The Archer House (The Archer Inn Book 1)

by Kimberly Thomas

  But none of them did. Moments later, Holly sat in the driver's seat of her Jag once again. She tossed the paperwork onto the passenger seat and reached out to take hold of the steering wheel. Her fingers wrapped tightly around the dark leather, squeezing like she was trying to break it off the dash.

  Breathe in, breathe out, she told herself, closing her eyes and trying to force her anger back into its cage. There was a time and a place to let it all out, but driving down the freeway wasn't one of them. Before she went anywhere, she needed to get control of herself again. If not, she was liable to do something stupid or dangerous.

  And while she wanted to throttle her ex-husband right then and there, she would have to wait until she was face to face with him. Driving angry was going to make things worse, not better. And she knew perfectly well that anger would still be there, waiting, once she was in front of Will again.

  It took a few moments, but eventually, she was calm enough to fish the keys out of her pocket and start the Jag. It roared to life, and Holly quickly made her way out of the parking lot and back toward the highway. She was careful to drive safely, but she wasn't wasting any time either.

  The sooner she arrived at her ex's place, the sooner she could rip him a new one. And boy, did she plan on leaving a mark!

  She had made sure to have a nest egg put aside for not only herself but for their kids, should they ever fall on hard times. She could handle having to move out of their six-thousand square foot home and quit the job she'd had as far back as she could remember. It hurt, it was tough, but it was doable, and she would survive.

  Going to prison because Will was a damn idiot? That was definitely not an option. She would sooner move to Alaska and live in an Igloo than let Will's stupidity drag her to jail. No, he was going to fix this problem, one way or another.

  When Holly pulled the Jag into the driveway leading up to the large house, a sudden sense of sadness swept through her. This was a house she was familiar with. It belonged to Will's mother. When everything had exploded, it was the only place he'd been able to go.

  But, before then, Holly had been there countless times. She had brought the kids there often to visit with their grandmother back in the old days. They'd had birthday and holiday parties there. She had stayed there and helped care for her mother-in-law after she'd had her knee replaced. The woman had insisted she could manage fine, but Holly had known better and insisted on helping out until she could walk again. It had been a couple of weeks of working from a guest room she had converted into an office, but it had been absolutely fine. Holly had always liked the older woman.

  Even now, it was hard to think anything negative about her. Just because her son had turned out to be a complete idiot didn't mean Holly had to hate her mother-in-law too.

  When she stepped out of the Jag, she kept her eyes laser-focused on the front door, refusing to let her gaze wander. Her anger still bubbled below the surface, and she wasn't about to let a burst of nostalgia get in the way. Will had this outburst coming, and nothing was going to stop her from giving him the chewing out he so very much deserved.

  Well, if she was honest with herself, he deserved that and so much more.

  Knocking on the front door, Holly listened to the thundering echoes through the house. Her mother-in-law had resisted getting a doorbell for some reason that Holly had never understood. With a house that large, it was silly not to have a doorbell. Case in point, Holly knocked a total of four times without getting an answer.

  She knew Will was home. There was nowhere else for him to be if he wasn't at the office. With a sigh, Holly reached down and tried the doorknob, pleasantly surprised to find it unlocked. It didn't squeak even slightly as she opened the door, first listening for any source of noise to determine where her rat of an ex might have been hiding out.

  When she didn't hear anything, she called out for him. "Will? It's Holly. Where are you? We need to talk!" Somehow, she managed to keep the bulk of her anger out of her voice. But Will was bound to know if Holly was there, it wasn't going to be a good conversation.

  They'd long ago left behind courteous conversations. These days, they avoided talking to each other unless it was absolutely necessary. And in those instances, things usually devolved into shouting matches fairly quickly.

  Will didn't respond, of course, and Holly let out a sigh, closing the front door behind her. Hands-on hips, she surveyed the house and its surroundings. As far as she could tell, it was empty, but she knew that wasn't the truth. Will was in there, somewhere. She had to find him.

  Like a bloodhound on a mission, Holly made her way through the house, searching for her prey. It didn't take long to find Will in the sunroom at the back of the house, lounging on a couch with his feet up on the coffee table as he watched TV. For a moment, she stood there and stared at him. This wasn't the man she had married. The man she had fallen in love with never would have sat around dressed like a slob, flipping through channels aimlessly.

  He had always been like her, unable to sit around and do nothing for very long. But while she had kept herself busy during this fiasco, he'd given up. When he picked up a glass from the table beside him, Holly snorted. It didn't take a genius to realize he was drinking whiskey before it was lunchtime.

  The pity she felt for him only lasted for a few moments before the anger welled up once again and overpowered everything else. She stalked into the room and then tossed the stack of paperwork onto the table. "Just when I thought you couldn't mess up my life any more than you already have, I find out there's a chance we might go to jail because you owe the IRS more money than God!"

  Will blinked up at her in surprise. Had he really not heard Holly pounding on the front door and calling his name? Then again, if he was drinking this early, maybe that wasn't out of the realm of possibility. "Good to see you, too," Will said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. He glanced at the pile of papers in front of him and then shrugged them off.

  That enraged Holly even more. He may have given up and accepted his fate, but she sure as heck hadn't! He had dug this grave, and now it was up to him to fill it back in, either with dirt or his own body. He wasn't going to drag her down with him, not if she could help it.

  "You need to get with the IRS and figure this out before both of us land in jail," Holly demanded. Hands-on hips, she stood only a few feet away from him, glaring. For a brief moment, she had a flashback to when their son was a kid and had done something to land himself in hot water. But this time, it wasn't her ten-year-old son she scolded. It was her forty-nine-year-old ex-husband who should've been well beyond needing a talking to.

  "I'll handle it," Will answered with another shrug of his shoulders. His words were slurred slightly, confirming his glass of whiskey wasn't his first one this morning.

  Holly gritted her teeth together. She had the urge to snatch the glass out of his hand and toss it across the room. If they had still been married, she would have done just that. Maybe it would've snapped him out of this funk he was in and back to reality.

  But they weren't married anymore, Holly reminded herself. If he wanted to be an alcoholic slob, then that was his problem, not hers. As long as he fixed the crap with the IRS or at the very least told them she had nothing to do with it, she didn't much care what happened to him.

  That thought was almost as shocking as the letter she had gotten. It was hard to believe how little she actually cared about this man anymore. It almost made her laugh to realize how different things were between the two of them. Any semblance of love she had once felt for him had gone out the window a long time ago.

  And she really shouldn't have been surprised. After all, this wasn't the man she had loved for over two decades. This was someone else, someone she didn't recognize anymore. She was glad the kids were all grown now and hadn't had to go through this when they were younger.

  "Damn it, Will. I've lost everything because of your damn scheming behind my back! I'm not going to jail because you're an idiot and a snake!" Holly's anger
continued to mount as she shouted at her ex. Her hands balled into fists as her nails bit into the soft flesh of her palms. "So stop sitting there wallowing in your own self-pity and fix this somehow! Because, by God, I will not take the fall for you!"

  "Like you've ever taken a fall for me!" Will snapped back at her. He slammed his glass down on the side table, causing some amber liquid to slosh out. There was a fire in his eyes now, a sight that brought him just a step closer toward the man she had once known.

  "And what is that supposed to mean?"

  Will snorted and rolled his eyes. His lips were pursed tight as he shook his head. "You know damn well what I mean! You've never loved me, not ever. All you ever cared about was your career and the kids. You didn't give a crap what I did, and you only care now because it's ruined your precious career."

  "Oh please," Holly spat at him, rolling her own eyes. "If I hadn't loved you, I would have never married you. I didn't need a husband to be a successful real estate agent, thank you. Yes, I loved my job. Yes, I love my kids more than life, but don't you dare sit there and act like I didn't love you just as much!"

  She opened her mouth to yell at him some more but was cut off by the sound of her phone ringing. She clamped her mouth shut again and settled for silently glaring at him as she fished the phone out of her pocket. The damned thing seemed to be stuck in there, and she said a mental curse toward whoever designed women's pants to have such small, tight pockets. Even getting custom tailored pantsuits hadn't been much help in mitigating that, but she hated carrying a purse or handbag.

  Holly didn't glance at the name on the screen before accepting the call. "Hello?" she answered, her voice a bit curter than she had wanted, but it was hard to keep her annoyance completely under wraps. She still had quite a bit to say to her ex, and the phone call was only delaying that.

  "Holly, is that you?" the aging voice on the other end of the line asked. Hearing that voice, Holly's heart ached, and she regretted the snappy way she had answered the phone.

  "Yes, it's me. What's wrong, Uncle Roger?" Holly could hear in those words that this wasn't going to be a pleasant social call. And why would it be? She hadn't talked to the man in years. Technically he wasn't her uncle. He was her mother's cousin, but she had always grown up calling him Uncle and it seemed strange to call him anything else.

  The man let out an audible sigh on the other end of the phone line. He had to be in his late sixties by now, and as far as Holly knew, he was still the accountant for the family inn down in the Florida Keys. He had managed the business's finances for as long as Holly could remember. Another sigh came through the line before Roger spoke again. "It's your mother, Holly. Something's wrong."

  Her heart had been pounding earlier, but now it didn't seem to beat at all. The last time she had gotten a call like this had been two years ago when she had lost her father to a heart attack. She said a quick, silent prayer that her mother hadn't suffered a similar fate. "Is... is she...?" Holly's voice cracked. She couldn't get the words out to finish her sentence.

  "She's fine," Roger clarified, and Holly almost collapsed with relief. With everything else going on, she couldn't stand the thought of losing her mother too. That would've been too much for her to handle. "But something's wrong with her and the Archer Inn. You need to come back."

  Holly's heart had restarted itself, and now it was picking up the pace again. Go back? To the Florida Keys? To the Archer House? She hadn't been back there since her father had died two years ago. And before then, she had seldom visited. Once she had left the Keys, she hadn't really looked back.

  But if her mother needed her, then what was stopping her? She glanced over at Will, who still sat on the couch, glaring at her. At least he'd had the common sense not to interrupt her call, she thought. But with everything here in Miami in shambles, what was keeping her there? By tomorrow morning, everything she still owned would be moved out of the house and the office. She didn't have any other work lined up.

  Sure, she still had the kids nearby, but they weren't exactly kids anymore. They were both grown with families of their own now. While she had no doubt they would both welcome the chance to spend some extra time with their mother, they didn't need her there. They would be just fine if she drove down to the Keys to find out what was going on with her mother and the family inn.

  So why was she so anxious about that prospect?

  She took a deep breath and held it for a long moment, closing her eyes. When she let out the breath, some of her anxiety went along with it, but she knew it wouldn't go away forever. Not that it really mattered. No matter how anxious she was about returning to her childhood home or stressed out over Will and his shenanigans, she knew what her answer was.

  "Okay, Roger. I'll be there," Holly told him. If her mother needed her, then there was no other answer to give him.

  They spoke for a moment longer, and then Holly stuffed the phone back into her pocket. Her anger toward Will had lessened, replaced with worry for her mother. All she had the energy for was to glare at Will. "Don't think this is over for a minute," she warned him. "Straighten things out with the IRS. I don't care how you do it, just do it!"

  She didn't give him a chance to respond. She turned on her heel and stalked out of the sunroom without another word.

  Chapter Three

  Sunlight peered through the window, and Holly groaned. She rolled over in bed and pulled the covers up over her eyes in an attempt to block it out. But no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't fall back asleep again.

  With a grunt, she shoved the covers back down and stared up at the ceiling. She never should've let them pack the curtains yesterday, she thought to herself. But they had packed up almost everything she had owned, getting more of it done than she'd actually expected. They probably could've finished it all yesterday, but Holly had sent them off. She had made the arrangements to drive down to the Archer House today and hadn't wanted to spend her last night in a hotel.

  Not that staying in her empty house was much better. With so few things remaining, it practically felt like a ghost house. And without Will or the kids to keep her company, it felt downright lonely. Now, as she lay there trying to wake up, she was actually glad she was heading down to the Keys today.

  At least that would give her something to do. Right at that moment, anything to occupy her time seemed like a better option than just sitting around twiddling her thumbs.

  By the time she finally crawled out of bed and showered, the sun was fully up. The movers still hadn't shown up, though, not that there was much of a reason for them to be there at the crack of dawn. She had already paid them for the full day, and she would have been surprised if it took them an hour to gather up the remaining things and load them into the moving truck.

  No sense in them rushing, especially since everything would be sitting in storage until she got back from the Keys.

  Since she had the place to herself, she took her time leaving, walking around the mansion one last time. This would be the last time she ever woke up in this place, made herself a coffee in the kitchen, or host a family get-together in the backyard and that thought was enough to bring tears to her eyes. She made sure to stop by each room, savoring those last moments. The kids' bedrooms, their old playroom, the room she had used as a home office, the dining room where they had hosted countless dinners.

  There were so many memories in that house. Over twenty years of them, in fact. And Holly wasn't sure what she was going to do without this place. It was strange, knowing even once she finished up in the Keys, she would never be back. By the time she returned, Will would no doubt have moved his things out and put the place up for sale. He had lost almost every penny he had when his schemes had become public knowledge, and there was no way he could afford this place even if he wanted to.

  No, by the time she returned, there was a good chance some other family would be living there. A happy couple, maybe raising kids of their own. Holly wished that the future owners had better luck than she'
d had. She'd had some good years, certainly, and she wished them the same, with the added hopes their stay in the house wouldn't end the way hers did.

  By the time she'd loaded her suitcase into the back of the Jag and gotten on the road, her makeup was ruined. She didn't care, though. Gone were the days when it mattered if her makeup wasn't perfect. No one back in Islamorada would care how she looked. She would be surprised if any of them recognized her. It had been so long since she had lived there, and her visit for her father's funeral was very quick.

  Thinking about her time in the Keys immediately made her think of her siblings. As kids, they had been thick as thieves. They'd played together, shared friends, and always had each other's backs. But that had been when they were young. As they'd grown up, they had all started to drift apart.

  No, that wasn't exactly right, Holly corrected. They hadn't just slowly moved away from each other. They had started fighting more and more, constantly getting on each other's nerves every time they turned around. By the time Holly had moved away for college, she had hardly recognized them as the kids she'd once called her best friends.

  A lump formed in her throat as tears threatened to fall again. She hadn't spoken to any of her siblings since her father's funeral. And, even then, they had barely said more than was necessary to each other. They had kept things polite and cordial, with respect for their father and grieving mother, but it hadn't been the loving and caring relationship they'd once shared with each other.

  None of them had any idea about everything that had happened between her and Will over the last year. Not unless one of her kids had kept in contact with their aunts and uncle, which she doubted. Once she had made a name for herself as a Realtor, it was like her siblings hadn't wanted anything to do with her.