Shane comes up behind her and squeezes her hand. “I’ll go down with you.”
“We’ll all go down with you,” Joanie says.
“We’re just kids,” Colton says. “We can say we didn’t know we weren’t allowed to be here.”
Maia is trembling when she gets down to the bottom of the stairs. “You guys stay here,” she says. She steps out to the deck.
The woman is gazing at the view across the water to Tortola and Jost Van Dyke. She’s short and has brown hair that’s pulled back in a ponytail; she’s wearing white capri pants and a beige linen shell and sandals, and when she turns around, Maia sees she has a round, pale face with wide brown eyes. She doesn’t look like the FBI, but maybe this is how they trick you. They send someone who looks like the person who cleans teeth at the dentist’s office.
“Hello, Maia,” she says.
“Hello?” Maia says. Who is this woman? “Am I in trouble?”
“Oh,” the woman says. “Not with me, but I’m sure you kids realize you’re not supposed to be here.”
“We’re leaving,” Maia says. “We were just…I left some personal things behind that I wanted back.” She wishes she’d thought to bring the Angie Thomas book out. “I mean, it’s okay to take personal items? That have no value?”
“I’m not going to report you,” the woman says, but it sounds like there’s something else coming. “I just have one question. Something I need help with.”
“Okay…” Maia says.
“I’m a friend of Irene Steele’s,” the woman says. “An acquaintance. And I know she was living with you and your grandpa, correct? Up on Jacob’s Ladder? Has she moved? Left island, maybe?”
“Irene?” Maia says. “She lives in Fish Bay now with my brother Baker.” Maia absolutely loves using the phrase my brother. “And my nephew, Floyd. They live in a house called the Happy Hibiscus.”
Irene’s friend nods and brings her hands palm to palm up to her heart like a yoga person. “Thank you. That’s all I needed to know.”
“Do you…want her phone number?” Maia says. She wonders if it’s okay to give out Irene’s number, but this woman does not look threatening. She looks like someone from Iowa.
“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
