Page 21 of Strictly Friends
‘Let’s go inside, shall we?’ He mopped his forehead with his handkerchief, and gestured towards the nearby office. ‘It’s more private than standing out here, and a hell of a lot cooler.’
Clutching on to her tiny, silent victory, Ruby nodded and followed him into the building.
14
Sitting opposite Kenny in the compact, air-conditioned room, Ruby toyed with the unopened bottle of chilled water he had handed her from the mini fridge in the corner and looked around. The room was tidy, with serviceable furnishings, steel filing cabinets, and nautical maps pinned on to plain white walls. A half-open door on one side of the office led to a storage room, judging from the piles of coiled rope on the floor and other equipment she could see stacked against the wall. The hum of the air-conditioner muffled the sounds of the busy marina, creating an uncomfortable intimacy in the stillness of the room.
The visitor’s chair Kenny had offered her was comfortable, unlike Fi’s Lilliputian furniture, Ruby noted abstractedly, acutely aware of Kenny quietly observing her from behind his desk. He had removed his baseball cap and, despite a thinning hairline and a sprinkling of grey throughout his closely cropped hair, he was – much to Ruby’s irritation – just as attractive as she remembered. From under her lashes, she watched him effortlessly twist the cap off the small plastic bottle in his hands, unable to tear her eyes away when his full lips closed around the rim. Like a rabbit hypnotised by a rearing snake, her eyes were riveted to the bobbing Adam’s apple in his throat as he took a long, slow swallow of water.
Appalled by the direction her thoughts were taking, Ruby frowned ferociously and sat bolt upright. She hadn’t travelled God knows how many bloody miles to watch Kenny drink water, however sexy he made it look. If this was the showdown she had long been waiting for, then she was more than ready to shoot.
Kenny screwed the cap back into place with a satisfied sigh before placing the bottle on the desk.
‘I wish you had told me you were coming.’ He looked her right in the eye and she laughed mirthlessly as the fog in her brain slowly cleared.
‘Why? To give you a heads-up so you could disappear again?’ The scorn in her voice underlined the sarcasm.
‘I guess I deserve that,’ Kenny said quietly. ‘But what I meant was that it would have been nice to welcome you to the island myself.’
‘I did call, as it happens,’ she said, wrestling with the temptation to ask why he would have wanted to welcome the family he had gone to so much trouble to leave. ‘Only no-one answered’ –the second time, she silently added – ‘and so I left a message.’
He grimaced. ‘Sam’s the best when it comes to boat maintenance, but he has an unfortunate habit of erasing messages as he’s trying to play them back. I’m very sorry about that. Where are you guys staying?’
‘Paradise Inn,’ she said shortly.
Kenny’s lips curved into a slight smile. ‘Ah, yes, MissIda. She’s a lovely woman. She took good care of me when I first came here.’
Curiosity got the better of Ruby’s antagonism. ‘How did you even know about this place? I’d never heard of Sorrel Island until you wrote to say you were living here.’
‘We have a saying here that you don’t find Sorrel Island, Sorrel Island finds you. When I left London, I went back to Trinidad to stay with family, but I just couldn’t settle. I was going through themotions, but it was a struggle after everything that had happened, and it was obvious I wasn’t happy.’
Ruby resisted the sarcastic retort aching to escape her lips and allowed him to continue.
‘My uncle pulled me aside one day and suggested I take some time away to figure things out. He suggested Sorrel Island, said it was a healing place. I needed a fresh start, and I knew I didn’t want to stay in Trinidad, so I came here and hung around for a while.’
‘So, youwerea beach bum, then?’ said Ruby, unable to resist the dig.
Kenny scratched his jaw and smiled faintly. ‘I suppose. For a little while, anyway. Those first few weeks, I just spent time around the beach and did some diving and snorkelling on the tour boats. That’s how I met Vic. He owned Sugar Bay Tours at the time, and I started helping him out at the marina. I learned my way round boats and after a while he let me take tourists around the island. But once Vic found out I had a business degree and a background in finance, he would ask my advice about how he could grow the business and improve the marketing. That’s when we created the website and began adding on services like hiring out snorkelling and diving gear to other operators. While this place isn’t a tourist hotspot like some of the bigger islands, we’ve still got spectacular coral reefs and marine life, and we did good business. Vic took my advice and invested in buying more boats, and within a couple of years we had doubled the income from tours. After the pandemic slowed down travel for a while and the takings dipped, Vic decided to call it a day and retire. By then Sorrel Island had worked its own peculiar alchemy on me and it felt like a place where I belonged, so I bought him out. Vic moved to Miami two years ago, and I own the company. That – in a nutshell – is my story.’
Kenny swallowed another gulp of water and tilted his head to one side, taking in her set expression. ‘I know you’re pissed offwith me, Ruby, and you have every right to be. But to be honest, right now, I’m still trying to process that you’re actually here and sitting in front of me. You look incredible, and I can’t get over how beautiful my son has grown. I’m so thankful to you for taking such good care of him.’
Ruby swatted away the praise like a pesky fly. She wasn’t the same gullible young woman hungry for compliments that he had left behind. Every word of admiration, every endearment, every declaration of love Kenny had ever made had been proved by his behaviour to be nothing more than empty flattery and lies. She had been forced to learn the hard way that words of appreciation from Kenny were meaningless, but she had learned her lesson nonetheless, and his words only served to stir her dormant anger.
‘You’re right, Iampissed off with you, and I have a lot of questions about... about...everything! I need answers, Kenny – and Jake does too,’ she added belatedly.
‘I understand, but... whynow?’ he probed, his eyes narrowing into slits. ‘You’ve always known where I was. God knows you returned every damned cheque I sent you.’
‘A post office box number on some island no-one’s ever heard of isnotthe same as knowing where you are,’ she said acidly. ‘Our son needed his father, andIneeded an explanation, not your bloody money!’
To her further annoyance, Kenny didn’t seem put off by her hostility. On the contrary, his face relaxed into a half-smile as he held her gaze.
‘So, what made you decide you want to see me now?’
For his own sake, Ruby prayed she was only imagining the hopeful note in Kenny’s voice.
‘Let’s get one thing straight,’ she said flatly. ‘I’m here solely because of Jake. I couldn’t care less about you or your new life, but it seems my son has inherited my – what did you call it? – vividimagination and has been making up all sorts of fantastical stories about his father. It’s been getting out of hand and Jake has found himself in trouble at school for not telling the truth and generally playing up. He almost got excluded recently, and Auntie Pearl and I thought it was best that I bring him here so he could meet you and—’
She broke off abruptly and Kenny gave a short, humourless laugh.
