Troubles in Paradise (Paradise #3)(67)
“Barracuda,” he says.
“I love a man with scars,” Colette says.
Huck lets that comment slide, though it’s starting to feel like she’s flirting with him, maybe more than flirting, which he can’t deny is good for his battered ego. How old is she? Maybe closer to forty than he’d thought. “How did you end up in the Caribbean?” he asks.
She tells him she’s originally from New Jersey, around Manasquan, Brielle, Belmar. Springsteen territory, she adds, because he’s never heard of any of those places. Colette’s father was a policeman; she went to Rutgers. The FBI recruited her. She spent years working the ports, fell in love with her boss, got married, and when he was transferred to the field office in Puerto Rico, she went with him. She got promoted, they split (it’s unclear to Huck if these two things are related), he went back to New Jersey, she stayed in Puerto Rico. The FBI acknowledged the need for a bigger white-collar crime investigative team in the territories.
They’re dangerously close to their original topic. Huck is still trying to process the news about Oscar Cobb. Investments? By “investments” the girlfriend must have meant “dealing drugs,” because what kind of investments needed to be tended to at three o’clock in the morning on St. John?
“Time for me to call it a night,” Huck says. They wander back inside and Huck flags Heidi for the check. “I have a charter bright and early.”
“I should go too,” Colette says.
They end up walking out to the parking lot together. It’s dark and unpaved so Huck does the gentlemanly thing and offers Colette his arm.
“You didn’t drive the Suburban out here, did you?”
“I’m staying out here,” she says. “Company digs. I can’t disclose the exact location but it’s close enough to walk.”
Huck is relieved. He’s spared having to offer her a ride home. “Well, this is me,” he says, nodding at his truck. He lifts his arm in an attempt to reclaim it from her and Colette grabs his hand, then winds her arms around his midsection and hip-locks him.
Whoa! Huck isn’t sure what to do but he has to make a decision right now. Colette Vasco is pretty and there can be no mistaking her body language. She’s ready to go—all the way.
Kiss her! Huck thinks. Take her home. What’s stopping you? She’s divorced, you’re single, you’re both lonely, and admit it, there’s been something between you from the beginning.
He places his hands on Colette’s shoulders, then cups her face and bends down. He kisses her once, gently, and is overcome by a strong wave of the worst emotion that exists in the world: guilt. He pulls away.
She presses farther into him. “Huck.”
“Agent Vasco,” he says. He reaches behind his back and unclasps her hands, holds them in both of his. “You’re a very attractive woman. But I’m…involved with someone else.” He stops. Is he doing the right thing? Is he? “And although it is quite tempting to take you home and let things unfold as they may, that wouldn’t be fair to her. Nor would it be fair to you. So I’m going to say good night. Please get home safely.”
Colette Vasco stares at him with half a smile—incredulous? embarrassed? drunk?—and then disappears into the dark.
Huck climbs into his truck, lights another cigarette, and blows the smoke out the window. I hope you’re happy, Irene Steele, he thinks. You’ve ruined me.
He starts the engine, thinking, Go slow, stay left. Donkeys, get out of my way.
Ayers
During the first week of their stay on St. John, Ayers’s parents cover a lot of ground. On the very first day, they meet Baker and then take Mick and Ayers out to dinner. On their second day, they buy a two-bedroom time-share at the Westin from Baker, and Ayers experiences predictably mixed feelings. On the one hand, she’s comforted by this. On the other hand, she feels suffocated.
In the following days, Phil and Sunny hike the Reef Bay Trail, charter the Singing Dog with Captains Stephen and Kelly to the BVIs (no Treasure Island for them; they want to sail), experience happy hour at both Woody’s and High Tide, snorkel with turtles at Salt Pond, dance to Miss Fairchild at the Beach Bar, buy matching hook bracelets at Bamboo, and kayak to Lime Out for tacos.
And yet somehow, they’re still underfoot. They wake Ayers up with chai lattes from Provisions, they swing by with containers of sesame noodles and spinach-artichoke dip from the North Shore Deli, they appear at La Tapa while Ayers is working and introduce themselves to the guests at Ayers’s tables until she has to ask them to either sit at the bar or leave. They choose the bar and end up getting into a deep conversation with Skip about his trust issues with women.
How is she ever going to survive them? When will they leave for Barbuda, Bequia?
The dinner with Mick was…illuminating. Ayers wonders if, in her parents’ minds, Mick is still her boyfriend. Maybe they haven’t yet fully absorbed the news of the breakup or the idea that Ayers is pregnant by someone else. At dinner at the Longboard—which unfortunately evoked the evening of their engagement—Mick was his most charming self, sucking up to Phil and Sunny in every possible way, asking about their travels, begging to see their pictures, giving Sunny too much encouragement about her prospective blog. Ayers bit her tongue and thought, Fake it to make it, all the while hoping the staff at the Longboard weren’t getting out their phones in the back to broadcast the news that Mick and Ayers were together again.