Holly’s Island: The Complete Collection Page 2

  Ashley could tell something was wrong and after a few minutes she and Sara were able to pry the information out of him. He told them about the death of his two close friends. He told them that their eighteen-year-old daughter, Holly, his goddaughter, had nowhere to go. He told them that he had offered her a job and a place to stay and she had accepted.

  “Well, that is just awful. I'm so, so sorry for you and that poor young lady,” Ashley said soothingly, stroking Caleb's arm.

  “I would love to help out in any way I can,” Sara said, tears threatening to pour from her eyes. “You know that I lost my mom, too, and if she needs anyone to talk to I'd be happy to.”

  “Thank you, both of you, but she seems to be in a pretty delicate state of mind right now and from what her doctor has told me it sounds like she could really use some time alone to come to grips with everything that has happened. From the stories her parents had told me, she sounds like a pretty shy, sensitive young lady which leads me to think that maybe you and I should sort of lay low for a while. You know just until she gets comfortable, a little less fragile.”

  “Okay … What exactly do you mean by 'lay low',” Ashley said fearing the worst.

  “I think we should take a break from seeing each other … just until Holly has some time to get herself together.”

  “Caleb, if you don't want to be with me, just say so, you don’t need to use excuses.” Ashley said near tears.

  “God, no, Ashley, I want to be with you! Hell, I think I'm in love with you! I just don't want Holly to be spooked. You know ...”

  “Oh, Caleb, I think I'm in love with you too!” Ashley said, tears now rolling down her face, “I understand, I do, really, I just jumped to … I just thought the worst. Holly is going to need a lot of support and that's a big job taking on that responsibility, I know … Sara and I went through it, I know how hard it's going to be. You take all the time you need … Well not too much, okay.”

  “Thank you for understanding, I hoped you would, and I promise as soon as I feel that Holly is getting back on her feet I'll come running back to you,” Caleb said happily squeezing Ashley tightly. “And Sara, I'll try my best to get you two together, I have a feeling you'll really hit it off.”

  “I can't wait to meet her,” Sara said joining in the hug. “When does she get here?”

  “I'm leaving tomorrow morning.”

  “Tomorrow,” Ashley cried out in shock. “I thought we'd have at least a few more days!”

  “I'm sorry, but there's a boat leaving for San Juan at seven and who knows how long it'll be until the next one.”

  “Well, I guess we'll just have to make the most out of tonight, won't we,” Ashley said slyly as she curled her fingers around his flaccid cock as felt it grow rapidly in her hand.

  Sara looked down at Caleb's erection and, as much as she wanted to stay and play, she knew that they needed to be alone. She slipped off the bed and headed back to her own room thinking about her own mother's untimely death. She knew exactly what Holly was going through and promised herself that she would do everything she could to help her. Little did she know how much Holly would end up changing her own life.

  Caleb was Holly's godfather, even though he had only meet her a couple of times in the eighteen years that she had been alive, she had no living relatives, no friends able or willing to take her in, and little in the way of financial resources, so when he offered her a job as his assistant as well as a free place to stay she felt like she had little choice. Of course, he didn't have to take her in, there was no law binding godparents to do their largely symbolic duty. But Caleb knew that Holly's parents wouldn't have chosen him for this honor without serious thought and he had accepted the honor with great happiness when he was told, never thinking that the worse would happen. Now that it had, he hoped that she might be the answer to his prayers and that she would be willing to take over his family's estate when he was gone.

  The transition was hard on both of them, especially Holly. She not only lost her loving mom and dad in the blink of an eye, she also had to move almost half way around the world to live with someone she only knew through greatly embellished bedtime stories her parents had told her as a kid. She left behind her friends, her school, her town, her state, her country, everything she knew was gone.

  Caleb knew that a small, sparsely populated Caribbean island wasn't the ideal place for an eighteen year old girl live. There was no college or university to attend and only a handful of others her age to hang out with. But he saw it as a golden opportunity not only to help Holly out in her time of need, but also possibly help himself. The ten acres of beach front property and rambling lodge had been in his family for many generations and if he left the island or died without an heir to leave it to, the land and house would revert back to the island's national park reserve. Caleb was a fairly successful author with copious amounts of free time to dedicate to helping Holly finish high school. He had a good life on the island and he was hopeful that with time, Holly would come to love it like he did and maybe even be willing to carry on his family's legacy.

  At fifty-five years old and always a bit wary of having children, Caleb figured that he only had two ways to keep the family property from being absorbed back into the island wilderness trust. He could get married, another prospect that didn't really appeal to him, or he could adopt someone willing to take on his family's home and expansive acreage as their own. He hoped that Holly might be that someone.

  Holy was an exceptionally pretty girl, the perfect mix of her beautiful down to earth mother and boyishly handsome father. She had thick reddish-brown hair that she kept short and sort of messy, in a 'I just came back from the salon' kind of way even though all she did was get up and run her fingers through it every morning. She had huge brown eyes that made you desperately want to hug her and protect her from all the badness in the world. Tall and thin, she had long legs and an equally lengthy torso that she unintentionally showed off through her predilection for short above the knee dresses and simple t-shirts that never went below her bellybutton. In the island heat, there was little reason for her to wear any more than that, usually just completing her outfit with a pair of flip-flops or tennis shoes with no socks.

  Caleb was immediately enamored with her style, immense intelligence, and stubborn strength, but it would be several months before Holly finally started to warm up to Caleb. The raw emotion she showed during her first few weeks slowly softened, giving away to her naturally shy personality. She finally gave in to letting him teach her, which given her bright mind and voracious appetite for books basically amounted to her asking him a few questions when she wasn't clear on something. Otherwise, she just took the lesson plan for the day, did the work, and took the achievement tests on her own. Caleb was impressed by her academic ability, but worried by her shyness and propensity to spend most of her time reading by herself.

  He tried to get her go play with, Sara, but she would always brush him off saying that she would rather just finish whatever book she was reading. Of course he was hoping that she would make friends with Sara for another reason as well, as it was now approaching three months since he had been with Ashley and he didn’t fully understand how much he would miss the amazing physical and emotional bond he had with her, not to mention Sara's young naked teenage body pressing up against him at night.

  Sara had come to live on the island in much the same way as Holly. Ashley had been a friend of Sara's mother and when she died of cancer, and with her abusive father not in the picture, Ashley offered Sara a place to stay. Sara was fifteen when she moved in with Ashley and had now been on the island for more than six years, but only need a few days to fall in love with her new surroundings. In less than a year she agreed to become Ashley's dependent, promising to carry on the family tradition and live in the huge plantation house when Ashley passed on.

  Caleb didn't give up on trying to get Holly and Sara together and finally, after months of nagging, Holly gave a big sigh, flopped her book do
wn with a dramatic flair, and compromised. She didn't want to hang out with some girl she had never met, but if he would stop pestering her she would go for a walk every day. Given the fact that he had to almost drag her out of the house to go into town once a week for supplies, Caleb happily accepted her terms hoping that maybe Holly and Sara would run into each other at some point and become friends on their own.

  For some time Holly had wanted to get out and explore the island, but she had put so much effort into maintaining her sullen demeanor that she was hesitant to give it up. It sort of felt like she was betraying her parents memory if she allowed herself to have any fun, but the island's beauty and her curiosity finally started to break down her walls. Using Caleb's daily pleadings to get out and see the sights made her feel better, like she wasn't doing this for herself, but as a favor for him. She knew she was being silly, but even after many months; the loss of her parents was a raw wound that she didn't want to heal. She felt that if she stopped feeling pain she might also stop remembering.

  She walked for an hour or more every morning. The island's mid-day heat was a bit too much for her so she always made it back to the shade of the lodge's huge covered patio before the sun got too high. At first she just stayed close, walking up and down the beach or just sitting and watching the small waves lap up against the sandy shore. But soon she began to walk to the island's only town, if you could really call the seven buildings and several dozen scattered homes that made up Bonefish Harbor a town. Of course there was the resort, but that was all the way on the other side of the island and restricted to members and guests only. For the rest of the island's residents, which included mostly workers at the New Victoria Ocean and Atmospheric Research Station and a handful of others like Caleb who had homes and property scattered around the island, Bonefish Harbor was their lifeline.

  Lining the road on the right side was Tom's Grocery and General Store, The Blue Water Cafe and Bar, the government office, which was basically just a Post Office, and Bonefish Hardware. On the left side stood the three story, twelve room red brick Bonefish Bay Hotel, which had essentially been taken over by the research station for visiting scientists, Cousin Jack's Boat Repair and Sales was next, and then Bill’s Second Hand Store, which also served as Bonefish's unofficial library. It was the library that had finally pushed Holly to make the trek into town, but it was the owner that kept her coming back.

  The old man that ran Bill's was not Bill, but his son, Sam. Sam, like everyone else on the island, knew who Holly was and knew what had happened to her parents, which was one of the reasons Holly had avoided going into town for so long. But Sam was different that the others. Instead of feeling sorry for her and talking to her with sad, sympathetic faces, Sam treated her like an old friend. It wasn't until her sixth visit to his shop that she finally got up the courage to ask why the store was named Bill's when a guy named Sam owned it. So Sam told her a rambling tale about his long dead father.

  “Well, my father, William August Thorne Jr., was one of the first inhabitants on this here island. He had spent many of his early years working on sailing ships that traded in these waters and he had heard the rumors of what living here, on this particular island, did to people. Stories of people living into their hundreds, of never getting sick, a place that brought all its inhabitants blissful happiness and soulful knowledge and romance. He believed these stories, took them as fact instead of the tall tales that they were, and longed to make this place his home. He built the first harbor and the first house, the very house where I was born, in fact. And he was an enthusiastic promoter of turning this little known island into a tourist mecca, a sanatorium for the ill, a romantic getaway for lovers. It was through Bill's efforts that people like Caleb's great-grandfather came to the island, both to try and cater to the tourist crowd or just to live the island life. It certainly looked like Dad would get his wish when, in the early 1930's, he sold a wealthy investor on the idea of building a high class resort on the island. Unfortunately, the investor decided to locate his new private playground for the rich and famous on the north side of the island, about as far away from Dad's harbor and fledgling little town as he could get. The resort brought people to the island, but they stayed within the confines of the retreat's high stone walls.”

  “How awful, why would they do that?” Holly asked.

  “Well, the investors had all the money they needed … they didn't want a shabby little town messing up their 'feng-shui'. And while they didn't believe all the bull my daddy was slinging about long life and eternal bliss they had experienced firsthand the strange … 'romantic properties' of the island. They saw the money they could make from such a sensual place that lowered people's inhibitions.”

  “What do you mean?” Holly said intrigued.

  “You might still be too wrapped up with your grief to notice it my young friend, but let's just say that even after a few days spent on this island most people are more … romantic.”

  Holly stared at him still not comprehending, but before she could ask another question Sam continued his story.

  “Anyway, my father spent most of the next decade watching his little town slowly sink into disarray and neglect. When the Second World War broke out he joined the Navy and headed off to fight the Nazi U-Boats, leaving his wife and young son, which would be me, to look after the town. When he returned he once again started trying to encourage tourism on the island, offering charted fishing trips, access to swimming and snorkeling, guided trips into the rainforest. And his vision of a bustling town and an island filled with tourists staying in his hotels, taking fishing trips on his boats, buying his merchandise, and basking in the glow of the unique properties of his island just might have come true, if it weren't for the discovery of several exotic and very endangered species of plants and animals that called the island their only home. It was big news, even stateside, at the time the island was called the Galapagos of the Caribbean and in 1951 it was set aside as a preserve. That killed dad's dream, as it prohibited any new building or development on the island. Those who owned property on the island were grandfathered in and could continue living there as long as the property remained within the family. But you couldn't sell your property anymore, those who left, forfeited their lands back to the island. That's one of the reasons why Caleb wanted you to come here. He hopes you'll fall in love with it like he has and carry on his family's heritage. His piece of land, that big old lodge you guys live in, well, that is his birthright. If he left, if he died without an heir, it would be gone forever.”

  Holly thought about that for a long while on the walk back home. Caleb had tried to explain it to her so many times, but hearing it from Sam finally made it sink in. That was why he kept bringing up his desire to adopt her even though she was already eighteen years old and legally an adult. It made her feel sad that she had been so hard on him, how she had only thought of herself and her troubles. For the first time she put herself in his shoes. It must be tough on him too, she thought, not only does he lose two close friends but he also gained a teenager that has been nothing but angry, bitter, and sullen to him since she got here. He had a nice life living on his own in a peaceful paradise; he didn't need to take on the responsibility of giving room and board to an ungrateful girl.

  By the time she got back to the house she was nearly in tears.

  “Hey, Holly, you getting hungry, I've got … oh, honey, what's wrong?” Caleb asked when he noticed her lips quivering and her eyes welling up with tears.

  Holly burst out crying and ran over to Caleb and hugged him for the first time ever. After much reassurance from Caleb, Holly finally started to settle down and they had their first real conversation since she came to the island. She apologized for her dreadful attitude, all the moping and grumpiness, and promised to make more of an effort. He assured her that he was in this for the long haul and that as long as she wanted or needed to stay with him he would be there for her. This was the turning point in their relationship and they would just grow cl
oser as the months and years went by.

  Several weeks later, Holly was hunting through the boxes of books that were stored in the old warehouse in back of Sam's shop. He would save everything that went unwanted or unclaimed on the island which meant he had all sorts of books lying around, from old science texts donated by the research station, to the latest romance novels left behind by some rich lady visiting the resort beaches. Sam had given her free reign to take whatever she wanted and she often loaded up several boxes onto her little bike cart to take home with her. Today, however, she had found something completely different, something exciting and in her mind taboo, yet she was drawn to it like nothing else.

  On the outside it looked like an old wooden box. It just was sitting there; resting on top of a bunch of new books like it was put there only for her. At first she just disregarded it as something in her way, but as she went to move it something made her peek inside and one glance sent her mind racing. She carefully put it in the bottom of an empty box and covered it with books. With her heart pounding, she waved to Sam as she strapped the box down to her little trailer and rode quickly home.

  She waited until she was sure Caleb was asleep before she silently removed the box from where she had stashed it under her bed. The wooden box was about ten inches by 15 inches and close to four inches thick. When she had glanced at the contents when she first opened it she knew immediately that she needed more privacy than Sam's drafty old warehouse in which to view her new treasures. It had been an excruciatingly slow afternoon as she waited for darkness, but now she was finally ready.