‘Yes, good idea.’
‘We’ll lock up,’ Logan said.
Immy nodded and she and Xander left them to it.
Xander held Immy’s hand as they walked down onto the beach. He could see Max and Etta playing with Jacob a little way ahead.
He glanced down at Immy, who was clearly thinking about something.
‘Are you OK? You’re very quiet. I know you’re disappointed about not being able to run the Easter egg hunt from the shop but at least we can still run it.’
‘I know, and that’s the important thing.’
‘Are you thinking about what Judy said?’
‘Sort of.’
‘I’m not just with you because of the baby, if that’s what you’re thinking,’ he said. ‘The baby brought us back together, but I’m with you because I’m crazy about you. I suppose my gut instinct was to marry you because if we’re raising a baby together it would make sense to be married. And I know how that must have come across. But it was more than that. I was so annoyed with myself for pushing you away when you were everything to me, and I thought I had lost you when I mistakenly believed the baby wasn’t mine. I thought you were going to get married to the baby’s father and live happily ever after, while I was left with my stupidity and bitterness. And then when I found out the baby was mine, I felt like I’d got a second chance to get this right, to be with you, so I wanted to grab hold of that with both hands. I am delighted about the baby but it’s you I want to be with.’
She smiled and leaned up to kiss him. ‘I know. I can see you’re not with me for duty or loyalty. The way you touch me, look at me, make love to me, none of that is just because I’m pregnant. Judy was wrong about that.’
‘Well, what was she right about?’
‘The huge amount of Easter chocolate that you haven’t sold because you’ve closed the shop to help me.’
‘But I don’t care about that.’
‘But I do.’
‘We still have the Easter weekend and we’ll get a lot of customers on Sunday before and after the hunt. I’m closing for a few hours so I can do the hunt with Etta but I’ll be open after that. Whatever I don’t sell, I can reduce. People don’t mind eating Easter chocolate a few days late as long as it’s cheap. And I can always remelt the chocolate and use it again so you really don’t need to worry.’
‘I can always sell your Easter chocolate on my table at the hunt while you’re with Etta looking for eggs.’
‘If you have the time and space, that will be great, but if not, I’m not worried so you don’t need to be either.’
She smiled although it didn’t quite meet her eyes. Then Etta charged towards them and any opportunity to talk to her was gone. He knew she had been hurt in the past by being made to feel an inconvenience by her ex-boyfriend and he could see he still had some way to go to fix that.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Good Friday had been insanely busy in the chocolate shop. The morning had flown by and it was just starting to quieten down now. Max had come in to help Immy and Etta while Xander, Logan, Archer and Quinn finished off the flooring in the shop, put up some shelves and added the light fittings. Immy didn’t see the point in rushing to get it finished if they couldn’t run the egg hunt from the shop but Xander had insisted.
The door opened and Diya and Lizzie came in, brandishing a box.
‘How’s everything going over there?’ Lizzie asked.
It was a quiet lull for a few minutes so Immy took the opportunity to sit down on a stool.
‘I think we’re nearly done. The boys have been hard at work doing the flooring and they are just finishing off all the little things now. But we don’t have any electricity until next week so we can’t really run the egg hunt from there. I always have lights on in the mainshop as it’s just too dark otherwise. The community room is lighter but the kids would then have to walk through the dark shop to get to it so it’s probably better to run it from a table outside.’
‘Oh, that’s a shame,’ Diya said. ‘You could have sold some sweets and coffee to those taking part.’
‘Yeah, I always donate a percentage of my profits from Easter Sunday to whatever charity we’re supporting. So I won’t be able to do that this year.’
‘Well, we made these,’ Diya said, placing the box down on the counter. ‘You can use them to decorate the shop or shop entrance or the table and if anyone wants to buy them you could sell them and raise money for the charity that way.’
Immy smiled at the thoughtfulness and opened the box. Inside were large, knitted versions of all the bestselling pick ’n’ mix sweets: fried eggs, jelly teddies, fizzy cola bottles, chocolate buttons with sprinkles. There were even some knitted Easter eggs and bunnies too.
‘These are wonderful, thank you so much. At least the table will look beautiful, even if we can’t go in the shop.’ She pulled out a long fizzy snake. ‘Thank you for doing this, really.’
