Read The Grand Reopening of Dandelion Café for Free Online

the sun, barely any make-up, and a wonky little mouth, Holly shouldn’t have been more than OK-looking. But she had these eyes, luminous green like the weeds in the shallows of the river, that stopped people in their tracks, and as she walked past, left a wake of confusion as to why they’d paused. Those eyes could get her away with murder.
    ‘Yeah, it’s him.
The
Matt Walker,’ Holly said, half looking up as she washed down her boat with the hose, rinsing away dirty brown river water. She pushed her sunglasses onto her head to follow Annie’s gaze, to where Matthew was just pushing away from his private landing stage, his sleek single scull rowing boat like one of those bugs that skates along the water, all long limbs and perfect balance. Buster the pug dog was yapping in the garden, running up and down the water’s edge barking in Matt’s direction. ‘You must remember him from school? Got Pamela Chambers pregnant?’
    ‘Yeah, no I did, I just didn’t realise he became Matt Walker.’
    ‘He moved back here maybe two years ago. Built the house, gave quite a lot of money to the club, but doesn’t say much. His son’s here,’ Holly put the hose down and reached into a bucket for a sponge. As she bent down, she seemed to get dizzy and steady herself on the trestle supporting the boat.
    ‘You OK?’ Annie asked.
    ‘Fine. Head rush,’ Holly said, taking a deep breath and rubbing her forehead. ‘Anyway, the son, River. He works at your cafe, doesn’t he?’
    ‘Don’t I know it.’ Annie glanced back at Holly, one brow raised.
    Holly laughed. ‘Moody little thing, isn’t he? Enid loved him.’ She started scrubbing at a tidemark stain on the white fibreglass.
    ‘Really?’ Annie leant against the trailer of a motorboat parked to the side of the club, keeping one eye on Matthew’s retreating figure as he became just a shape, silhouetted against the sun, puddles from his blades rippling into nothing before they reached them, and said, ‘I can’t understand it. He’s a terrible waiter.’
    ‘She felt sorry for him. Because of him,’ Holly nodded towards Matthew’s boat, the stern just clipping the leaves of a weeping willow before disappearing round the river bend.
    ‘What did he do?’
    ‘Buggered off. I don’t know the whole story, Annie, it’s all just hearsay and rumour but, as far as I know, he stuck around for a bit when River was tiny and then he went, couldn’t hack it. Itchy feet? Didn’t want the responsibility? Who knows. But he went off and became
The
Matt Walker, as you put it.’
    ‘Then what?’ Annie was picking at the old lettering on the motorboat’s name, peeling off an L that someone had already had a go at, trying to look nonchalant but hoovering up the information like it was gold dust.
    Holly laughed. ‘I don’t know. I just have rumours. Can you not pick the name off that boat, please?’
    ‘Tell me the rumours.’
    ‘Once he’d climbed every mountain there was to climb, as far as I know he decided that the equipment wasn’t good enough and designed his own. From that, and then that survival programme he did, he built his mega-brand and then couple of years ago sold it and here he is.’ Holly paused, rubbed at a stain on the boat with her fingernail then looked up at Annie. ‘From some chat he had with my dad, and just the fact he’s in that cafe most days, as far as I can gather, he’s ready to be a dad to River.’
    ‘And what does River think?’
    Holly shrugged. Then, pulling on a jumper as the sun disappeared behind a wall of cloud, her voice muffled by the material, she said, ‘River doesn’t want a dad.’
    Annie bit her bottom lip, glanced towards the bare horizon then back towards the huge house to her right, imagined him standing there at the window and saw just how lonely it might be.
    ‘So you got the cafe, huh?’ Holly asked, hoiking the boat up in one fluid movement onto her shoulder and carrying it into the boathouse.
    ‘Yeah,’ Annie pulled