Troubles in Paradise (Paradise #3)(46)

“I’m asleep,” Ayers says. “Go home to bed, Mick. Or call Brigid.”

“I don’t want to call Brigid. I don’t care about Brigid. That night at the beach, she trapped me.”

“You kissed her, Mick,” Ayers says. “Right?” They haven’t had a conversation since Ayers broke their engagement, so she hasn’t heard Mick admit his guilt.

“Yes,” Mick says. “I kissed her. We kissed.”

Something inside Ayers zips shut, a tiny compartment where she held out hope that maybe it wasn’t true. “Thank you for telling me. We’re done. I gave you a second chance, and you blew it. I have self-worth and self-respect and you, my friend, have a problem with commitment, fidelity, and honesty.” Ayers runs her hand down Winnie’s back for comfort. “This theater production you’ve been starring in at Cruz Bay Landing is a pathetic plea for attention but it’s also a subtle way to make everyone we know think that this is my fault. You’re playing the injured party when you’re the one who screwed it up.” Ayers’s anger energizes her; she sits up, kicks off her clogs. “You’re making an ass of yourself. You’ve become the village idiot.”

“I kissed Brigid,” Mick says. “I own that. But even if I hadn’t kissed Brigid, the engagement would be over. And why? Why, Ayers? Because you’re pregnant with Banker’s baby, that’s why.”

Ayers falls back. Winnie gets to her feet and stands over her. “Who told you that?”

“It’s all over town,” Mick says.

“No,” Ayers says. Did Cash tell Tilda, who then told Skip, who then told Mick? “I haven’t told anyone.”

“You didn’t have to,” Mick says. “You took a leave of absence from the boat, you missed shifts at La Tapa, Skip said he heard you retching in the ladies’ room before service. It doesn’t take Sherlock Holmes to figure it out. Skip actually congratulated me, thinking I was the father. But I’m not. Both you and I know that I’m not.”

“No,” Ayers says.

“And now Banker knows too.”

Ayers feels dizzy, like she’s on some kind of crazed rocking horse. “What?”

“He and his little boy sat next to me at CBL earlier tonight,” Mick says. “I told him.”



Ayers is so addled that she’s certain there’s no way she’ll be able to fall back to sleep.

But she does, immediately.

When she wakes up in the morning, there’s a text from Baker. Good morning! You feeling any better?

He knows.

Does she tell him that she knows he knows? Or should she just pretend the phone call with Mick never happened and tell him herself?

The latter. Mick is irrelevant.

She thinks about sending a text back, something along the lines of Not sick, pregnant. It’s yours!

Whoa! The room is spinning. Ayers races for the bathroom and throws up. When she emerges, Winnie is stationed outside the door.

“Do you need to go out?” Ayers asks. Winnie trots over to the front door and waits. “I can’t walk you this second, I’m sorry. Just do your thing and come right back, okay?” Ayers opens the door and Winnie obeys, taking care of business efficiently and then slipping back inside past Ayers’s legs. She’s such a good dog; much better than Gordon, if Ayers is being honest. Gordon would have sniffed around for twenty minutes and couldn’t be trusted if a car or another dog came past. Of course, Winnie is female, so that alone explains it.

Ayers takes a four-seven-eight breath and pours herself half a glass of warm ginger ale. She calls Baker, who answers on the first ring.

“Good morning!”

“Good morning?” Ayers says. He sounds awfully chipper. It occurs to Ayers that maybe Mick lied about telling Baker that Ayers is pregnant. “Listen, Baker, there’s something I need to talk to you about.”

“If you want to talk in person, I can be there in two seconds,” Baker says.

What she wants is to hang up and go back to bed. She sighs. She can’t put this conversation off much longer. “Okay.”

One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three—there’s a knock at the door. Winnie shoots over and starts barking.

“Just a minute!” Ayers says. Is that him? Had he been standing outside when she called him? Ayers hurries to the bathroom, takes in her pasty complexion, her bed-mussed hair, her rumpled uniform shirt. Does she stink? Probably. She tries to rub deodorant on without taking off her shirt. She piles her hair on top of her head. Better? Worse? Worse, she decides. She lets it go. Oh, well.

When she swings the door open, there’s Baker, looking tan and relaxed. He’s gorgeous—tall, broad, smiling in that gee-whiz midwestern way. Ayers is struck by something she has willfully ignored until now. She likes Baker. A lot.

Winnie barks. She wants to jump on him, Ayers can tell; her slender golden body is shimmying with energy, her tail is going nuts. It’s not her daddy, but close—his brother.

“Hey, I recognize you,” Baker says to Winnie. And then, to Ayers, “Hello, beautiful.”

If Ayers weren’t pregnant, this moment would be so sexy. She would be wearing a bikini or a sundress or hiking shorts and they would be heading out into the sunshine to start their relationship.

“I’m pregnant,” she says.