Chapter 8
J ude maintained his silence until it was almost lunchtime, strangely aware of the quiet now that Rob had pointed out how often he was silent.
The absence of words almost felt weighted, hanging heavy across his shoulders as he chopped and sliced like he’d done a thousand times already without realising how often the conversations he had were essentially voiceless.
The knot he tied around a bundle of herbs mirrored the one in his chest, tight since he paid attention, restrictive now Rob had noticed.
He added the herbs to a stockpot of fish bones before he eventually spoke.
“You’ll need to make the portion size much bigger if you want to get in Carl’s good books. ”
Rob enrobed tiny spoonfuls of a lobster in pasta so thin it was almost translucent. “I’m pretty sure I know what he wants.”
“Yeah, me too. He’s virtually my uncle.”
Rob simply glanced his way, interested, and speaking came easier.
“I grew up with his kids,” Jude added. “And I ate his wife Susan’s cooking almost as often as I ate Mum’s.
So I know he’ll want something substantial, not anything that dainty.
” He frowned as he wiped the bench next to a bowl of whipped egg whites destined for soufflés.
“Wait a minute.” He picked up a ramekin Rob had buttered and floured.
It was truly tiny. “Nouvelle cuisine isn’t your usual style of cooking. ”
“How do you know? A lot can change in a short time.”
“Yeah, but—”
“You know,” Rob interrupted. “I take back what I said about you being quiet.”
“I’m just saying I know these people. They’re like family, so I know fancy isn’t going to impress Carl into giving you a discount. Besides, he wouldn’t overcharge us.”
The sigh Rob let out was heartfelt. “No, really, I take back everything I just said. Go on then. If you’re suddenly feeling chatty, tell me what you’d cook if you were running this service?”
This was hardly a full lunch service. Cooking for two locals who weren’t even paying wouldn’t make or break the Anchor. Jude surveyed what was left on the counter. He settled on the sea bass. “If I wanted to impress Carl, I’d serve that, pan-seared.”
“That’s all?”
Jude peered into another crate of local produce. “With some of those chard stalks.”
“Seared too?”
“Simmered au blanc, I think, to retain the colour.” Not for too long, though. “It contrasts well with—”
“Black trumpet mushrooms in a beurre noisette?”
“Yes.” Jude frowned. “How did you….” Then suddenly he remembered. It was the recipe he’d discussed with Rob’s dad. “Wow, you were eavesdropping.”
Rob made a noncommittal sound and slid the bass towards Jude. “Go ahead. Cook for Carl, but we don’t have any of those mushrooms.”
“That’s okay. I can adapt. I’m used to it.” One of the best things about cooking on the Aphrodite had been that need to be creative. “There’s no running to the store if you’re anchored off the Maldives.”
“The Maldives? Sounds amazing. I’d spend all my time snorkelling.”
“Maybe, if you like sharks.”
“You saw some?” Rob looked up from the bite-size scallop he was about to set atop a spoonful of herbed sauce.
Saw them? Sharks had been visible in those shallow waters and had filled Jude with despair until Tom had noticed and sailed where the sea was opaque instead of transparent.
Even so, imagining them circling his parents was all too easy.
“Yeah,” Jude admitted, still harrowed. The moment Rob noticed the shift in his expression was almost a mirror of Tom’s reaction.
That slow dawn of understanding, like a body rising to the water’s surface, was too hard to witness here in the last place Jude had seen his parents.
“I saw plenty of sharks,” was all he said for a while.
They worked next to each other in silence, Jude slowly stirring his sauce as he side-eyed the array of amuse-bouches that Rob steadily created, a suite of single mouthfuls that would never satisfy a man like Carl who would have been hard at work since before dawn.
He bent his head over his pan rather than say so again. Rob was trying, so he could as well.
“I’m sorry,” Rob murmured as he passed on the way to the refrigerator, his hand on the back of Jude’s neck a cool comfort he hadn’t expected. “That must have been rough.”
“Yeah.” Jude let out a breath, a prolonged gust of sadness so pure he had to look away, blinking.
His gaze snagged on the clock. “What time are they due?” The chime of Louise’s voice raised in greeting from the hallway was an answer.
A few moments later, she poked her head around the door to say, “They’re here and ready whenever you are. ”
Jude made to go and greet them.
Rob blocked his path. “Listen. When did you last see Carl’s wife?”
“Susan? The day I left to start searching.” Something about Rob’s nod had him asking, “Why?”
“You should know that she hasn’t been well.” Rob arranged his creations on a platter, taking care to make it pretty. “She’s on the mend, though, so remind yourself of that if she looks different than you remember.”
Nothing around here looked the same, Jude thought as he plated Carl’s meal. From the beach to his old bedroom, so far change had been the only constant.
He followed Rob to the smaller snug bar, mentally noting yet more change.
It had been transformed too. No longer a private place for locals to drink while the main bar heaved with summer tourists, now it was a dining room that oozed class, but seeing the change to Susan was almost one change too many.
Jude hesitated for a second, grateful Rob had at least given him a heads up, and realising now exactly why he’d made such tiny offerings.
Susan was so much thinner, as was her hair, once worn in a thick plait, now far too fine and patchy.
“Jude, love!” Even her voice was frailer.
She accepted his kiss to her cheek, holding his free hand before saying, “I’m so pleased to see you! ”
Jude could only nod, grateful all over again that Rob carried the conversation. He pulled up a chair and sat down, talking the first customers of the New Anchor through each mouthful he offered while Jude stood behind him, his grip on the back of Rob’s chair doing a lot to keep him steady.
How many months had she been ill?
The thought struck him that Susan might have died while he’d been away. It looked as though she’d come close.
Carl watched as he tucked into his meal, eyes darting between Jude and his wife, and Rob who talked her into trying a tiny taste of each of his offerings.
And that was what they were, Jude recognised now.
Not Rob showing off or pitching the bar too high for average people compared to boutique-hotel clients.
No, he’d created a tasting menu designed to tempt a waning appetite.
Carl nodded once he saw his wife eating, relaxing enough that he lost his usual gruffness.
He finished the bass Jude had prepared and was complimentary.
Rob stood and took his empty plate from him.
Susan tapped the back of the seat Rob vacated. “Now come and sit next to me, Jude. Let me catch you up on village gossip.”
Jude did exactly that, listening as he learned of the storm and how many families had left when the tourist trade dried up until someone slid a plate in front of him; a fillet of pan-seared bass smelled fresh and tempting.
“Go on,” Rob urged. “Stay and eat while Carl and I go talk business. Catch up on what you missed here.”
Jude watched him leave this room that, now he paid attention, was perfect for private dining, snug in a whole new way. He ate and listened, thinking hard the whole while about what else he might have missed if he’d put off coming home any longer.
“That went well,” Rob said as he cleared dessert plates, almost an hour later.
Jude stifled a huge yawn while chasing the last of his lemon soufflé with the tip of his finger. “Would have been even better if you made the puddings bigger. I could eat at least another dozen.”
“You’d make yourself sick. But I’m glad you liked them.” The tips of Rob’s ears were pink as if Jude’s praise had somehow warmed them. “I forgot you had a sweet tooth.”
“But I do get it now.” Jude collected the stack of platters Rob had used to serve each course to Susan.
He followed him back to the kitchen. “I can see why you made each serving so tiny.” It had been eye-opening to witness firsthand just how quickly Susan had run out of steam, only the prettiness of the food encouraging her to eat a few bites more as her appetite fizzled.
He yawned again before saying, “It looked about all that she could manage.”
“Reminded me of one of the only times Dad and I got along in the kitchen,” Rob admitted.
“Tempting Mum to eat was a big deal to him. When she was very sick, he’d offer her tiny portions.
He shut down the hotel, and would get me to help carry these perfect little platefuls to wherever she was resting.
” He paused, very still for a moment. “Anything with lemon was her favourite. Said it cut through the bad taste left by her treatments.”
He looked anywhere but at Jude, settling on unbuttoning and taking off his chef whites.
Rob stretched after hanging up his jacket, the front of his T-shirt lifting, oblivious, Jude hoped, to the way his gaze fell as if weighted, soaking up a brief glimpse of bare skin that he’d once hoped to see much more of.
“Seemed like it might work for Susan as well,” Rob said.
“It did.” Jude agreed. “Definitely. Didn’t you see how pleased Carl was?
I’ve known the man my whole life, but I swear to God I’ve never seen him so happy.
” And he had been, positively animated instead of his usual dour and tight-lipped.
Seeing Carl that way made Jude try harder as well.
“He seemed pleased about how much Susan managed to eat. Did it sweeten your deal with him?”
Rob nodded before blurting, “It wouldn’t have mattered to me if it hadn’t, though.
I mean, I know the business needs to make every penny it can, but I’d rather extract that from paying clients than from people who live here.
They’ve been very welcoming, the ones who are left, I mean.
Quick to help out the minute Louise asks. ”
Jude could picture that. “Yeah, it’s one of the reasons I felt she’d be okay before I left. I knew the business would be fine in her hands. Barring storms, as it turned out,” he said tiredly, twisting water from a cloth to clear down.
Rob stopped him. “I can do that.”
“So can I.” Only a day before, he’d been chief cook and bottle washer for a whole yacht. By comparison, wiping the countertops and doing a few dishes here was nothing.
“Of course you can,” Rob agreed as a third huge yawn escaped Jude.
He opened the kitchen door and tugged Jude along with him.
“Only Louise yawned just like that when I told her about the new deal with Carl, so I’m wondering if you’re both overdue a nap, given that you arrived at dark o’clock this morning.
Or,”—he picked up a cardboard box from the bottom of the stairs and passed it to Jude—“if you’re really determined to stay awake, how about we make a start getting these squared away in the boatshed? ”
It was easier to follow him than to argue, simpler to set the box down where instructed in the place he’d last seen shadowed in almost darkness, so early that morning.
God, was it still only the same day?
“See, I told you it was nap time.” Rob’s hand low on his back exerted gentle pressure, more guidance than an actual shove that sent Jude to sit on the same bunk where he’d found Rob.
“Lie down. Rest your eyes.”
“No.”
“Catching forty winks won’t kill you.”
“Pushy,” Jude grumbled as he gave in and followed orders.
Capable hands slid his shoes off before he could argue.
He wiggled toes that had been largely bare for months, and sighed out, “God, that’s better.
” That sigh turned into a deep groan. Rob pressed a thumb into his instep, pressure so relaxing that he just lay there and took it. “I know your game.”
“Yeah?” Rob’s hand now looped Jude’s ankle, more a caress than a shackle. His voice was so quiet. “What’s that then, genius?”
“It’s obvious.” The light through the portholes was a bright glare. He slung an arm over his eyes to shield them until Rob reached over him to pull the porthole curtains half closed.
“Is that so?”
Jude drifted, dapples of sunlight heating his chest almost as much as opening his eyes to find Rob’s face right above his did. “You just wanted to get me into your bed.”
“Oh, Jude.” Rob closed his eyes.
From this close, Jude saw every single black lash lower before lifting.
“Please don’t tempt me.”