Wish Upon a Star. Trisha Ashley

he’s a bit of a fixture now. He’s really the under-gardener up at Winter’s End, so he’s moonlighting when he does Ma’s garden.’

      ‘Maybe it’s a romance?’

      ‘Well … he’s not bad-looking, I suppose, in a morose older Indiana Jones sort of way, and he’s pretty fit,’ I said thoughtfully. ‘Ma doesn’t seem to mind having him around either. He comes and goes, and hangs out in the new shed she had put up behind the studio … But no, I haven’t really seen any sign of romance, and when I sort of prodded her about him, she said they were just good friends.’

      ‘Then that’s probably all they are,’ Celia said, and went back to the vital matter of the fundraising. ‘Did you see there have been a few more donations to the site? Nothing big, though.’

      ‘Apart from you and Will, I don’t think anyone else is fundraising at the moment. Certainly no one we knew in London.’

      ‘Well, you know what it’s like with that crowd: they’ll be on to the latest trendy charitable cause, preferably something involving a fashion show or a party,’ she said.

      ‘You were the only real friend I made down there.’

      ‘And vice versa. Well, except for Will, of course.’

      ‘He’s not so much a friend as a soul mate.’

      She gave a happy sigh. ‘I know, I was so lucky to meet him and I love living in Southport. The Crafty Celia classes in the coach house gallery are going really well, and of course Will has his studio and gallery upstairs and customers can use the outside staircase, so it’s all worked out really well. If I’m not in the coach house I’m in the attic workshops in the house, so there’s always one of us around for the dogs and cats, too.’

      ‘That Mother and Toddler group I went to on Monday have promised to hold a jumble sale in June.’

      ‘Oh, yes, you said on the phone – and I want to hear all about this Jago you kept mentioning, too. Jago is a weird name. Very Poldark.’

      ‘Poldark?’

      ‘Some novels set in Cornwall I read years ago: I think there was a TV series too.’

      ‘He is Cornish by descent – his surname’s Tremayne. But his parents are both academics and he was mainly brought up in Oxford.’

      ‘He sounds really nice – you obviously clicked straight away.’

      ‘I do feel like I’ve always known him,’ I admitted, ‘but not in a romantic way, just a friendly one, and I’m sure that’s how he sees me, too. I mean, I really haven’t got enough time or spare emotion to invest in a romance until Stella has had her operation and is on the road to recovery.’

      ‘I suppose not.’

      ‘Jago was jilted and I’m sure he isn’t over his ex yet: we have that in common too.’

      ‘Except that you were totally over your ex ages ago,’ she said.

      ‘Jago’s ex rang him up out of the blue the other day and I think she wants him back. I hope she doesn’t succeed, but it’s quite selfish of me because I love being able to talk cake with him and I’m sure she’d persuade him to go back to London.’

      ‘Let’s hope she doesn’t manage it, then,’ Celia said, and then we got out the notebooks and discussed plane tickets and Googled budget hotels in Boston. We’d need a room for a few days before Stella went in for her operation, but once she was in hospital, I didn’t suppose I would be anywhere except by her bedside for a lot of the time …

      We found one through the hospital’s helpful website eventually, situated nearby, which looked the best option.

      ‘Ma is going to go with us, which is good, but I feel I’d really like a trained nurse on the plane with us too, just in case …’

      ‘I’m sure Stella would be fine,’ Celia said. ‘Didn’t your consultant say that if there is no radical decline in her condition by autumn, the journey shouldn’t be a problem?’

      ‘Yes, but even so …’ I said stubbornly, and then sighed. ‘I suppose it’s out of the question anyway, because it would be extra expense.’

      ‘Perhaps we’d better just concentrate on raising the twenty thousand for the moment, and see what suggestions the vicar makes,’ she said. ‘If he comes up with some brilliant ones, we can see about finding a nurse to go out with you then. Meanwhile I’ll get Will on to sorting out the flights and hotel reservations because they really need to be booked soon.’

      ‘I know,’ I said. I’d been putting it off, though I’m not sure why. The operation was booked, after all, and I’d go through hell and high water to get Stella there.

       Chapter 12: Fruitful

      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