Wild Tropics: Christmas Key Book Two

by Stephanie Taylor

  “Hey, stranger,” Leanna says cheerfully, leading Holly over to the director’s chairs in a dark corner of the tent. On a stool in front of the chairs sits an oversized laptop. Leanna hands Holly a pair of headphones to put over her ears. “Have a seat. I’m just watching the dailies from the last competition. You might like this.” She slips her own set of headphones on and punches a series of buttons on the laptop’s keyboard. “Right here,” she says, sinking back in her director’s chair and folding her arms.

  Holly sits down, feeling uneasy. She folds her arms across her navy blue and white striped boat shirt. On the screen, Jake comes into view at a distance on the sand, his hands full of items that she can’t quite decipher.

  “It’s our Christmas competition,” Leanna says as an aside, not looking away from the screen. “The contestants are supposed to find a way to make gifts for one another from the things they find on the beach.”

  The cameras cut to Bridget kneeling inside her tent, a handful of items spread across the cot. There’s a large piece of blue glass from the ocean, a collection of shells, and some small bits of wood. Bridget’s tan is deep, and her skin shines in the light trickling through the tent flap. Her blonde hair is wavy with salt and sea air, soft tendrils curling at her temples. Holly can’t tear her eyes away from the woman’s natural beauty.

  The third contestant is Violetta DuBois. The camera captures her sitting cross-legged at the edge of the trees, the tall palms rustling overhead as she weaves long, tough spikes of fallen palm fronds together into what looks like the start of a placemat. The only sound accompanying Violetta is the rush of the ocean air through a microphone, and the crash of the waves behind the cameraman.

  “We’ll add sound later,” Leanna says too loudly. “But check this out.” She points at the screen. Holly is already watching intently.

  Jake has spread his finds across a huge driftwood log, and he’s examining the shells, frayed rope, and husks of crownshaft that have died and peeled away from the trunks of the island’s palm trees. He holds up a tide-worn shell, looking at the giant hole in the center. It’s a small shell, its edges smooth and delicate, and he sets it aside. The rope has clearly been exposed to the elements, but Jake spreads it flat on the sand, kneeling before it as he tests its strings for breakage. Holly watches his strong muscles as he works—shirtless and tanned—entirely focused on his mission.

  The cameras cut back to Bridget. She’s holding a tube of glue in her hand, affixing shells to the four small branches of wood that she’s laid out on her cot in the shape of a square, the ends touching to make a frame.

  “How come she gets to use glue?” Holly asks, sitting forward in her chair.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Leanna says, waving a hand to quiet her. But it matters to Holly; she didn’t like watching the behind-the-scenes manipulations of resources during her first visit to the set, and she doesn’t like it now. The cameras return to Violetta and her ever-growing blanket of woven palms. She stands, her supple, yoga-toned legs barely covered by a pair of battered khaki shorts that stop at the very tops of her thighs. Her tattooed biceps stretch as she spreads the blanket on the sand and stands back to admire its size and shape.

  Holly sighs and shifts around in her chair. Watching the rough, unedited dailies is markedly less interesting for an untrained observer, and she decides that she definitely prefers the edited version of reality television. She’s about to take off the headphones and hand them back to Leanna when the scene changes abruptly to show Bridget and Jake after dark. They’re walking away from the roaring fire in the pit, hand-in-hand as they stroll to the water’s edge. Just when it seems they’ll be out of earshot, their microphones pick up the sound.

  “Have you thought about what happens after it’s all over?” Bridget asks. Her voice is smooth, her enunciation clear. Holly wants to roll her eyes at how obvious it is that Bridget is a trained actress, though Fiona still hasn’t been able to dig up anything to support that notion.

  “After the show is over?” Jake asks. His innocence is like a stake in Holly’s heart, and she wants to reach through the screen to put her hand on his shoulder.

  “Yeah, after all of this,” Bridget says, their silhouettes cut out in the darkness as they sit down on the sand, shoulders touching.

  “I’m not sure,” Jake admits after a pause. “Before all of this started, I was already in a weird spot.”

  “Why?” she prods.

  “I don’t know—just in between things. I love my job, but I could use a change of scenery. I have friends, but no family where I live. I ended a relationship this year…I’m just in flux. How about you?”

  “I’m always game for whatever comes my way,” Bridget says suggestively, tossing her hair in the darkness. The light from the fire catches the sparks of her blonde hair as it lifts in the slight breeze.

  “I can tell,” Jake says, giving her a playful bump with his shoulder. Holly resists the urge to throw up in her own mouth. How can this feel even remotely okay to Leanna and Wayne? How can they prey on human emotions for amusement?

  “Maybe there’s something for us, you know, after this ends.” Bridget turns her head to him, her small nose in profile as she faces him. Her lips are mere inches from the side of Jake’s head, and even from a distance in the darkness, it’s obvious she’s waiting for him to turn his head and kiss her.

  “I won’t lie and say it hadn’t occurred to me,” Jake says, his voice raspy and vulnerable.

  “Do you think about me in your tent at night? Because I think about you when I’m there in the dark, alone on my cot. I wonder if you’re awake, what you’d say if I crawled into your tent while everyone else is asleep…”

  Jake gives a hard, surprised laugh. His profile comes into view and their noses nearly touch. Holly knows what comes next, and she’s about to look away from the screen when a loud voice interrupts their viewing.

  “You ready for the presentations?” Wayne says, peering around the door to the tent. He raises a hand in greeting to Holly. “You here to watch this part as well?” His eyes cut to Leanna and silent words pass between them.

  “Actually, I think it would be better for Holly if she watched the feed from here,” Leanna says slowly, slipping her headphones off her head and holding them in both hands. “I can cue it up so she gets the unbroken feed from camera two.”

  Wayne nods, digesting the idea. “You’re right. That’s a better choice.” He pats the canvas of the tent flap with one hand. “So Leanna will get you set up in here, and we’re about to roll tape on the gift giving.”

  “So this was yesterday?” Holly asks, pointing at the laptop that’s gone to black. “They were making these gifts yesterday, and now they’re exchanging them today?”

  “It all happened over the past two days, but on the show it’ll end up looking like it happened in one day—that’ll add an element of competitiveness to the whole thing. You know, having a time limit on how long they have to come up with gifts for each other makes it more interesting.”

  “Right,” Holly says. “Yet another element of magic and trickery.”

  Wayne cocks his head, a funny look spreading across his face. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

  There’s an awkward silence between the three of them that leaves Holly feeling like she’s made a major faux pas. Then—without warning—Wayne and Leanna start laughing. Holly joins in tentatively, even though she’s not sure what’s so funny.

  “Anyhow,” Leanna says, resting her headphones on the seat of her empty director’s chair. “I’m going to go and get this scene started with Wayne. We’ll loop you in on the laptop here in a few, and then you can watch.”

  Holly nods, pulling her headphones apart with her hands and setting them on her head again. She’s alone in front of the blank laptop screen for about fifteen minutes, during which time she contemplates getting up and leaving no fewer than eight different times. Instead, she types River an apology text for leaving him on his own yet agai
n, and as she sends it, the laptop screen before her flickers to life. The cameras are rolling on a scene that she didn’t see when she walked up: a small tree is wrapped in lights and decorations, shiny glass bulbs dangling from its branches. The three contestants are being positioned around it by Leanna, and Wayne is standing off to the side, giving orders.

  Holly’s phone buzzes in her lap and she glances down: I’m having lunch at the Jingle Bell Bistro. Fiona gave me a ride. Meet me here? She makes a face. How can it be lunchtime already?

  Let me finish up on the set…be there ASAP! Holly sends the text, and when she looks back at the screen, Bridget is presenting Jake with the picture frame she’s made of driftwood and shells. Inside the frame is a hand-drawn charcoal picture of the two of them. It’s beautiful.

  Ryan comes up next to Holly and taps her on the shoulder. He has a habit of forgetting her name every time she comes to the set, and Holly always feels like they’re meeting for the first time.

  “Hey—Holly, right?” He tucks a long hunk of dark hair behind one ear.

  She slides the headphones off, eyes still glued to the screen. “Yeah, it’s Holly,” she says, still distracted by what’s happening on the laptop in front of her.

  “You want something to drink?” he asks, digging through a cooler and coming up with a bottle of water.

  “No, thanks.” She’s glued to the laptop screen.

  “Nice drawing, huh?”

  “She did that?” Holly tips her head at the drawing in the frame.

  Ryan unscrews the bottle cap and takes a long swig. “Actually, I did it.”

  “You did?”

  “Yeah, four years at art school and I can make a decent charcoal drawing. Go, me,” he says dryly, making a whoop-de-doo motion with his index finger. “Too bad sketching alone won’t earn me a living.” He shrugs at her before heading back out to the beach.

  On the screen, Violetta is presenting Jake and Bridget with a large blanket made of woven palm fronds. The blending of green, yellow, and slightly-browned leaves gives it an ombré look, but despite the creativity and effort that obviously went into making the blanket (if, in fact, she even made it at all—for all anyone knew, Ryan or someone else could have stepped in and done it the minute the cameras stopped rolling) it still looks stiff and uncomfortable.

  Violetta is in the middle of giving a heartfelt speech about how the blanket is a co-gift that will help to keep Bridget and Jake warm as they go forward in competition and in life when Wayne steps into view of the camera and stops her.

  “Can we try that scene again? See if you can work up some tears—this is a heartfelt moment,” Wayne says to Violetta, hands on her shoulders. Holly rolls her eyes.

  She suffers through three more takes of Violetta’s blanket speech, then sits forward, elbows on knees, as Jake stands up and pulls the ring-sized shell from his pocket. He smiles earnestly at Bridget with shining eyes, and she puts both hands over her bow-shaped mouth.

  Before he even speaks, Holly has her headphones off. She watches the scene unfold on the laptop without the benefit of sound. In her mind, she hears the swell of cinematic music, and she sees the panoramic sweep of the camera as it takes in the whole beach while Jake and Bridget hold each other lovingly at the shore line. She imagines them running into the surf, holding hands while the water laps at the ankles of Jake’s pressed linen pants and soaks the hem of Bridget’s antique lace wedding gown. She hears the music in her head soar once more and then the scene fades out on Bridget’s bouquet of tropical flowers, discarded in the sand.

  In reality, all she sees on the screen is Wayne interrupting once again to direct Jake, who listens intently. When Wayne steps out of the shot, Jake begins again, holding out the shell ring to Bridget the way he once held out a platinum ring to Holly. Her stomach lurches and she grabs her purse from the ground, dropping her phone into it heavily. She slips from the tent and back up the worn footpath to the dunes, flinging herself into her cart and putting it in gear. Without looking back, she tears away from the beach and onto December Drive, pushing the pedal to the floor as she loops around the beach.

  Rather than cutting down Pine Cone Boulevard and running into Main Street, driving west until she can turn onto Holly Lane, then curving on the road past the chapel and ending up at the bistro, she takes the whole December Drive loop. It adds another fifteen minutes onto her trip, but Holly needs the time alone to process the image of Jake presenting Bridget with a ring.

  The wind blows her loose hair around her shoulders, and the sun warms her hands and forearms as she drives. Holly feels calmer by the time she reaches the Jingle Bell Bistro. With River in town, it’s almost possible to put everything else out of her mind when she’s with him, and having lunch together on the deck that looks out onto the beach sounds perfect. In fact, she almost feels hungry, and the thought of Jimmy Cafferkey’s clam chowder and Irish soda bread makes her stomach growl. Holly puts a happy smile on her face and runs her fingers through the ends of her wind-tangled hair. Lunch with River is exactly what she needs right now.

  Except—as she stands in the center of the bistro’s dining room, scanning the thin crowd of diners—she realizes that he’s already gone.

  Chapter 25

  The week before Christmas is always a rush of activity on Christmas Key, and the islanders gather to kick off the annual festivities on Sunday evening. People begin to arrive at the dock by cart and on foot around six o’clock, most wearing Santa hats and some combination of red and green. Ray Bradford is wearing a full Santa suit, and Millie is dressed in shiny red spandex pants and a belted red sweater.

  Holly pulls a wagon full of Christmas decorations as River walks next to her with his hands in the pockets of his jeans. They’re both in Santa hats and festive sweatshirts, and they’ve spent the afternoon together wandering around the island with Pucci at their heels. The wagon bumps down the sidewalk, making a loud, repetitive thump each time the one dented wheel rolls over again.

  “Are you sure no one will care if I crash your party?” River asks, reaching for the handle of the wagon. “Here, let me pull that for you.”

  Holly hands it over to him. “Of course not. It’s just a chance to get together with neighbors and kick off the holidays. Whoever is on the island is free to join us, guests included.”

  Things have felt sort of off between them all weekend—a little quiet and disconnected—and Holly isn’t sure what’s at the heart of their sudden awkwardness with one another. When she’d tracked River down on Friday after her visit to the set, he was wandering Main Street, chatting with people in front of Mistletoe Morning Brew. He hadn’t seemed mad that she’d essentially abandoned him all morning, but there was an undeniable frost to his tone when he told her he’d made his own plans for Friday night to go over to Ellen and Carrie-Anne’s and help them with their menagerie of animals. Rather than try to talk him out of it, she’d offered to let him use the B&B’s golf cart, promising him that she had last minute election stuff she needed to work on anyway.

  “So what’s first tonight?” He looks down at her as they walk.

  “Okay, it might sound strange, but we do this thing every year where we decorate the navigational sign like a Christmas tree.” She points at the pile of tinsel and lights in the wagon.

  “How do you keep the lights on?”

  “We run an extension cord from the coffee shop and set the lights on a timer. It’s a very sophisticated operation,” she teases. “You can see the sign when you’re out on the water at night and heading over to the island, which looks really cool. It’s always been one of my favorite things that we do.”

  There’s a good-sized crowd already gathered on the dock, most dressed in holiday gear. Someone has parked a golf cart nearby with speakers set up on the back seat, and ‘Baby, It’s Cold Outside’ is playing loudly. Almost everyone has a white paper cup with ‘Mistletoe Morning Brew’ printed on the side.

  “Hey, you two!” Carrie-Anne yells, waving exaggeratedly as
they approach. “The door is open—stop in and grab coffee or hot cocoa for yourselves!” River pauses, pointing at the front door of the coffee shop with a questioning face. “Yeah, it’s open, and it’s free,” Carrie-Anne confirms, cupping her mouth as she shouts.

  “I’ll grab some for us,” River says, one hand still in his pocket. He gives her the handle of the wagon. “What do you want?”

  “Coffee is good.” Holly looks up at him. “Meet you over there?”

  In answer, River places one hand on the small of her back, holding her gaze for a moment. It would be the right moment for him to bend down and kiss her, but he doesn’t. Instead, Holly takes the wagon down to the dock, watching as River disappears into the brightly-lit coffee shop, its front window still covered with Ellen’s version of a snowy nineteenth-century England.

  “Hi, sugar,” Bonnie says. She opens her arms wide to hug Holly. “Merry almost-Christmas!” Holly hands Iris Cafferkey the handle of the wagon and wraps her arms around Bonnie.

  “Merry Christmas to you, too, Bon,” Holly whispers in her ear.

  A deep wave of sentimentality washes over her. Even with the constant presence of Christmas decorations, she’s never numb to the nostalgic feelings that the real holiday evokes. Memories of her grandparents at the heart of this gathering by the dock fill her mind’s eye. She remembers sitting in the back of a golf cart next to Emily Cafferkey every year, a blanket wrapped around them, cups of hot cocoa in their hands as they watched the adults laughing and decorating the navigational sign. They’d giggled together in their pajamas, talking about Santa Claus and whether his reindeer would really be able to find Christmas Key. Holly wipes at her eyes now, waving at Emily as she digs through the pile of holiday decorations and pulls out a long strand of tangled twinkle lights.

  “One hot coffee,” River says, holding out a cup with a paper sleeve around it.

  “Thanks,” she says, her eyes still prickling with the tears sparked by memories of Christmases past.