“So she’s staying?” Bonnie asks.
“For the time being, I think.” Millie steps out from behind the desk and comes to check on Holly’s hair. “Looks like we can comb this out and shape up those split ends a little bit, Mayor.” She switches off the dryer and lifts it from Holly’s head. “For what it’s worth,” Millie says gently, looking down at Holly in the chair, “I always thought you and Jake made a cute couple.”
Holly smiles weakly. Loyalty runs deep on Christmas Key, and she’s grateful every day for the friendship and support from the other islanders. It’s not her intention to see them tiptoe around her when it comes to Jake and Bridget, and it’s certainly not her desire to see people be unwelcoming to Bridget. But even though Bridget’s been on the island for a full month, Holly has done her best to avoid running into her on Main Street, and she’s gone out of her way to steer clear of the Ho Ho or the Jingle Bell Bistro when she hears through the grapevine that Jake and Bridget are there together.
“She and Old Slugger made a pretty cute couple, too,” Bonnie says, referring to River O’Leary, the former pro baseball player who’d visited Christmas Key the previous summer and swept Holly off her feet. “But our girl here obviously hasn’t found what she’s looking for yet.” Bonnie pauses. “Hey, sugar, what do you think about a fling with a pirate? They aren’t all crusty old men of the sea, you know—I saw a couple of young ones without wedding rings.” Bonnie examines her manicure.
“No, thank you. I’ll leave the buccaneers in breeches to you, Bon. I’d rather stay single for the time being and focus on work.”
“That a girl,” says Millie, squeezing Holly’s shoulder as she guides her into the stylist’s chair. “You work on you for a while, and the man situation will sort itself out.”
“I think you’ve gotta have a man to have a ‘man situation,’” Bonnie cautions. “I just don’t want to see this beautiful young thing miss the boat, so to speak.”
“She won’t miss the boat, Bonnie,” Millie says. “This girl has a face that could launch a thousand ships.” Mill spins the chair around so that Holly is facing the mirror.
“Thanks, Millie.” Holly pats the hand that Millie still has resting on her shoulder. “I appreciate that.”
Millie pulls a comb and a pair of scissors out of her drawer. “Now how about some bangs to frame that pretty face?”
By one o’clock, Holly has eight different messages on her phone.
“Holly? Are you there, or is this a machine? Why don’t people pick up their telephones anymore? This is Maria Agnelli. I damn near broke my ankle this morning on White Christmas Way. I stepped in a giant hole on my way to Pinecone Path, and I’d probably still be lying there if Iris hadn’t come along and picked me up. Now I’ve got to see Dr. Potts about this ankle and probably be on crutches for—” Holly listens to the rest of the message and then presses the button for the next one.
“Mayor. It’s Cap. Couldn’t find you in your office this morning and no one seems to know what the hell is going on with these blasted holes. Come by the cigar shop, will you?”
“Hi, honey, it’s Glen,” says a sweet voice on the next message. All three of the triplets—Glen, Gwen, and Gen—look and sound the same, so it honestly could have been any one of the three of them speaking and Holly wouldn’t have known the difference. “I’m very concerned about the holes all over this island. I’ve had four different people stop by the gift shop this morning to complain. Do you think we should call an emergency village council meeting?”
Holly saves the messages she’s heard and puts her phone back in her purse. She’s pulled into the parking lot behind the B&B, and her plan all along has been to spend the afternoon spray painting a bunch of wooden prop boxes with stencils so that they say “rum” and “whiskey” on their sides. She’s also been wrapping blue glass jars with netting and filling each one with sand and a votive candle. With luck, her decorations will look pirate-y enough for the dinner she’s planning for their guests that night on the beach. But now she’s got mysterious holes to deal with, and a potential village council meeting to call.
With a glance in both directions, Holly holds her purse between her elbow and her body and jogs across Main Street. Cap’s cigar shop is kitty corner to her B&B, and she can see him through the front window as he bends over his front counter to read the newspaper. Marco, Cap’s parrot, is propped on his shoulder, chattering into his ear.
“Well, isn’t this a surprise,” Cap says expansively, standing up as Holly enters the shop and sets the bells on his door chiming.
“It shouldn’t be too much of a surprise,” she says. “You did call and tell me to come by.”
“But my days of getting beautiful women to come when I call have long passed, Mayor. So I’m always pleasantly surprised when it works.”
Holly would love to banter with Cap more—particularly after the recent battle they’d waged over her mayoral seat and the hiccup it had created in their relationship—but she’s out of breath and running out of time. She glances at the tank watch on her wrist.
“Tell me about the holes. I went to get a haircut this morning and then to run a few errands, and suddenly I have eight messages on my phone about Mrs. Agnelli falling into a ditch and nearly dying, and about the whole town converging on Tinsel & Tidings Gifts to lodge formal complaints. I’m trying to figure out what’s going on.”
“If I knew, I’d tell you.” Cap spreads his arms wide and shakes his head. In response, Marco shakes his own small head back and forth, imitating his master.
Holly sighs and runs a hand through her freshly cut hair. “Can you just tell me where these holes are, and then I can go investigate?”
“There’s one on the way to Pinecone Path; one on Ivy Lane; and another up near your place.”
“By my house?” Holly frowns.
“Apparently. Jake was driving out that way and says he drove his cart right into it. He was looking for you, too. But you probably knew that, since one of those messages had to be from him.”
“Right. Yeah.” Holly thinks for a moment. “Thanks, Cap. Will I see you on the beach tonight?”
“Wouldn’t miss it. The gents have been by to put in their orders, and I always aim to please my customers. I’ll be handing out cigars after dinner is done.”
“Great,” Holly says, patting the door frame as she steps back out onto Main Street. She pulls her phone out of her purse and goes back to her voicemail. Sure enough, after Glen’s message is one from Jake: “Hey, stranger.” She has an immediate physical response to the voice of her ex-boyfriend and her cheeks get hot. “There’s something going on around here that we need to talk about. Unless we have a sudden infestation of prairie dogs, then I think we have a mystery on our hands. Call me.”
Holly is about to dial Jake’s number when he pulls up next to her in his golf cart. “What, you don’t call people back anymore?” he teases, slowing to a crawl so that he’s keeping pace with her.
“I was listening to your message right now. But Cap already filled me in.”
“Let’s take a run around the island and have a look at these weird crop circles,” Jake suggests, patting the seat next to him. “Hop in.”
“Crop circles?” Holly uses the running board on the passenger side of his cart to step up. She sits next to him and puts her purse on the floor of the cart between her feet. “I thought we were talking about a few small holes.”
“Yeah, that’s all it is. I’m just trying to imagine that it’s something more interesting, like aliens.”
“Prairie dogs on an island with no prairies wouldn’t be interesting enough?”
“Hell, it’d be interesting enough for me if Ray Bradford was trying to move around the bottle of whiskey he likes to hide outside his house,” Jake says.
“Ray hides his hooch outside?”
“Yeah. He doesn’t want Millie to find it.” Jake turns the wheel and takes Holly up Ivy Lane to check out the first hole.
“But
Millie doesn’t care if he drinks,” Holly argues, confused. “They’re always at the Ho Ho or at Jack Frosty’s for cocktail hour.”
“Right, but it’s more fun for him if he’s doing something she doesn’t know about. You see?” Jake parks the cart.
“I guess,” Holly says. “Is that all marriage is? Doing dumb stuff when the other person isn’t looking so you can feel like a rebel?”
“Apparently.”
“Then maybe we dodged a bullet, huh?” Holly leaves her purse in the golf cart and follows Jake. She regrets the crack about dodging a bullet as soon as it leaves her lips.
“Maybe,” Jake agrees, hands on both hips as he stands in front of the first hole. It’s about three feet deep and three feet wide, and they look down into the empty pit in the sand with no clue as to why or how it got there.
“Pucci is the biggest dog on this island,” Holly says, referring to her beloved golden retriever. “But he doesn’t roam the island without me, and he’s never been much of a digger.”
“Do donkeys dig holes?” Jake asks with a smirk. Just a few months earlier, Carrie-Anne and Ellen—the proprietors of Mistletoe Morning Brew on Main Street—had adopted a female donkey and brought her to Christmas Key.
“It seems kind of unlikely that she could escape her pen and wreak this kind of havoc all over the island.” Holly pushes her sunglasses up on top of her head and looks up and down Ivy Lane. All quiet. “I doubt anyone saw anything unusual.”
“If they had, we’d have heard about it by now,” Jake points out.
“Can you take me to the other holes?”
Jake drives Holly around so she can inspect the damage, and then he drops her off in front of the B&B.
“So what’s the verdict, boss?” he asks, resting his left wrist on top of the steering wheel while he waits.
“It’s strange,” Holly decides. “I don’t know what to think, but I have a few things I’ve got to get done for the dinner party we’re throwing on the beach tonight. Will you be there?”
“Ay, ay, matey. I’ll be there.” Jake leans back in his seat, ready to pull away.
“And you’ll call me if you hear about any more holes?”
“I will,” he promises.
Holly watches Main Street for clues as Jake drives off, but nothing seems out of the ordinary. Ray Bradford isn’t wobbling down the sidewalk, secret bottle of whiskey in hand as he tries to find a new hiding spot for his booze. Nobody drives by with a shovel sticking out the back of their cart, and no family of prairie dogs ambles past.
It truly is a mystery, but one that’ll have to wait for later, because right now she’s got jars to fill with sand, and wooden boxes to stencil. Holly grabs a handful of gold-sprayed Oreos on her way past the front desk, cramming one into her mouth as she heads back to her office.
Chapter 3
Iris Cafferkey calls while Holly is finishing the decorations for the beach party. She’s on her knees in the B&B’s sandy parking lot, spraying the last stencil onto a box when her phone buzzes from the seat of her golf cart. In one swift move, she stands and grabs the phone, using her paint-covered fingers to tap the screen.
“Iris?”
“Hi, love. Sorry to bother you—I know you’re always busy,” Iris apologizes in her Irish-tinged lilt.
“No, it’s fine.” Holly looks back at the stack of boxes she’s painted and then down at her filthy hands and knees. “What’s up?”
“I was wondering what you thought of naked men, lass,” Iris says without preamble.
Holly doesn’t miss a beat. “I’m pretty fond of them under the right circumstances. And you?”
“Oh, much the same. Much the same.” Iris laughs at the other end of the line. “Glad we can agree on that one. But I certainly don’t think a midday walk with my sweet, innocent Emily is the time or the place for naked men,” Iris says, referring to her daughter, who is Holly’s oldest friend, and—as Iris has said—the sweetest, most innocent person on the island. “We went for a stroll on the beach and happened upon a group of naked, grubby pirates frolicking down at Snowflake Banks.”
Holly wrinkles her nose. “Naked?”
“As they day they were born,” Iris confirms.
“That’s not sexy.” Holly shakes her head, thinking of the middle-aged men with ungroomed beards, their bellies distended by grog. “I’m afraid to ask, but what were they doing?”
“Sunning themselves like lizards on a log.”
Holly gags at the image.
“Wee lizards, some of them,” Iris adds. “Just helpless little lizards flopping about in the sun—”
“Okay, okay,” Holly cuts her off. “Got it. I’ll go over there, and…I don’t know what. Ask them to put their breeches back on?”
“Maybe make sure their lizards aren’t shriveling up in the hot sun?” Iris offers with a cackle.
“I’ll see you tonight, Iris. Thanks for letting me know.” Holly pauses. “I think.”
She hangs up and tosses her phone back onto the bench seat of her golf cart. Naked pirates. This was not part of her plan for the day.
“Gentlemen!” Holly calls out, stopping her cart. She sets the brake and steps onto the sand. “There’s a lady present!”
“Can’t say I see one,” Sinker McBludgeon yells back, making no move to cover up. “Just a brassy girl who likes to play mayor.”
Holly resists the urge steal Sinker’s clothes and drive away with them. “We aren’t zoned for a nude beach anywhere on Christmas Key,” she says with force, grateful for the impenetrable lenses of her polar blue sunglasses. “You’ll have to put your pirate’s jewels back in their pouches if you want to stay at Snowflake Banks.”
“But this is a private island,” Sinker argues. He stands up and faces Holly. She tries not to flinch as she gets the full view of his unadorned frame.
“It isn’t, though. We’re a municipality—a part of Monroe County—and we’re governed by laws and rules just like every other part of Florida.”
“So get that cop out here to write us some tickets,” another pirate pipes up, cracking open a can of beer and letting the froth overflow onto the sand, “or take off your dress and join us.” The other pirates whoop and cheer appreciatively. Holly’s face goes up in flames.
“I’ll do no such thing,” she says, lifting her chin. “And I’m going to ask you one more time to cover yourselves.”
The men don’t move. Some are sprawled in the sand, others stand around with cold beers in hand. Most have their backs turned to Holly, and she tries to avoid looking at the variety of middle-aged male bottoms that stare back at her. She swallows hard, thinking of the way they’d behaved at the Ho Ho Hideaway the night before.
“Aw, we’re just having some fun with you, Mayor,” one of the guys says. “We’ve probably gotten enough sun today anyway.” As if this decides it, the men begin assembling their clothes, most stepping into pants without putting anything on underneath them. “Don’t want to go home to our wives and have to explain why we’re red below the waist.”
The other men laugh. “That’d end our days on the sea for sure,” chortles a short, balding pirate.
Holly nods, taking a few steps backward. She’s done her job here, and been completely traumatized in the process.
“Thank you.” She gives a curt nod. “See you all at the barbecue on the beach in a few hours.”
“You’ll see a little less of us than you have just now, but we’ll be there. Oh, and make sure you tell my favorite redheaded wench that I’m expecting to see her tonight!” shouts Sinker McBludgeon.
Holly grits her teeth and holds up a hand as she puts her cart in gear, pretending not to hear him.
Dinner is a huge hit. The kitchen crew has worked tirelessly at the B&B all afternoon to put together a pirate-worthy meal of giant turkey legs, greasy onion rings, and corn on the cob, and Leo Buckhunter has dragged huge barrels full of ice out to the beach and filled them with bottled beer. As promised, Cap is there with his cig
ars, handing them out around the campfire as the sun dips below the horizon on the water.
“You look devilishly good tonight,” Sinker McBludgeon growls, closing in on Bonnie. She’s standing next to Holly behind the wooden picnic table that serves as their buffet. The women have just gathered the paper plates and plastic utensils from the drunken pirates, and Holly is sweating after filling the giant garbage bags—one with glass bottles, the other with trash. She wipes her forehead and readjusts the red bandana that’s tied around her head.
“I don’t know that I take too kindly to unwashed men getting in my personal space,” Bonnie shoots back, tilting her chin up at Sinker defiantly. “But thank you anyway.”
“But we did wash, milady,” Sinker says with a twinkle in his eye. “Or didn’t the mayor tell you how she caught us in our natural state this afternoon, sunning our loins and bathing in God’s bathtub?”
Bonnie turns to look at Holly, eyebrows arched. “No, she neglected to mention that.”
“Tryin’ to keep that little gem all to herself, I see,” Sinker says, moving in closer to Bonnie.
Bonnie does look good, Holly thinks, admiring her friend’s makeshift costume. She’s wearing a square-necked white blouse with cap sleeves, and an ankle-length black skirt with a scarf tied around her waist. Under the skirt she’s sporting black lace-up boots, and Holly has loaned her a pair of hoop earrings that make her look kind of like a saucy gypsy.
In between getting the props and decorations set up on the beach, Holly had raced home to change into something that she hoped fit the mood, tying the red bandana around her hair and slipping on a pair of tight black pants and black knee-high boots. For a top, she’s settled on a loose-sleeved cream blouse with puffy shoulders that’s belted with a piece of rope. As usual, the other islanders have gone all out, and there are men with eye patches and women in flowing skirts and bangle bracelets. Everyone looks amazing.
The Edge of Paradise: Christmas Key Book Three Page 2
