Christmas at the Cove, Chapter 3
*Women's fiction *Beach reads *Holiday *Christmas *Family Saga *Five Island Cove
“Grab that other garbage bag, bud,” Kelli Thompson said to her son. Parker did so without complaint, which meant a lot to her. He was normally a pretty agreeable child, but there had been so many changes in his life lately, and Kelli had seen him getting upset at seemingly simple things.
She knew everyone dealt with trauma in different ways, and having his father come to the cove with a pledge to make things work only to have him leave ten weeks later had definitely been hard on Parker.
Kelli could admit that she was still having a hard time letting go of her marriage to Julian. She had no problem hauling out three bags of trash and tossing them in the can she’d gotten just this month. Once Julian had finally admitted that he wasn’t happy in Five Island Cove, and that his “quick trip” to Jersey to oversee a few things for his courier business would be a permanent relocation for him, Kelli had decided she needed to do something to move forward.
Living in limbo simply wasn’t fun, and while she did like the cottage on the beach, and it was more than sufficient for just her and Parker, she owned a home on Bell Island which didn’t require a mortgage payment.
As she lifted the lid on the garbage can and hefted her bags inside it, Kelli’s lungs burned with the chill in the air. The weather had turned in the past couple of days, and Kelli felt a shift in her life as well.
She’d brought Parker to visit her mother, spent a great day with her and her boyfriend, Devon, and then they’d ended up at the house on Seabreeze Shore.
She’d told him that she’d grown up in the house with her two sisters, and then she’d said, “I own it, Parker. It needs some work, but if we fix it up, we can live here.” She’d looked at him, the light of the day quickly fading, and Parker had simply stared up at the house with the pillars on the front porch, the crooked shutters, and the faded front door. Everything about the house needed to be spruced up, but Kelli had watched Eloise dig into a house four times this big and at least five times as messy.
She’d cleaned up The Cliffside Inn, and that had inspired Kelli in ways she couldn’t name.
“I got it,” Kelli said, throwing out her hand to help Parker as he tried to lift his garbage bag into the trashcan. “We got so much done today.” She dropped the bag in the can and let the lid bang closed. “Should we stop by Kaleidoscope and get one of those chocolate cakes?”
“Yes,” Parker said with a smile. He looked like the little boy her whole world revolved around in that moment, and she drew him into a hug.
“Thanks for working hard today,” she whispered into his hair. It used to be the same color as hers, and she’d waited so long to get this boy in her life, she’d thought God had blessed her with the most beautiful child on the planet. Now, Parker’s hair was darkening into a tone very much like his father’s, but Kelli would love him until her dying day.
“I think if we come a couple of times each week and work hard,” she said. “We can move in once the weather turns warm again.” A springtime goal of moving from the beach house on Sanctuary Island to this one on Bell felt fast to her, but Kelli needed to do things without thinking about them until she knew the precise solution, all of the steps, and exactly how the outcome would look.
Life was simply too messy for that, and the worst part was, Kelli hadn’t even known it until Julian had called to say he just couldn’t come back to the cove.
Her life had not been perfect up until that point, but once she’d left Five Island Cove behind her, it had been simple. She’d found a great guy, and she’d fallen in love. It had taken a while for her to get pregnant, but she just readjusted her plans and made new ones.
That was all she had to do now too. The difference was, she wasn’t going to take a year to decide. She had a job at the junior high on Diamond Island, and she and Parker rode the ferry together each morning. He sat in the teacher’s office until he had to walk the half-mile to the elementary school, and she finished before him, so she was always waiting in a RideShare when his final bell rang.
Lately, Duke Glover had been waiting out front at the junior high to drive Parker to the elementary school, as he brought his youngest to school and didn’t mind waiting for Parker. He didn’t get out on the boat as much in the winter, and he apparently had time.
Kelli was grateful for every person who came into her life and offered her some assistance. Even just a friendly text meant the world to her.
“We’re not coming next week, though, right?” Parker asked, and Kelli finally led him back toward the garage.
“No,” she said. “We’ll be at the inn next weekend.” She smiled at her son. “Grandma and Devon are coming too. It’s going to be a big party.”
“Charlie and Jamie will be there too,” Parker said, and Kelli smiled at the way he worshipped the older kids.
“Yep.” Kelli went up the steps and into the house. They’d spent the morning on the first floor, filling garbage bags with anything in the house that she didn’t want there anymore. Old things that had been left in the house, or trash that had blown in somehow.
She took a deep breath and continued through the kitchen and into the living room. Three-quarters of the house was one big, open area on this floor, and the kitchen flowed into the living room, which melded into a den or office of sorts. In the back corner sat the master suite, and while the bathroom and closet weren’t anything to write home about, Kelli adored every corner of this house.
The popcorn nook under the steps still held the beanbags she and AJ had lounged in last time they’d come to the house together, and she’d only managed to mop one room while Parker dusted all the blinds and windowsills.
The house sat empty, without much furniture in it. Just the beanbags under the steps and a rickety dining room table in the kitchen.
Kelli sighed as she looked around and saw how much she needed to be able to live here. All of it cost money, something Kelli didn’t have a lot of. Worry and doubt started to gnaw at her hopes of moving into the house in only three or four months, but she straightened her shoulders.
She wasn’t going to let anything slow her down or stop her. Not this time.
When she got home, she’d go over her budget again, and she’d see if she could squeeze out a few more dollars. The island always had estate sales and yard sales in the spring and early summer, and perhaps she could find some decent furniture at a reduced price.
Satisfied with that idea of a plan, she walked over to the railing, where she and Parker had draped their coats. “Here you go, bud.” She handed Parker’s dark blue coat to him, and then she shrugged into her red one.
“Mom?” Parker asked as they left the house. They could get a RideShare to the ferry station, but it was only a ten-minute walk, and it would take that long just to get a car to her house. This was definitely one way she could save a few dollars.
“Yeah, baby?” She reached over and tugged his beanie over his ear.
“Is Dad coming for Christmas?”
Kelli’s lungs seized. “I don’t think so.” Julian hadn’t said anything about the holidays. He hadn’t asked to see Parker for Thanksgiving, which was a couple of weeks ago, and Kelli hadn’t spoken to him about custody at all.
She had called the state of New Jersey to find out how to get divorced, and she had a green file folder in a drawer in her kitchen at the beach house. If she filed, it would cost three hundred dollars, she’d have to take a parenting class—which also cost money—and she’d have to be the one to appear in court.
Julian could skip the hearing if he wanted to, and he wouldn’t have to pay a dime. He also hadn’t been sending her any money since she and Parker had come to the cove in the middle of August, and they’d lived here for about a month before he came with the claims that he wanted to try again.
He’d left five weeks ago now, and Kelli’s pulse felt heavy in her chest and loud in her ears. He hadn’t removed her from their joint checking account either, so she supposed he was still willing to help her with things.
Kelli hated logging onto their bank account though, because then she saw transactions at the gourmet cheese shop she’d told Julian about that he’d never wanted to visit because everything was too expensive. She saw money flying out of the account with nail salon names attached to it. She saw utility bills getting paid doubly, for different amounts.
All of it told her that Tiffany was back in his life, and that he was paying for a large portion of her life.
Her throat narrowed as the wind picked up, and Kelli turned her face fully into the salty, stiff air. So many things gave way to the wind, but she would not. She was going to see her way through this, no matter what.
The ferry station came into view, and she and Parker hurried inside as the return ferry was already at the dock. They had monthly passes they scanned and they were two of the last people onto the ferry. They’d barely had time to find a spot inside the enclosed section of the ferry before it pulled away from the dock, and Kelli pressed her eyes closed, trying to quiet her pulse and her thoughts.
She hadn’t told her mother about the house where she and Parker had been working for the past two weekends. She hadn’t told Alice, Eloise, Robin, or Kristen. For a long time, Kelli wasn’t sure she could ever live in the house again, though she certainly didn’t want anyone else to live there.
You’re ready now, she told herself. Being there these past few weeks had been very therapeutic, and Kelli felt herself taking a big step forward. A smile touched her lips, and Kelli just let her body sway with the movement of the boat, maybe liking the sea for the first time in her life.
“Ma’am?” a man said, and Kelli’s eyes flew open. She blinked a couple of times before she could truly see the person standing there.
“Sorry,” she said.
The man smiled, and he looked really familiar to Kelli. A lot of people in Five Island Cove did, and eight months ago, she hadn’t wanted to run into anyone she knew. Now, though, she could handle meeting someone she’d known as a teenager.
“It’s fine.” He narrowed his eyes at her. “Do I know you?”
“I grew up here,” she said. “If you did too, it’s likely.”
He touched his jacket, where the name tag read Billy. “I’m William Bridge.”
“Billy Bridge,” she said, her smile widening. “Kelli Watkins.” She put her arm around Parker. “Well, Thompson now.” At least for a little while longer. She needed to talk to Julian about him filing for divorce. If he could pay for his mistress to get a manicure and a pedicure, he could foot the cost to file for divorce. He was the one choosing another woman over his current wife and son.
“So good to see you.” Billy gave her a quick handshake. “You hung around with AJ Proctor, right?”
Of course he’d be interested in AJ. Men always were, and that was absolutely nothing new.
“That’s right,” she said. “And Eloise Hall, Robin Golden, and Alice Williams. You surely remember Robin.”
“I remember,” he said, still grinning. “I knew Alice the best. We rode the ferry over from Rocky Ridge together for a while before I moved to Diamond.”
“Oh, right,” Kelli said, though she hadn’t known that. Alice had rarely spoken of her home life out on Rocky Ridge, and she was almost two different people in Kelli’s head.
“Anyway,” Billy said. “We’re doing a survey on the ferry system.” He handed her a small, square card. “You just scan that with your phone and answer the questions. It’ll take less than five minutes, and anyone who does it is entered to win a free monthly pass.” He gave her a professional smile, and Kelli returned it.
She took the card, and he moved over to the next patron. Kelli scanned the card, listening to him give the same spiel to a couple down the row.
On his way by again, he paused as he was almost past Kelli. “You don’t happen to have Alice’s number, do you?” he asked.
Kelli looked up from her phone, surprise darting through her. “I do,” she said slowly.
“Let me give you mine,” he said. “If you talk to her, and it’s okay that I have her number, maybe you could pass my number to her. She can text me herself.” He cleared his throat. “If she wants to.”
Kelli twisted more fully toward him, trying to read his expression. Those dark blue eyes simply held a hint of hope, and Kelli wondered just how good of friends he and Alice had been three decades ago.
He wore his sandy hair a little bit long, and Alice would probably like that after her polished and buttoned-up, lawyer husband. Billy’s hair curled along the ends, and he sported a little bit of stubble on his face too.
He’d aged just like the rest of them, but he was still tall, tan, and trim, and Kelli had no doubt he could get a date any time he wanted.
“All right,” she said, tapping away from his survey to a fresh note. “I’m ready.”
“It’s Will now,” he said as she tapped out the wrong name. “I left behind Billy when we graduated.”
“Okay.” Kelli erased what she’d typed and put in Will Bridge. “Go.”
He recited the number, and she tapped it in. She turned her phone toward him so he could double-check it, and after he’d nodded and continued on with his survey cards, Kelli stared at the number.
All thoughts of the survey gone now, though she could use the free ferry pass, Kelli quickly tapped and held to copy everything she’d just typed into her phone.
She couldn’t get a text off to Alice fast enough.