His Horizon

by Con Riley

  “I only need to know one thing, okay?” Rob asked. “And no, it’s not how to win Michelin stars, like you. I know your recipes are top secret and I’m not interested in chasing glory.” He paused, surprise pitching his voice a touch higher. “You’d really share them with me if I wanted?”

  How had Rob ever questioned his dad’s devotion, Jude wondered? Maybe accepting the gift of Betsy’s return marked a turning point in their communication. Rob tracing Betsy’s keys with one finger suggested that might be the case. Jude studied the way his touch next lingered on a shiny new anchor keyring his mum had gifted to him that morning along with a rousing chorus of Happy Birthday to You. Then Rob stroked a tiny canister holding waterproof matches Jude’s dad had given him with his own quieter birthday greeting. He touched each simple token as if all three were worth as much as each other.

  “Tell me how to keep from strangling a woman who’s the darling of the British public?”

  Jude just about repressed a chuff of surprised laughter as Rob added, “Because I swear to God that if I have to share a business with Jude’s mother for much longer, that’s what’s going to happen.” Rob turned as he listened, Jude able to see his profile and the smile that broke out as Rob responded to whatever he next heard.

  “Of course you’re the right person to ask, Dad. You must have wanted to strangle me more than a few times.” His expression shifted slightly. “I didn’t mean that bit about you chasing glory, by the way. I get why you were so hell-bent on making a go of it in London after Mum….” His voice softened. “I mean, it must have been awful for you without her. It was for me, but I didn’t know the hotel was nearly repossessed because you prioritised looking after her for so long.”

  Jude pictured the tiny, delicious morsels Rob had prepared for Susan, months ago now. He’d learned how to inject care into his cooking from someone who loved with their whole heart as well.

  “So, I can see that throwing yourself into work to pay off the debts made sense.” Rob quieted again, listening. “It was magic, though, wasn’t it?” he added eventually. “Our hotel? But that magic was the people, not the building.”

  And wasn’t that a truth Jude too had found out lately?

  Whether here or aboard the Aphrodite, who you got to crew with was worth so much more than bricks and mortar.

  “So,” Rob asked. “Do you have any tips, because I swear that if she doesn’t shut up I’m going to attempt what the Indian Ocean couldn’t manage.” He noticed Jude then, his eyes widening at getting caught making death threats before he noticed Jude’s grin. Relieved, Rob swivelled his seat to fully face him and patted his lap.

  Jude sat carefully, only wary due to the chair’s creak of protest rather than because of who could walk in at any moment. He settled into a one-armed embrace as Rob ended his call, knowing that the worst that could happen was his father repairing the chair if they broke it.

  “Got to go, Dad,” Rob said. “Tall, blond and surly just got here. So, let me know if you have any bright ideas that don’t involve outright murder. But don’t text. There’s no point. I only get messages when we leave the village, and I don’t know when we’ll next get a day off. Yeah,” he added with a chuckle. “It’s a very nice problem to have after last winter. And no”—he rolled his eyes—“I don’t need a new phone, thank you.” His gaze caught on something over Jude’s shoulder, and Rob swivelled the chair some more. “You could always send me a postcard.”

  The noticeboard was covered with those his dad had written to Trevor, too personal to put out on display for the hundreds of tourists who came especially to meet his mother and father. Their survival was a star attraction eclipsing Porthperrin’s lost beach, a result that meant business was booming in a way Jude hadn’t predicted. He couldn’t have foreseen Rob sounding so relaxed as he said goodbye to his father either.

  “So,” Jude said once Rob hung up. “You’ve got a problem with my mother.” He was pretty sure that Rob didn’t.

  “I have no idea how your dad puts up with her. Seriously, Jude, no wonder he seems quiet in comparison. She talks at me non-stop.”

  “She loves you.”

  “I know.” And wasn’t that complete certainty another sign that Jude needn’t worry?

  “You’re just snippy because you like being the only one who gets to showboat for our guests. Now Mum’s back, you’ve got some stiff competition.” Jude dropped a kiss on Rob’s lips before standing. “You’ll have to find something more exciting to boast about than winning a cooking contest if you want more attention than she’s getting.”

  “More exciting?” Rob sniffed. “Not sure it’s possible to beat her survival stories. All that catching fish by hand, or making seawater drinkable by reverse osmosis… how am I expected to wow customers with that for competition?” He sighed and pouted, but his gaze was as warm as ever and Jude loved him for it.

  “Maybe you need some customers of your own.” Jude extended a hand to pull Rob to his feet. “Come on.” He tugged his boyfriend, his partner, the love of the rest of his life if he was lucky. “It’s time I gave you your birthday present.”

  Instantly, Rob was wreathed with smiles. “You got me something?”

  “Of course I did.” Jude led Rob through the shadowed hallway, past the bar and kitchen, and opened the front door.

  “When?” Rob asked with a whisper, speaking aloud once Jude locked the front door behind them. “It’s been far too busy for you to go shopping and I would have noticed any deliveries arriving.”

  “I didn’t need to leave Porthperrin to get you a gift.”

  “Ah.”

  Rob turned towards the boatshed, only stopping after Jude grabbed his wrist and asked, “Where are you going?”

  “To bed, for what I’m guessing will be a birthday blowjob from my favourite sailor.”

  “Maybe later.” Jude guided Rob in the opposite direction, slowing at the bottom of one narrow alley after Rob dragged his heels.

  “Please tell me we’re not going to the gallery.”

  “Why would we be going there?” Jude asked, quieter again, as they passed cottages where Porthperrin’s new breed of tourists slept instead of under canvas.

  “Because you might have bought me a painting,” Rob explained. “But the only person who needs a portrait of Louise in her birthday suit is Marc, not me.” He added, “I’m not saying that she isn’t lovely, but the only Anstey I want to see naked is a whole lot taller.”

  “Pretty sure my dad’s straight,” Jude joked in a way he could never have imagined before Rob had stormed through his life, changing every single aspect for the better. “And he’s already married.” Jude stopped outside a home that once had been full of an expressive French family he used to find hard to deal with. Now he did his best to be just as open as them. “This is your present if you want it.” He turned a key that Marc had given him with his blessing. “Only it comes with some conditions.”

  “Which are?” Rob sounded guarded until Jude turned on the light, illuminating a room that had him gasping. “Wait…. Is this…?”

  “Where Marc lived with his parents? Yeah.” Jude watched Rob take in the artwork, walls covered with views of a beach that no longer existed, captured forever here in floor-to-ceiling murals.

  “Wow.” Rob sounded reverent, his voice somewhat shaky as he turned in a slow circle. “Is this really what it looked like?” All Jude could do was nod. Rob crossed the room to hug him. “None of the photos I saw did it justice.”

  His embrace lasted as long as Jude needed, finally able to look at everything Porthperrin had lost with Rob beside him. He said, “There’s more,” before taking Rob on a tour of rooms, each one revealing aspects of a place Jude would sail the whole world over to come back to. Rob admired each room, from the kitchen that featured the woods where they foraged, to a bathroom painted so many ocean shades that Jude couldn’t hope to count them. They ended in a bedroom, bare apart from more art painted onto the plaster.

  “Now thi
s…” Rob traced a line bisecting a wall where dawn-pink brush strokes met sea-blue. “This is one horizon I could stand to look at for a long time.”

  “That’s the condition I mentioned.” Rob stopped tracing the line and went still. Jude continued, saying, “You could if you wanted. Look at that horizon every day, with me, right here. Only you’d have to stay for longer than you agreed with Louise last winter. A lot longer, if we ran this place together.”

  “As…?”

  “As a hotel, as a retreat, as whatever you wanted. Seems like there’s never enough rooms to book at the Anchor, these days. Surely that means there’s capacity in the village for a boutique hotel as well?”

  “A boutique hotel….” Rob pondered before sounding stricken. “But what about your parents?” He turned, so clearly worried that Jude’s heart tried to crawl out of his chest ready to throw itself at this man whose first thought was for other people. “How will they manage the Anchor?”

  “With Louise. And with me, and you, and Trevor. With all of us, when it’s busy.” And it would be busy, Jude was almost certain, now his parents were home. And when their fifteen minutes of fame faded, the rotation of regular markets would attract locals to the village, just like Guy Parsons’ write-up would lure year-round tourists. “Helping out won’t be a problem. It took all of four minutes to walk here.”

  “Can we afford it?” Rob asked as if he didn’t always manage to magic a way to make deals, and then, just a second later, he answered his own question. “We’re going to afford it.”

  They would, Jude knew in the same way he knew Rob was the only person on the planet he wanted to follow, as he did now, from room to room, listening as he made plans.

  “How many bedrooms are there?”

  “Six. And there’s a studio in the back garden.”

  “A studio,” Rob mused as he flicked on another light switch, this room full of cliff-top vistas. “We could use it for treatments.”

  “A spa?” Jude asked.

  “A spa,” Rob said, decided as he went downstairs. “And what’s through here?” He opened a door into a room that had staves painted on the walls dotted with musical notation. “Oh!” His eyes gleamed. “We can have music evenings.”

  “No sea shanties,” Jude said, but it was too late, Rob already humming before bursting into song as he explored the last room, breaking off after noticing a gift-wrapped present on a window seat.

  “What’s this?”

  “Open it and see.” Jude watched closely as Rob unwrapped a bottle of top-quality Cognac. “Pricy,” Rob said as he examined the label. “This isn’t our usual swill. You’re spoiling me.”

  “It’s not from me.”

  “Dad?” Rob asked, his expression shifting through a spectrum from exasperation to fondness. “I told him he didn’t need to buy me anything.”

  “He sent it for me,” Jude admitted. Rob met his eye, enquiring, so Jude took a deep breath. “I… I asked him how he proposed to your mum.” Jude took the bottle from Rob’s suddenly slack hands. “He told me that he did it after visiting an empty building with her that they decided to turn into a hotel.”

  Rob looked up, his eyes bright for a whole new reason. “They didn’t even have glasses to toast with,” he said, damp-eyed. “They drank straight out of the bottle. Mum told me that so long ago that I’d forgotten.”

  “Your dad didn’t forget. He said it was the start of their best tradition.” One that Rob had continued to make each of their guests feel welcome. “So?” Jude uncorked the bottle and took a swig before passing it over. “Will you?”

  He watched Rob cradle the bottle as if it was precious. If he said yes, this winter would be full of days spent at auction houses seeking furniture to fill these rooms, and evenings spent crunching numbers with no guarantee that they’d ever break even. Jude couldn’t wait to spend every moment of that future with Rob, if he wanted.

  “Will I?” Rob studied Jude’s face as if searching for something. “With you?” He lifted the bottle only for Jude’s heart to stutter. Rob lowered it instead of taking a sip.

  God help him. This was what Jude’s future would be full of as well. Months of teasing followed by years of nonsense lay ahead if he was very, very lucky.

  Rob lifted the bottle again, stopping this time to ask a pointed question. “What kind of proposal are you making, exactly?”

  Jude searched for all of the right words and hoped he found enough. “I’m proposing whatever you’ll say yes to for just as long as you’ll be with me, wherever you want, just as long as we’re together. Friends and business partners. Marriage, if you’ll have me.”

  “Romantic,” Rob said, breathless before his eyes narrowed. “You sure you don’t want to sail off into the sunset on the Aphrodite with Tom?” Rob lifted the bottle to his mouth before lowering it again. “I mean, I’ve seen some of the photos your mum took. He’s quite the silver sea-fox, and I heard that your replacement didn’t last long.”

  “Tom’s the one who told me that if I found someone who knows what I need before I do, and who’s easy to look at as well, I’d be a damn fool to let them walk away without trying hard to keep them.”

  “You think I’m easy to look at.” Rob’s chest puffed up.

  “You’re not terrible,” Jude said, hedging. “In the dark, from behind, I guess.” Giving back as good as he got was the only way Jude would survive a lifetime with Rob. He couldn’t wait to get started.

  “And yet, you still love me.”

  “I do. So much.”

  Behind Rob, the sun rose with a gold flash between pink streaks of sea mist that Jude barely noticed. How could he look away from this man?

  He wouldn’t ever have to, Jude finally knew that for sure.

  Rob raised the bottle for real and drank to their future.

  * * *

  The End

  * * *

  I hope you loved His Horizon.

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  About the Author

  Con Riley lives on the wild and rugged Devonshire coast, with her head in the clouds, and her feet in the Atlantic Ocean.

  Injury curtailed her enjoyment of outdoor pursuits, so writing fiction now fills her free time instead. Love, loss, and redemption shape her romance stories, and her characters are flawed in ways that makes them live and breathe.

  When not people watching, or wrangling her own boy band of teen sons, she spends time staring at the sea from her kitchen window. If you see her, don't disturb her—she's probably thinking up new plots.