AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Gabby cackled again. Holly stared into the crowd, avoiding eye contact with her daughter. That just seemed to make Gabby laugh louder and harder, though. Gabby saw right through her, no doubt, but that didn't mean Holly had to admit anything.
"Oh, look, there's my high school advisor. Let's go say hi," Holly said, abruptly changing directions toward an elderly man leaning against a cane.
Gabby continued to laugh, but she followed her mother through the crowd. As Holly introduced her to various people, Gabby stuck by her side, pleasantly greeting each one of them. Even though Holly hadn't even thought of most of them in decades, they all remembered her clearly and even seemed to have kept up with her life in Miami to an extent.
No doubt that was Nelly's doing. Not only did Nelly have to keep her thumb on Islamorada's pulse, but she had to keep a healthy amount of her own gossip flowing into the grapevine. And it was obvious from the way people talked to her that Nelly was proud of her eldest daughter.
This, of course, made Holly feel guilty about not having told her mother the truth. She kept telling herself it was because Nelly wasn't healthy enough for it yet, wasn't ready to hear the news, but deep down, she knew it was just another lie.
So far, the only ones who knew the truth were her daughter, of course, along with Jake and Randy, both of whom had kept quiet about the details so far. But Holly couldn't keep everything a secret for very long.
It had already become public in Miami, and while Miami wasn't exactly right next door to Islamorada, the news would reach the Keys, whether Holly liked it or not. And if Will didn't hurry up and sign the paperwork already, it was liable to become national news once the IRS and SEC got serious.
Holly had the image of herself in handcuffs on the evening news, and she shuddered at the thought. No, that could not happen. She could not let that happen, no matter what.
She could only imagine what was going through her ex-husbands head right then. He already knew he was busted. Unless he pulled off some kind of miracle deal with the IRS, he was almost certainly going to jail. So what did he have to gain from not filling out the paperwork?
Bringing Holly down with him wasn't going to make his situation any easier. If anything, it was just going to make it worse. Gabby and Sean already weren't talking to their father. What would they think of the man if their mother got sent to prison because of him?
A realization hit Holly like a sack of bricks, knocking the air from her lungs. He didn't care, she realized. He didn't care one bit what his kids thought of him. That was why he had been so critical of Holly and her neglect of the kids. It wasn't because he thought she was a bad mother, though he might have. No, it was because he was projecting himself onto her.
She hadn't been mother of the year. But she had never purposely neglected her kids. She had been there for all their important events -- sports games, awards ceremonies, etc. If they'd needed her, Holly had been there for them. She just wasn't a stay-at-home mother. She was a businesswoman that had also juggled motherhood and as far as she and her kids were concerned, she did a fine job.
But how many of those games and ceremonies had Will missed? He had always had an excuse for not going. Usually, it was that they hadn't been able to both take time off at the same time, so he'd stayed at work while Holly attended whatever event was going on.
Now, she knew the truth. He had avoided those events because it had given him the privacy he'd needed to run the shadier side of his business without Holly looking over his shoulder. He had used their own kids as a smokescreen for his illicit activities.
Holly sighed and then pushed those thoughts out of her mind. Today was supposed to be a fun day. Not only was it a chance to reconnect with her neighbors, but it was a major step toward bringing the inn back to life. Holly would figure out what had happened to the funds that should've been in the inn's accounts, but for now, this would give them the cash they would need to really pay for the renovations and hire more staff.
All of her other problems could wait until later. For now, she just wanted to live in the moment and enjoy life for a bit.
