Chapter 9 #2
‘I’m not bringing cash, I’m not stupid—’
‘I didn’t say you were stupid—’
‘It’s heavily implied when you assume I can’t handle basic—’
‘I don’t assume anything. I just—’ He runs his hand through his hair, tangling the sandy waves around his fingers. ‘It’s not safe.’ His mouth opens but then snaps shut again.
‘I’ll be fine,’ I say, gentler now. ‘But thanks for the concern.’
I turn to go, and I’m almost at the Land Rover when I hear footsteps behind me.
I open the driver’s door and the passenger door opens too.
Jude drops into the seat like he belongs there, long legs folding into my cramped cab, head brushing the roof.
‘What are you doing?’
‘Coming with you.’
‘I didn’t invite you.’
‘No, but you need someone who knows boats—’
‘I know boats.’
‘—and someone who knows Plymouth. And someone who can look intimidating if this guy turns out to be sketchy.’
‘You think you look intimidating?’
He gives me a look that’s probably meant to be stern but mostly makes him look like a disappointed teacher. ‘I’m six-two and I’ve got resting fisherman face. That’s intimidating enough.’
‘Resting fisherman face isn’t a thing.’
‘It is. It’s like resting bitch face but more weather-beaten and suspicious of outsiders.’
I want to laugh. Want to kick him out. Want to ask why he cares. Instead: ‘What about your dad? The boats?’
‘Tom’s covering. Already arranged it.’
‘When? In the thirty seconds since I mentioned Plymouth?’
He holds up his phone. ‘I’m very efficient at texting.’
We sit there, him in my passenger seat like he’s already won, me gripping the steering wheel like it might provide answers.
‘This is a bad idea,’ I say.
‘Probably.’
‘We don’t even like each other.’
‘Definitely.’
‘You’ll complain about my driving the entire way.’
‘Likely.’
‘And my music.’
‘What music?’ He’s looking at my ancient radio with genuine concern.
‘Exactly. Two hours of silence there, two hours back.’
‘I can talk.’
‘That’s what I’m afraid of.’
But I’m already starting the engine, because apparently I’m an idiot who lets Jude Harding invite himself on my boat-buying expedition. He’s buckling his seatbelt, settling in, a wide-ass grin on his face.
‘For the record,’ I say, pulling out of the harbour parking, ‘this doesn’t mean we’re friends.’
‘Wouldn’t dream of it.’
‘And you don’t get a vote on the boat.’
‘Unless it’s obviously terrible.’
‘All boats are obviously terrible. That’s what makes them boats.’
‘Spoken like a true Trelawney.’
It should be an insult, probably is, but it sounds almost affectionate. Which is definitely my imagination, definitely the lavender shortbread sugar high, definitely not Jude Harding being anything other than protective of his town’s resources.
We’re barely out of Sea Salt Bay when he starts: ‘You’re riding the clutch.’
‘I’m not.’
‘You are. And that grinding noise—’
‘It’s character. Personality. Something you’d know nothing about.’
‘I have personality.’
‘You have obligations. Not the same thing.’
He goes quiet at that, and I immediately feel guilty. But before I can apologise, he’s speaking again: ‘Turn left at the roundabout.’
‘Plymouth’s straight on.’
‘Trust me.’
‘Said the spider to the fly.’
‘It’s a better route. Scenic.’
‘Longer.’
‘Better.’
I turn left, because apparently I’m making all sorts of questionable decisions today.
The road winds up through farmland, stone walls and sheep and views so expansive, so beautiful, they can make people uproot their lives and move to Cornwall.
But then when they get here, they realise views don’t pay bills.
‘Why do you care?’ I ask finally, when the silence gets too heavy. ‘About the boat. About Plymouth. About any of it.’
He’s quiet long enough that I think he won’t answer. Then: ‘Peter would’ve cared. He would’ve wanted to make sure you got a fair deal, got a boat vaguely seaworthy. He would’ve…’ He trails off, staring out the window. ‘He would’ve helped.’
‘So you’re helping because a dead man would’ve wanted it? A man I never got to meet.’
‘I’m helping because—’ He stops. Starts again. ‘I don’t know why I’m helping.’
It’s honest, which is more than I expected. More than I know what to do with. I push my hair back from my face. It’s hot in here.
‘Well,’ I say eventually, ‘try not to help too much. I’ve got a reputation as a dangerous independent woman to maintain.’
‘Your secrets are safe with me, Trelawney.’
We drive on through countryside that’s trying its best to be picturesque despite the grey sky. He doesn’t complain about my driving again, and I don’t mention that he was right about the route. The shortbread sits between us in its paper wrapping, a small, sweet thing in all this complicated salt.
‘Play your music if you want,’ he says suddenly. ‘Can’t be worse than Maisie’s Disney soundtracks on repeat.’
‘The radio’s broken.’
He reaches over, and fiddles behind the ancient dial, and suddenly there’s sound. Crackling, staticky, but sound.
‘How did you—’
‘Magic,’ he says, echoing my earlier word back at me. ‘Or, you know, actual mechanical knowledge.’
‘You just hit it, didn’t you?’
‘Percussive maintenance. Very technical.’
I laugh – actually laugh – and his mouth twitches like he might smile. The radio finds a station playing nineties grunge, all guitars and anger, and neither of us moves to change it.
Two hours to Plymouth. Two hours back. Four hours with Jude Harding in an enclosed space, voluntarily. Yesterday I was diagnosing his hydraulic problem like a smug mechanic. Today he’s protecting me from potentially sketchy boat dealers.
This town really is making me soft.
Or maybe that’s just what happens when someone sees your rough cottage at dawn and still worries about you driving alone.
When someone fixes your radio with percussive maintenance.
When someone helps because a dead man would’ve wanted it, because maybe that’s the only way any of us know how to be kind anymore – in memory of those who did it better.
‘The turning for Plymouth’s coming up,’ Jude says.
‘I know.’
‘Just making sure.’
‘I’m not an idiot, Harding.’
‘Never said you were, Trelawney.’
The city sprawls ahead, all concrete and possibility, and I’m driving towards a boat that might or might not be everything I need, with a man who might or might not be an enemy, carrying shortbread that’s definitely going to be eaten before we get there.
‘The boat better be worth this,’ I mutter.
‘The company’s not that bad.’
‘I meant the drive.’
‘Sure you did.’
I bite back a smile, focus on the road, and pretend not to notice how right he looks in my passenger seat. How natural this feels, despite everything. How dangerous that is.
Because this is what I came back for. Not Jude Harding – not a man, not a romance, not some fairy-tale rescue from the loneliness of the last twenty years.
A boat. A business. A trade that should have been mine since I was old enough to hold a net.
Trelawney Marine Services, reborn in a harbour that tried to forget us.
But Jude Harding helping me is complicated enough. Jude Harding making me laugh is something else entirely.
Something that probably ends with one or both of us getting hurt.
But that’s a problem for future Brynn. Current Brynn has a boat to buy and a Harding to keep in line.
‘Left here,’ he says.
‘That’s a one-way street.’
‘Not if you’re brave enough.’
‘Are you actually trying to get us arrested?’
‘Just testing your commitment to danger.’
‘I’m driving to Plymouth with you. How much more danger do you need?’
He actually smiles then, quick and real before he catches himself. ‘Fair point.’
We find the harbour eventually, park in a space that charges tourist prices even in March. The boat seller’s waiting, and Jude’s right – he does look sketchy. But he also looks nervous when he sees Jude unfold from the Land Rover, all six-foot-two of suspicious fisherman’s son.
‘You brought your boyfriend,’ the seller says.
‘Yeah. No,’ I snap.
Even if I know exactly where he is without looking. The heat off him. The weight of him in my peripheral vision like a tool I haven’t picked up yet but my hands already know the shape of.
The boat, when we see her, is perfect in her imperfection.
Weathered hull, salt-scarred wheelhouse, deck that’s seen better decades.
But the bones underneath – the frame, the keel, the fundamental architecture of her – are sound.
I run my hands along the gunwale, drop to my knees to check the hull plates, lean into the engine compartment and breathe in the familiar cathedral smell of diesel and salt and metal.
This is what I came back for. Not a cottage or a shed or a grudge. This. A boat. A business. A life on the water that should have been mine all along.
‘She’s beautiful,’ I breathe.
‘She’s a disaster,’ Jude says, but he’s running his hand along her hull like he sees it too – what she could be.
‘Exactly,’ I say, and we share a look. Like maybe we recognise broken things because we are them.
Or maybe that’s just the lavender shortbread talking, sweet delusion in a bitter world.
Either way, I’m buying this boat.
And Jude Harding, whether I invited him or not, is going to help me get her home.