Page 29 of The Cosy Christmas Chocolate Shop

‘So, girls, has the Easter Bunny been yet, do you think? Shall we go and have a look?’

‘Yesss, Auntie Emma!’ they chorused.

Whilst James had kept the twins busy inside, Emma had placed a trail of her handmade chocolate eggs wrapped in gorgeous spotted foil around her brother’s back garden. Chloe had even strewn a couple of half-chewed carrots and a few torn lettuce leaves for extra effect.

The girls rushed out of the back door, giggling, with Emma on their heels. They spotted the carrots straight away.

‘He’s been! He’s been!’ shouted Lucy gleefully, with Olivia alongside her grinning from ear to ear.

The first find was tucked behind a large plant pot on the patio. Emma had grouped the eggs in twos, so both girls picked one up. Then there was a bit more of a hunt in the garden borders, checking under shrubs and the like, and a hydrangea bush was found to be sheltering two more. They split up, and when Olivia found another duo under a short fir tree near the far fence, she called for her sister excitedly.

The last two proved more difficult. There was much foraging in the borders – good job they were in their wellies – and sighing and puffing, until Lucy stopped in the middle of the back lawn with her arms folded.

‘Maybe that’s it,’ she announced.

‘Let’s just keep trying a little longer,’ Emma suggested. She had just managed to surreptitiously move a half-chewed carrot to the base of the old apple tree, where the last pair of eggs were perched, just within sight and reach for a five-year-old, on the lower branches. There was also a note with them.

James and Chloe were standing outside with a cup of tea, watching the goings on. They gestured to Emma that a tea was ready for her too.

‘Don’t think we’ll be long,’ she shouted across to them, with a wink.

Emma wandered nearer the apple tree, seemingly looking around at floor level. Lucy caught her up and soon spotted the carrot lying at the tree’s base.

‘There, Auntie Emma – but where’s the eggs?’

‘It might be a clue,’ Emma hinted.

Olivia was on the case, looking around her, and then up. The foil glinted in the sunlight from its branch. She reached up on her tiptoes, her fingertips grasping an egg carefully. Lucy barged in, grabbing the last egg and the note.

‘Lucy, be patient,’ shouted James from the steps.

Lucy unfolded the note, to find a rabbit footprint and a short message.

‘Auntie Emma, can you read it, please?’

‘Okay. Dear Lucy and Olivia—’

‘Oohh, he knows our names!’

‘Dear Lucy and Olivia, Please now go to the garden shed where your Easter trail will end.’

Before Emma had even had the chance to say the word ‘end’, the girls had bolted off. Lucy managed to lift the latch on the shed, and they dived in.

All Emma could hear was, ‘Aww, that’s so cute!’ And ‘I love him!’

Then, the girls were out of the shed door shouting, ‘Mummy, Daddy, Auntie Emma, look! Look!’ They were clutching large moulded chocolate Easter rabbits, with matching yellow dotty bow ties, which Emma had lovingly crafted earlier in the week. James and Chloe hadn’t known about these.

‘Oh wow, they are fantastic,’ said Chloe.

‘Thank you so much to the Easter Bunny,’ said James, beaming a smile at his sister.

After a lunch of roast beef, and an Easter egg for the twins for pudding, the girls were tired and sat quietly watching some television. After helping with the washing-up, Emma sat with James at the cleared kitchen table, feeling pretty shattered herself.

The build-up to Easter had been, as per usual, pretty manic – creating Easter eggs of all shapes and sizes, along with chocolate chicks and bunnies, and pretty Easter bonnets moulded from chocolate, upturned and filled with truffles. It was a chance for Emma to be extra creative and she loved that, and the rush and buzz, but it was hard work, resulting in sore feet and sore fingers.

‘So, how’s it all been going with the shop?’ James asked. ‘I know that you managed to secure the business at the Seaview Hotel, which is great, but is there anything else on the horizon?’

‘Well, the master plan hasn’t quite worked out as well as I hoped,’ Emma conceded. ‘I have been trying my best and approaching other possible new outlets, but they either seem to think that my products are too expensive – which, yes, they would be compared to mass-market chocolate because of the quality ingredients and the hand-crafting involved – or they already have a supplier of some similar confectionery that they are happy with. I seem to have drawn a bit of a blank lately.’ She sighed. ‘And then Easter has taken up all my time and energies, to be honest.’