Troubles in Paradise (Paradise #3)(49)
“She’s…away,” Cash says. Kim seems friendly enough for Cash to spill his guts to. He could tell her that Tilda is away for a week with some millennial millionaire who lives out in the East End, but how pathetic would that sound? Instead, Cash raises his beer glass. “I’ll have another one, please.”
He stops at two beers, eats his curry, and chats a little more with Kim, telling her that he works on the Treasure Island.
She says, “Oh yeah?” and studies him for a second. “You know, rumor has it that Ayers is pregnant.”
Whoa! This is unexpected. Cash’s face must register genuine shock because Kim leans across the bar. “I shouldn’t have said that, it’s probably not true, please don’t tell anyone.”
“Oh, I won’t,” Cash says. Kim moves down the bar to help another customer and Cash realizes their conversation is over. He scans the place to see if anyone looks familiar or even promising to talk to; he needs some friends. He thinks about stopping by La Tapa on his way home to give Ayers a heads-up that her secret is out, but that will only upset her, and swinging by Tilda’s place of work while Tilda is away feels weird and desperate. Besides which, Skip will be working, and he hates Cash’s guts.
Cash pays the bill, waves to Kim, and tries to look like a man who has important people to meet. He could check out Beach Bar, see if a band is playing tonight, or he could try his luck at the Parrot Club, though he definitely does not have money to gamble away. Another drink sounds appealing—maybe at the Dog House Pub, where he can watch basketball on TV? But he’s driving Tilda’s Range Rover, it’s a seventy-thousand-dollar vehicle, and two drinks is a wise limit.
He checks his phone, which he miraculously avoided doing all through dinner (there is nothing more pathetic than a dude alone at dinner looking at his phone) and finds nothing from Tilda. For an instant, he wonders if she’s okay. Did her plane crash? Was she kidnapped? Or, a more likely possibility, did something happen to her phone? Did she leave it in the airport restroom? Did it fall into her personal plunge pool? If anything dire had happened, Cash assumes he would have heard from Granger or Lauren. If something happened to her phone, she would have simply texted from Dunk’s phone.
Tomorrow, maybe he’ll see if James the boat captain wants to grab a drink. James will say no; he has a wife and a baby girl out in Coral Bay, and he likely gets his fill of Cash while they’re on the boat.
Well, it’s not like Cash doesn’t know anyone else on the island. He calls his mother—gets her voicemail. Then he calls his brother—gets his voicemail.
Cash tosses his phone onto the seat beside him and yells as loud as he can. The sound, desperate even to his own ears, is absorbed by the expensive leather.
Cash wakes up in the morning to a new day—chirping geckos, singing birds, blue sky, pearlescent sunlight. There’s a text from Tilda. Finally. Cash opens it.
It says: Arrived! Followed by a single kissy-face emoji. Sent at…12:47 a.m.
Cash stares at the text, willing it to say something else, something more. She was supposed to land yesterday at three in the afternoon. Why is she only texting him at a quarter to one the following morning? He checks to see if there’s a missed call from her. Nope. So this is it. Technically, it checks the box—she’s let him know she made it safely—but it feels perfunctory, like an afterthought. Oops, forgot to text Cash. Does she miss him? If the answer is yes, why doesn’t she say so? She used to text that she missed him if the Treasure Island was a few minutes late pulling into Cruz Bay or if he got held up in the customhouse coming back from the BVIs. This feels like a blow-off. Why did she wait so long to text and what was she doing up so late?
Cash texts back: Glad you made it safely. I miss you!
He waits to see if she responds, but there’s nothing. She must still be sleeping.
While Cash is driving to work, his phone rings and his whole body relaxes. There she is.
He’s on the dicey curve above Hawksnest so he answers without checking the display. “Hello?” He has the radio up, 104.3 the Buzz out of San Juan, which is playing Michael Franti, and he makes no move to turn it down. He wants to sound happy, busy, unconcerned.
“Cash?”
It’s not Tilda. It’s his mother.
Cash is so crushed, he nearly hangs up.
“Hey,” he says, and he does turn down the music. He’s no longer in a “Sound of Sunshine” mood.
“Cash? It’s Mom. Listen, I have some good news.”
Good news at this point would be Tilda calling to say that Dunk’s picture should be next to douchebag in the dictionary and that she can’t stand him another second and is on her way home, hotel research be damned. He can’t believe how strongly he feels about Tilda. He knew the relationship was promising but his feelings have ratcheted up to the next level now that she’s gone. Gone with Dunk. “Oh, really?” Cash says. He wonders briefly if Irene’s attorney somehow managed to get the villa back. What a major relief that would be! He could leave Peter Bay and regain at least a little of his self-respect.
“Milly’s estate is through probate,” Irene says. “She had stocks that your grandfather bought back in the late 1970s that were sold for us. To the tune of a hundred and seventeen thousand dollars. Now, I wanted to split that four ways—you, your brother, Maia, and myself.”