The Chocolatier's Secret (Magnolia Creek, Book 2) (6 page)

‘So how’s Louis?’ asked Bella. ‘I saw Gemma earlier, but she looked crazed.’

Andrew sighed. ‘He’s not good.’ He mixed another serving of the melted chocolate with milk frothed in the machine and took it over to one of the mums reading a book and looking out at the spectacular view.

Andrew kept his voice down low when he returned to Bella. ‘He’s going on to dialysis four times a week.’

‘I’m so sorry, Andrew. Is he anywhere near the top of the transplant list?’

Andrew shook his head. ‘He’s a long way off.’ He hesitated. ‘I said I’d donate to him.’

‘Good on you.’

Andrew shrugged. ‘I bet you’d do the same.’

‘You’re not wrong there. I’d do it for family or for a friend. It’s saving a life. It’s saving a life that’s part of your own.’ When Andrew nodded, she said, ‘But you’re worried about this place?’

‘Wouldn’t you be?’

‘You know, a couple of years ago I would’ve been petrified that a setback, weeks or months out of action, would’ve finished us for good, but since the bushfires and losing the café, I realise … I mean, really realise … there’s nothing more important than your own life and the lives of those around you. Sure, money helps, money helps a lot, but it isn’t the be all and end all.’

She sipped her hot chocolate. ‘What does Gemma think?’

‘I think Gemma’s sick of life dealing us crap.’ And life wasn’t done yet either. She still had no idea about Julia or the daughter he had, the biological child Gemma would give her right arm to have with him. They’d talked about IVF a few months ago but since then had done nothing about it. Maybe it was time he put his wife and her dreams first.

‘She’s a fighter, Andrew.’ Bella’s red lipstick had left its mark on her cup. ‘And both of you have become friends. Without Finnegan’s up and running for another couple of months, I’m here if you need me. I can work a till, make deliveries and I promise not to eat all your chocolate.’

Tears rarely sprung to Andrew’s eyes, but the welcoming from this community heightened his emotions. ‘Bella, thank you. You’re a true friend.’ Whether he accepted Bella’s offer or not, he warmed at how they were settling into life here surrounded by people who genuinely cared.

‘And if I know Stephanie well enough,’ Bella continued, ‘she’ll leap at the chance to work some extra shifts and earn a bit more pocket money. When I was her age, I was saving for my first car.’

Andrew grinned. ‘Me too.’

Bella finished her hot chocolate and went on her way, and by the time Andrew returned downstairs to supervise the cleaning up of the party room, Gemma was back.

‘How’s Dad?’

‘He’s asleep again. I tried to get him to eat some crackers or some dry toast, but he’s off his food.’

They stood aside as hyper kids left with their creations, party bags and huge smiles.

‘Do the parents realise how manic these kids’ll be this afternoon?’ He smiled.

Gemma stood next to her husband and watched a little girl leave. ‘This is what I want.’

Andrew looked at her. ‘Six rowdy kids buzzing on sugar and chocolate?’

‘I’m serious, Andrew. I keep telling myself it’ll be okay, if it never happens for us, it doesn’t matter.’ Tears filled her eyes. ‘But it does.’

He could see the pain she was in and it killed him to know he’d soon be adding to it. But for now he wanted to give her what she wanted, to give her the world. ‘Why don’t we go and see the doctor, talk about IVF?’

Gemma looked at him. ‘I wasn’t sure you’d want to go down that route.’

‘I think we should try.’ He smiled and pulled her hand into his, but the moment was broken when someone dropped their giant chocolate button and it smashed all over the floor. Gemma was straight to the little boy’s side. She hugged him and took out a packet of chocolate dinosaurs to give to him. He gasped with glee, the tears dried and he left the shop all smiles.

If only Gemma’s heart could be mended as easily.

*

When Andrew arrived home after work, Louis was already in the kitchen.

‘How are you feeling?’ He rested his hand on his dad’s shoulder.

‘I slept for too long, son. But I’m hungry now.’

‘It’s a good sign.’ Andrew nodded over to Gemma, who was spooning out beef and barley stew from the pan on the stove.

She put a bowl of stew in front of Louis. ‘While you’re up I’ll wash your sheets and whip the vacuum around,’ she told him.

‘She’s too good for you,’ Louis teased Andrew, tucking heartily into his stew. It was the most Andrew had seen him eat in ages. It was like watching a child, making sure they got their five a day, calcium to make them strong, enough water.

Gemma left them to it.

‘Dad, this can’t go on,’ said Andrew as the back door shut behind his wife and she followed the path down to the annexe.

Louis ignored him.

‘Dad.’

‘No, Andrew. I won’t let you do it. I won’t let them cut you open when you’re perfectly healthy. It’s asking for trouble. You’re young, you’re fit, you have a wife and a business. It’s too much.’

Andrew went over to the stove and spooned out a bowl of stew for himself. He’d only had a small sandwich for lunch, and for this emotional battle he needed a lot more fuel.

Sitting back at the table, he said simply, ‘You’ll die.’

Louis slurped another spoonful. ‘We’ll all die, son.’

‘And you’ll leave me behind knowing I could’ve had another ten good years with you. More if we’re lucky.’

Louis sighed. ‘It’s not an easy operation. You won’t be back at work for some time.’

‘Emilio and Stephanie are both capable, and Bella has said she’d help out. Secretly I think she’d love to, with the café still not up and running. And Gemma will put in the time when she can.’

‘Of course she will, but she shouldn’t have to.’ His eating slowed as he filled up quicker than Andrew. ‘Gemma needs you and you need her, and your marriage should be your focus, not me.’

Andrew put down his spoon. ‘And we both need you. One day, we want to start a family and when we do, I want our lives to involve you, Grandpa Louis.’

It was the first time he’d seen Louis’ eyes fill with tears since he’d been diagnosed with kidney disease. Up until now he’d taken everything in his stride.

‘Let me do this, Dad. Let me give you one of my kidneys.’ Andrew grinned. ‘Having two is just plain greedy.’

Louis’ face relaxed. ‘I suppose it kind of is when you think about it.’

‘Then it’s settled. We’ll call the hospital and get things moving.’

And in that moment, Andrew and Louis both thought they knew exactly what the future held.

Chapter Eight

Molly

The flat was silent, no more comings and goings and footsteps on the stairs as her neighbour came home from a night out, no more classical music from the man in the flat below as he played his violin. It was almost two a.m. and the moon cast its beam through Molly’s bedroom window as she lay on the bed surfing the net. Since she’d decided to search for her birth father two weeks ago and had contacted the adoption agency to set the wheels in motion, she’d been doing as much searching herself as she could. She’d taken the first step into the unknown, and now she wanted to know more, but there was so much information out there. There were men with the same name from all corners of the globe, many with physical characteristics like hers, at an approximate age to make paternity realistic.

Overwhelmed by the enormity of it all, Molly stared out at the moon hanging in the sky suspended between pencil grey clouds and wondered whether her birth father had ever thought about her, ever tried to find her. He might have done, who knew? He could even be living at the end of the street or in the next town. Anything was possible.

And with those thoughts, she finally drifted off to sleep in her clothes, dreaming of answers she needed to find.

*

‘Sore neck?’ Molly’s colleague
Freya asked the next day as Molly was coming to the tail end of her shift.

Molly hadn’t realised she was rubbing it again. She picked up the notes for the mother-to-be in room six. ‘I must’ve slept funny,’ she offered. ‘Don’t look at me like that.’

‘Like what?’ Freya laughed. ‘Have you got a secret boyfriend we don’t know about? Did he keep you up all night?’ Freya sighed. ‘I wish I was young enough to remember what it was like to be up, doing it all night.’

Molly turned to go to room six. ‘You live in la-la land. The only company I had last night was my computer.’

‘There’s a lot of online dating these days,’ Freya called after her.

As Molly pushed open the door and greeted the woman in the early stages of labour, she couldn’t help but associate Ben with Freya’s reference to meeting people online. She warmed at the thought of chatting with him later.

Ben had been her confidant since she’d got the ball rolling with the search for her birth father and as hesitant as she’d been about doing the search in the first place, her conversations with Ben had helped her to feel in control. The worst had happened anyway – her birth mother wanted nothing to do with her – so if her biological father reacted in the same way, then she’d hurt for a while but she’d pick herself up, dust herself off and get on with it. Either that or she’d find a shot glass, a bottle of tequila and deal with it the same way she had last time.

‘Two days to go, ladies!’ This from Katy as Molly approached the nurses station at the end of her shift. ‘I still can’t believe you’re not coming to Malta.’

‘I’m working on it,’ said Molly, truly regretful to be missing out. ‘One year I will.’

‘I’ll hold you to that.’

‘See you lot tomorrow.’ Molly bid her colleagues farewell, and wrapping her lilac knitted scarf around her neck twice, she made her way out of the department, down to the main entrance and out into the cool early evening air. It was the last week of winter, with spring merely days away, but for now the weather seemed to have conveniently forgotten it was allowed to let the sun shine and the frost disappear. Molly stuffed her hands in her pockets to keep them warm, until her phone rang and forced her to extract them again.

‘Molly Ramsey speaking,’ she said, not recognising the number.

‘Hello Molly, it’s Andrea.’

Molly didn’t register at first, but then she realised it was the caseworker from the adoption search agency.

‘Hi.’ Her stomach churned as she waited to hear what came next.

‘I have some news for you.’

‘Really?’

The smile in Andrea’s voice was clear; it was obvious she loved delivering news and satisfying clients like this. ‘I have an address for you, some details.’

Molly felt dazed, in shock. She apologised to the man behind her as she stopped right in his path. ‘Is he still living in the area?’

‘The whole family upped and emigrated to Australia the same year you were born,’ Andrea told her.

For some reason it shocked Molly. The year of her birth must have been a time of enormous change for this man. She and Ben had joked around after she’d messaged him about her search. They’d laughed and said her biological father could be a sultan somewhere exotic, they’d pondered whether or not she looked like him, complete with matching facial hair. She wondered how shocked Ben would be to find out the man was a fellow Aussie now.

This was real. Her birth father was out there. And he was a long way away.

‘Molly, are you still there?’

She cleared her throat. ‘Still here.’

‘Do you have a pen handy?’

‘Give me a sec.’ Molly stopped at the bench beside the main entrance and balanced her phone as she pulled out a pen and an old receipt from Boots. ‘Go on.’

Andrea reeled off the address and a few details, and Molly didn’t care how cold her fingers were as she scribbled down everything she’d been desperate to hear for the last month. It hadn’t been difficult to find him because the family hadn’t changed their name, and once they had the link with the family business, it had been easy. The caseworker went on to explain to Molly how best to approach her birth father. This man could know nothing about her, he may have chosen to walk away or he may not have done. Molly was advised to tread carefully. She’d heard the spiel before, and this time it kind of went in one ear, lingered a little bit, then filtered right out the other side.

As soon as Molly got home she called Isaac, relieved when he picked up on the second ring. She hadn’t wanted to call him as she walked. She’d wanted to use the time to let the information sink in.

‘Molly, this is huge! What are you going to do? It’s not like you can turn up on his doorstep now you know he’s on the other side of the world.’

He said it as though it was a given, but it was anything but. She breathed long and heavy into the phone. ‘I don’t know what to do, Isaac.’

‘I can’t tell you what to do. I’m not in your position and saying I understand would be lying. But you know we are all here for you – me, Mum, Dad, Claire. All of us.’

Molly smiled now. ‘Thanks, Isaac.’

‘I’m glad about it, in a way.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, if me getting married wasn’t enough to convince you to try and get over your fear of flying, maybe this will give you an extra shove in the right direction.’

‘I guess you’re right.’

‘What does the cult leader think about all this?’

‘Don’t call him that,’ she admonished. ‘And I haven’t been onto Facebook. I phoned you first.’

‘I’m honoured. Listen, I’ve got to go, meeting a client at a house in Oldfield Park, but call me later if you need me. I’m taking Claire out for dinner for her birthday, but if you need us to come over, or you need anything, let me know.’

‘Will do. And wish her a happy birthday from me.’

Molly ran herself a bath and lost herself beneath the bubbles as she tried her best to take things slowly through her mind, allow them to settle. But seconds later, she was up. Dripping water all the way across the landing and with suds running down her legs and dropping onto the carpet, she went back to her bedroom. She had a name, an address, a family business … and she had Google. She had the power to find out everything she needed to know about chocolatier Andrew Bennett.

Everything.

She devoured the information as it appeared in front of her: the history of her biological family, photos of Andrew himself who, despite flecks of grey, looked as though he’d once had the same deep brown hair as she did. She pored over every detail of his history she could find, wondering what this man was really like. And when she was done, she logged on to Facebook to tell Ben all about it:

Ben: Wow, this is huge! Didn’t take long to find him. And he’s a fellow Aussie – being there since the eighties qualifies him! So what are you going to do? You could write to him. Would you consider flying over to see him?

Molly: I can’t do that. There’s my fear of flying for a start. And it could be a very, very bad idea. Look what happened when I turned up at my birth mother’s house. She didn’t want to know, but at least I didn’t have far to get home.

Ben: I’m impressed he makes chocolates for a living.

Molly: Maybe it’s where I get my chocolate addiction from.

Ben: Didn’t know you had one, but hey, at least I now know the way to your heart.

Molly: Whoa, stranger danger! Internet predator alert! And besides, you live in Australia, I live in England … never gonna happen.

Ben: I’m crying now.

Molly: No you’re not.

Ben: How do you know?

Molly: I just do.

What was she doing? Molly could feel butterflies dancing in her tummy. She didn’t even know Ben! This man could be seventy years old for all she knew, married with kids.

Get a grip, Molly,
she told herself and looked at Ben’s latest reply.

Ben: So what are you going to do? You could write to him.

Molly: I could.

Ben: Something tells me you’re not going to.

He was right. And Molly needed, and wanted, his help.

Molly: What I think I really need is for you to work your magic. Help me get over my fear of flying so I can get on a plane.

*

Molly was on the late shift the following day and from the kitchen window in her flat, she looked out to the black clouds congregating in the skies above. She’d need her raincoat and umbrella for the walk to work. But for now, sitting at the small, weathered table, she opened up Facebook to the latest post in the online support group, immediately escaping to the blue skies of Florida along with a member’s post. Stacey, a girl who suffered severe claustrophobia and who had never been on a plane before in her life, had taken the dramatic step of attending a fear of flying course with a major UK airline and it’d worked wonders. And now, with the support of her sister, she was standing on Cocoa Beach, the azure waters lapping around her ankles, flip-flops hanging from her fingers of one hand, the other hand shielding her eyes from the sun. Her smile was as big as the ocean, and her status said: ‘So happy I joined this group … this would never have been possible without you guys.’

Molly enjoyed a bit of banter with others in the group, one whose boss had taken three colleagues up in a light plane – after they’d signed the declaration exonerating him of all responsibility should they meet an untimely death – and the reactions were funny. Some said it was one way of tackling your fear head on and asked for his number. Some said smaller planes weren’t as scary, others disagreed and said they felt safer in a huge plane. ‘It’s like the London Eye,’ said one guy. ‘I’m happy to go on that, but you wouldn’t get me on a Ferris wheel for any money.’

Molly laughed and wrote her reply. She hated Ferris wheels too. She’d been to Amsterdam once – via ferry of course – with a boyfriend for the weekend and at the top of the Ferris wheel, he’d stood up and rocked the thing backwards and forwards. She hadn’t realised how scared she was of heights until then.

The number ‘one’ appeared on Molly’s message icon at the top of the page and she clicked onto it. It was Ben.

Ben: How are you feeling today? Any thoughts on strategy for operation flight time?

Molly: It’s all I’ve thought about. I think I’ll do what you suggested to someone the other day … the guy whose fiancée wants to get married on the Amalfi Coast.

Ben: So you’re going to spend time at the airport?

Molly: Seems stupid when you put it like that. I sound like a train spotter … except plane spotter.

Ben: Molly, nothing about this is ‘stupid’.

Molly: Stop using my name, it’s freaking me out! You sound all serious.

Ben: Molly, Molly, Molly, Molly … okay, I’m done. It’s a nice name.

Molly: Thanks. The plan is to go to Heathrow airport tomorrow with my friends. They’re all off to Malta on holiday.

Ben: It’s a good starting point.

Molly: I hope so.

Ben: So come on, where in Australia does this guy live? I could be related to him and then we’d have to stop this online relationship we’ve got … it could be bordering on incestuous.

Molly: Uh-uh … no specifics! Got to be careful with online groups. You could be some weird stalker who gets totally obsessed by me.

Ben: And vice versa … no specifics from me, or you could begin stalking me!

This is what she enjoyed so much about chatting online with Ben – the most serious topic of all could end up feeling much lighter when he was involved. He could see the serious side of being scared of flying, but his responses were upbeat, helpful, talked about from firsthand experience. She wondered, again, what he looked like. Was he cute?