Hot Fudge Fraud (10 page)

Chapter 11

Kathleen O’Hara was the type of woman one would have referred to as “handsome” in the twentieth century days of her youth.  Tall and sturdy, she wore her silver hair with flecks of blond in a chignon.  Her makeup was minimal, and she exuded a natural allure that defied age and gravity.  Her ocean blue eyes sparkled as she looked at
the stranger at her door.

Less than 48 hours after reading the letters in the lockbox, Melanie had hopped on a plane to Dublin.  Scraping up flight fare from the money that would have paid her next month’s rent in Isle of Palms, she had purchased a Coach ticket and
voyaged across the world alone.  Mr. Bradley had wanted to accompany her, but she persuaded him to stay in North Charleston to take care of Sunny…and to take Detective Stacey Graydon out to dinner.

In stark contrast to her
first getaway to Ireland, this trip had no first class meals, no penthouse suite, and no Keith.  Suppressing the truth of how much she missed him, Melanie focused on the more important mission of fulfilling her mother’s deathbed request.  And that might not be such a simple task.  She hadn’t phoned or written to Kathleen O’Hara to announce her visit.  Rather, she had taken a three hour taxi ride from Dublin to Cork with the hope that she would find Kathleen.  It was the same address that the old crumpled letter had listed, and apparently, the long lost grandmother still lived there.  Now Melanie stood in the doorway apprehensively, not sure how to begin a conversation.

“Good afternoon, Miss.  What can I do for you?” The old woman queried politely.

“G-good afternoon,” Melanie stuttered.  “I-I can’t believe you still live here!”

“Pardon me?”

Clearing her throat, Melanie decided to be as blunt as Kathleen O’Hara had been in her letter.  If nothing else, it was an approach that the old woman would understand. 

“I’m Melanie Bradley from South Carolina.  I’m Maureen’s daughter and your granddaughter.”

Kathleen turned ghostly white and then blushed with unconcealed joy.  Warmly, she pulled Melanie into her arms for a firm maternal hug.  Melanie closed her eyes, remembering how her mother used to hug her the same way.  Tightly.  Affectionately.  Protectively.  As though no one and nothing in the world could ever hurt her.  Kathleen smelled of tea roses, and her skin was surprisingly smooth for a woman her age.  Melanie wasn’t sure how old Kathleen was but assumed she must be at least eighty as Maureen Bradley would be 59 if she were alive.

“I’ve checked my mailbox every day for
16 years hoping that there would be a letter from your mother saying she was coming to visit me.  But I never imagined I’d have a granddaughter too!  What sweet icing on my cake!” Kathleen gushed.

“So I’m not intruding?”
Melanie asked, even though the answer was obvious.

“Not at all!  Just look at you!” Kathleen O’Hara’s voice oozed maternal pride.

Older and younger woman stood there speechless, each feeling the loss of the middle generation but neither commenting about it.  Kathleen O’Hara gazed deeply into Melanie’s eyes and studied her features as though she were searching for remnants of her bloodline.

“You look so much like I did when I was young!” Kathleen bubbled, taking a few steps back to admire her granddaughter.

“Well that’s good to know.  Because you’re beautiful.  I’d be lucky to look half as good as you when I’m your age,” Melanie said graciously.

“Ah, my age.  My age is such a long way off for you!  You won’t be 74 for many decades!” Kathleen blurted out before smacking a hand over her mouth as she realized she had revealed a secret prematurely.

“You’re 74?  But how is that possible?” Melanie pondered.

“Because I was only 15 when I gave birth to your mother,” Kathleen admitted quietly.  “And that’s the only reason I didn’t raise her.  Oh, do come sit down and have some coffee and biscuits with me.  I have so much to tell you, and it would be better if we did it in a civilized way.”

Kathleen led the way to a living room decorated in soft shades of mauve and butterscotch.  She laid out a plate of sweets on the coffee table and poured two mugs full of Irish roast.  Melanie sat down on the edge of the sofa, trembling in anticipation of the story Kathleen would tell…and the story that she would have to tell the old woman.  How could she tell this sweet 74 year old lady that the daughter she hoped to finally connect with had been dead for almost two decades?  Exhaling shakily, Melanie sipped her coffee and let Kathleen lead the conversation.  The woman looked ready to burst with all the information she had bottled up since her teenage years.

“Melanie, please understand that I didn’t want to give your mother up.  I cried every morning for a year after my parents
forced me to give her away.  They insisted that I give her to their friends, an infertile couple in their forties.  They told me that giving away the baby girl would atone for my sin of sex before marriage.” Kathleen paused, grimacing bitterly and staring out the window at an English garden that adorned the courtyard.

“That’s
horrible.  I’ve never been pregnant, but I know how strong the bond is between mother and child.  It must have been so devastating,” Melanie said, tentatively laying a hand over Kathleen’s.

Kathleen
accepted her hand appreciatively and replied, “Yes, it was devastating.  And the trauma of having that baby ripped out of my arms in the delivery room is with me to this day.” She shuddered as goose bumps raised on her arms.  “I didn’t even get to name her.  They told me later that she was named Maureen and was thriving in her household.  But no one would ever let me see her.  They were afraid that I would get attached to the baby and conspire to kidnap her somehow.  And you know what?  I might have!  She was my baby!  By the time I was 18, I was out of high school, and I could have taken care of my little girl!”

“Who was the father?” Melanie
ventured.

“Ah, it doesn’t matter!  He’s long gone.  He was just a boy from the neighborhood who I got too friendly with one day.  We weren’t in love.  We were just two kids experimenting.  When I told him I was pregnant, he
stopped taking my calls.  I never knew what happened to him,” Kathleen mused as frown lines creased her lovely face.

“So even to this day, you don’t know where he is?” Melanie asked incredulously.

“No idea.  I don’t even know if he’s alive,” Kathleen shrugged as Melanie shivered, reminded of the tragic news she had to convey.

“I married when I was 23.  A good, hard working man named James.  We had two sons together.  But James died of a massive stroke a few years back,” Kathleen revealed as the bitterness on her face transformed into sheer sadness.

“I’m sorry,” Melanie whispered.  “So you mean I have two uncles?”

“Yes! And I’m sure they would love to meet you.  After they were grown, I told them about their sister.  Now please, Melanie, I can’t take the suspense anymore.  I wanted to tell you a little about your family history before asking about your mother.  But I have to know.  How is she?  Is she here in Ireland too?”

Melanie didn’t have the heart to dump the whole awful story on her, so she dodged the question.  “Well, her adoptive parents have been gone for many years.  They moved to South Carolina with her when she was a teenager.  But then they died in a car accident when she was in her twenties.”

Kathleen frowned
disapprovingly.  “Yes, I was so outraged when I found out those two had packed up and moved to the United States!  And I already knew about their deaths.  My mother gave me that news shortly after the accident occurred.  But I’ve never gotten any news of Maureen.  I didn’t even know if she ever tried to look for me.  And I had no idea she had a beautiful daughter.” Kathleen’s eyes softened and her voice lowered on a decibel of unleashed emotion.

“You’re such a sweetheart, Kathleen…um, Mrs. O’Hara.  I’m sorry, I don’t know what to call you,” Melanie fumbled.

“That’s okay.  I wouldn’t expect you to call me Grandmother so soon!  Please call me Kathleen.”

Melanie nodded and smiled.  “Okay Kathleen.  Well, to answer your question, yes, my mother did want to find you.  She received the letter you sent
16 years ago but she never had a chance to respond to it.”

Kathleen’s mouth gaped open as she exclaimed, “She did receive my letter!  All these years, I thought it had gotten lost in the mail.  I only had the address of her adoptive parents, and they had already been dead a long time.  But by some miracle, that letter found its way to her in the mail!”

“Yes, it did.  It’s amazing that she received it.  And she read every word of it.  Multiple times.  She saved it in a lockbox.”

Melanie looked down at her feet as her throat closed up, unwilling to speak the words aloud that would shatter Kathleen’s dreams of meeting her stolen baby girl.  Stalling, Melanie recalled how Keith had probed her to share happy memories of her mother. 
That’s what I need to do now for Kathleen.  Let her hear how happy her daughter was before I tell her that they’ll never meet on earth.

“My mother and father had a
wonderful marriage.  They were completely in love.  Of course they argued sometimes, but most of my childhood memories are pleasant.  I remember them having date nights, just going to a little corner pub or burger joint.  Nothing fancy.  But it made them so happy.  I’m their only child,” Melanie unveiled as Kathleen listened with rapt attention.

The coffee grew cold in the women’s mugs as Melanie
painted a vivid portrait for Kathleen.  “She was the most loving mother any child could ask for.  She read books to me and told stories and sung lullabies.  She had the sweetest voice that I can still hear in my mind now…” Melanie trailed off as Kathleen’s eyes misted with tears.

Kathleen bit her lower lip, trying to hold back the tears
building like a tidal wave inside of her.  “Why are you talking about your mother in the past tense?” Kathleen asked in a strangled voice even though she knew the answer to that question with her own mother’s intuition.

“I’m sorry,” Melanie whispered as tears flowed from her eyes.

“It can’t be.  Tell me it isn’t true!  What happened to my daughter?  What happened to her?  Tell me!” Kathleen raved, shooting to her feet and striding to the window.  Pressing her hands against the glass, she stared out at the incessant rain and longed to escape the truth.

Hesitantly, Melanie rose to her feet and joined Kathleen at the window.  “I like to think that her spirit is somewhere in the rain.  Like angel teardrops.  I don’t know if any of that is true or even possible, but that’s what helps me get by.”

“But what happened to her?!  You must tell me!” Kathleen urged with wild eyes.

“She died of ovarian cancer when she was 43,” Melanie stated in a monotone.

Kathleen turned away from her and stared outside as the rainfall became heavier.  Silent teardrops stained her face, and her limbs shook with grief.  Melanie came up behind her and placed a supportive arm around her shoulders.

“I’m sorry you had to hear this news from me.  I’m so sorry,” Melanie consoled.

Whirling around to face her, Kathleen choked up on a fresh wave of grief.  “But this means you were just a child when she died!”

“I was 10.”

“Ten years old!  Oh it’s too terrible!  She didn’t have her mother, and you didn’t have yours!  It’s too cruel.  Life is so cruel,” she seethed.

“It can be,” Melanie allowed.  “But it’s also beautiful for reuniting us.  Imagine how happy my mother would be to see us together here in Ireland.  Actually, that’s why I came here.  I always wanted to meet you, but
when I found her lockbox recently, I had more reason than ever to track you down.”

“What are you talking about?” Kathleen asked, distraught beyond consolation.

“The year you sent that letter to her was the same year she was diagnosed with cancer.  She was already in Stage 4, and the doctors couldn’t do anything except let her die in peace.  But she read your letter and saved it in a lockbox for me with a letter of her own.  See, I brought it with me.” Melanie reached into her purse for the rumpled letter with fading blue ink.

Desperately, Kathleen read the letter, hands wracked with tremors as she digested the words of her daughter.  “She’s finally speaking to me,” Kathleen whispered.

“Yes, she is.  She’s speaking to both of us,” Melanie whispered back, wiping her tear streaked face.

“I’m so hap
py you came,” Kathleen said as more tremors rocked her slender frame.

“Are you sure? I’ve upset you so much.  Maybe it would have been easier if you had never known.”

“No, I had to know.  Since I was 15, there has been a black hole in my life.  But you’ve filled it, Melanie.  You’ve filled it with love.  Thank you!” She opened her arms and gratefully embraced her granddaughter.

Chapter 12

With a more peaceful heart than she had carried in a long time, Melanie strolled through the doors of her hotel in Cork.  The meeting with her grandmother had proven cathartic, and she felt inexplicably that her mother had been present the whole time.   As she was heading to the elevator, a familiar southern drawl called out to her.

“Melanie!”

The unmistakable deep tone of Keith’s voice urgently echoed in the lobby.  As her jaw dropped, he scrambled over to her and explained uneasily, “Your father gave me the address of your hotel.  And it wasn’t easy to get it out of him.  He was very angry with me.  Not that I blame him.  But he finally told me where you were, Melanie, because he could see how much I love you,” Keith subtly inserted the declaration of love into his words as Melanie’s eyes remained impassive.

“Well my father doesn’t make my decisions.  I do,” Melanie said in her signature bullheaded fashion.

Halfway between humor and exasperation, Keith shook his head and chuckled.  “I just told you I love you, Melanie.  Of all the responses I thought I’d get from you, that wasn’t one of them.”

Softening her lips into a tentative smile, she replied, “Keith, I love you too.  That’s no mystery.  I just need more time.  Like I told you in Charleston, I’m not ready…”

“You don’t have to say anymore.  You said it all.” The corners of Keith’s silver blue eyes crinkled with affection.  “You love me too, and that’s all I need to know.”

To her astonishment, he turned on his heel and began walking out of the hotel lobby.  “Where are you going?” She called breathlessly, running up behind him.

“You said you need more time.  I can give that to you.  As long as I know you love me, I have all the patience in the world, Melanie,” he promised, approaching the revolving glass doors.

The prospect of his leaving consumed her with fear.  Perhaps she had been too harsh on him in her pain over losing her ice cream parlor. 
Panicked, she twined her arms around his neck and stopped him the best way she knew how: with a sizzling and long denied kiss.  As tourists zipped through the lobby, the couple stayed entangled in each other’s embrace, not caring who witnessed the passionate spectacle.  Keith’s lips tasted exactly as she remembered, except sweeter, and the moment was too intense for either of them to resist.

“Come up to my hotel room,” she invited with a seductive
glow in her eyes.

“Later,” he rasped, trying to rein in his desires.  “I’ll be in your hotel room all night, every night for the rest of this trip.  But for now, there’s some place I want to take you.  Let’s go.”

Lacing their fingers together, he led her to a taxi parked at the curbside of the hotel entrance.  “I’ve got a surprise for you, Miss Melanie Bradley,” he said mysteriously, punching a few letters into his phone and then showing the message to the cab driver.  “This is where I want you to take us, sir.  But it’s a secret, so don’t tell this lovely lady here where we’re going.”

The sixty-something cab driver nodded
genially, pleased to be part of the young man’s romantic plan.  “You got it.  We’re on our way.”

Melanie giggled, flush with excitement to be reunited with Keith.  “I’m so glad you didn’t listen to me and stay away,” she said dreamily.  “
And I couldn’t let you walk out of the hotel.  You made my heart stop when I thought you were going to leave.  Where were you going to go anyway?”

“Back
to my hotel and then back to South Carolina,” he said frankly.  “It’s not where I wanted to go, but I was willing to give you more time if that’s what you needed.”

“No, this is what I need,” she whispered, kissing him swiftly on the lips and caressing his stubble roughened cheek.  “I’m glad the sun came out,” she remarked, glancing out the window as they sat hip to hip.

“Don’t look out the window!  I don’t want you to guess where we’re going.  Keep your eyes on me.”

“That shouldn’t be too hard,” she flirted, fixing her gaze on his ruggedly handsome f
eatures.

“You’re so beautiful,” he murmured, stroking her sun kissed face.

“I was just thinking the same thing about you,” she revealed with a grin.  “Keith, I’m sorry if it seemed like I was blaming you for what happened to my business.  I just couldn’t deal with the idea that the person responsible for this was your ex-girlfriend.”

“
And I should have told you about her sooner,” he added.  “You have nothing to apologize for.  And if it makes you feel better, I don’t think you’re going to have to testify at trial.”

“Why not?”
She asked, already feeling relieved.

“Because it doesn’t look like there’s going to
be
a trial.  The story’s been splashed all across the newspapers in Charleston the past few days.  And it seems that she’s going to enter a plea bargain to avoid going to trial.”

Melanie’s
eyes clouded with displeasure.  Detective Graydon told her a plea bargain might be possible, but Melanie had been too upset at the time to consider the ramifications of such a deal.  All the true crime and legal drama programs she avidly watched had taught her that a plea bargain usually meant a lesser sentence for a defendant. 

“So she’s just going to get off scott free?”

“No, I don’t think so.  The sentence is still up to the judge, and she’s got multiple charges against her, so she’ll be doing some hard time most likely.”

“
You know what?  Why are we even talking about this?” Melanie mused.  “I shouldn’t be so vengeful.  I’m here in Ireland with the man I love.  And it’s not like anyone was hurt in that fire.  Hot Fudge Fancy can be rebuilt, and I
will
rebuild it,” she vowed.

“I know you will,” Keith encouraged, squeezing her hand warmly.  Peeking out the window, he announced, “Ah, we’ve reached our destination.”

Curiously, Melanie looked out the window of the cab and broke into a wide smile at the landmark that beckoned in the distance.  “Blarney Castle,” she breathed.  “I forgot it was so close to Cork.  I should have known you were taking me here!”

“That’s right.  And remember what I said about me and the Blarney Stone?” He asked mischievously.

“Yes!” She laughed.  “You said I should pretend
you’re
the Blarney Stone and keep kissing you!”

“Exactly.  I don’t think that’s too much to ask,” he grinn
ed, sliding out of the cab.  “Now that you’ve gotten over your fear of flying, it’s time to tackle your fear of climbing.  And once we get up there, you’ll have to lean over backwards in order to kiss the Blarney Stone with your lips,” he described the ritual that countless daring travelers had attempted.

Melanie stared up at the towering medieval castle and the bluestone block that served as its
kissable centerpiece.  “You’re kidding, right?  We can’t climb all the way up there and bend over backwards to kiss a rock!”

“We can do anything together, Melanie,” he replied intimately
.

Banishing the superstitions that had crippled her for too many years, she asserted,
“You’re right.  Let’s do it. But first, one more kiss?”

“Yes!
The Blarney Stone is already working its magic,” he joked, eagerly drawing her into his solid arms for a lingering kiss.

“Mmm,” she murmured.  “I’ve decided on your flavor.”

“My flavor?  I’m intrigued.”

“Yes.  When you picked me up for our first date, I came up with an ice cream flavor for you: Dose of Decadence.  But I didn’t know what ingredients to blend
the flavor with,” she revealed sweetly.

“And now you’ve decided?” He asked, pulling her closer.

“I have.  Dose of Decadence will be a mix of Irish Coffee and Irish Cream.  Coffee because you’re so strong and cream because you’re so sweet.” She deposited another kiss on his lips.

“Sounds like the perfect flavor for a nice big sundae at the new Hot Fudge Fancy. 
And I want to be there for that opening, Melanie.  I want to be there for everything.”

“Y
ou will be,” she promised as they began the long ascent to the peak of Blarney Castle.

Adrift in her private thoughts, Melanie
reflected on her irrational preoccupation with the concept of luck.  As she climbed higher and higher with Keith at her side, Daisy’s haunting threat faded into the mist.  Serenely, Melanie gazed up at the imposing Blarney Stone and thought:

Who needs the luck of the Irish when you’ve got the love of a lifetime?

*****