Page 35 of Strictly Friends
‘Sorrel Island definitely hasn’t changedyoufrom being such a shameless flirt,’ Ruby remarked, picking up the pace as they strode towards the beach. Mac was going to kill her!
‘MissIda’s a total babe,’ said Griffin. ‘Now, if she were thirty years younger—’
Ruby laughed and punched his arm in mock outrage, and he threw an affectionate arm around her shoulder. When they arrived at the beach, Griffin stopped to take in the idyllic scenery, but Ruby gave him no time to linger, propelling him along the beach, around the cove, and up the sandy slope.
By the time they reached the clearing, they were both out of breath. Mac, absorbed in studying the sketch on the canvas, turned as Ruby crashed into the secluded clearing. His eyes fell on Griffin behind her, and he looked at Ruby in silent enquiry.
‘I’msosorry I’m late,’ Ruby wheezed, trying to catch her breath after their mad dash. ‘This is my friend, Griffin. He arrived last night from London, and we were so busy catching up that I lost track of time.’
For a moment, the two men appraised each other silently. Then Griffin slipped the guitar off his back and walked up to Mac with his hand outstretched, and Mac stood up and shook it without hesitation.
‘Welcome to the island, man. I’ve heard a lot about you,’ he drawled.
‘She’s spoken about you quite a bit too,’ Griffin conceded. ‘Sorry I made her late and kept you waiting.’
Ruby stared, bewildered, as the men continued to size each other up. It felt like watching two wary tigers circling.What the hell kind of bizarre male ritual is this?
Mac’s gaze shifted to Griffin’s guitar, and he blinked. ‘Is that aLowden?’
Griffin nodded and handed it over to Mac, who looked at it in awe, and then examined it carefully for a few minutes before passing it back.
‘Verynice. I played with an amateur band a few years back, and one of the guys owned a Lowden. It cost a fortune, but I still remember the quality of the sound.’
While Mac and Griffin discussed the merits of the instrument, Ruby walked over to her usual spot and arranged herself into her pose. After a couple of minutes, she cleared her throat loudly, startling both men into silence.
Mac took one look at her expression and went back to his stool, while Griffin perched on a grass mound a little distance away.
‘So, what brings you out here to the island, Griffin?’ asked Mac, his eyes darting between Ruby and the canvas he was drawing on.
Griffin, who was craning his neck, trying to see what Mac was doing without being too obvious, replied absently, ‘Rubes asked me to send Jake the toy rabbit I got him when he was three. I didn’t want to risk it getting lost in transit, so I brought it myself.’
Mac paused mid-stroke, his expression so incredulous that Ruby couldn’t help laughing.
‘I know it sounds ridiculous and I wish I could tell you Griffin’s kidding, Mac, but honestly, that’s how he is. He takes his responsibility as Jake’s godfather very seriously. He taught him to play the guitar when he was barely big enough to hold one, and he was the one who encouraged him with his art when the rest of us thought Jake was just going through another phase.’
‘Well, this is a whole other level of friendship,’ Mac said. ‘Can’t think of any ofmyfriends who’d travel halfway round the world to hand-deliver a toy.’
Griffin’s attention was on the canvas. ‘Ruby says you do this for a living?’
Mac ignored the slight hint of scepticism hovering beneath Griffin’s words. ‘I do, indeed! The great Mackenzie Castro has been in this business for over twenty years.’
‘Mackenzie Castro!’ Griffin echoed, visibly shocked. ‘Hang on, you mean Mackenzie Castro as inPortrait of the Widow– the painting hanging in the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art?’
‘That would be me,’ Mac confirmed.
‘But that’s anincrediblepiece of work!’
‘Indeed it is,’ Mac agreed.
Ruby dropped her pose to stare in surprise at Griffin. ‘How comeyou’veheard of him? I didn’t know you knew the first thing about modern art.’
‘Which just goes to show you don’t know everything about me, even if you think you do.’
‘Whatever! Well, I suppose it’s reassuring to know you have other interests beyond making half the women in London fall in love with you before torturing them,’ Ruby sniffed. ‘By the way, howisbroken-hearted Shirlee these days?’
‘You two sure sound like an old married couple. Are you really just friends?’ Despite Mac’s casual tone, the look he trained on Ruby was anything but. The unexpected intensity in his piercing blue eyes sent her stomach into freefall and, desperate for a distraction, Ruby launched straight into her awful-kiss-and-of-course-we’re-just-friends story.
While Mac’s expression relaxed into laughter at Ruby’s description of the fumbled drunken teenage kiss, Griffin’s face remained impassive.
