His Horizon - Con Riley Page 0,101
the clink of bottles. “Waiting like this to hear if any more of the One for Luck is found, or for definitive news about your parents, is awful. No one expects you to be the life and soul of the party with all of that hanging over your head,” he promised. “Like no one would begrudge you taking some time for yourself while you’re waiting. That’s why I’m here, like Susan and Carl and so many more of your friends. We’re all here to make waiting for news easier, if you’ll let us.”
“I can’t take time out.” Louise sounded as wretched as Jude felt. “I need to be here, close to the phone, just in case.”
Just in case was a sword over all of their heads that might plunge at any moment. Maybe Marc thought so as well. He followed Louise closely—had done for days now—as if his presence might shield her. Rob had been doing the same, Jude realised, with his near-constant hovering, meaning that his absence now was conspicuous. Jude missed him more than seemed reasonable considering it hadn’t been long since Rob had rolled out of their shared bunk with a cheery, “Got an errand to run. Be back before you know it.” Now Jude glanced at his watch. Nearly two hours had passed, much longer than a quick errand should take, surely? He asked, “Have you seen Rob?” from the bar doorway.
“No.” Trevor tidied away the bottle of cognac that Rob toasted each new guest with. “Not since I passed him on the hill out of the village.” He made short work of polishing the spot where the bottle had stood, the counter gleaming warmly as he braced both hands on its wooden surface. Concern etched lines into a face that still exuded kindness. “Is there something I can help you with until he gets back, Jude?”
“No.” Jude picked at the edge of one of his blue plasters, wondering when the absence of someone who used to be a thorn in his side stung more than the fresh nicks on his knuckles. “I just wondered where he was.”
“Go on,” Trevor urged both Jude and Louise. “Both of you. Take a break before the lunchtime rush. Looking after yourselves is important.”
Jude took Trevor’s advice, taking himself off to sit outside with the seagulls on the sea wall, staring for once not out to sea, but at where the street curved uphill, away from Porthperrin. The sun warmed his face as he waited and the breeze ruffled his hair, flirty, like the man he watched for. Jude pushed strands back from his forehead and stood as he heard the low rumble of Betsy’s engine, and when Rob appeared at the end of the quayside, windswept and so gorgeous, Jude could hardly get his words straight. “Where did you and Betsy get off to?”
“Foraging.” Rob brandished the bag he carried with a smile so bright it dazzled. “And Betsy needed petrol.”
“How much did the car lot guy offer for her, this time?” Jude asked, but he already knew Rob’s answer.
“Doesn’t matter. There isn’t enough cash on the planet.”
Jude peered into the bag Rob held out. “Mushrooms.”
“Ten out of ten for observation skills.” Rob emptied the bag onto the wide top of the sea wall and let Jude pick through them. “We’ll make a chef out of you yet.”
“I would have come with you,” Jude muttered, turning each mushroom over, checking the colour of their gills before throwing a couple of dubious ones into the water. “That way I could have spotted those two weren’t edible before you tried to poison our guests.”
“Like you would have been looking at the ground if I had taken you with me. We both know that you would have been too busy staring at the view to be useful.”
Rob teased, but Jude didn’t like the way he sounded so sure. That had been the old Jude, not the new version who valued what he had, right here in each moment.
“I wouldn’t have wasted time looking out to sea, if you’d taken me with you,” Jude said, brushing dirt from his palms before tugging Rob close by his belt loops. How could he with Rob to look at? He moved both hands up, over Rob’s sun-warmed shirt, the heat radiating through its cotton similar to the heat flooding Jude’s chest and cheeks as he told his new truth. “I told you that you’re my horizon, these days, didn’t I?”
“You did,” Rob said, breathless as if