Chapter 13
A fter leaving the village, Rob didn’t drive too far before pulling over and stopping the engine.
“What are you doing?”
“What does it look like?” Rob unfastened his seatbelt and opened his door. Jude followed slowly.
“We’re barely half a mile out of the village. I think Lou would prefer it if we gave her a bit more space than this.”
“We will.” Rob leaned in and grabbed a bag from the bench-seat.
He slung it over his shoulder. “But first, I’ve got a couple of things to check out.
” He jogged across the lane before looking back over his shoulder.
“Are you coming, or not?” He then slipped through a gap in the hedge without waiting for Jude’s answer.
Jude crossed the lane to find Rob waiting where trees formed a shady tunnel. “Hmm.” Rob tapped a finger over his pursed lips. “Nearly ready, but not quite.” He reached up to snag a dinner-plate sized cluster of lacy elderflowers, half still in bud. “A couple of weeks should do it.”
“What do you want them for?”
“For the best sorbet you ever tasted.” He frowned when Jude only nodded. “You don’t believe me? Didn’t you hear, I’m an award-winning chef now. Some people say I’m—”
“The best new chef in Britain. Yeah, yeah.” Jude grumbled as Rob laced their fingers together and tugged.
“But only because I left the country.” Before he knew it, they walked quite a long way while talking recipes, the tree cover growing sparser and the sun warming his shoulders.
Rob talked easily as they made progress, the light dappling his face as sunbeams broke through the tree cover.
Jude made himself pay attention to their location instead of staring. “If we keep going this way, we’ll end up on the coastal path.”
“I know.” Rob looked his way, and Jude slowed. “There’s a notebook in the kitchen that lists all the best paths to follow and says what there is to forage.”
Jude stopped dead, visualising the book Rob mentioned so clearly. “That’s Mum’s.”
“Yes,” Rob said. “I guessed so.” His squeeze to Jude’s hand was gentle.
“She used to bring us with her when we were little, teach us which mushrooms were edible and which ones to give a wide berth. Where’d you find it?”
“It was in one of the drawers in the pantry that we ripped out to make room for the refrigerator,” Rob said quietly.
“It’s how I know where to find those mushrooms you remember picking, and where I’ll find the first blackberries.
” Maybe it was those dapples of light, or perhaps it was Rob’s gaze that flickered as he said, “If I’m still needed here by the time they ripen, of course. ”
They left the woodland behind and unlinked hands to climb a stile leading to the coastal path.
Once across it, the path stretched snakelike along the clifftop.
A dog walker approached. Jude shoved both of his hands into his pockets and kept walking only to realise Rob wasn’t beside him.
He turned to find him waiting by the stile with his hand out. “Oh, for fuck sake.”
The dog walker was closer but that didn’t stop Rob from waggling his fingers and saying, “Come on. You know what to do. It’s not going to hold itself, is it?” His tone softened and his hand lowered. “Unless you’re not ready to do this in front of other people?”
Jude grabbed his hand and held it.
No way was he backing out now. Not after everything that had happened.
He’d feared the worst about being out only to find out his idea of worst was very different to what real loss felt like to live with daily.
By comparison, a dog walker’s reaction to two men holding hands wasn’t even on the same scale.
They stood to the side as she passed, murmuring good mornings while her Goldie bounded ahead, its wagging tail a bright blur.
“See?” Rob said. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”
Jude said nothing, his grip tightening as Rob led the way to the top of the headland where a bench stood empty. He wriggled his hand free to delve into his bag and pulled out a thermos. “I bet you didn’t eat breakfast this morning before coming to see Lou.”
“Nope.” Food had been the last thing on his mind, but when Rob unwrapped a pair of fresh and flaky croissants, he took one. “God, I love these. You made them?” he asked around a delicious mouthful, the blackberry jam Rob offered next tart and sweet and perfect.
“Well, Lou certainly didn’t make them.” Rob shuddered. “How come you’re an okay cook, but she’s such a disaster? I swear she can burn water.”
Jude ignored his okay cook tease, thoughts snagged by Rob’s burn water phrasing.
“Hey,” Rob nudged his knee after a few moments. “Where’d you go?”
Jude scanned the sea while he chewed, absently searching the horizon for sails. “What you just said about burning water,” he said after he swallowed. “Reminded me of the new hire standing in for me on the Aphrodite. He could give Lou a real run for her money.”
“He can’t cook either? I thought five-star dining was a big deal in the yacht charter business.” Rob wiped a flake of pastry from his chin. “Why did your captain hire him?”
“Oh, I know exactly what swung Tom’s decision.
” Jude almost took another bite, but his appetite had faded.
He pulled the pastry apart instead, crumbs scattering as the breeze caught them.
“The new guy’s very pretty,” he said almost under his breath, so quiet that Rob edged closer.
“He never finishes his chores, and gets everything wrong that he does start, but he’s also got that whole butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth thing down.
He’s a terrible flirt too.” Watching him run rings around Tom since boarding might have been entertaining if Jude hadn’t been tied up in knots about returning empty-handed.
“I left him a list of salads. Hopefully, he won’t wreck our reputation.
” He caught the tail-end of Rob’s frown. “What’s that look for?”
“You talk about it like it’s your business.”
“The Aphrodite ? Well, I did live for months aboard her.”
“No. That’s not what I meant.” Rob studied the last of his pastry.
“What I’m saying is that it sounds as if it’s your business that the new guy is a flirt.
” He looked up then, that usually warm gaze only meeting with Jude’s briefly.
“Would it really be a problem for you if he was?” Rob cut to the chase.
“As you said, you lived aboard for months. Were you and…?”
“Tom.”
“Yeah. Were you and Tom together?” It was a simple question.
Rob spoke again before Jude could answer.
“I mean, are you together? I don’t want to make things awkward—I know we weren’t exactly together when you left.
” That hadn’t stopped Jude from thinking about Rob so often.
“So you could put me kissing you a couple of times since you got back down to unfinished business if you need to. I just wondered, before I….”
“Before you what?”
“Start an official first date with someone who’s already involved.”
“A first date—” Jude took in where they were sitting. The view was spectacular from here, the cliffs a dark and craggy contrast to the pale-green water, the last of Jude’s favourite breakfast spread out on the bench between them. “Oh.”
Rob’s glance his way was assessing. “I said I would have dated you if you’d stayed, didn’t I? Now that you and Lou have cleared the air, unless you’ve got someone to go back to, there’s no reason to hold back, is there?”
“Maybe there is.”
“So you were with him. With Tom.” Rob sat back. “Timing isn’t my forte.”
“Listen, Tom and I weren’t together.” There was no getting away from this fact.
“But I’ll have to go back at the end of the summer.
The whole presumption of death rules, remember?
They’re not going to magically change unless some wreckage turns up.
Five more years, Rob. That’s a long time to expect you to wait for your money, even if by some miracle we have an amazing summer.
It won’t be enough to pay back your investment. ”
Rob’s tone was light at first. “I’m a little offended that you think we’ll need divine intervention to make the New Anchor a success.” His next line wasn’t quite so casual. “Maybe us having to work together here for a few years isn’t the worst possible outcome.”
“Oh, come on. You truly think it’s going to be exciting enough for you here, long-term?” Below them, the sea mist had rolled back, Porthperrin a small curl of granite buildings around the harbour, not a soul in sight on its streets. “I know you live for parties.”
“There’s nothing wrong with liking a good time.
” Rob’s lips pressing so tightly together would have looked serious if he didn’t still have crumbs caught in his stubble.
“You should try relaxing and letting go a little sometimes.” He pulled a face when Jude brushed those crumbs away with his napkin.
“Anyway, there’s no reason I can’t have fun here.
” He mused, his gaze thoughtful. “I’ll just have to find some new reasons for celebrations. ”
“Good luck with that.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that if we’re lucky, there’ll be a few people here for the summer.” Although without a beach as a lure, he still couldn’t see that happening. “But what about the other nine months of the year?”
“Hmm….” Rob scratched at his chin. “Anyone would think that I haven’t been here through winter already. Lou and I had a lot of fun. And maybe I’ve done some market research.” He stared out to sea and said, “Besides, I’m not actually in a hurry to go back to London.”
“Because of your dad?”
“Exactly.”
“What’s your problem with him?” He’d dropped in at every stage of the contest, showing a real interest in all Rob’s menu choices. “At least he’s accepting.”
“Huh.” Rob met his gaze before looking away. “That’s one way of looking at it.”
“But he is. He mentioned you coming out in one of the first interviews I read about him.” That kind of open support was a million miles away from his own lived experience. “You’re lucky.”
“Lucky?” Rob stood. The few steps he took placed him close to the cliff edge. He shielded his eyes and surveyed what was left of the beach. “Oh, yes. Silly me. How could I forget that as long as I follow in his exact footsteps, I’m golden?”
Jude rose to stand with him. The remains of the beach resembled a scene from Dunkirk, the ravines left by the storm dark scars that still bled. “What do you mean, you’re golden?”
Rob pulled out his wallet. “He cancelled every one of my cards. Said they’ll be reinstated the minute I come back.
He didn’t use to be so… The minute Mum was gone…
” His tone lightened abruptly, not entirely authentic, Jude decided.
“But whatever. He’ll get over the fact that I never wanted or needed his money, I’m sure. One day. Perhaps.”
Jude didn’t know how to respond. From the outside looking in, the relationship Rob had with his dad was one he would have given the world for. But apparently, it came with issues that Jude tried to guess. “You two really fell out so badly?”
Rob glanced over his shoulder and this time his laugh was authentic. “That’s one way of putting it.”
“He didn’t want you to come here?” Jude followed Rob back to where he had started gathering up the dregs of their breakfast. “He was against you investing in the business by lending Lou your winnings?”
“Just a bit.” Rob nodded, avoiding eye contact.
“You don’t want to go back at all?” This much was at least relatable. The thought of returning to Cornwall to work with his dad hadn’t appealed either, if for different reasons.
“No,” Rob almost shuddered. “I don’t want to work in London ever again.
Not if I can avoid it. I know wild horses couldn’t have kept you here either.
I get it, that’s why I’d much rather talk about something else.
” Rob changed the subject. “Like how you’d rate this as a first date?
” He turned and from this close, there was no hiding that his next statement was honest. “The setting here is different from the one I first had planned, but it’s pretty much exactly what I wanted for us.
You know, if you hadn’t bailed with no warning?
” His quick wink took out the sting. “So, how do you rate it, sailor?”
“Rate it? Having breakfast with you? It was…” Jude didn’t know where to begin.
Starting a morning like this with Rob had been an enduring daydream.
Add in Rob getting up at the crack of dawn to bake his favourite pastries, and lending a shoulder after Louise had blasted him with both barrels, and it—he—was more than Jude could wrap around words.
Rob made a carry on gesture. “Goodness, getting anything out of you is like pulling teeth.” Rob’s pursed lips were very kissable. He spoke again before Jude could lean in. “That’s the last time I get up early to make you conserves.”
“You made the jam as well as the croissants?”
“What else was I meant to do with such a piddly bag of blackberries?” Rob blustered. “Frankly, they were getting a bit of freezer burn. The bag was dated two years ago, at least.”
Jesus. Two years ago, he’d gone back to London with fingers that had been stained purple after a fleeting weekend visit. Were they the last ones he picked with his mum?
Jude turned his face into the wind—gave his eyes a reason for stinging so bad at each new, painful reminder. The only way through this was to mirror Rob’s bluster. “You made me jam with wizened, old fruit? Classy. You’ll have to try much harder to impress me on our next date.”
Rob squinted as the sun came out. “Next date?” His smile spread very slowly, face painted golden again as the cloud cleared. “Jude, our first date isn’t over.”