Chapter 6
Chapter Six
They’d all agreed at breakfast to spend the morning on the beach, chilling, followed by an afternoon activity.
Paddleboarding had come first in the vote, much to Maddie’s annoyance.
She sighed as she got up from her sunlounger and followed the others heading for the shoreline.
They’d outvoted her two to one. It wasn’t the sort of afternoon activity she’d had in mind.
She’d have been perfectly happy to stay under her umbrella ordering cocktails and possibly strolling up and down the beach a couple of times.
But no, Sofia and Charlotte were determined to ‘do something physical’ after sunning themselves for a few hours and dipping in and out of the sea.
Maddie had forced herself to go in earlier up to her waist but returned to her sunlounger sharpish.
It wasn’t quite as warm as she’d hoped, still being June, but she’d given it a go.
She wasn’t the world’s greatest swimmer and preferred to stay well within her depth.
Tony had been the swimmer. She’d been the one waiting on the beach towel with the picnic and the Thermos of coffee.
She mused a moment on why couples insisted on assigning roles to themselves.
It was almost as if she hadn’t dared to improve her swimming when Tony was alive, so that his position as the Mark Spitz of the north wasn’t challenged.
And she had to admit she’d have found it strange if Tony had taken singing lessons and started belting out her beloved soul classics, or any songs at all.
That was her thing, and she’d thoroughly enjoyed being in her choir, especially when they performed at care homes, including her own, and got all the residents clapping along to the oldies.
For the past hour she’d been content to watch Sofia use her stylish front crawl, going so far out to sea she could barely make out who it was, and imagining for a moment it was Tony, about to turn round and swim back to her.
‘Keep up, Mads!’
Charlotte and Sofia had already reached the three paddleboards laid out on the sand, one red, one blue and one yellow, presumably so they could work out who was drowning in an emergency. Not that she was being negative or anything.
Big black double-ended paddles lay beside each one, and Maddie was pleased to see life jackets as well. Health and safety didn’t always seem to be at the top of the average Greek’s agenda, if their driving was anything to go by.
‘Bagsy the blue one!’
Charlotte had already stationed herself by the paddleboard at the far end.
Sofia turned to her.
‘Mads? Any preference?’
‘Not doing it and going back to my sunlounger?’
‘Hilarious. We’ve signed up now.’
Sofia twirled her finger around in what she probably thought was a cool move.
‘There’s no getting out of it. It’s happening, girl.’
‘Then I really don’t care if I make a fool of myself on the red one or the yellow one.’
‘OK, I’ll take yellow then.’ Sofia stared down at her floral bikini. ‘It goes a lot better with this.’
Maddie was still in one of the two swimsuits she’d been rinsing out in the shower each night. Just how many bikinis did Sofia own? She’d counted at least five and they were only on day four.
‘OK, I’ll take the red paddleboard and do my best Pamela Anderson in Baywatch impression then.’
‘Looking forward to that.’
The arrival of their instructor stopped Maddie’s slow-motion run along the beach towards the board.
They all stopped what they were doing for a moment to stand and stare.
‘Hello. I am Giannis, here to help you.’
Even she, who was convinced she’d never look at another man in her lifetime, let alone sleep with one, could appreciate that Giannis was a bit of all right. Unlike the pretty boy, Dimitris, at the pool, this was no callow youth. There was no doubt that Giannis was a grown-up.
Knocking forty, ‘tall, dark and handsome’ didn’t do justice to his six pack, muscly legs and tousled sun-bleached hair, coupled with green eyes the colour at the very edge of the sea. Crikey, she needed to get a grip.
‘So, have any of you been paddleboarding before?’
Charlotte’s hand shot up.
Giannis fixed his sea-glass-coloured eyes on her and smiled.
‘You don’t need to put your hand up.’
‘Right, sorry. Yes, I’ve done it a couple of times on the Thames.’
‘OK. And you?’
Maddie could see his eyes roving over Sofia’s body before returning to her face. Like every other man who came within a few feet of her friend, he was about to feel the full force of the Sofia effect.
‘Me? Yeah, a few times in the South of France.’
Sofia kept her voice low and smooth, like she was auditioning for an M&S food ad. It was nothing like her usual clipped tones. Maddie, who’d seen the performance many times before, knew it meant Sofia was interested, but damned if she’d show it.
‘Excellent, that is excellent.’
Finally, Giannis swung his eyes round to her, reluctantly it seemed.
‘And you?’
‘Nope. Never. Not much call for it on the Manchester Ship Canal.’
His furrowed brow made her want to laugh.
‘Where is this place?’
‘Don’t worry. Forget it. No experience at all. I’m a paddleboard virgin’—Maddie pointed a finger at her friends—‘but these two tell me it’s easy.’
‘For most people, it is.’
His wince was a bit unnecessary. Giannis was giving her the once-over too, but in a very different way from Sofia. Solemn faced, it was like he was assessing her body for a structural survey and wondering if there was some rusty iron or dodgy concrete in there.
‘We will give it a try.’
‘So good of you to give me a chance.’
The megawatt smile was back.
‘You’re welcome.’
She wasn’t sure if Greeks did sarcasm, but on this evidence, probably not.
‘OK, lifejackets on. And into the water. Just up to our’—he pointed halfway up his leg—‘How you say? Cows?’
Sofia lowered her voice to a whisper.
‘He means calves.’
Maddie snorted.
‘Yeah, I think I got that.’
Giannis strode ahead with Sofia’s board and paddle tucked under one arm, while the others had to scramble to pick up their equipment with Sofia looking on, smiling smugly.
After dropping her paddle for the second time, Maddie’s patience was shot.
‘Sof, can’t you at least take this? Just till we get out there, please.’
‘Fine.’
After ten minutes on what to do and how to attach the cord to their ankle so their paddleboard wouldn’t float away, they were finally allowed to stand on the board to practise balancing.
Maddie could tell straightaway that it wasn’t going to work, as she was in the sea more than she was on the board.
Not that it mattered if she was upside down with her head in the sand, as Giannis was only interested in helping Sofia with the correct stance, which involved lots of body contact and giggling, mainly on Giannis’s part.
Neither she nor Charlotte got a look in.
She exchanged an eye roll with Charlotte, as Giannis finally detached from Sofia and spoke.
‘Let’s go a little deeper. And now, I need you to kneel on your boards.’
That, she could just about manage.
‘Then, push yourself up to a standing position with your hands.’
He must be joking. After falling in yet again, Giannis appeared next to her board. The disappointment was writ large on his handsome face.
‘OK, for you sitting down will be best, like this.’
He mimicked climbing aboard and lowering his bottom, all the while keeping his eyes on Sofia. It was hardly subtle.
‘Now, let’s try for real in the sea.’ Giannis pointed into the distance. ‘Don’t go beyond those yellow buoys and call out if you feel you’re in danger. I will be keeping a close eye on you all.’
Maddie caught Charlotte’s eye.
‘I think we all know who he’ll be keeping a close eye on,’ she mouthed.
Sofia and Charlotte were up on their feet and off in moments, followed closely by Giannis.
Staying in the shallows astride the paddleboard and learning how to turn the paddle to decide the direction wasn’t a bad way to spend the next half an hour, Maddie thought.
The sun was warm on her shoulders, and the water was cooling on her legs.
She congratulated herself on managing to avoid careering into any small children and even spotted some tiny fish below her darting around.
Shadowing one small shoal had her staring deep into the turquoise water, but a sudden tug at her paddleboard made her look up again.
She was almost on top of a group of rocks at one end of the beach, and her frantic attempts to outsmart the current were failing miserably.
She was moving, or being forced, forward at a rapid rate.
Sucked into a channel between two rocks, the sea pushed her from behind like an overenthusiastic Boy Scout. Not that she was in any real danger, but she’d noticed earlier that there wasn’t a lifeguard on the beach. Maybe it was too early in the season.
The little pushes became big shoves as the paddleboard bucked beneath her like she was a competitor in a watery rodeo.
Soon she’d be eyeballing the rocks from a geologist’s viewpoint.
How was she ever going to reverse her way out?
There was no point asking for Giannis’s assistance.
He’d probably fixed Sofia’s safety cord to his own ankle by now, if not another part of his anatomy.
Embarrassing though it was, it would have to be the girls to the rescue.
‘Help! Sof! Char! Over here.’
When she craned her neck to look behind her, her two friends were paddling towards her like maniacs, no sign of Giannis anywhere.
She’d finally come to a halt with the nose of the paddleboard against the rock face, and she was stuck fast. The water was only up to her knees, but the channel was narrow, and it was a tight squeeze.
A scrabbling noise behind her told her that her rescuers had arrived.
‘I can’t move. Can you pull me out?’
The sound of barely smothered giggling reached her ears as inch by inch the paddleboard was eased away from the rock. How very dare they!
‘You’re not laughing at me, are you?’
‘No … not really.’