Come to think of it, I hadn’t taken a vacation anywhere in a long time. My travels always seem to have a business purpose, with an occasional day or two thrown in for rest and sightseeing. Some of my friends from Cabot Cove make a yearly trip to the Caribbean, or to the Bahamas as a respite from the numbing cold of Maine winters. For me, if I’m lucky, there have been occasional business trips to California or Arizona to warm these bones when the snow falls and the winds howl back home. But here I was heading for a sunny Caribbean isle for no other purpose than to relax, no manuscript to edit, no twisted plot point to unravel, no talk show on which to sell my wares—nothing except personal pleasure. It made me nervous. “Ladies and gentlemen, this is the captain. We should be touching down in St. Thomas in about twenty minutes. Hope you’ve enjoyed flying with us today and that we’ll see you again soon.” I looked out my window. The sky was cobalt blue. Thin white gauzy clouds floated above.
