Troubles in Paradise (Paradise #3)(14)

This gets a smile, though one so fleeting that Huck wonders if he imagined it. “I don’t want to be a charity case. And I don’t want to feel like I owe you something in exchange for…”

Huck exhales a stream of smoke. Now he’s offended. “Please, Irene. Give me some credit.”

“I do, but…”

“But you were married to a fella for thirty-five years who turned out to be a cheat and a liar and a criminal,” Huck says. “So I understand how maybe you’re hesitant to trust the very next man you meet. But I promise—Irene, I promise you on my precious granddaughter’s life that I am pure in my intentions and my feelings. I’ve been hurt before too. Hurt badly.” Huck pauses. At some point, he’ll tell her the story about Kimberly, and she’ll understand they’re more alike than she knows. “I’m not going to use kindness to leverage something from you. Do you understand me?”

“Yes.”

Are we okay, then? he wants to ask. Irene steps toward him and puts her hands on his shoulders, then moves closer and clasps her hands behind his neck. She rests her head on his chest.

Two things are apparent in that moment. One, they are okay. And two, Huck doesn’t understand women.

Irene’s phone rings, snapping them back to reality. Happiness is a butterfly that lands and then just as quickly flies away.

Irene answers the phone. “Hello?” There’s a pause. “Oh, Baker.” Another pause. “What? Where are you? Here? On St. John?” She turns to Huck, her eyes wide with alarm, and mouths: He’s here.

Huck stubs out his cigarette. He imagines his buddy Rupert doing his best Chief Brody imitation: Huck, my friend, you’re going to need a bigger boat.





Ayers


Treasure Island has a blown powerhead. It needs to go all the way to Puerto Rico to be worked on and won’t be back in commission for a week.

Ayers is relieved. As usual, she wakes up facedown on her bed at the crack of dawn when her coffeemaker starts gurgling, but Ayers can barely even lift her head. She has to go to the bathroom but it’s ten feet away, which might as well be a country mile.

Depression is setting in. Because of Mick.

Fool me once, shame on you.

Fool me twice, shame on me.



After Maia called to tell Ayers that she saw Mick and Brigid kissing on the beach—They were all over each other, I saw it with my own two eyes—Ayers nearly smashed her phone against the tile floor of her apartment. But she was stopped by her pragmatism (it would take seven hundred and fifty dollars and a trip to St. Thomas to replace it) and her skepticism. Maia must be mistaken. She’d thought it was Mick and Brigid, but it had to be another couple.

Mick had proposed only two days before. He’d planned the whole thing, luring Ayers out onto his boss’s boat, Funday, rafting up in Christmas Cove near Pizza Pi among all their friends in the St. John service industry, asking Captain Stephen from the Singing Dog to play “Southern Cross,” which was Ayers’s favorite song. My love is an anchor tied to you, tied with a silver chain. He’d proposed in front of everyone, but aside from that, Ayers couldn’t have executed it better herself. And maybe part of her did appreciate the public nature of the proposal. All of their friends knew that Mick had cheated on Ayers with Brigid and had then dated Brigid for two months, one week, and three days. (Yes, it was painful enough that Ayers kept track.) So it was validating to have everyone bear witness to Mick’s ultimate choice.

It was Ayers. Ayers, not Brigid.

Or so she’d thought.

She wanted to dismiss what Maia had told her. Maia was only twelve. Could she really be trusted?

But Ayers trusted Maia more than anyone else she knew. Maia wouldn’t have said it was Mick and Brigid unless it was Mick and Brigid. Ayers had to admit that Mick kissing Brigid on the beach wasn’t out of the realm of possibility. She could only too easily imagine how it had unfolded. Brigid wanted “closure,” she needed to have “a talk,” she “deserved at least that.” And then she gazed at him a certain way or she nudged her knee between his legs or she stroked his earlobe—and Mick broke. Mick might have thought that since he’d proposed and would be with Ayers the rest of his life, he had one last pass.

He did not have one last pass.

Ayers had decided to verify Maia’s sighting with a second source. She’d texted Lindsay, another server at the Beach Bar, someone she considered a friend, to ask if she’d noticed Mick and Brigid slip away during service.

The response: TBH, yes, B. stranded me tonight with all her tables for…half an hour? She’s been crying since Monday, and I assumed Mick was going to talk with her about it because it’s been distracting for all of us. But they were gone an unusually long time and when they came back, B. looked much happier.

Ayers pulled the ring off her finger and nestled it back into its little velvet box. She wondered about the happy bride-to-be who would eventually wear it.

She sent Mick a text: I know you kissed Brigid. I’m leaving the ring in the box under the big rock at the end of my driveway.

Mick texted back: K.

K? Ayers thought. What kind of response was that? Didn’t he want to know how Ayers had found out? Didn’t he want to try and deny it? Wasn’t he going to fight for her?

Apparently not.