The House on Mermaid Point

Chapter Seven

Nicole and the others watched William Hightower stomp off. Afterward, his son herded them back onto the sandy, root-strewn path and led them in the opposite direction.

“I’m sorry,” Thomas said in apology. “He’s not used to doing anything he doesn’t want to.” The tone was disapproving. William Hightower’s son was apparently not a member of his father’s fan club.

“You mean he doesn’t want us to renovate?” Maddie, who probably actually had been a card-carrying member of said fan club, was clearly disappointed.

“I’d say about as much as a double root canal,” Nicole said. “Without anesthesia.”

“Well, he’s had plenty of Novocain in his day,” Thomas said. “It’s about time he had to deal with reality.”

“Not that reality TV comes anywhere close to that,” Avery pointed out.

“Amen to that,” Nicole agreed. Lord knew, they’d learned that lesson the hard way.

They came out at the dock area and he led them into the boathouse. Water lapped at the pilings that supported the structure, giving the space an echoey, cavelike feel. A sporting goods store’s worth of fishing rods, gear, and tackle was stacked against and hung on the back wall. A pile of wooden traps had been stacked in one corner. The hum of a chest-high freezer sounded disturbingly jarring in contrast to the lapping of the water against the dock and retaining wall.

“What’s in the freezer?” Avery asked.

“Bait and fish. It gets filleted out on the dock and stored in here.” Thomas opened the top to let them peer at what might be a lifetime supply of seafood.

Dustin reached a hand out toward the rods. “Ish,” he said.

“My starter rods might be around here somewhere,” Thomas said. “I was pretty young when I dropped a line for the first time.”

Maddie looked alarmed.

“No hooks,” Tom said. “Just a bobber and lead weight. I’m pretty sure I never actually caught anything—most likely it would have been a physical impossibility, but I didn’t know that ’til I was older.”

“That’s great that your dad taught you to fish,” Maddie said.

Thomas snorted. “He was way too busy partying for that. Hudson taught me. He was Will’s original fishing guide. They’ve been friends for a long time.”

On the surface the spare, soft-spoken Hudson and the larger-than-life rock star seemed an unlikely duo, but she and Avery and Maddie weren’t the likeliest of friends, either.

Thomas led them out of the boathouse and up the stairs to the stilt structure that perched over it. A narrow porch ran across the front of the rectangular building, which hung out over the dock.

“Wow, you could fish right from the porch.”

“Happens all the time,” Thomas said after showing them the interior, which was one huge rectangle of space. A storage closet ate up half of the room. The other had been furnished with a bed, nightstand, and small dresser. A door led to a utilitarian bathroom that no woman would willingly set foot in. The kitchen was even less enticing.

“Hudson uses this space when he wants to stay over,” Thomas said.

They walked back out onto the porch, where the view out over the dock was expansive. The boat that had brought them there bobbed slightly where they’d left it. The smaller boat the network crew had used was tied nearby. Nicole gazed westward, over the two houseboats and the Overseas Highway, where the sun was already slipping in the sky.

“Sunset’s not far off,” Thomas said as they watched the sun ease toward the water. The sky began to go pale as if all the color had been leached out of it and sucked into the sun. “The sunrise and sunset views from the island are equally amazing. The Lorelei over on the bay side has a sunset celebration every night with music and entertainment and tables on the beach. Morada Bay does the same, but it’s a little fancier crowd.”

“How would we get there?” Nicole asked, wishing they were there right now.

“We’ll have to work that out, I guess,” Thomas said.

Dustin stuck one thumb in his mouth and began to suck on it. Maddie yawned.

Troy and Anthony leaned back against the railing and shot it all. For the moment Kyra seemed to be more into shooting her surroundings than trying to shield Dustin from the network camera.

“I’m ready for a bed and something to eat,” Nicole said. “Not necessarily in that order.”

There was a general murmur of agreement.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Troy and Anthony move.

“You can see the whole island from up here.” Avery leaned out over the railing, which Nicole sincerely hoped was less rickety than it appeared.

“Can you show us to our rooms?” Nicole asked, more than ready to unpack and relax. “And tell us where we can find food?”

“Yeah, I didn’t notice any other structures on the island. Are we staying in the main house? Or are there guest cottages tucked away somewhere?” Maddie asked.

Troy began to pan his camera from out over the railing up to them. So far in Nicole’s experience this was never a good sign.

“I thought the network would have explained the sleeping arrangements,” Thomas said carefully. He looked so uncomfortable Nicole wouldn’t have been surprised to see him whip out a Tootsie Pop.

“The network prides itself on never explaining anything they might be able to surprise us with,” Deirdre said.

Nicole followed Thomas’s gaze and the network camera’s lens. Over the railing and down along the dock.

“Actually, you’ll be, um, staying on a houseboat,” Thomas Hightower said.

There was a silence as they processed this. Following the camera lens, Nicole spied Deirdre’s luggage piled on one of the houseboat’s decks.

“The crew is staying on the other one.”

“Holy crap!” Avery said.

“This is a joke, right?” Nicole studied Thomas’s chiseled face but saw no hint of humor in his dark eyes.

“The network crew is on the smaller one. You’ve got the bigger houseboat—it has multiple sleeping areas, a complete bathroom, and a kitchen/dining/living room combination. You’ll have it all to yourself.” His voice trailed off as they stared down at the houseboat in horror.

“All five of us and Dustin on that one boat?” Maddie asked.

“Yes.”

“And how many bathrooms did you say it has?” Deirdre asked.

“Why, um, just the one?” Thomas’s response turned into a question.

They stood frozen and silent as they all took it in.

“But there is a port-o-let, too,” Thomas was quick to assure them. He pointed beyond a grouping of bushes to a dented phone-booth-shaped object. “Plus the houseboat has a rooftop deck and air-conditioning units. And the galley kitchen has a refrigerator that’s stocked with groceries.”

Troy and Anthony didn’t bother to hide their smirks.

“Jesus.” It was the only completely formed word that sprang to Nicole’s mind.

“The network seemed to love the idea,” Thomas said, moving away from the railing—and them—as if in self-protection. “They thought it was perfect.”

“No doubt,” Nicole said. “Stuffing us on a houseboat tied to an island sitting in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean is absolutely perfect. Absolutely perfect for them.”