His Horizon - Con Riley Page 0,10

as Rob put down the tray and filled Jude’s worst-brother mug almost to the brim. “But Rob’s part of the solution.”

Jude sat next to his sister, the laptop booting as he picked up his mug, a sound of appreciation at his first sip slipping out, involuntary.

Louise nudged his knee with her own. “It’s good coffee, isn’t it?”

“Mmm.” Jude sipped again. It was easily as good as the brew he’d served aboard the Aphrodite. “This isn’t Mum’s usual.”

“Nope.” Rob’s tone was neutral even as his eyes sparkled. “I used the last of that shit to clean the drains.”

Louise groaned as if this was an old joke that they’d shared more than a few times. “It wasn’t that bad.”

“It was gruesome.” Rob took a sip and glanced at Jude. “And nowhere near good enough for the customers we need to attract now.”

Before Jude could dispute Rob’s use of we, Louise interrupted. “Look.” She clicked the trackpad on her laptop and opened a spreadsheet. “This page shows turnover over the last five years.” The downturn was a slow slide, obvious in chart form, but surely not devastating.

She clicked another tab open.

Jude almost inhaled his coffee.

A graph showed the pub’s income plummeting as if a typhoon chased it. “How could you—?” Jude pressed his lips together, but Louise finished yet another thoughtless sentence that he instantly regretted.

“How could I have let it get so bad?” Her eyes glittered again. “How could I have broken a business that worked okay for decades?” Rob slid a hand across her shoulders and squeezed, an action that should have been Jude’s instead of casting blame in her direction. Louise whispered, “How could it only take months under my management before the bank threatened repossession?”

Jude felt awful and tried to make amends, hoping he wasn’t too late. He held her hand. “More like, how could you have let me swan off when you must have been so worried?”

On the far side of his sister, Rob let out a surprised sound of agreement. He gave way, moving his arm from her shoulder so Jude could fully comfort his sister. “Did you really think I wouldn’t have come straight home if I’d known about this?”

She turned her damp face into his throat, her cheeks hot and breath shuddering. “I- I didn’t want you to come home. I wanted you to keep looking.” She drew in a final breath and said, “Besides, I found a way to fix it.”

“I-I still don’t understand how things got so bad so quickly.” Jude worked hard to remove even a single hint of accusation from his next question. “Didn’t anyone see this coming?”

Rob leaned over and clicked an internet browser open, typing in a few words. A news webpage ran a slideshow of a storm rougher than any he’d witnessed while aboard the Aphrodite. “Wait.” Jude peered closer. “Is that here…?” Jesus, it was. On the laptop screen, a tall wave of white froth and fury lashed the church spire at the end of the harbour. The next image showed a fishing vessel perched atop the sea wall, tilted like some giant seesaw, the pub visible in the background. More photos revealed the kind of devastation Jude had recently witnessed much closer to the equator, the webpage headline announcing the worst storm to strike the Cornish coastline in generations. “When was this, exactly?”

“A few weeks after you left.”

“Was the pub completely flooded?” It was the only reason he could imagine for the sharp dip in turnover. “Did the storm damage the roof?” That would account for so many renovations upstairs too. “No wonder you closed the business.”

“No, the pub wasn’t badly damaged.” The ground floors were flagstone, the walls exposed stone, built to weather occasional high tides. “Drying out didn’t take long.”

“So why change how we run the business?” Jude clicked back to the spreadsheet. “Yeah, the winter takings were dire, but the tourists will arrive any minute. Pricing everyone who stays at the beachside campground out of eating and drinking here isn’t going to make the figures any better.”

“I think,” Louise said as she closed the laptop, “the only way for you to understand is to see for yourself.”

4

Jude followed his sister to the pub’s front door, stopped by Rob hooking a hand around his elbow. His grip was as intent as his tone. “We need to talk.”

“Not now.” Jude pulled free and stepped outside to see his sister jogging along the harbour. He followed as she hopped up onto the sea wall and then