Winter in Paradise (Paradise #1)(48)

Baker had laughed and said, “I can’t help it if chicks like me better, dude.” He had meant this as a kind of apology, but Cash had taken it as exactly the opposite. Things between them had never been the same. Baker thought, Fine, whatever. He wished they were closer or at least on less prickly terms, but they were adults—or at least Baker was, with a house and a wife and a child. Cash was still a punk, mooching off their father’s magnanimity, and apparently still a sore loser. It could be that Cash has been waiting all these many years to get back at Baker.

“Really,” Baker says now. “How did all that come about?”

“Ayers invited me,” Cash says.

Baker finishes the rest of his vodka tonic in one swallow, then holds his empty glass up to Skip, and Skip says, “Pronto, man, as soon as I finish with the sixteen orders from the service bar,” a response Baker knows he deserves.

“Invited you when?” Baker says.

“When I bumped into her hiking,” Cash says.

“Hiking.”

“Winnie and I hiked the Reef Bay Trail on Saturday,” Cash says. “And we came across Ayers by the petroglyphs, crying and nearly out of drinking water.”

“Stop,” Baker says. He can all too easily picture the scene. Winnie probably approached Ayers; Cash was fond of letting his dog introduce him to women. And then Cash wooed her by being his well-prepared Boy Scout self. “Just so we’re clear on this, I’m going to ask her out.”

“What?” Cash says. “You can’t ask her out. You’re married.”

“I…” Baker realizes he hasn’t told Cash about Anna, so he most definitely sounds like a world-class jerk. “Anna and I have separated.”

“What?” Cash says.

Baker can’t explain right now. And he can’t wait another twenty minutes for a drink. And he can’t sit and eat a meal with his brother, who has seen Ayers two of the past three days and now has his own private jokes with her.

Baker stands up. He sets the Jeep keys next to Cash’s beer. “I’m out,” he says.

He expects Cash to protest, but all Cash says is, “Good.”

Baker weaves between tables as the guitar player croaks out “Thunder Road.” Baker scans the restaurant and sees Ayers taking an order out on the deck. He stands a few feet behind her until she finishes and then he whispers her name.

She spins around. “Oh, hi,” she says. “Are you leaving?”

“I only came for a drink,” he says. He squares his shoulders. “Listen, turns out I’m here for a couple more days. I’d love to take you out.”

“That’s sweet,” Ayers says. “But I’m pretty busy. I work two jobs and I have…”

“When are you free?” Baker asks. “I can do lunch, I can do dinner…”

Ayers chews her bottom lip and peers into the restaurant. Is she looking at Cash? he wonders. That’s just impossible.

“Seriously,” Baker says. “I can do breakfast or late drinks. Or late dinner. How about tonight, after you get off?”

Ayers looks hesitant. She’s wavering. There’s no way she’s into Cash; Baker rejects the very idea.

“Please,” he says. “Just tell me what time.”

“Ten o’clock,” she says. “I’ll be done by ten and we can go to De’ Coal Pot. They serve Caribbean food.”

“Perfect,” Baker says. “I’ll be back at ten.”

Ayers nods and hurries inside, and Baker watches her go.

Just please don’t invite my brother, he thinks.





IRENE


What is she doing?

What is she doing?

What is she doing?

She is throwing away the rule book, she thinks. And it feels okay.

For the first fifty-seven years of her life, Irene stayed on script. She was a dutiful daughter, a good student in both high school and college. She got married, had children, took a job that was suited to her.

She had been a good mother, or good enough. The boys were fine.

She had been a good wife.

Hadn’t she?

It’s only at night, after Irene has taken one of the pills that Anna prescribed, that she allows herself to indulge in self-doubt. Where did she go wrong? She feels like she must have done Russ a huge, terrible injustice somewhere along the way for him to engage in a deception so wide and deep.

But she comes up with nothing.

She wasn’t sure what to expect when she arrived here; the villa and the island are as foreign as Neptune. What she finds surprising are the small flashes of her own influence that she stumbles across. All of the beds, she’s noticed, have six pillows, along with one oversized decorative pillow against the headboard, one small square decorative pillow in front, and a cylindrical bolster. This is exactly how Irene dresses the beds at home; she had no idea Russ had ever noticed. Also, the wine Russ keeps on hand—cases of it, on the ground floor—are her two favorites: Cakebread and Simi. It’s almost as if Russ expected her to show up for a drink one day.

She wouldn’t say these details made her feel at home, although they do provide a connection. This was her husband’s house. Her husband’s house. And now her husband is dead. These pieces of news that were, initially, so difficult to conceive, she’s now finally processing.