Chapter 14
T heir next stop still didn’t take them far from Porthperrin. Rob pulled into a used car lot that had been at the top of the hill ever since Jude could remember. “Why are we stopping here?”
“Just need some petrol and then we’ll be off.”
“Petrol? You won’t get any here,” he said as Rob pulled up to the sole pump on the forecourt.
“Not if the same guy still owns it. He’s even tighter than Carl—only stocks enough for the cars he sells.
” He peered through the windscreen at the few cars for sale.
“Not that he can sell many of them, especially if there are fewer tourists. Everything here is so ancient. I’m kinda surprised he’s still in business, to be honest. I never understood how he made a living. ”
“They’re vintage cars, Jude, not old bangers.
” Rob patted the steering wheel of his car as though she might’ve been listening.
“Just like Betsy. And I’ll think you’ll find there’s just as much money in selling vintage cars as there is in letting out boutique hotel rooms. Even if there are fewer people around, the ones with money will pay a lot for something rare. ”
Jude pondered that as Rob got out and the car lot owner emerged from his showroom.
He greeted Rob with far more warmth than Jude expected, nodding when Rob pointed between his car and the pump like sparing petrol for him would be no problem.
Jude got out too rather than sit as they chatted, checking out some of the cars he’d written off as ancient.
One was as big as a boat, tyres so fat they looked buoyant.
“That’s a Humber,” Rob said from behind him.
“They don’t make them like that anymore, do they?
” He reached past Jude and opened the door, letting out the scent of leather.
“Look at all that walnut.” He opened the back door as well.
“And look at the size of those seat-back trays.” He unclipped one and lowered it.
“That’s the way to have a picnic in style. ”
“I liked where we had ours better.”
“Yeah?”
Jude nodded, so distracted for a moment by Rob’s closeness that he forgot where they were until the sound of a car horn tooting had him sharply stepping backwards. At least Rob seemed as flustered as he reached for his wallet. “Let me get this over with and then we’ll be on our way.”
“Get what over with?”
“Him trying to buy Betsy from me while I pay for the petrol. He ups his offer each time I come here.”
“But not enough to make you sell it?”
“Her, not it,” Rob insisted. “And there isn’t enough money in the world to part me from Betsy.
” He flicked open the wallet to pull out a creased Polaroid.
Jude studied it after Rob left to pay. A young woman with Rob’s smile sat in a car that was Betsy’s double.
Jude climbed back in, waiting until Rob got back in before he asked, “Was this your mum’s car? ”
Rob nodded, raising a hand in farewell to the car lot owner as they left.
“And how much did he offer this time?”
“Not enough,” Rob said. “Like I said. There isn’t enough money on the planet.”
They drove away from Porthperrin, Jude pictured a simple set of door keys and a kiss-the-cook apron, understanding what Rob meant completely.
A half-hour later, the conversation returned to vehicles as they dawdled behind a line of camper vans and trailers, some of which at least would usually have headed for the beach at Porthperrin.
Now they all drove farther south. Rob pulled out to overtake some, saying, “That’s the same Range Rover model that Dad has. He offered to swap it with me for her.”
“For Betsy? Why did he give her to you in the first place?”
“He didn’t give her to me. I found her on a vintage sports car website. Cost me pretty much everything Mum left me to buy her. He couldn’t believe that I spent most of Mum’s money on her. Wasted it.”
Jude had a better idea now than ever before about why finding the car might have mattered so much. “If he thought it was a waste of money, why’d he try to swap it with you?”
“Control freak, remember?” Rob said, like that was a complete answer.
“But can we not talk about him?” he asked.
“And no overthinking about your sister either. What?” Rob glanced his way.
“I can tell you are by the look on your face.” His tone softened, his gaze darting from the rearview mirror to Jude again as he passed a slow-moving camper van.
“Louise asked for some space, that’s all, Jude.
We both know that she loves you. She’s just having to wrap her head around rewriting her past. Your past. Your whole family’s, to be honest.” He took a moment as they paused at a junction to meet Jude’s gaze head-on, humour hovering at his mouth’s corners.
“But she won’t need much longer, I reckon. ”
“How do you know?”
“Because she’s nowhere as slow on the uptake as you.”
“I’m not slow.”
“Oh, I beg to differ.” Rob drove while counting instances on his fingers. “You know that I asked you out during the first heat of the contest, don’t you?”
“No, you didn’t.” Jude studied Rob’s face, taking the opportunity to catalogue a profile he’d wished he’d taken a photo of before leaving last year.
From the dimple when Rob smiled to the way his eyes twinkled, even the tilted tip of his nose looked perfect to him.
“Pretty sure I would have remembered if you’d asked me out,” Jude insisted.
And then he would have panicked that one of the reporters covering the contest might’ve noticed.
“You were an actual tosser to me on the first day. You switched my salt pot for sugar.”
“Yes,” Rob said happily. “An old tactic, but a good one.”
“And then you kept turning down the temperature of my oven.”
Rob shrugged. “What did you expect?” He fanned himself.
“You were far too hot already.” He slowed before a right turn, his glance merry.
“And this is exactly what I meant about you being slow on the uptake.” He reached over the gearstick to pat Jude’s knee as if in consolation.
“I’d already guessed you weren’t the sharpest knife in the drawer, but you had to have known what all of that meant. ”
“No.”
“For goodness sake.” Rob’s huff was exasperated. “Jude, if you’d had pigtails, I would have pulled them.”
“All of that bollocks was you asking me out?”
“Obviously.”
“And acting that way was meant to attract me?”
“What way?” Rob asked as if he hadn’t been near impossible to share a kitchen bench with.
“Like a brat used to getting his way. That was meant to make me want you?”
“Of course.”
Jude got a side view of Rob waggling his eyebrows, Rob’s easy humour almost undoing him after so many days of high stress. Jude’s voice roughened. “I thought you were trying to get me out of the contest.”
“The only thing I wanted to get you out of were your pants.”
It was hard not to smile in the face of so much teasing. “And yet you sent me to bed by myself last night.”
“Patience is a virtue,” Rob said lightly. His next glance was more serious. “You get why I did that, don’t you?”
Jude had lain awake wishing Rob had come to bed with him to take his mind off everything that had happened.
Then he’d woken up grateful that he hadn’t.
“Yeah.” Outside of the car window, patches of gorse were dark green with only a few remaining dots of vivid yellow, another reminder that it was the start of the summer season—their one chance to make enough money to keep the wolf from the Anchor’s front door, too important to mess up.
“I do.” The next turn in the road took them seaward, the decline from the coast road much less dramatic than the cliffside hairpin bends down to Porthperrin.
Jude scrutinised the next road sign. “You know there’s nothing special to see if you keep going in this direction, don’t you?”
“Nothing special? What makes you say that?”
“Because the only village on this road is nothing like home. I mean, there used to be a fishing fleet, I suppose, but that’s been dying for years.”
“Luckily,” Rob said as he entered the village Jude had just described as washed-up, “it turns out that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Which is handy,” he added as he drove into a car park, “otherwise an ugly mug like yours would stay on the shelf forever, fish-face.”
“Just going to remind you that you’re the one who wanted into this ugly mug’s pants.
” The car park was almost full, he noticed.
Much more crowded than the virtually empty one at home that they’d retrieved Rob’s car from.
Once parked, Jude twisted in his seat to face Rob.
“I didn’t expect this place to be so busy. ”
“Why?” Rob shifted in his seat too, angled towards Jude. “Because, according to you, this place doesn’t have a purpose?” He echoed Jude’s words. “What was it you said? Places like this have been dying for years?”
“Well, yeah.” From memory, it was hardly a sought-after destination.
He’d had no reason to come here for ages.
“It’s not exactly a vacation hotspot. It’s a bit of a trek from the main road, and it doesn’t even have a beach.
” And neither did Porthperrin now, which was still a kick in the ribs each time he remembered.
His grip tightened on his seatbelt until Rob said his name softly.
Jude looked up as Rob unfastened his own to lean even closer.
His thumb brushed Jude’s brow. “You’ve got to stop frowning like that.
” Even while shadowed in the car, his smile dazzled.
“It’s like you’re not even trying to attract the ex-heir to the Martin restaurant empire.
” He affected disappointment. “Honestly, Jude. I’m a catch.
You should bring your A-game if you want to snare me. ”
“Snare you?” Jude did just that, dragging him a few inches closer. “You don’t know what playing hard to get means.”