I’m glad I didn’t allow him to meet Maia. My heart is in danger, but at least hers is safe.

November 9, 2015

Russ came back and he had good news, such good news that I’m almost afraid to believe it. His company, Ascension, was looking for investment opportunities and they partnered with a “local real estate concern” (he wouldn’t tell me which one) to buy a hundred and forty acres in west Cinnamon, an area known as Little Cinnamon. They plan to develop the hillside, hire someone to build luxury villas. But the even better news was that the local real estate concern had built one home on spec and lost a lot of money on it, so Russ had bought the villa himself.

I had questions. Why had Russ been the one to buy it and not Todd or Stephen?

“They don’t want a house,” Russ said.

“Really?” I said. Then I thought: Who doesn’t want a house?

“Really,” Russ said. “They have homes elsewhere. They offered it to me because they know I have interests here.”

“Interests?” I said. “You mean me.”

“Yes.”

“They know about us.”

“They do.”

“How?” I said. “Did you…tell them?”

“No,” he said. “But they’re not naive, Rosie.”

They weren’t naive; I’d never thought that. In fact, I’d always worried about it. This was a holdover from years earlier, the first time I laid eyes on the three of them, when it seemed like Russ was a sheep running around with a couple of wolves.

“The bigger news is that we’re doing more business down here. In both the USVIs and the BVIs. Maybe we could even go to the BVIs together.”

“You mean…Jost?” Jost Van Dyke was a party island. That was true when I was growing up but it’s even more so now. Everyone loved Foxy’s and the Soggy Dollar.

“I mean Anegada,” he said. “Have you ever been?”

I had been to Anegada once, long ago. Before Mama met Huck, she had briefly dated a lobsterman who took us to Anegada for the day on his fishing boat. Anegada is the most remote of the British Virgin Islands and unlike any of the others in that it’s just a spit of flat white sand. There are a few businesses, a few bars, a few homes, hundreds of flamingos, thousands of lobsters, and not much else. I hadn’t been impressed with it at thirteen, but now, as a lovers’ getaway, it held enormous appeal.

“When can we go?” I asked.

December 18, 2015