“Hello,” Baker says, retracing his steps back to the front door. “I brought some things for Ayers. A smoothie. And chips.”
“Wonderful!” the man bellows. He holds the screen door open. “I’m Phil Wilson and my sweetheart, Sunny—Ayers’s mom—is here as well. You must be the infamous…” Phil turns and calls to someone who is out of Baker’s field of vision. “What’s the soap opera guy’s name again, Sunny?”
“Baker Steele,” a woman’s voice says.
“Baker Steele!” Phil says.
This isn’t exactly the way Baker was hoping the afternoon would go, but he steps inside because he sees no other choice. “Yes, sir,” he says. “Nice to meet you.”
Ayers and her mother are sitting cross-legged on the sofa. Sunny is beautiful; she looks just like Ayers, only older. She’s slender with curly blond-silver hair; she’s wearing a beige jersey dress and lots of silver jewelry. Ayers doesn’t look unhappy to see Baker, which he supposes he should take as a win. “Mom, Dad, this is Baker,” she says. Her expression is neutral, as though she’s introducing her parents to the pizza-delivery guy.
“You’re the one who impregnated my daughter?” Phil says.
“Um…” Baker looks to Ayers to see if she confirms this.
“Dad, please,” Ayers says. “Yes. Baker and I were together. This is his baby.”
“We’re over the moon,” Sunny says. “We flew all the way from Nairobi to be here.”
“Nairobi, wow.” Baker looks at the photographs hanging on Ayers’s living-room wall—her at the Great Pyramids and the Taj Mahal—and he picks out younger versions of Phil and Sunny. “You’re world travelers.”
“Nomads,” Phil says. “The earth is our home.”
“Where are you staying?” Baker asks. He looks around Ayers’s studio; Winnie is asleep on Ayers’s bed. “Not here?”
“We have a room at Caneel Bay for now,” Phil says. “We’re planning on staying a few weeks, then maybe spending some time in Jamaica, the DR, Antigua and Barbuda, St. Vincent and the Grenadines…”
“Bequia is supposed to be relatively unspoiled,” Sunny says. “We’ve avoided the Caribbean for the most part because it’s so tacky.”
“Gee, thanks, guys,” Ayers says.
“St. John is different,” Phil says. “It still has that rugged-nature-lover vibe.”
“With spots of luxury,” Sunny says. “Like Caneel.”
“There aren’t any all-inclusives,” Phil says. “Just the term all-inclusive makes me shudder.”
“They’re travel snobs,” Ayers says.
“Anyway, once we complete our little jaunt, we’ll come back here and wait for the baby to be born,” Sunny says.
“That wait could be weeks or months,” Phil says. “So I was going to look into buying a time-share at the Westin.”
“We’ll need a home base here if we ever want to see our grandchild,” Sunny says.
Baker hates to be opportunistic, but…“If you decide you do want a Westin time-share, I can help you,” he says. “I’m working at their sales office right now.”
“Great!” Phil says. “We’ll take one.”
“Dad,” Ayers says. “Don’t tease.”
“Who’s teasing?” Phil says. “I’ll be by to see you in the morning.”
“Free breakfast with mimosas,” Baker says. “And a hundred-dollar resort credit.”
“Hear that, gorgeous?” Phil says to Sunny. “She loves free stuff. We got a discount on our room at Caneel because she told them she’s a travel blogger.”
“We should ask Baker some questions,” Sunny says. “We know nothing about you. Freddy told us the two of you are just casual acquaintances.”
“Mom!” Ayers says.
“Freddy?” Baker says.
“That’s my daughter’s nickname,” Phil says. “Short for ‘Ready, Freddy,’ which was something she used to say often as a child. I can’t believe you don’t even know her nickname.”
“Nobody knows my nickname,” Ayers says. “No. Body.”
Baker is still holding the chips and the smoothie, which is turning his hand numb. He’s afraid to make himself any more comfortable until he’s invited to do so. “Well, I grew up in Iowa City, went to Northwestern, graduated with a business degree, worked on the commodities exchange in Chicago for a few years, and then my soon-to-be-ex-wife, Anna Schaffer, got a job offer in Houston. She’s a cardiothoracic surgeon.”
“A cardiothoracic surgeon?” Sunny says. “That’s impressive!”
Yes, yes, story of Baker’s life—the most impressive thing about him is his wife’s career. “We’re in the process of getting a divorce,” Baker says. “She fell in love with a coworker of hers, a doctor named Louisa Rodriguez”—Baker glances at Ayers’s parents; they seem unfazed by this—“and I have custody of our son, Floyd, who’s four.”
“We’d like to meet Floyd!” Phil says.
“Another time,” Ayers says. She checks her phone, which is sitting in front of her on the coffee table, and what can Baker think but that he’s overstaying his welcome.
“My brother, Cash, and my mother, Irene, are also living with me right now,” Baker says. He takes a breath. He has to put down the smoothie. “Here.” He sets it down in front of Ayers. “I brought you this. It’s pineapple-mango. Your favorite.”
“My favorite after pineapple-banana,” she says. Baker deflates and hands over the chips without adding that he made a special trip to Sam and Jack’s for them.
“You don’t know her nickname or her favorite smoothie?” Phil says. “I can see we still have some work to do.”
“Please stop, Dad,” Ayers says.
“It was very thoughtful of you to bring these,” Sunny says, opening the chips and helping herself to one. “How interesting that you live with your family of origin.”
“Yes, well…” Baker says. He glances at Ayers. Has she not explained any of his situation to her parents? “My father died in a helicopter crash on the first of the year…”
“So did Rosie,” Phil says.
“We adored Rosie,” Sunny says.
“Was the fella she was with…your father?” Phil asks.
“Yes,” Baker says. Ayers is staring at her own crossed legs. Why didn’t she give her parents the thorny background? “And so my mother and brother and I all flew down here to figure out what was going on.”
“What was going on?” Phil asks.
“Well, we learned about his relationship with Rosie…”
“Had your mother suspected anything?” Sunny asks.
Baker can’t believe he’s being put on the spot like this. But it’s refreshing, in a way, to answer questions that everyone must be asking in his or her head. “She had no idea,” Baker says. “It came as a complete shock. Jaw-dropping. For days I think we all believed there’d been a mistake, that it was a different Russell Steele. But then, yeah, we accepted it was my dad. He owned a giant hilltop villa that we knew nothing about. He had a whole life. A second life.”
“You’ll forgive me for saying so,” Phil says, “but it seems unusual that you stayed on the island where your father had a second family.”
“Dad!” Ayers says.
“It wasn’t our plan to stay,” Baker says. “Each of us ended up back here for his or her own reasons. I can only speak for myself. I was living in Houston, my marriage fell apart, my almost-ex-wife took a job at the Cleveland Clinic—”
“Impressive!” Sunny says.
“—and I met Ayers. I decided I wanted to try to make our relationship work.” He can see the warning in Ayers’s eyes but he ignores it. “I came down here without knowing about the baby. But I’m excited—no, thrilled about the news, and I plan to be a hands-on father, just like I am with Floyd.”
“Well,” Sunny says, “I’m overcome. What a beautiful thing to say.”
“We ended up losing my father’s villa a few weeks ago,” Baker says. He clears his throat. “There was tax trouble. Legal troubl
e. And that was a hurdle for all of us—my mother, brother, and me—because we had all planned on living there. It was…spacious.”
“Um, yeah,” Ayers says.
“It’s almost better that we aren’t at the villa anymore.” Baker realizes these words are true only as he’s saying them. “It was…tainted. Don’t get me wrong, it was luxurious, the wow factor was high, but I think that masked the truth, which was that we didn’t belong there. I’ve rented the place right across the street from here, and although it’s a tight fit right now, I’m confident my mom and brother will find their own spaces in time.”
“Across the street from here!” Sunny says. “How convenient.”
Phil leads Baker to the door. “You’ve made a very fine first impression, Baker Steele.”
Baker raises his eyebrows at Ayers. Your parents like me! Ayers whistles, and Winnie lifts her head, jumps off the bed, and joins Ayers on the couch.
“We must arrange a dinner with your mom and brother,” Sunny says. “A family affair! But we can’t do it tonight because we’re taking Freddy and Michael out.”
“To the beach bar at Caneel,” Phil says. “Supposedly, they have decent sushi.”
“We spent nine months traveling through Japan in the early aughts,” Sunny says. “And do you want to know where we found the best sushi?”
“Gate thirty-five at Narita Airport,” Phil says. “The tuna special. I dream about it.”
Baker is still trying to figure out who “Freddy and Michael” are. Friends of theirs? A gay couple? Then he remembers that Ayers is Freddy. But who’s Michael? “Who’s Michael?” he asks.
“Mick,” Phil says. “We’re taking out Ayers and Mick.”
“‘Mick’ makes him sound like an Irish hoodlum or a horny rock star,” Sunny says. “I prefer to call him by his given name.”
Ayers rubs Winnie’s head. Is she even listening to this conversation?
“You’re taking out Ayers and Mick?” Baker says.
“It’s been so long since we’ve seen him,” Sunny says.
Somehow, Baker makes it through the door, saying graciously, Enjoy the sushi, hope it’s decent, come see me in the morning, we’ll look at one-bedrooms and two-bedrooms, nice to meet you, all righty, will do, yep, yep, yep, bye-bye. And then, mercifully, Phil closes the door.
Taking out Ayers and Mick?
Baker heads across the street, limping like he has an old sports injury—Mick is the old sports injury, the one Baker can’t seem to recover from—until he’s at his front door and can safely disappear into what should now be known as the Heartbroken Hibiscus.
Huck
He calls Agent Vasco to tell her about the diaries.
“Have you read them?” she asks.
“Yes,” he says.
“Are they going to give me what I need?”
They better, Huck thinks. Because I sacrificed my relationship with Irene for them. “Only you would know,” Huck says. He’s on his deck, smoking. He’s been going through half a pack a day since Irene moved out. “Should I mail them to you or are you on the island?”
“We’re on the island today,” Vasco says. “Can I swing by around eleven?”
“I have a charter,” Huck says. “I’ll leave them on the mail table just inside my front door. You remember where I live? Up Jacob’s Ladder?”
“You don’t lock up?”
“I have nothing to steal,” Huck says.
“Fine, we’ll be by,” Vasco says. She pauses. “Thank you for calling me.”
“I want to cooperate,” Huck says. “Can you tell me what’s up with Douglas and Paulette Vickers?”
“In the vault?” Vasco says.
“Of course.”
“We offered them a deal if they gave us something tangible on Croft, but they refused, insisted he was no part of it, that it was only Steele and Thompson.”
“Wow,” Huck says.
“So the Vickerses will serve time for fraud and money laundering. They allowed Ascension to buy and sell land from one fictional entity to another using their real estate concern. Welcome to Paradise Real Estate was as dirty as they come.”
“They’ll both serve time?” Huck says. “What about their son?”
“Staying with Douglas’s sister on St. Croix.” Vasco sighs. “Those diaries are my last shot. Croft is a slippery bastard. I’d love to nail him.”
Vasco is tough; Huck likes that about her.
Huck is distracted on his charter. He has three lawyers from Philadelphia on board who are going out on the boat only so they can escape their wives, smoke the Cuban cigars they scored in the BVIs, and enjoy a day on the water. They don’t care if they catch any fish. All good; less concentration required from Huck. He hates to phone it in but he can’t get his mind off the question of whether or not to call Irene when they get back to the dock. Would she want to know about Paulette and Douglas Vickers? He normally would say yes but now all bets are off; she has been radio-silent since she left. He thought she’d come to her senses and that one of these mornings, he would find her waiting by the Mississippi with two sausage biscuits and two cups of strong black coffee. But no such luck.
He won’t call her, he thinks. She made it clear she didn’t want to talk about those diaries ever again.
He misses her at work. He misses her at home. He tries to maintain for Maia’s sake. He continues to grill mahi or he stops at Candi’s for barbecue, but more often than not, he feeds Maia and drinks his own dinner, smokes his dessert. He doesn’t make any move to hire a new mate because he can’t handle the idea of breaking someone in—and, too, he thinks Irene will return if he waits her out.
Without a mate, he often can’t pick Maia up from school so he leans on Julie Judge more than he should. He feels like he’s losing his grip on where Maia goes, how she spends her days. Well, she needs food on the table. And she likes to be able to order new clothes from Amazon. Her bath-bomb business seems to have stalled; something new has her attention. Boys, probably.
One night over dinner—it’s not even Candi’s, it’s leftover Candi’s, that’s how sorry a state Huck is in—he says, “Maybe you could make some extra money babysitting for Floyd.”
“Floyd has plenty of babysitters now,” Maia says. “Irene is there. And Cash moved in too.”
“Cash moved in?” Huck says. “I thought he was living over in Peter Bay with what’s her name.”
“Tilda,” Maia says. “They broke up. Tilda is dating some super-rich guy who bought Lovango Cay. Tilda’s parents are building an eco-resort there.”
Yes, Huck has heard whisperings about this around town. A resort on Lovango will bring in some high-end clientele, which everyone is excited about. It means more potential fishing clients. Huck would be excited too if he could only summon the energy. “How do you know all this?” Huck asks.
“Ayers,” Maia says. She finishes her coleslaw and eyes Huck as she sets down her fork. “If I tell you something, can you keep it a secret?”
All he can think is that she’s going to tell him something about Irene—she bought a boat, she signed on with rival fishing boat What a Catch!, she’s moving back to the States. “I can, yes,” he says.
“Ayers is pregnant!” Maia says. “With Baker’s baby!”
Huck would have said he was too old and jaded for anything to bowl him over, but Maia just proved him wrong. He thinks back to the last time he saw Ayers—when she gave him the diaries. She looked…peaked. To say the least. “You’re kidding.”
“Nope. She told me the other day.”
“And Baker is the father? Baker, not Mick?”
“Isn’t that crazy?” Maia says. She lifts a rib off Huck’s plate that he didn’t have any appetite for. “Their baby will be my niece or nephew. And if Ayers and Baker get married…” Maia’s eyes light up. “Ayers will be my sister-in-law! We’ll all be related!”
Huck wonders if Irene knows. She must. What the hell does she think about that? Well, there is one silver lin
ing: Irene Steele isn’t going anywhere with a new grandbaby on the way.
The next morning, Huck sees Irene pull into the Gifft Hill School parking lot to drop off Floyd. Even the sight of her—chestnut braid, white scoop-neck T-shirt, the blocky sunglasses that look like what an elderly person with cataracts wears—addles Huck.
“Irene!” he calls out through his open window. He wants to talk to her about Ayers and Baker, a baby coming, her new grandchild. Forget the FBI and Russ and the diaries—the pregnancy is good news, beautiful news.
He catches Irene by surprise. She glances over, sees it’s him, and, without missing a beat, throws Baker’s Jeep in reverse, backs out of the lot, and goes screaming down Gifft Hill, which is in the opposite direction of her house. She must really want to get away from him.
After dinner that evening, Huck smokes two cigarettes in rapid succession on the deck. He passes through the kitchen, then hits reverse, pulls the Flor de Caña off the shelf, does a shot, then a second shot. He checks on Maia. She’s at her desk studying, not on her phone, a small miracle.
“I’m going to read for a bit, Nut,” he says. “Good night.”
He goes into his bedroom and sits at his desk, which is where he keeps his laptop and a paper calendar listing all his charters as well as files for bills and boat maintenance. He pulls a piece of paper from the tray of his printer, finds a pen that works, and thinks, Here goes nothing.
He writes a letter to Irene. He doesn’t worry about his spelling or word choice; he doesn’t start over when he wants to change his phrasing, just crosses things out. It doesn’t have to be perfect; it just has to be true.
When he’s finished, he reads it through, folds it in thirds, sticks it in an envelope. He’s probably the only fool on earth who’s still handwriting letters, but what he had to say shouldn’t be texted and she won’t talk to him. A letter is outdated, but it will also be difficult to resist reading. He hopes.
Troubles in Paradise Page 19
