“Did she say where she’d been?”

“No,” Ayers says. “Nothing was ever mentioned about it to me. My mother quit the job at the pub and we moved to Vietnam.” She pauses. “Now, as an adult, I can only assume my mother had a fling with Simon and my father waited it out.”

“Are your parents still together?” Baker asks.

“Yes,” Ayers says. “They’re very happy. To my knowledge, nothing like that has ever happened again, on either side. It was like a hiccup.”

“A hiccup,” Baker says. “And that’s how you see Mick’s behavior with Brigid? As a hiccup?”

“Mick took a detour,” Ayers says. “But he found his way back to me. And I truly believe it was a one-and-done. He knows what he lost and he won’t risk it again. I’ve asked him for years to find a better place to live, and on our way to the boat yesterday, he drove me past this house he rented. It’s gorgeous.”

“Where is it?” Baker says. “I’ll buy it right out from under him.”

“Baker,” Ayers says.

“You said you have feelings for me,” Baker says. “You said you couldn’t stop thinking about me.”

“That’s true,” Ayers says. “Even on Monday before Mick proposed, one of the mothers from Gifft Hill was talking about this hot new dad, and I knew it was you and I was…jealous.”

“Think about that,” Baker says.

“I have been thinking about it!” Ayers says. “But Mick and I have been together a long time. He knows me. We have a life here that we built together, month by month, year by year. I can’t just throw that away for something new.”

“You can, though,” Baker says. “Because I’m moving to St. John tomorrow and I’m going to stay. I got a coaching job at Gifft Hill. I’m going to take scuba lessons…” He doesn’t know where this idea comes from, it just pops into his head, but it sounds good. “I’m going to work on getting my real estate license down there. I’m going to build a life, month by month, year by year, and I want you to be in that life. When I first saw you, I felt like I was the one who had been struck by lightning—only instead of dying, I came to life.” Is this corny? He can’t tell. “I made a decision then and there that I was going to marry you. So you can hang up with me now thinking you’re going to marry Mick. But I promise you, I promise you, Ayers, that I can do better than Mick. I will be true and steadfast and devoted and crazily in love with you until the day I die. I will never have any hiccups. Ever.”

Ayers is quiet.

“If a proposal is what you want, then you have one from me. I want to marry you as soon as I’m legally able.”

“You barely know me,” she says, but her voice is softer. He’s getting to her, maybe.