Winter in Paradise (Paradise #1)(45)

The next morning Baker gets up early to go for a run. He was an athlete in high school, the classic three—football, basketball, and baseball—and when he got to Northwestern, he played on his fraternity’s intramural teams. In Chicago, he belonged to Lakeshore Sport & Fitness, where he went mostly to meet women. He hasn’t done much in the way of exercise since moving to Houston. There was one ill-advised 5K in Memorial Park; he thought he was having a heart attack—a great irony, because Anna was supposed to come cheer him on, but she’d been called in to work, so one of his thoughts as his vision went black and he stopped dead in his tracks, bent over his knees, was that at least Anna was in a position to save his life.

But today, Baker decides, will be different. Today he is motivated. He has a mission: he is going to sweep Ayers off her feet. He laces up his sneakers and heads out to the end of his father’s driveway.

While he feels okay running down his father’s shaded road, when he gets to the bottom and turns right, he’s in the sun and it’s immediately uphill. As if that isn’t bad enough, a large open-air taxi comes blazing around a blind corner, nearly forcing him over the guard rail down the side of the cliff to the sea. Baker breaks stride to flip the driver off.

Ayers, he thinks. He keeps going, shoulders back, spine straight, face stoic. The sun is broiling, it’s hotter than Houston in August, and suddenly he feels last night’s vodka tonics and mussels and mahi churning in his stomach. The hill grows steep. Baker sets his gaze three feet ahead of his stride—otherwise he’ll give up.

Ayers, he thinks. Do this for Ayers. He hears three low resonant notes, like a foghorn. He raises his face to see an enormous water truck barreling down the hill toward him. He jumps aside.

That’s it, he thinks. He’s done. He turns around.



He gets lost walking back. How can he be lost when he’s only been on one road? His father’s driveway is hidden and unmarked, but Baker has been able to find it when he’s driving because it’s a few yards after the utility pole, which has two yellow stripes. Where is that pole? Baker can’t tell if it’s in front of him or behind him. He didn’t bring his phone; he has sweat in his eyes.

A small lizard-green pickup truck pulls up next to him.

“Are you lost?” a woman asks.

“Maybe?” Baker says. He wipes the sweat off his face with the bottom of his t-shirt and starts to laugh in a way that he knows makes him sound unhinged. But really, what is he even doing here? And then it hits him: his father is dead.

He starts to cry.

“Baker?” the woman says.

Baker’s head snaps up. He looks through the open passenger window to the driver’s side. It’s not some random woman in a funny truck. It’s Ayers.

No, he thinks. Not possible. But yes, it’s her, and she’s even lovelier than he remembers. Her hair is in a messy bun; she’s wearing a loose tank top and yoga pants and he can see she’s driving in bare feet. Bare, sandy feet.

“Hey,” he says, wiping at his eyes. “How are you?”

“Surviving,” she says. “Listen, can I give you a ride somewhere?”

“Oh… no,” Baker says. “I’m good. I was just heading back from a run and I seem to have gotten turned around, maybe. Or maybe not. I’m not sure. But I’ll figure it out.”

“You sure?” Ayers says. “I just took yoga on the beach at Maho and I don’t work until four. I have plenty of time to take you wherever.”

“I’m okay,” Baker says. “Thanks, though.”

“Was it you who came in to La Tapa last night?” Ayers says. “I must have just missed you. Skip said you’d been in.”

“Oh… yeah,” Baker says. “Yeah, that was me. Food was fantastic. Thanks for the recommendation.” He realizes he sounds like he’s trying to get rid of her—and he is trying to get rid of her. He can’t believe she caught him here, now, in his weakest moment. On top of everything else, his bowels are starting to rumble. He needs her to move on. Why her, of all people? Did he conjure her by saying her name so many times in his mind? Or are there really only five people on this island?

“You’re welcome,” Ayers says. “Hey, are you sure you’re okay?”

Baker straightens up against the troublesome clenching in his gut. He tries to look like the world conqueror he wants her to believe he is. “I’m great, thanks. Hey, listen, I may…” He wants to say he may come to the restaurant again that night with Cash, but at that moment a taxi pulls up behind Ayers and the driver lays on his horn.

“Okay, bye!” Ayers says, and she drives off.



It takes him a while but eventually he finds the pole with two yellow stripes and the nondescript dirt road that is his father’s. When Baker finally makes it home, he’s depleted, physically and emotionally. What must Ayers think of him? He’s going to have to roll into La Tapa that night and be his most impressive self.

He enters the kitchen to find his mother standing in front of the open refrigerator, sniffing the container of pasta salad, and he’s transported back a decade or so.

“Mom?” he says. He’s surprised to find her in this posture; his mother has expressed no interest in food the entire time they’ve been here.