Winter in Paradise (Paradise #1)(85)

“Cash can stay,” Ayers says. “I’d actually like to talk to you both.”

They wander over to the pool. There’s a shallow entry where they can all sit with their feet in the water. Winnie lies down between Ayers and Cash, and Ayers strokes her head.

“Let me start,” Baker says. “I owe you an apology.”

“Stop,” Ayers says. She marvels that her parents took her to the rice paddies of Vietnam, the red desert of the Australian outback, and the snow-capped peaks of the Swiss Alps, all with the aim of making her “worldly,” and still she has no idea how to negotiate this emotional landscape.

“Ayers is talking now, Baker,” Cash says. “Respect.”

“Thank you,” Ayers says. She bows her head and smells Mick’s scent on her clothes. When she’d gotten off the phone with Cash the afternoon before—You really shouldn’t be interested in either of us—she had flipped out. She had been blindsided. But once that piece clicked, everything else made sense.

Baker and Cash came to Rosie’s memorial lunch on purpose—because they wanted to gather intel on the woman their father was keeping on the side.

Even saying that phrase in her head fills Ayers with fury. Rosie was nothing more to Russell Steele than a side piece, a baby mama, an island wife. What can she think but that Russell Steele is a despicable human being? And yet she has to be careful, because he is Maia’s biological father. The Invisible Man is also the Pirate, which is sort of like finding out that Santa Claus is the Tooth Fairy.

“You’re both liars,” Ayers says. “Like your father.”

Cash holds up his palms as if to protest his guilt, and Ayers pounces. “Neither of you told me who you were at the memorial reception. You let me believe you were crashing.”

“We were crashing,” Baker says.

“And then I bumped into you on the Reef Bay Trail,” Ayers says to Cash. “Did you follow me there?”

“Follow you?” Cash says. “No, that was a coincidence.”

Ayers narrows her eyes.

“I swear,” Cash says. “I’ve never been here before, I’m an outdoors person, I wanted to get out of the house, see something, take Winnie for a walk. Bumping into you was totally random. How could I possibly have followed you?”

Fair enough, Ayers thinks. Maybe it was just really terrible luck. “But you came on Treasure Island because you wanted to ask me questions about Rosie. Admit it.”

“I came on Treasure Island because I wanted to see you,” Cash says. “Because I thought you were pretty—scratch that, I thought you were beautiful, and I thought you were cool. And you invited me.”

“Sheesh,” Baker says.

“And you!” Ayers says. “You were so much worse.”

“I admit, we went to the reception to do some detective work,” Baker says. “But when I saw you, Ayers… I could barely remember my own name. It was love at first sight.”

“You used me,” Ayers says. The sun is directly in her eyes so she squints, which suits her mood. “You say you like me, you say you love me, but both of you lied to me about who you were or weren’t. And the thing was… I knew something wasn’t right. I knew it.” She drops her voice. “I never met your father, but he spent years lying to my best friend. All I can think is not only did he have no scruples, he had no soul.”

“Whoa,” Baker says.

“She’s right,” Cash says. “I offer no excuses for my father. None.”

Ayers wants to land one more punch. “The two of you are just like him. You’re sneaky.”

“I called you and told you the truth,” Cash says.

“You did not,” Baker says. “I did.”

“You did?” Cash says. “I did, too.”

“Too little, way too late,” Ayers says. She never wants to see either of them again, and this really hurts because she liked them both. She’s also worried that she’ll never be rid of them now because they’re Maia’s brothers. “It doesn’t matter, anyway. I’m back together with Mick.”

“No,” Baker says.

“Yes,” Ayers says. “I was with him last night.”

She relishes saying this, even though a part of her is ashamed about taking Mick back so readily. She called him, and he was at her house half an hour later with an order of oxtail stew from De’ Coal Pot, plus a side of pineapple rice, plus one perfect red hibiscus blossom, which he stuck in a juice glass. He’d begged her for another chance. He’d made a mistake and it would never happen again.

Ayers had succumbed, even though she knew it would happen again—just as soon as he hired the next girl who looked like Brigid. But unlike these two, Mick was a known quantity. And he lived here.

Tourists, she thinks, are nothing but heartbreak.





CASH


The bad news is, he can’t have Ayers.

The good news is, Baker can’t have her, either.

She hates them both.

It’s a knockout punch, but Cash admires Ayers’s principles. He would hate them, too, if he were her.



They leave the pool and head back to the kitchen, where Irene, Huck, and Maia are sitting at the table in silence. It feels like they’ve interrupted something, or maybe they came in on the tail end of a conversation.