'I've missed you too, Mum. And, Yes. Lots. Amazing. More so.' She beamed at Lori. 'I'll tell you everything later.'
'Not everything, I hope.' Jet raised his brows.
Mia gave him a playful tap with her fingers.
'We've got so much to tell you and so many photos. We broke the return journey up and spent nights in Tahiti, Christchurch and Hong Kong. I wanted to go to The Raffles Hotel in Singapore but it's closed for restoration until August, so we went to Hong Kong instead. But it still meant an overnight flight from there and even in a first-class bed, I didn't sleep that well. I've no idea why I'm telling you this now. Basically, I could murder a drink.'
'Here,' said Ella, handing her a glass of champagne. She passed the tray to Gill. 'Hand these around please, oh love of my life.' She grinned and blew him a kiss before grabbing a glass for herself.
'Ella!' Mia screamed, taking her friend's left hand in hers. 'Let me see this ring. I completely forgot for a moment. Blame the jetlag. It's gorgeous. I couldn't believe it when you told us. Congratulations again.'
'Thanks. Sorry we woke you both up so early that day but I couldn't wait to tell you and I forgot the time difference.'
'It was three in the morning,' Jet said, winking. 'But fortunately for you, we were awake. It was our honeymoon, after all.'
'Everybody!' Mia raised her glass. 'Let's all toast to Ella and Gill.'
All glasses were raised and several toasts were made. To Ella and Gill. To Mia and Jet's return. To welcome Tabbie to the village. To the sun coming out. To Bree making a success of her June weddings, despite the appalling weather. The list went on and on.
'So much for a quiet night in on our first day home,' Jet said, kissing Mia. 'But I suppose we'll have lots of those between now and our nineties.'
'Not if we have kids,' Mia said, the one thing she still wished for coming to the front of her mind.
'True. Although we can always stick them in one of the sheds with the animals if we want some alone time.'
'Or get Ella to babysit. She deserves to be punished for this.'
Mia smiled at Jet. He knew how much she wanted a baby. She couldn't hide anything from him. But making light of it didn't stop that odd little pain in her heart, no matter how happy she was.
'I suppose we'd better mingle.'
Jet took her hand in his.
'I suppose we should.'
She held on tight. With Jet by her side, she could face anything. No matter what the future had in store.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Mia grinned at Jet who was holding a mug of coffee in his right hand and one of Jenny's sticky buns in his left, his head hanging low just above the kitchen table.
'It's the morning after the night before, as the saying goes,' Mia said, to everyone seated around the kitchen table of Little Pond Farm. 'Either he's got a hangover or he's suffering from jetlag. Rather appropriate, given his name.'
Jet lifted his head and gave her one of his grins, only not quite as enthusiastically as he usually did.
He looked at Ella. 'You're seriously telling me that Hettie's looking for some magic water thing and Aurelia knows where it is and won't tell her?'
Ella nodded.
'And you thought bringing me a sticky bun at eleven in the morning, the day after I return from honeymoon, was going to entice me to trek to Aurelia's and try to persuade her to give up her secrets?'
Ella nodded again.
'Oh good. That's cleared that up. Jesus Christ. People seemed relatively sane when we left, Mia. What on earth's happened to them while we've been away?'
'It rained,' Ella said. 'A lot.'
'And?'
'If it hadn't rained so much, Tabbie would've seen the track to Witt's Cottage and not landed in the ditch-pond-thing.'
'And?'
Ella huffed. 'Tabbie wouldn't have stayed at Aurelia's. She would've popped in, done her video clip for her mum's big day, and hightailed it back to London.'
'Still don't see the connection.'
'She wouldn't have heard Aurelia's stories. Wouldn't have got Gill involved. And wouldn't have blabbed to Aurelia about Hettie wanting a map.'
'Ah.'
'Excuse me,' said Tabbie, nursing her mug of tea. 'That wouldn't change Hettie's situation. Hettie would've still asked Gill to find the map. Eventually, he would've realised that Aurelia might be able to help in some way.'
Jet nodded. 'Tabbie does have a point. But this gets us nowhere. If I say I'll ask Aurelia as soon as I feel half human again, will you all leave and let me crash out on the sofa?'
'I hope that doesn't include me,' Mia said, grinning at him.
'Nope. I want you on the sofa with me.'
Ella tutted. 'The honeymoon's over. Welcome back to our world. So you'll do it?'
Jet slowly nodded.
'Soon?'
'Go away, Ella.'
'Can I at least finish my coffee?'
'If you do it quietly. I'm going outside for some fresh air and I'm taking my cake and my coffee. I may be a while.'
Jet gingerly got to his feet and Little M, who had been lying beside his left foot, jumped up and raced to the door.
'I don't think I've ever seen him like this,' Ella whispered to Mia.
'Nor me.'
'I have,' said Justin, who was still staying at the farmhouse. 'Long time ago though. And I for one am very glad it rained. If it hadn't, this gorgeous woman wouldn't be sleeping beside me each night.' He put an arm around Tabbie and kissed her. 'But I'd better go and do some work. There's no way Jet's going to be fit to do any today and I guess I should continue to earn my keep until I get my marching orders.'
Mia watched as Tabbie blushed and fidgeted in her seat.
Justin clearly realised the importance of his statement and hastily added, 'Which I hope won't be for a while yet. Or I can go and stay with Jenny at the bakery.'
'You're welcome here as long as you like,' Mia reassured him.
His look of relief was palpable.
'Thanks, Mia. I really appreciate that.' He blew Tabbie a kiss and headed for the door to the farmyard.
Gill got up and kissed Ella. 'I'll see if there's anything I can do to help outside. I can tell you girls want to talk.'
'What about you, Tabbie?' Mia asked once Gill had left. 'Are you going to be sticking around? Justin's more than half in love with you and it seems to me you feel the same about him.'
Tabbie nodded. 'I do. But we haven't known each other long and I can't stay at Aurelia's for ever, just as Justin can't stay here. We've both got lives elsewhere. Me in London. Him in L.A. This was merely a sort of holiday fling. Summer Kisses, my mother calls this type of thing.'
'It doesn't mean your relationship has to end,' said Ella.
Tabbie shrugged. 'Maybe not. But long-distance relationships are hard.'
'But worth it if you really love someone.'
'We'll see. I wouldn't mind moving to L.A. to be honest. It's somewhere I've always wanted to live. But I don't want to leave my mother. I've got the basement flat in her house. She's sixty this year and it wouldn't feel right if I upped and left.'
'Sixty is nothing,' Ella said. 'Lori's in her sixties and she's started a whole new life with Franklin. Perhaps your mum feels that she can't leave you. Have you thought of that? Perhaps she'd like to sell the house and move to L.A. or Paris or Bognor. I don't know but you should talk to her. You might be surprised.'
'Your mother does seem blissfully happy,' Tabbie said to Mia. 'Thanks Ella. I'll do that. Even if she says no, at least I'll know.'
'Mum is happier than I've seen her since my dad was alive. But even if she wasn't with Franklin, she wouldn't want me to put my life on hold for her. She'd hate it if she ever thought I'd done that. Your mum feels the same, I'm sure. All mums do. They want their children to be happy. If the children are happy, the mums are happy too.'
'You'll make a wonderful mother, Mia,' Tabbie said.
Mia cleared her throat. 'If it happens. We'll have t
o wait and see. But there's nothing I'd like more than for me and Jet to have a baby.'
'It'll happen,' Ella said, nudging Mia. 'You've just got to give it time. And speaking of babies and moving, Gill and I have been discussing things and I don't know what you think but Willow Cottage is going to be too small for Bree, Garrick, Flora and the cygnet twins. Cygnet twins. Get it? Baby 'Swanns'. My talent is wasted here.'
'I suppose that's true. Not about your talent, but Willow Cottage is definitely tiny. Are you suggesting Bree and the babies move into Sunbeam Cottage with Garrick and Flora instead of them moving in with her? I hadn't even thought that far ahead.'
'I'm suggesting that perhaps Gill and I should move out.'
'To where? To Willow Cottage? Would you do that? You love Sunbeam Cottage.'
'I do. But it does make sense. Or there is an alternative. Gill's still got his place in Cambridge.'
'You can't move to Cambridge! I couldn't bear it. That's too far away.'
'Some mums don't want to let go of their kids, Tabbie,' Ella joked, rolling her eyes at Mia. 'Do you honestly think I'd move more than ten miles away from you? You're stuck with me for life. What I was going to say was that if Gill sells his place in Cambridge, we might be able to buy somewhere around here when a cottage becomes available but if we could live in Willow Cottage until then, that'd be great.'
'We can buy you somewhere.'
'You've done more than enough for us already. No. We want to do this ourselves.'
'Okay. Then let us at least give you an interest free loan. Like Mattie did for Jet to help him buy this place.'
Ella didn't say no immediately. 'Thank you, Mia. You're such a good friend. We might take you up on that offer.'
'It's there whenever you want it.'
'I wish we knew who owns the cottage next door. The one between Sunbeam and Duckdown. That would be the perfect place to live. Although on second thoughts, Garrick could move in there and Gill and I can stay in Sunbeam. I'd still like some space between me and Hettie, as much as I've grown to love her. She's been acting weird lately though. What with this map malarkey and everything. I'm so glad you're back. Little Pondale just didn't feel right without you and Jet here.'
Chapter Twenty-Four
Jet tried for two weeks to get Hettie to tell him why she wanted to find the natural spring known as The Witch's Tears, and for Aurelia to give him some indication of where to find it, but even he had no success with either of them.
'I don't know what else I can do,' he told Mia one morning at breakfast. 'They're both behaving like kids. Or worse than kids. I'm tempted to bash their heads together.'
'Maybe that's exactly what you should do.'
'What? I thought you loved me. Do you want me to spend twenty years in jail?'
'No. And you know I love you. But it's not such a bad idea. If we could get them in the same room, face-to-face, one of them would be bound to say something. At least then we'd know why they fell out. Ella told me that Hettie said they were good friends once, so something pretty major must've happened to cause such a rift. And once one said something, the other one might too. Before you know it, they'll be screaming at one another and eventually, we can hope, they'll calm down and perhaps try to work things out.'
'You're right. That's not such a bad idea. In fact. It's a pretty good one. I even threatened to cut off Aurelia's supply of cheese, and if that didn't work, nothing else will. Perhaps getting them together is our only solution.'
'It's either that or admitting defeat. And I'm not prepared to do that, are you?'
'Absolutely not.' Jet leapt up. 'And there's no better time than the present.'
Mia frowned. 'May I finish my coffee first?'
He kissed the top of her head. 'You may. I'll call Gill and get him to bring Hettie here on some pretext of me having found something amongst my papers that might refer to the spring she's looking for and I'll get Justin to call Aurelia and say that Tabbie needs her here because of something or other. I'll ask Tabbie to think up a believable story. Once both Hettie and Aurelia are here, we can lock them in the dining room and tell them they're staying there until they sort this out.'
'The dining room? I'd better ask Tabbie to give me a hand moving all the breakables then. Do you think either Hettie or Aurelia could lift a chair? I'd hate one of those to get broken.'
Jet grinned as he pressed the button on the landline phone to call Gill.
'Perhaps we should lock them in one of the barns instead.'
He told Gill the plan and a few minutes later, Gill called back. Persuading Hettie to go to Little Pond Farm had not been a problem.
Aurelia, on the other hand, was an entirely different matter. It was almost as if she knew Mia and Jet were trying to trick her.
'She doesn't believe me.' Justin muted the kitchen phone while he told Mia and Jet. 'She says if Tabbie's badly hurt, I should call an ambulance, not her, and if Tabbie isn't, then I should take her to Aurelia's and she'll make up some healing herbs for Tabbie to take, and she'll put her to bed.'
'Please don't ask me to speak to her,' said Tabbie. 'I'm hopeless at telling even the tiniest white lie. No one ever believes me.'
'Will you try, Jet?'
Justin held out the phone to him and Jet put it on speaker.
'Aurelia, hi. This is Jet. Look, I don't know if Tabbie's injury is bad or not. All I know is she's asking for you and she sounds as if she's in pain.' He waved his hand at Tabbie to indicate she should scream.
Mia burst out laughing and had to cover her mouth. Tabbie sounded more like a constipated opera singer than a woman in real pain.
Aurelia sighed long and hard down the phone.
'Tabbie Talbaine, don't ever try to take to the stage. And as for you, Jet Cross, you should be ashamed of yourself. If lying to an old woman is your idea of fun, you're not the man I thought you were.'
Jet sucked in a breath and let it out on a sigh almost as long as Aurelia's.
'I apologise, Aurelia. It seemed like a good idea at the time. I just don't know what else to do to make you two see sense. Mum would've known. And so would Mattie … Aurelia? … Are you still there?'
'Yes, Jet. I'm still here? Very well then. Your dear mother and Mattie both meant a lot to me. If lying is the length you'll go to just so that Hettie Turner can discover where to find The Witch's Tears then so be it. But she might not be happy when she knows the answer. I want to see all of you at Witt's Cottage in half an hour. And that means all of you. Mia and Jet, Tabbie and Justin, and bring Gill and Ella along too. And Hettie Turner. I suppose you'd better bring her husband Fred. But if that rat of hers crosses my threshold, my cats'll have him before he knows what's what, so tell her to leave him at home. Half an hour, or I might change my mind.'
Chapter Twenty-Five
In the warmth of the July sunshine, the track leading to Witt's Cottage actually looked like a lane, and the overgrown hedges didn't overhang the pond quite so much. The pond itself didn't look so bad either. It no longer resembled a muddy ditch. Mia and Jet, along with everyone Aurelia had stated must be there, arrived in two vehicles and parked far enough away from the pond to avoid any mishaps.
'The water's almost clear now,' Tabbie said, as they walked past the pond. 'And now I can see why the undercarriage of my car was so badly damaged. There definitely are rocks in there. Look.'
'Is it my imagination, or are they sparkling?' Mia asked, holding Jet's hand as she leant over to peer down to the bottom.'
Everyone peered into the pond and nodded.
'It's the sunlight on the water,' Justin said.
'Perhaps it's gold,' said Ella. 'Or jewels. Perhaps there's a treasure after all and Hettie's been telling us all fibs.'
Hettie tutted and backed away from the edge as she held Fred's hand.
'I told you, deary, it's not that sort of treasure. It's water.'
'This is water,' Mia pointed out.
Hettie didn't bother to respond.
'I think it's the m
inerals in the rocks,' Gill said. 'That's making them sparkle, I mean. Geology wasn't my best subject so I don't know for sure but there are three main types of rock, I believe. Igneous, metamorphic and sedimentary. They all have elements in their composition that might cause them to shine, or sparkle or glisten. But you probably don't need to know that.'
'I do love you, Gill,' Ella said, kissing him on his cheek as they headed towards Witt's Cottage through the small copse.
The garden was in full bloom and myriad flowers swayed in the gentle breeze beneath dappled rays of sunshine. Two cats, one black and jauntily stepping between the flowers, one ginger and curled up on the path, glanced at the approaching entourage, both deciding it did not warrant further investigation and returning to the business at hand of chasing butterflies or sleeping.
Aurelia opened the door and two more cats bounded out into the sunshine.
'Come in,' Aurelia said, glaring at Hettie.
Hettie and Fred went in first, followed by Mia, Jet and the others.
'In there,' Aurelia pointed to the sitting room. 'There's herbal tea, and there's coffee. There's also fresh lemonade. Help yourselves.'
For someone who didn't often have visitors, the sitting room seemed to have a great many chairs, some more comfy than others by the look of them. Mia sat in one near the door, in case she wanted to make a speedy exit. She could see glimpses of the pond and the overgrown hedges through the copse and smiled as a Kingfisher came and perched on a branch overhanging the glistening water.
Jet sat on the arm of her chair and Hettie sat close by with Fred. The others took various seats until everyone including Aurelia was seated.
She nodded to Tabbie and as if Tabbie could read Aurelia's mind, she asked each in turn what they would like and began pouring tea, coffee or lemonade accordingly.
Aurelia sat back in her chair and another black cat leapt onto her lap and made itself comfortable.
'You want to find The Witch's Tears then, do you? And you expect me to tell you where it is without telling me why?'
She didn't look at Hettie but it was obvious the question was directed at her.
Secret Wishes and Summer Kisses on Lily Pond Lane Page 14