Page 34 of See You Next Month

“What are you doing here?” Isabella asked as they approached her.

“I thought I’d give you a ride back to the resort,” she said with a smile.

Kelsey tilted her head and narrowed her eyes. “Shuttle services are part of your CEO duties?”

Carmen laughed as she ushered them into the car. “Get in and I’ll explain. Did you have a good time at Peaches?” she asked as she pulled into traffic.

“We love it,” Isabella said excitedly.

“We hope to go back before we have to go home,” Kelsey added.

“Do you realize tomorrow is Christmas?”

“Oh yeah,” Kelsey said. “I thought about it this morning, but we were having so much fun all day that it hadn’t crossed my mind again.”

“How was your day?” Carmen asked.

“It was wonderful,” Isabella gushed, turning to look at Kelsey in the back seat. “I think one of our trips needs to be a long weekend getaway. We can spend a day at Honeymoon Beach then go to Peaches. After that we need to spend a day at the resort. We haven’t experienced all you offer there on site.”

“Let’s do it in April,” Kelsey suggested. “We don’t have anything special for that month, do we?”

“I have ideas for most months and wanted to go over the schedule with you,” Carmen said. “I thought you could spend the morning at the resort then go to Peaches with us tomorrow afternoon.”

“You’re going to Peaches?” Isabella asked.

“Yes, my kids are here for Christmas, and they love going to Liz and Alex’s. We’ve had Christmas with them for several years now,” Carmen said.

“We don’t want to intrude on your Christmas,” Kelsey said.

“You won’t. We want to include you both!”

“Are you sure?” Isabella asked.

“Absolutely. We’re going to be friends, don’t you think?” Carmen said, glancing at Isabella then Kelsey.

“We are,” Kelsey said. This trip wasn’t turning out to be anything like Kelsey had expected. She thought she’d spend most of her time alone on the beach, but this was so much better. New friends coupled with fun times were just the beginning.

“Riley called me when you left the island. She wanted to invite you both over tomorrow, but she didn’t have your contact information. I hope you don’t mind that I shared your numbers with her,” Carmen said.

“Not at all,” Isabella replied.

“She wanted to invite you for Christmas tomorrow and I told her I’d meet you at the ferry. They loved the two of you as much as you liked the bar.”

“This is turning out to be a very merry Christmas,” Kelsey said.

“It sure is,” Isabella agreed, turning around to smile at Kelsey.

“Thank you, Carmen,” Kelsey said. “I wasn’t too excited about this trip since my girls didn’t come with me, but it’s been nothing but happiness since the plane landed.”

“That goes double for me. This is the first Christmas I’ve spent without my boys and I didn’t know what to do with myself.” Isabella turned around to look at Kelsey again and added, “You’ve not only kept my mind off the sadness of divorce and single parenthood, but you’ve helped me see happy times past it.”

“Oh, I’m so glad. I didn’t realize both of you were without your families at Christmas. I thought you’d celebrated before or would after,” Carmen said.

“You’ll get to meet my girls on another trip,” Kelsey said. “They won’t believe me when I tell them all we’ve done, but they’ll see firsthand in March.”

“I can’t wait to show them,” Carmen said.

“When we do the family vacation and have them all here, we may need help.” Isabella chuckled.

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