Troubles in Paradise (Paradise #3)(58)

“No, thank you,” the woman says. “I’d like to speak to her in person.” She moves toward the stairs. “You kids should probably skedaddle. And don’t forget to lock up.”



Maia goes into the kitchen, where everyone is huddled in the far corner by the trash.

“Let’s go,” Maia says. “She wasn’t the FBI.”

The boys and Joanie shoot out the door and Maia does a check—lights out, stove off, everything put away. She locks the sliding glass door and turns off the water on the slide.

Goodbye, villa, she thinks. Site of my first kiss.

Together, they run down Lovers Lane shrieking with heady joy. Maia can’t believe they got away with it.





Baker


He feels like he’s starring in a sitcom about a single dad who moves from the big city to a tropical island to woo the girl he fell in love with on vacation. In episode 2, he finds out this girl is pregnant. Twist: It’s his child. Twist: She is just out of a long-term relationship and needs time alone. Twist: He moves in across the street.

In episode 3, his mother moves in. There’s no room for her but she’s adamant and says she has nowhere else to go.

“What about Huck’s?” Baker said when Irene showed up on his doorstep with her suitcase. “That was working out. You had your own bedroom. You drove to work together.”

“I quit the boat,” Irene said. “I need to be with family. Huck isn’t family.”

“You quit the boat?” Baker said. “You like the boat.”

Irene stared at him. She was impossible to read but he couldn’t just let her stand outside so he held the door open. She set her suitcase behind one of the sofas in the living room.

“So you’re here for a while?” Baker said. “Why don’t you take the second bedroom. Floyd can sleep with me.”

“I’ll be fine on the sofa,” Irene said. “I’ll use Floyd’s bathroom. I hope he won’t mind.”

“Mom,” Baker said. “I insist. Floyd will sleep with me. Are you kidding? He’ll be thrilled.”

“I’m not putting either one of you out,” Irene said. “I feel horrible about this as it is. The sofa is fine.”

He decided that after she spent a few nights on the sofa, he would offer again. “What are you going to do for work now? Do you have a plan?”

“I’m going to get my captain’s license,” Irene said. “I have that money coming from your grandmother. I’m going to buy my own boat and start my own charter.”

“Your own charter?” Baker said. “Here?”

Irene nodded. Wow, she did not look happy.

“You’re going into direct competition with Huck?” he said.

“Oh, yes,” she said.

Something had happened, but what? She would tell him when she was ready. Or she wouldn’t. It would be nice to have his mother around, but he needed to catch her up. “That house across the street is where Ayers lives,” he said. He considered asking Irene to sit down—but if anyone could handle the news standing up, it was his mother. “She’s pregnant.”

“You’re kidding.”

“With my baby.”

“Your baby?”

“Yes.” Baker paused. “We aren’t together. I mean, we were together, I suppose that’s obvious, but then she got engaged to Mick, then she broke the engagement with Mick because he was unfaithful, then she found out she was pregnant.”

“But the baby’s not Mick’s?” Irene looked dubious. Baker’s private fears were written all over his mother’s face. “You’re sure? She might just be telling you that because…well, because you’re you, by which I mean a wonderful father.”

“She insists the baby is mine,” Baker said. “Don’t women have a sixth sense about things like that?”

Irene frowned. “I’m not sure. I never had any doubts about the paternity of my children.”

The last thing Baker wanted was for Irene to take issue with Ayers. “Here’s the thing. I want to be with Ayers eventually. The cart came a little before the horse—”

“You think?”

“And she needs space right now and I’m giving it to her.”

“She’s across the street.”

“Emotional space. We’re building a friendship first.” What Baker didn’t tell Irene was that Ayers resisted every attempt at friendship that Baker made. On Saturday morning, he and Floyd had gone to Provisions for coffee and scones. When they knocked on Ayers’s door with the offerings, she hadn’t answered, even though her green truck was in the driveway.

Baker had said, “She’s probably still asleep, bud.”

“But we waited until ten,” Floyd said. He was eager to open the door because he wanted to play with Winnie.

They wandered back across the street and although Baker told Floyd they’d try again later, he ate Ayers’s scone and drank her coffee. The second coffee made him feel so unhinged that he became convinced she hadn’t answered the door because she had Mick over. Or maybe she wasn’t home. Maybe she was with Mick at his new villa, Pure Joy. (Baker had scoped out the villa once—okay, twice—on his way to work at the Westin. It wasn’t as big as the Happy Hibiscus but it had an unbeatable view and an outdoor shower.)