were voting on who got which bagel,” he jokes, reaching for the platter to offer first choice to his half-sister.

  “No,” Coco says, holding up a palm. “Too many carbs. But thank you.”

  Buckhunter holds the dish out to Holly and she chooses the garlic and sesame seed.

  “Fine, now breakfast is settled. What do you want to talk about?” Buckhunter slices his bagel and reaches for the tub of cream cheese.

  “It’s been several months since I broached the topic of selling the island with Holly, and I understand that we’ve all seen legal documentation as to the division of assets here,” Coco says stiffly, avoiding eye contact with her father’s illegitimate son. A frost settles over her attractive features that makes her look like she’s carved of ice.

  “Yeah, we all share things equally—got it.” Holly takes a bite of her bagel and the thick cream cheese sticks to the roof of her mouth as she chews.

  “Well, not entirely equally,” Coco says pointedly. The ice behind her almond-shaped eyes immediately melts in a puddle of hot anger. The color rises on both of her cheeks. “For some reason, your grandfather thought that dividing the island up three ways and giving you one percent more ownership than he gave to his two children—” Coco pauses here, swallowing hard like she has to physically digest the idea that Buckhunter is also her father’s child. “He thought this uneven split made sense. Honestly, I think all it does is make a point: he preferred you, and he always did.”

  “Mom, come on,” Holly coaxes. This isn’t the time to analyze or hypothesize about what Frank Baxter’s intention might have been. It is what it is, and in Holly’s mind, the only message her grandfather was trying to impart with the uneven split was that he’d groomed Holly to take over where he’d left off. And he had groomed her for the job. He’d even left her his thoughts, plans, and dreams for the island in the form of a typed prospectus.

  “No. You come on, Holly.” Coco slams a palm against the glass table top. The three cups of coffee jump, and the cutting knife falls from the edge of the bagel platter, clattering loudly against the glass. “We have an opportunity here to make serious money with the sale of this albatross, and you’re fooling around here with, with—” she splutters.

  “With what, Mom?” Holly’s tone remains the same in spite of her mother’s visible anger. She places her elbows on the table as she searches Coco’s face.

  “With ridiculous elections and buffet dinners like you’re running a retirement home.” Coco sits back in her chair, manicured hands folded in her lap. “With reality shows about Lord only knows what,” she says meanly. “With donkeys and turkeys and no police officer protecting the streets.”

  “We have Jake,” Holly protests.

  “Jake is busy building a hut out of coconut shells,” Coco says. “Or trying to win an extra cup of rice for building a sand castle on the beach.”

  “But, Mom—we don’t really need a full-time cop here. We’ve never been invaded by pirates or alligators, and crime is nonexistent on Christmas Key.” Holly sits back in her seat, trying to keep her face impassive. Coco is way closer to the truth on this one than she wants to admit.

  “Now that you mention it, there are some snakes and smaller lizards we could use protection from,” Buckhunter says, cutting a second bagel for himself. “But we can probably run them off the island ourselves.” He smiles directly at Coco and reaches across the table for the cream cheese.

  “Look, there are going to be serious long-term ramifications if we keep this island on the books, and the two of you obviously don’t see that. When this population of pensioners starts dying off and leaving you with rotting bungalows and no money to fund operations, you’re going to wish you’d listened to me.”

  “Is that really how you see the people who helped to raise your only child?” Holly asks in a near whisper. “As ‘pensioners’ who’ve got one foot in their graves? These are the men and women who taught me about life, Mom. They’re the people who still talk me through things, who roll up their sleeves and make sacrifices so that we can live in paradise. They’re family to me.”

  “Well,” Coco says, sounding unapologetic. “They’re family who aren’t going to live forever.”

  “Coco,” Buckhunter says. “I understand why you want to sell Christmas Key—I really do. But your daughter has a real passion for this place. This is her home.”

  “You don’t understand anything, Leo. You’re an interloper here, no matter what my father’s will says.”

  “Okay, you’re entitled to that opinion,” he says. “But Holly works night and day to create something that would make our dad proud.” Coco rolls her eyes dramatically at the use of the term “our dad” to describe Frank Baxter. “She’s got big plans, and a ton of support here. This nonsense with Cap Duncan will blow over, if that’s what’s got you concerned. The man started drinking last summer and he hasn’t stopped since. Everybody knows it.”

  “He speaks for others on the island, I’m sure,” Coco says, looking directly at her daughter. “It must feel ridiculous for some of them to think that their fate is in the hands of a girl who lives her life like Huckleberry Finn.”

  “That’s enough.” Buckhunter stands up. “We’re not gonna come to an agreement, so we might as well end this before it gets ugly.”

  “Are you kicking me out of my own parents’ house?” Coco demands incredulously. She doesn’t move.

  “He’s not, but I am,” Holly says, rising from her chair so that she and her uncle are both looking down at her mother. “I think we’re out-voting you again, Coco.”

  Coco shakes her head, looking back and forth between the two of them. “This is ridiculous. All of this.” She tosses her napkin on the placemat and stands, lifting her purse from the ground as she does. The three of them stare at one another like chiefs from different tribes. “I guess the next time you’ll hear from me is when my lawyer contacts you with a dollar amount.”

  “A dollar amount for what?” Holly asks.

  Coco glares at them both. “For you to buy out my stake in the island.”

  She reaches the door that leads back into the house before she turns around, her hand resting tentatively on the doorknob. Her dramatic exit has hit a snag. “Leo, will you please drive me back to the B&B?” she asks, obviously remembering that she has no way to get back across the island on her teetering wedge heels. “I’m sure my own daughter couldn’t be bothered to drive me over there—it kills her to do me any favors.”

  Holly sinks back into her chair as Buckhunter follows Coco through the house. The front door slams behind them. She can hear his cart rolling down the driveway, and finally, the silence of the morning surrounds her. There is no doubt in her mind that Coco means what she says: there will be contact from a lawyer, and an astronomical dollar figure will get bandied around like a tennis ball. It also goes without saying that she and Buckhunter won’t have the resources to buy Coco out, but it will still cost them some money in legal fees.

  As if the air in the house has changed with Coco’s exit, Pucci pokes his nose through the door leading from the lanai into the house. He glances around, then ambles out, his big, golden retriever body swaying from side-to-side.

  “Come here, boy,” Holly says, dangling a hand over the arm of her chair. Pucci walks to her and s
its; his head fits neatly under her hand and she pets him. “How did you know I needed cheering up?” She runs one of his silky ears through her hand.

  Holly looks at the half-finished shell wall, admiring the varied shapes and sizes of the shells she’s collected over the years. The wall represents all of her pent-up energy, sleepless nights, and dedication to creating something with her own bare hands. By insulting the wall, Coco was really insulting the effort and energy that Holly’s put into Christmas Key, and she feels strongly that somehow, Coco had known that. It’s always been her mother’s nature to criticize first and worry about the fallout later.

  “Let’s go for a drive, Pooch.” Holly stands up and gathers the food from the table so she can take into the kitchen. “Get your tennis ball, dude,” she orders, pointing at the basket in the living room where she stores dog toys. “Let’s hit the beach.”

  Holly slips her sandals on and picks up her Yankees hat and cell phone from the kitchen counter. Pucci leads the way to the golf cart, jumping up into the passenger seat next to her with his tennis ball clenched in his jaw. He drops it onto the patterned fabric of the seat and lets it roll over and rest against Holly’s thigh.

  She gets to the end of the driveway and is ready to turn left onto Cinnamon Lane and head for Pinecone Path when her phone rings. It’s Wayne Coates.

  “Holly, can we talk? I’m at the B&B.” Wayne’s voice is crisp, his words to-the-point. “It’s about Jake.”

  “Sure. I can be there in five minutes.” Holly places her hand on Pucci’s warm head as she ends the call and wedges the phone between her thighs. “Change of plans, pup, but you can come along for the ride.” She cranks the wheel to the right and points her cart in the opposite direction onto Cinnamon Lane. “Duty calls.”

  “You want him to what?” Holly frowns at Wayne Coates across her desk in the back office of the B&B. “I don’t think he’ll do that.”

  “Why not? He’s single, she’s single…and frankly, we wield a lot of power over someone when we withhold food and sleep,” Wayne says, legs crossed as he sits comfortably in Bonnie’s wicker desk chair. He picks at the knee of his cargo pants, smoothing one clean hand over the fabric.