Читать книгу Wish Upon a Star - Trisha Ashley - Страница 21

Chorley cakes look a little like a flat, thin Eccles cake, but are less sweet and simpler to make, basically consisting of a layer of currants spread between two thin rounds of plain shortcrust pastry. Traditionally they were eaten buttered on top and with a slice of Crumbly Lancashire cheese on the side.

Cally Weston: ‘Tea & Cake’

You know, I could be mining this seam for ever, it’s so fruitful (pun intended). It was great being able to bounce ideas off Jago by way of texts, calls and emails, too, but as Thursday approached I found myself looking forward to actually seeing him again.

Stella was, too, and after the hospital check-up, when they were quite pleased with her and said she’d put on a tiny bit more weight, it was a toss-up which of us was the most eager to go to the Happy Macaroon. So we were quite disappointed to find only David in the shop when we arrived, serving a customer.

But then I caught sight of a tray of iced gingerbread stars on the glass counter, with a sign saying that all proceeds from their sale would go to the Stella’s Stars fund, to send a local little girl to America for a life-saving operation!

‘They’re Jago’s idea,’ David explained when his customer had left and Stella had wandered off to the other glass counter to show the gingerbread pigs to the mummy penguin she’d brought with her.

‘A pound each and all the money goes into the Stella’s Stars box here. We’ve already sold over a hundred and they’re going like hot cakes. Or maybe that should be hot biscuits,’ he added with a grin.

‘That’s so amazing of you both,’ I said gratefully, so moved by this act of kindness that tears came to my eyes.

‘Jago’s an amazingly nice guy, with a heart soft as butter. He was really broken up when his fiancée dumped him, though actually, we all thought she was poison anyway,’ he confided. ‘None of his friends want to see him hurt like that again,’ he added, which I took to be a friendly warning.

‘Yes, he told me about his fiancée, and since mine dumped me, too, we have that in common. I hope we’ll become good friends, because that’s all I have time for when my time is so taken up with getting Stella well again.’

‘Right …’ David said thoughtfully. ‘Then I hope your ex isn’t trying to weasel back into your life, because it looks like Aimee’s not letting Jago go that easily.’

‘He did mention she’d been back in contact,’ I said. I’d really have loved to have pumped David for all the details, but I didn’t want to seem nosy … even if I was. And anyway, at that moment Stella spotted Jago coming in from the back room, carrying a tray of green macaroons.

She let out a squeal of delight. ‘Jago!’ she cried, as if she’d known him for ever, and his thin, dark face, which had worn an abstracted and slightly sad look, suddenly lit up in a grin.

‘She practically dragged me in here so she could get a gingerbread pig,’ I told him, even though there hadn’t been any need to drag me. ‘And I can’t thank you enough for raising money with the gingerbread stars. Stella, look – Jago’s selling these stars to raise money to get your heart mended in America.’

Stella looked at them, then up at Jago and nodded. ‘I’m going in a big plane and when I come back, I’ll be all better.’

‘That will be great, won’t it?’ he said encouragingly. ‘And it’ll be exciting going in a plane to America.’

‘Yes, but I have to go into hospital again when I get there,’ Stella said gloomily. Then she perked up. ‘But Mummy says when I get back it’ll be nearly Christmas and Santa might bring me a big pink castle and a riverboat and a tree house and maybe even a hotel!’