The Sunflower Cottage Breakfast Club Page 17

  I looked at him with no idea how to respond. I willed something, anything, to leap out at me as the correct thing to say.

  Part of me wanted to leap into his arms and say that of course I’d leave everything behind to move to Luna Bay. It all sounded so perfect in theory: move to a beautiful part of the world to be with a man I was absolutely crazy about.

  Of course, things weren’t that simple.

  ‘I… I don’t know what to say…’ I admitted. ‘It’s a lovely idea, but my life’s in Glasgow. My job’s there, so are my family and friends. I… I can’t just give all that up to come and live in Luna Bay, no matter how much I love it here!’

  ‘I know it’s a big risk,’ said Noah, ‘but sometimes in life, you just have to take a leap and see where you land. I’m not saying for a second that, if you do move here, we’ll live happily ever after. We’ll have days where we can’t stand each other and where we push each other to breaking point, but Emily, I don’t want to have those days with anyone else except you! I don’t want to just forget what we have; I think we’ve really got something here that’s worth taking a chance on. Don’t you?’

  I felt as though I was being pulled in two different directions: Luna Bay and Glasgow. My heart was rooted in Luna Bay, but my head was telling me to high-tail it back north. Part of me wanted to take a risk and see where I ended up; the other wanted to stick with what I knew and was comfortable with.

  Noah squeezed my hands. ‘I know it has to be your decision and you have to go with what you want. I just didn’t want you to think that going back to Glasgow was the only option for you. You don’t have to live your life to please everyone else, you know. It’s OK to do something for you.’

  I bit back tears, knowing that ‘doing something for me’ wasn’t on the cards. ‘I can’t, Noah. I’ve got a life in Glasgow to get back to. I… I’m sorry. Maybe it’s better we just end this now, eh? Before either of us gets any further involved.’

  He drew back from me, utterly deflated. ‘What happened to enjoying the time we had left together?’

  ‘Well, we’re not going to enjoy it, are we, if my leaving in a week’s time is going to be hanging over us.’ I felt myself switch into business mode. This wasn’t the time for letting emotions cloud my judgement; I had to protect myself from getting hurt. It killed me to push Noah away, but it had to be done. ‘It’s better if we just walk away now, before things get even more complicated.’

  He rose from his seat and headed towards the living room door. ‘You know what I think? I think you do want to stay here, but for some reason you won’t admit it to yourself. Just because everyone expects you to go home next week and take up your new promotion doesn’t mean that’s what you have to do. Sometimes in life, you just have to suck it up and be brave.’

  ‘It’s not that easy!’ I protested. ‘I’ve never done anything out of the ordinary; I’ve always done exactly what everyone expects me to do! Packing my life up to move to a seaside village doesn’t really fall into that category!’

  ‘So what?’ he said, throwing his arms wide. ‘You’re going to walk away from what you really want? That’s really clever, Emily. Why be happy when you can tick everyone’s boxes instead, eh? You know what? If you’re going to be that much of a coward there’s nothing I can do to stop you.’

  He went out of the living room and headed for the front door. I ran to stop him, not happy with the way we’d left things.

  ‘I am not a coward!’ I yelled. ‘I might’ve lived my life according to other people’s expectations but that doesn’t make me a coward! Maybe you just need to accept that this was a holiday fling and nothing more.’

  He spun round to look at me, his face contorted with anger. ‘A holiday fling?! Is that all this was to you? Was I just a distraction while you played at Guesthouses to land Sunflower Cottage? No, I don’t believe that for a second. I’m not stupid, Emily; what we had was real.’

  I didn’t answer and folded my arms. ‘What can I say? I’m a very good businesswoman.’

  It tore me apart to push Noah away, but I knew it was the right thing. We were heading down different paths and there was nothing we could do about it.

  ‘I don’t think I’ll be spending as much time here for a while,’ he said. ‘I’ll drop in to help with the breakfast club and Rose but that’s it. Have a nice life and enjoy lying to yourself about what you really want.’

  I gasped and put a hand on my chest, wondering instantly why I’d turned into a character from a badly acted soap opera. I watched him walk out of Sunflower Cottage, taking my heart with him as he went.

  Chapter 22

  The third Sunflower Cottage Breakfast Club had a very different feel to the first. Mainly, it has to be said, because Noah wasn’t there.

  I still had help, if you could call it that, from my mum. She insisted she knew best and took over operations in the kitchen while I tried to perform front of house as best I could.

  ‘What I don’t know about cooking isn’t worth knowing,’ she claimed as she stirred a pot of dubious-looking yellow sludge.

  As much as I was still angry with her for the secret-keeping and the lying, I was grateful for the help. Noah hadn’t responded to any of my texts about helping with the breakfast club and I’d barely seen him since the day our mums had turned up. I hated to admit it, but without my mum, I’d have been stuck.

  ‘Here we are,’ I said, approaching a table that Marjorie and Dolly were sitting at. ‘One scrambled eggs with bacon and sausage and one New Yorker.’

  One of the women looked up at me regretfully. ‘Dear… This isn’t what we ordered.’

  I gasped and almost dropped the plates. ‘Oh God, I’m so sorry. What did you order?’

  ‘Two plates of eggs Benedict,’ the other woman replied. ‘Are you OK, dear? Do you need any help in the kitchen?’

  I plastered on a sunny smile and shook my head. ‘Oh no, don’t be silly! Everything’s absolutely fine; I’ll get your eggs Benedict to you as soon as possible.’

  I spotted Alice sitting slightly apart from a group of women her own age. From the looks of things, she was occasionally joining in their conversation. I felt a little jolt of happiness that she’d taken my advice, or started to anyway. She wasn’t a social butterfly yet, but at least she wasn’t sitting alone.

  Another voice piped up, ‘My eggs were cold! Could I have some porridge instead?’

  Then another. ‘This bacon’s burnt! It wasn’t like this the other day.’

  I tried to drown out the cacophony of voices and promised I’d get their gripes fixed as soon as I could, before hot-footing it back to the safety of the kitchen.

  ‘It’s a complete nightmare out there!’ I threw my head into my hands and let out a frustrated groan. ‘Mum, you take over front of house; I’ll do the breakfast. The food’s been an absolute disaster so far.’

  I looked up and what I saw made me want to burst into tears. Mum was standing next to a pot of scrambled eggs that had been completely ruined. Somewhere in the cooking process, they’d been on too high a heat and had frothed over the side, creating an absolute mess that was going to be impossible to clean up. Not only that; there was a stack of incinerated toast and a pile of slop that I guessed was ruined smoked salmon.

  ‘What the fuck has happened in here? I thought you said you had it covered?!’

  Mum sighed as she tried to contain the messy scrambled eggs to a small corner of the hob. ‘Well, this cooker’s different to the one we have at home! It doesn’t cook things quite the same. Anyway, they won’t mind it being off for one bloody day, will they? It’s only a stupid breakfast club.’

  I slammed my hands down on the kitchen table and felt my whole body quake with rage. Words bubbled and hissed inside me, desperate to get out and do the damage they intended to do.

  And out they came. ‘There you go again, belittling something I’m actually really passionate about! This breakfast club means a lot to me, believe it or not, but because you can’t see w
hy it’s important, it mustn’t matter.’

  ‘That’s not true!’ Mum protested, throwing down her wooden spoon. ‘I’ve been stood in here all day helping you with the cooking! I just don’t see why you’re putting so much into this; you’re coming home in a few days, so why are you bothering? Where’s that lovely Noah anyway; I thought he helped out with this sort of thing.’

  I went up to the oven and began trying to salvage the mess of scrambled eggs. I had so many things I wanted to say to her, but now wasn’t the time to argue. We had a lot of unhappy customers who needed decent breakfasts, so descending into a slanging match wasn’t the best idea. It was time to put my business head on again and do what I did best: solve things and try not to think about Noah.

  Mum stood, swinging her arms and trying to think of ways to fill the silence. She hated silences, but loved the sound of her own voice.

  ‘Are you looking forward to coming back up north then? I was talking to Francesca the other day and she said she’s missing you.’

  ‘Her name’s Frankie, Mum.’

  I put all my energy into scraping the scrambled egg off the bottom of the pot, desperately trying not to launch into a tirade of abuse.

  ‘Can you stick some porridge on for me? One of the breakfast club members fancies it because their eggs were cold.’

  She did a big, over-dramatic sigh and went to look for the porridge. As I watched her roll her eyes and act like a spoilt child, I wondered if that was how I’d come across to Noah when I’d first arrived.

  Noah.

  Even thinking of him made my tummy twist with pain and my heart feel as though it was being crushed in a vice. I closed my eyes and all I could see was the look on his face as he’d left. He’d tried to encourage me to go after what I really wanted and what had I done? Acted like a complete coward and tried to pretend he’d got it all wrong, of course. My inability to do the right thing and tell him I wanted to be with him had confirmed what I already knew: I was more suited to business than I was to relationships.

  ‘Think I’ll make myself some eggs,’ I heard Mum say. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her heading to the microwave with them.

  ‘NO!’ I yelled, rushing over to her. ‘Give them here, I’ll cook them on the hob.’

  Mum frowned. ‘I always thought you could do hard-boiled eggs in the microwave.’

  I wanted to laugh, but it didn’t seem appropriate given the atmosphere between us. Hearing her say that did make me feel better about my initial attempt to do them in the microwave, though.

  ‘Trust me, you don’t. I tried it and…’ I trailed off, not wanting to share the funny story with her. She didn’t deserve any kind of banter or camaraderie after everything she’d done.

  I abandoned the egg-encrusted pot in the sink and got out a new one to stick Mum’s eggs in. I put some new rashers of bacon into a pan and it started sizzling away.

  ‘You know, the food I put out to them wasn’t that bad. They should be grateful we’re giving them a breakfast at all, if you ask me—’

  ‘Yeah, well, I didn’t! I didn’t ask you, Mum! Thank you for colossally fucking up today’s breakfast club; I’ll sort things out here. You can go.’

  I didn’t need to look at her to know she was rolling her eyes. ‘Emily, don’t be such a drama queen, for God’s sake. Here, let me help you.’

  She came over and tried to take over cooking the bacon, but I managed to block her. I was about to explode; I could feel the tension between us coming to a head and my ability to remain calm and reasonable was going out the window.

  ‘Will you leave it?!’ I yelled. ‘I can do it myself; go and do something else.’

  Mum swallowed hard and pursed her lips. ‘Look, I know you’re in a huff with me after what happened…’

  ‘A huff?’ I abandoned the bacon to look her in the eye. ‘That’s what you think this is, a childish huff that I’ll forget about in a few hours? You lied to me, Mum. My whole life has been turned into this dirty, big lie thanks to you. You let me think Dad was my biological father and he isn’t! I know he’s been my dad in all the ways that count, but I still should’ve been allowed to at least know about Derek so I could make my own decision about him. Now he’s dead, his wife’s completely disgusted with me and I’ll never get to know any more about him. So thank you, Mum, thanks a fucking bunch!’

  I tipped the bacon onto a plate and marched it through to the waiting customer. Mum came steaming into the dining room just after me, hands on her hips and two pops of colour in her cheeks.

  ‘You listen to me, Emily Louise Reed; I know you have a chip on your shoulder because you didn’t get to meet your biological dad, but I did what I thought was best for you! Derek talked a good talk about wanting to meet you and wanting to be a part of your life, but he never did anything about it, did he? He knew about you your whole life and never once did he make the effort to come to see you. He went on and on about having his own life and how angry Diane would be if she found out. I wanted you to grow up with a proper dad, not a set of excuses! That’s exactly what Simon Reed has been to you. He didn’t just give you his surname, he gave you twenty-five years of his life. And he’s never once felt like you’re anything except his daughter. So go on, by all means, hate me. I probably should’ve told you about Derek and let you make your own mind up, but I didn’t want him to give you the same excuses he’d given me. You deserve better than that.’

  I stood in the middle of the dining room, speechless and holding two empty plates aloft. The breakfast club members began to murmur among themselves, digesting the scene that had just unfolded in front of them. When I didn’t respond after a few minutes, Mum flung her hands up in the air and left the room in disgust.

  ‘Go back to your breakfasts, everyone,’ I said. ‘Nothing to see here.’

  I went to follow Mum, when I spotted a familiar figure standing in the hall. Noah. He looked at me for a long minute before turning on his heel and leaving. I turned in one direction then the other, wondering who to go after. Then a sound from the kitchen made my choice for me. A deafening bang, followed by what sounded like our entire collection of crockery smashing, made me rush through to see what the hell was going on.

  And there, standing in the middle of the kitchen, was my mum. She was covered from head to toe in ruined boiled eggs and surrounded by broken plates.

  I pursed my lips, trying desperately not to laugh, but it was one of the funniest things I’d ever seen.

  ‘You’ve been busy, I see!’ I barely managed to get my words out before collapsing into a heap of giggles. ‘What happened?’

  ‘I didn’t think the eggs were cooking quickly enough, so I decided to stick the pot in the microwave. Before you say it, I know metal pots and microwaves don’t mix! I just didn’t think, OK? Then I checked on them as I was carrying some plates and the bloody things exploded all over me!’

  I went to help her clean up the colossal mess. She wiped herself down as best as she could, while I swept up the shattered crockery. For the first time since she’d arrived, the silence between us was companionable instead of awkward. The animosity I’d felt towards her had died down somewhat. Who could be angry at someone covered in partially cooked eggs, after all?

  ‘I’ve been thinking about what you said.’ I shovelled some more pieces of china into the bin then stood up. ‘And I think I kind of understand. If he was making all kinds of excuses to you about not being involved in my life, you wouldn’t want him making the same ones to me. And you’re right; the dad I grew up with will always be my real dad. I just wish I could’ve at least met Derek once, even if it was just to hear his excuses. There’s one thing I’m wondering, though; why did you write back to Diane saying I’d like to meet her?’

  Mum wiped away some egg yolk from her Aztec print blouse and came over to me.

  ‘I didn’t, actually. It was your dad.’

  I cocked my head to the side. I’d heard the words coming out of my mum’s mouth, but hadn’t understood t
hem. It was like they’d been spoken in a completely different language.

  ‘Dad? Why would he write to Diane pretending to be me?’

  Mum sighed and wiped some more specks of egg from her sleeves. ‘He was going to meet up with her on your behalf and have a word with her. He wanted to make sure she wasn’t intending to hurt you or trying to replace us in your life. I know it sounds silly, but you really do mean a lot to him. To both of us. We spent so much time when you were younger being terrified that Derek would pop up out of nowhere and try to fight us for custody or shared access. I made a mistake when I had an affair with him, Emily. But I’ll never regret it because it brought me you. I know I go on and on at you but I love you, you know.’

  I could feel a lump of emotion welling up in my throat. My first instinct was to run to the safety of work and everything that had to be done around the B&B. It was what I was comfortable with, after all. Every relationship I had, I seemed to find a way to screw it up.

  Yet I didn’t. There was still so much between me and my mum that had to be said. The revelation about Derek had completely changed our relationship and, angry as I still was with her, I wanted to fix things.

  ‘I know I was angry before,’ I said, ‘and it’ll probably take me a lot of time to fully understand everything you did. But you’re still my mum and I love you.’

  Mum got up and ran over to hug me. ‘Oh darling, I love you too! And I’m sorry for keeping it a secret for so long. I… I thought I was doing the right thing by you, that’s all.’

  I held her tightly in my arms as we exchanged apologies and reaffirmed our love for one another. After being so furious with her, it felt good to reconnect with her and remind myself that, even though I could quite happily scream at her sometimes, she was still my mum.

  And I bloody loved her.

  Chapter 23

  Making peace with Mum brought about a lot of other positive changes. She left a couple of days after our massive heart-to-heart and I promised to meet up with her when I got back, as long as there was no inspirational pep talk.