There's Always a Catch: Christmas Key Book One

by Stephanie Taylor

  Fiona laughs. “So he’s basically like a man, whistling outside your bedroom window at night to get your attention?”

  “Exactly like a man! I don’t know how bird years translate into human years, but he’s about twenty-seven, I think, so yeah, essentially he is like a man howling at me in the middle of the night. It’s ridiculous.”

  Marco surveys his surroundings then, soars down from the uppermost branch of the orchid tree and lands on her bare shoulder.

  “Hey, buddy,” she coos, letting him get settled. “Okay, Dr. Potts. Let’s roll. Wanna follow me in your cart? We can have an appetizer at Jack Frosty’s if you need to drool over Buckhunter again this evening.”

  “I don’t know that I need to drool over him,” Fiona says, “but I’m definitely not done checking him out.”

  “I can support that. I fully understand the need to feast the eyes upon any man on the island who doesn’t already qualify for Medicare.”

  “Well, I’ve already feasted my eyes on most of the men on this island while they’re in hospital gowns, and—believe me—it ain’t pretty.” Fiona ducks back into the house to grab her purse and sandals. She flips on Holly’s porch light on her way out so that her friend won’t return home to total darkness.

  Marco perches on the cupholder of Holly’s dash, holding on confidently with his talons as she backs her cart out onto the unpaved road. Fiona backs up after her, and they both flick on their carts’ headlamps; the late afternoon light is already dusky on the shady side of the island.

  It only takes about five minutes to zip down Cinnamon Lane and merge onto Main Street. The women parallel park their carts against the curb outside of North Star Cigar, Co., and Marco hops back onto Holly’s shoulder for the short walk into Cap’s shop.

  “Ladies,” Cap Duncan says, spreading his arms wide as Holly and Fiona walk through the open door. “Can I sell you a fine Cuban? A thick Culebra? Or maybe a more glamorous Petit Corona?” The distinct sweet and woody aroma of tobacco fills their nostrils. “Ah, I see you’ve rescued my main man and brought him back to me. Here, you little bastardo,” Cap says lovingly, cocking his head at Marco in invitation. “Come to me, you devil.” Marco makes the leap from Holly’s narrow shoulder to Cap’s meatier one with a single flap of his wings.

  “He was out at my place again, terrorizing my golf cart with his excretions, and preparing for a night of lovesick catcalling outside my bedroom window.”

  “Much like your ex-boyfriend, no?” Cap gives a mirthful twitch of his eyebrow, walking behind the dark mahogany counter with Marco next to his ear.

  Holly rolls her eyes at him.

  “Are you two lovebirds back to feathering your nest yet?” The skin next to Cap’s eyes folds and creases like tissue paper from the years he’s spent on the ocean, and his teeth are like the jangled ivory keys of a broken piano. A tiny gold hoop glints in his left earlobe.

  “Seriously—does everyone on this island know everything about everybody else?” Holly rests her hip against the glass case at the front of the store, eyeing Marco as he flutters his wing on Cap’s shoulder.

  “Yes, dear,” Fiona says, throwing an arm around her friend’s shoulders. “By nature of our close proximity, we all know when someone else on the island flushes their toilet or lets their ex sleep over. These are the perils of living on an island the size of a dollar bill.”

  “Oh good. That’s awesome.” Holly adjusts the shoulder of her tank top, sliding her polka dotted bikini strap beneath the fabric. “Hey, how’s business, Cap?” she asks, turning her attention from gossip to commerce.

  “Doing okay. There are enough gentlemen on this fair isle who enjoy a good stogie to keep me in the black.”

  “That’s excellent news. I like to hear that.”

  “Of course you do, boss.” Cap chuckles. He’s known Holly since she was knee-high to a grasshopper, just like the majority of the people on Christmas Key.

  “Come on, Hol, let’s go get something to eat at Jack Frosty’s,” Fiona says. “See ya later, Marco. You too, Cap.”

  “Have a wonderful evening, young ladies.” Cap pulls his loose white hair into a ponytail with one hand, eyeballing Marco on his shoulder. Cap’s hair is thinning and wispy, but he refuses to cut off the last remnants of what he refers to as his “pirate hair,” or to take out the gold hoop in his ear. He winks at Fiona. “And when you get to the bar, make sure you give Mr. Buckhunter my best, Doc.”

  “Oh my God!” She steers Holly toward the door. “Is he seriously giving me a hard time about Buckhunter?”

  “Hey, Doc,” Cap calls after them as they reach the door. There is laughter in his voice. “I’ve got this thing on my backside I want you to check out—it’s been killing me,” he says. “Should I make an appointment to see you during office hours?”

  Because Fiona still has her arm around Holly’s shoulders, the women come to a sharp stop at the same time. “I don’t even need to see it to diagnose it, Cap. It’s called pain-in-the-butt-itis, and I’m afraid it’s incurable.”

  Holly snorts.

  “You two are both lovely gems, you are.” Cap smiles under his white goatee. “Makes me wish I was half the age I am, Doc. I love me a lady with some fire in her belly!”

  “He’s incorrigible,” Fiona says, dragging Holly along as she blows Cap a kiss through the large front window of his shop.

  “I know. Cap’s always been one of my favorites.” Holly waves at him, remembering how Cap taught her to sail when she was ten. His sense of humor is spot-on, and the only things in life Cap takes seriously are his cigars and his friendship with Marco. Cap reads voraciously and eclectically, and he’s been almost everywhere on the planet. His stories about sailing around the world are great bonfire fodder, and his personality is made up of just enough salt and vinegar to entertain everyone on the island.

  Holly and Fiona look both ways as they cross Main Street arm-in-arm.

  “Be good tonight, girls!” Bonnie calls out as she passes them in her golf cart. “Or be really, really bad and then make sure you show up at church to say a Hail Mary or two on Sunday!” She cackles, her eyes twinkling. The Christmas lights that Bonnie has wrapped around the cart blink on and off as she disappears down Main, her slightly-pudgy arm sticking out the side of the cart as she gives a theatrical pageant wave.

  Fiona pulls Holly in the direction of Jack Frosty’s. “Do you think everyone knows I have a thing for Buckhunter?” she laments. They walk into the open bar and Holly chooses a rough-hewn wooden barstool at the counter. She takes off her Yankees cap, setting it by her elbow.

  “Yes, dear,” Holly says with a smile, throwing an arm around her friend’s shoulders and giving her a friendly shake. “Everybody knows. And keep in mind that we all know everything about each other on an island the size of a dollar bill.”

  “Damn. I get my own words get thrown right back in my face. I guess I deserve that.”

  “Indeed,” Holly laughs, getting Buckhunter’s attention with a nod and a raised finger.

  They order a heaping pile of nachos and two iced teas, then munch on chips while they watch Buckhunter toss bottles in the air and pour shots under the clear fairy lights that dangle over his bar. All around them, their neighbors come and go, greeting one another and stopping by to chat with Holly and Fiona as another summer night wraps its arms around the little island in the sea, engulfing it in a sultry, starlit darkness.

  CHAPTER SIX

  “So, the vote’s in,” Bonnie says the next morning, peering at Holly over the pink and yellow striped frames of her reading glasses.

  “And?” Holly rushes into the office of the B&B, Pucci trotting right behind her like a trusty assistant. He immediately retreats to his lime green dog bed in the corner of the office, turning in a circle once, twice, and then settling down to listen. Holly kicks off her sandals and sits down at her white wicker desk. She opens the cover of her laptop and pushes the power button.

  “We’re at a sixty-three percent appro
val rate for the advertising plan and budget you proposed,” Bonnie says, passing a printed page across their shared desk space.

  Holly had found the matching wicker desks in Key West on a weekend trip with Jake. They’d waited eagerly at the dock as the delivery boat pulled up, then strapped the desks to the roofs of their golf carts, lugging them back to the B&B as they laughed hysterically. Holly said she felt like they were two ants carrying giant sugar cubes on their backs, and Jake leaned forward in his golf cart comically, pretending that the roof was about to cave in on him. She’d immediately set the desks up in the office so that they faced one another, pushing them together to form one big table.

  “That’s more than half. I guess that’s all we needed.” Holly takes off her Yankees cap and pulls her light brown hair into a loose bun on top of her head. She jabs a pencil through the shiny pile to hold it all in place. She and Bonnie have their laptops running, and their matching iced lattes from Mistletoe Morning Brew are on the coasters at their elbows. “So let’s put the advertising piece in motion by placing the ads with the Sun-Sentinel and the Miami Herald. We can look at placing something full-color in Florida Travel + Life or Islands when we get a feel for how much impact these first ads have.” Holly yanks open the large drawer under her desk and flips through the hanging files. “I’ve got the mock-up we did right here.”

  “Got it, boss.” Bonnie reaches over to take the sheet they’d drawn up. “I’ll call the Herald first and see if we can run it before Labor Day weekend.” Her long nails tap against her phone screen as she makes the call.

  The morning passes like minutes. Holly sips her cold coffee and makes plans for the various ways they can showcase Christmas Key to potential visitors. She’s been keeping up a healthy stream of photos and interesting tidbits about the island on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter over the past two years, but in the back of her mind she’s always known that she was laying the groundwork for something bigger—it’s not just fans she wants, it’s visitors. It’s commerce and revenue. It’s progress.

  Now, with the majority of the islanders on board to support her long-term vision, social media posts need to be regular, engaging, and enticing. Holly already has a plan to tailor her upcoming posts around the seasons and the events she’s dreamed up for Christmas Key: she’ll post destination wedding ideas after the new year, hoping to attract spring and summer brides. Midsummer will be the time to start encouraging winter travel and family holiday trips to paradise. And—with luck—she’ll be able to get some of her bigger ideas off the ground, like a food and wine festival in the fall, and an annual Christmas bazaar.

  Bonnie fields calls as they come in, sending Holly the one from the Sun-Sentinel’s advertising department. Right on the tail of that call comes one from Joe Sacamano to let her know that he’s putting together a jam session for that night at the Ho Ho Hideaway, just a stone’s throw down the beach from Holly’s house. He’s really sorry, but she’ll probably hear some of the music, so she might as well just come on down and join them. Plus Buckhunter will be there, so she really ought to bring the good doctor along for a beer. (Holly can’t wait to tell Fiona that along with Cap, Joe Sacamano is now also helping to orchestrate her love life.)

  Holly is ready to take a break and go foraging for lunch when the phone rings again. Bonnie’s out of the office for a second, so Holly picks up the line herself, pulling the pencil from her bun and letting her hair fall loose around her shoulders.

  “Christmas Key B&B. This is Holly,” she says, standing up so that she can toss her empty coffee cup into the wastebasket.

  “Hi, baby. It’s your mother.”

  Completely involuntarily, Holly’s digestive tract forces stomach acid up through her esophagus. Of course it’s her mother. She glances at the desk calendar beneath her notepad and cup of pencils: yep, it’s about time for a check-in to see what’s going on financially with the island, and it’s high time for Coco Baxter to remind her only child that thirty is a ridiculous age for a girl to still be single and childless.

  “Coco. How are you?” Holly sits back down, leaning her head against the hard wicker back of her desk chair.

  “Why don’t you ever just call me ‘Mom’?”

  “I don’t know. I guess Coco suits you better.”

  As a leggy sixteen-year-old, Coco had been a sleek, wild horse with a taste for Jack and Coke, a fickle heart, and a love of older boys. Within months of convincing Frank and Jeanie Baxter that she should be allowed to leave parochial school and finish out her education at Coral Gables High, Coco managed to get arrested once for public intoxication, total her father’s convertible Saab, and get pregnant. Holly was born at the start of Coco’s senior year of high school, and Coco had immediately handed the infant over to her parents to raise. For as long as Holly could remember, her mother had treated her more like a pesky younger sister than like her own child.

  “Let’s not fight, Holly. I want to spend time with you. You’re thirty now—we’re practically the same age!—I’d love for us to get along more like friends than like mother and daughter. Can we do that?”

  Holly taps the eraser of her pencil against her desk manically, her eyes unblinking. Just hearing Coco’s voice at the other end of the line messes with her head.

  “Anyway, I was looking at my calendar, and I’d really like to pop down for a visit sometime in the next month. Does that work for you? Would this be a good time to come to the island?”

  Holly snaps out of her trance, tossing the pencil onto her desk with a clatter. “Yes, Coco, summer is a fabulous time for you to visit. The breeze is cool, the skies are clear, and all of the bugs have gone into hibernation for fall and winter,” she says.

  “Really?”

  “No, Mother. Summer on this island feels like being tucked inside of Satan’s jockstrap next to a few hot coals. It rains every afternoon like the sky is trying to piss us all into oblivion, and the mosquitos will eat you alive if you don’t shower in bug repellant. But you should come. It’ll be fun.” Her voice has gone screechy, and Holly inhales through her nose deeply to calm herself.

  “I guess I’ve forgotten how unlivable that place is in the summer.”

  “It must have also been unlivable for you during the spring, fall, and winter…because I don’t think you’ve ever spent more than a few months here at a time.” Holly hates the way one phone call from Coco can unhinge her, transforming her from a capable, grown woman into a hurt little girl in sixty seconds flat.

  “Holly,” Coco says tiredly, “if you don’t want me to come, you can just say it.”

  Holly pauses, wishing in hindsight that she’d let this call go to voice mail instead of answering it. “Nah, it’s fine. Are you bringing Alan?” If her stepfather comes along, then that gives her mom something to do while she’s on the island so she’s not just skulking around the B&B, poking her nose into everyone’s business. And Alan is all right; aside from the fact that he clearly adores his high-maintenance wife and doesn’t seem to begrudge her touch-and-go mothering style, he and Holly actually get along pretty well.

  “Yes, I’m bringing Alan. That man needs a vacation!” Coco laughs, clearly happy that the conversation has gone her way.

  “Okay, well, just send me your details, and I’ll get you a room here at the B&B for however long you stay.”

  “Can’t we just stay in the house next door to you?”

  “Leo Buckhunter is still renting that house. So no, you can’t stay there.”

  “Ha,” Coco says, but there is no laughter in her voice. “Isn’t that just like your grandfather.”

  “Isn’t what just like him?”

  “Oh, nothing, just that he would rent out that house to a ragamuffin who’ll probably never vacate. Anyhow, I’ll email you our travel info as soon as I have it all worked out, okay?”

  Holly sits there for a while after hanging up, doodling spirals all around the edges of a notepad that has Christmas Key B&B printed across the top in a bright turquoise f
ont. Knowing that more than half of her neighbors agree with her vision has infused Holly with a renewed sense of purpose. She pushes the thought of Coco visiting Christmas Key out of her mind and goes back to thinking about dreamy Instagram photos, full-page ads in bridal magazines, and vineyards that might want to book spots at her food and wine festival. She’ll need a full-time wedding planner with a storefront on the island, obviously, and possibly catered boat cruises with a gourmet chef headquartered on Main Street. Daydreams of foot traffic, cosmopolitan travelers, and an uptick in cash flow fill her head.

  Nervous excitement rushes through Holly’s veins the same way it did when she and her grandpa sat in their lounge chairs on Candy Cane Beach, projecting ten, twenty, thirty years into the future. When he’d gotten sick, they’d talked at length about his dreams for Christmas Key, of what he would do if only he’d bought the island as a younger man. Holly remembers his frail arms as he gestured out at the horizon above the water. She’d noticed the slack skin on his jaw as he turned his profile to her. Her grandmother had already been gone for three years at that point, and Grandpa knew that his heart was giving out when he decided to start handing Holly all of the bits and pieces of his vision.

  One day, as he’d sat wrapped in a giant striped beach towel, his white hair like a dusting of snow across his balding pate, he’d pointed at the sun setting over the Gulf in a somber, prophetic gesture. “You know how you can always count on the sun to rise in the east over by the dock on Main Street? And how, without fail, it crawls across the sky all day long before it finally falls into the water on the west side of the island?”

  Holly nodded, her arms wrapped around her bare shins as she sat forward on her lounge chair. A cool burst of air off the water raised goosebumps on her skin.

  “No matter what else happens, that sun does its job, day in and day out. You can count on that ball of fire in the sky to be strong and true no matter what. Do you know what I’m saying?”

  “I think so,” Holly answered, hoping that she did.