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Chapter Thirteen
Holly was sittingat the front desk, talking with Natalie, when the two trucks pulled up out front. The younger woman looked at her curiously as Holly grinned and jumped up from behind the desk to head outside. She crossed through the glass door when the passenger door of the truck opened; a woman slid effortlessly onto the pavement.
"Cara!" Holly beamed, rushing over to embrace her cousin. Cara was Jason and Paul's little sister. Even though she was thirty-eight now, she looked like she had barely aged a day. What was it with the people around here not seeming to age?
"Oh, my God, it's so good to see you again!" Cara hugged her back, but she didn't try to break her in half like everyone else was prone to do. "When the guys told me they were coming by to help spruce up the inn a bit, I figured I would come along and lend a hand. The inn may have been your father's pride and joy, but I'm still an Archer too."
"I will take all the help I can get! But first, you and I need to do some serious catching up while the guys look over the place and make out a plan for us." Holly left them with the notes she had taken, and they made arrangements to meet up at lunchtime to go over everything together.
Then, Holly hooked her arm in Cara's and guided her cousin down toward the water. It was another beautiful day, with the sun high above and barely a cloud in the sky. You could smell the saltwater in the air, and that alone was enough to ease the worst stress.
"So, how's life been treating you?" Holly asked. After so long of being cut off from everyone, she was almost as bad as her mother, needing to know what was going on and what she had missed.
Cara shrugged and then reached her arms high up in the air to stretch. "As good as I can hope for, I guess. Did you hear Greg and I got divorced?"
"No, I didn't. When?" Holly was starting to see a pattern. She was pretty sure she now knew more divorced people than married ones!
"About a year and a half ago. It just wasn't working out for us. We spent more time fighting than anything. Once we separated, we started getting along much better."
"Well, I guess that's good," Holly said, trying to be careful with her words. Just because Cara appeared relaxed about her divorce didn't mean Holly could be careless with what she said. "How's your daughter handling it? She's what, fifteen? Sixteen?"
"Sixteen," Cara confirmed. "And she's been doing good too. I think she's happier now that her father and I aren't fighting all the time anymore. The two of them are actually on a trip right now. They wanted some daddy-daughter bonding time before school started back up."
"Ah, so that's why you really tagged along with your brothers. You just wanted to use me to ease your loneliness," Holly said with a smirk. As they walked along the shore, carrying their shoes and letting their feet dig into the sand, Holly couldn't believe she had stayed away for so long. She had missed so much by never really coming back, and she wasn't sure she would ever really be able to repair those mistakes.
Cara laughed and nudged Holly with her shoulders. Cara's blue eyes were almost the same color as the ocean. The sun made them sparkle. "Well, you have to admit, walking along the beach with you is better than being holed up in my studio all day!"
"How's the art going? Are you the next Picasso yet?"
"God, I wish! That was actually one of the things Greg and I always fought about. Having two artists in the same house just wasn't working. Our incomes are too hit-and-miss to really be comfortable, especially with a teenage daughter, you know? And then, with the stress on top of everything, it made our work suffer. Things are bouncing back now, though, and my little apartment is much easier to afford than the big house we had all been sharing."
"Well, we'll have to talk to the guys. Not much of the interior of the inn has been updated in decades. Maybe we could use some of your art to help breathe a bit of new life into the place." Holly still hadn't gotten a chance to do a deep dive into the inn's finances, so she had no idea how practical the idea was, but she figured she could make it work one way or another.
Family had to stick together. She had learned that much, at least since returning to the Keys.
Cara cackled and gave Holly a wicked smirk. That was a look Holly had seen on her younger cousin many times over the years. It usually meant some sort of chaos was about to follow.
"I like the sound of that! And I've already got some pieces I think would look great around the place." Holly could see the gears turning inside her cousin's head as she started making plans. She had spent almost as much time at the inn growing up as Holly had, so no doubt she knew the place inside and out. "Are the paintings in the rooms themselves still the same? Because if so, we really need to update those. They were cheap, mass-produced ones anyway. Having art from a local artist would be a good selling point too."
Holly smiled as she listened to Cara ramble. Cara really wasn't talking to her anyway, just getting her thoughts out to help make sense of them. Holly did the same thing sometimes, especially when she was getting overwhelmed and really needed to sort everything out mentally.
"So, how about you? How's life in Miami been?" Cara asked a little while later, once she had worked through her little planning session. Even before talking to her brothers, she had the entire thing planned out!
Blinking at Cara, Holly felt her heart rate picking up again. As her cousin looked at her, waiting for an answer, Holly couldn't figure out what to say. She should tell her the truth, shouldn't she? Eventually, everyone would have to know. This wasn't a secret she could keep hidden forever.
Besides, Cara would understand. She had been through a divorce herself. And if hers was a bit more amicable than Holly's, she understood what it was like to have your marriage and life fall apart around you.
And yet, Holly couldn't make the words come out, no matter how hard she tried. They sat there, stuck in her throat, refusing to budge.
Then, her phone rang, and Holly let out a sigh of relief. At least she had a temporary fix to her problem, though she knew it would still be waiting thereafter her call. When she glanced at the number, though, she frowned. It was the number for the front desk at the inn.
Had the guys finished early? Or had they found a major problem that needed to be fixed right away? No, that didn't make sense. If it was one of them that had needed her, they would have called her on their cell phones, not from the front desk.
Holding her breath, Holly answered the call. "Holly Archer," she said automatically.
"Holly, oh thank God! I wasn't sure who else to call!" Natalie said, her voice more frantic than Holly had ever heard it.
"Easy, Natalie. Take a deep breath and tell me what's wrong." Holly stopped walking and closed her eyes, taking slow, deep breaths herself. Whatever crisis had popped up this time, Holly was sure they could handle it.
She heard Natalie's deep breathing over the phone, and when she spoke again a few moments later, she sounded a bit less frantic. "It's your mom, Holly. She was in the office going over some paperwork when she collapsed."
Holly's heart had been racing before, but now it felt ready to burst from her chest altogether. She knew her mother hadn't looked great, but now she had collapsed, too? Her health issues were worse than Holly had thought.
"Call an ambulance. We'll be there in a couple of minutes." Holly ended the call, then stuffed the phone back into her pocket and took off running toward the inn. Cara, having only heard Holly's end of the conversation, followed along right beside her.
As they ran, Holly filled her in on what Natalie had said. Cara's eyes went wide, and Holly saw the same panic on her face that she felt inside her.
One step forward, two steps back.
