Christmas at Lilac Cottage - Holly Martin Page 0,115

walked out into the kitchen and saw Daisy waiting for her.

As soon as Daisy saw her, she burst into tears.

Penny rushed over and quickly took her in her arms as Daisy sobbed against her.

‘Hey, what’s with all these tears?’ Penny said, stroking the back of her head.

‘I’m so sorry. All of this is my fault. I should never have hid it from Dad and I should never have asked you to cover for me…’

‘You have nothing to be sorry for.’

‘But now my dad hates you.’

It was like a punch to the gut all over again. Henry did hate her, she had seen it in his eyes. That was the worst part of it, seeing that look in his eyes had confirmed that he had never felt for her what she felt for him. Penny hadn’t manipulated Daisy into thinking that she liked her or used Daisy to get to her dad or even told Daisy a nasty pack of lies like Henry’s previous girlfriend had. Although Henry had every right to be angry at her, she didn’t deserve that kind of anger. She had done the best thing she could for Daisy, but Henry was treating her like she was the lowest form of scum.

She swallowed down the pain as she prepared to lie to Daisy. ‘He doesn’t hate me. He was angry and he had every right to be.’

‘I thought you two would get together and I’ve ruined that now.’

‘You’ve not ruined anything.’

‘I’m not talking to him if that helps,’ Daisy said.

Penny somehow found the energy to smile slightly at that. ‘Honey, I don’t want you hating your dad over this. This is between me and him and I never want to be the person that comes between you two.’

Daisy held her tighter as she cried. ‘Will you forgive him? When he apologises, which he will because I’ll make him. You will forgive him, won’t you?’

Penny pulled back slightly and kissed Daisy’s forehead. ‘Whatever happens between me and Henry, me and you will still be friends, you don’t ever need to worry about that.’

Daisy stared at her for a moment before fresh tears filled her eyes. ‘You won’t forgive him, will you?’

Penny decided for once she was going to be honest with her and she shook her head. ‘I don’t think I can.’

‘Why?’ Daisy cried.

Anger suddenly replaced all the pain she was feeling. ‘Because my last boyfriend treated me so badly and I’m not going to put up with it again. Your dad always told me I deserved better and I do. No one gets to treat me like a piece of shit and then come crawling back and apologise for it later. If you care for someone, you’d never treat them like that in the first place.’

A noise at the connecting door made them both look up. Henry was standing there but, silhouetted in the darkness, Penny had no idea what expression was on his face.

‘You better go,’ Penny said to Daisy. ‘But remember what I said, it’s not going to change things between us.’

Daisy sniffed and nodded and then she walked towards the door.

Penny didn’t wait to see if Henry would say anything to her once Daisy had gone upstairs. She turned away and went to bed.

* * *

Penny woke to movement in her kitchen the next morning and wondering if it might be Henry – maybe even half hoping – she pulled on her robe and walked downstairs. She was only slightly disappointed to see Jill banging around and making breakfast.

Jill smiled hugely when she saw her and gave her a big hug. She pulled back slightly and her face fell.

‘You’ve been crying, what’s happened?’

Penny shook her head. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘It obviously does.’

There was a noise from upstairs in the annexe as clearly someone got out of bed and suddenly Penny didn’t want to be there. Either Henry was going to come downstairs and shout at her some more, apologise profusely or ignore her completely and she didn’t want to be there for any of that.

She still had that proposal carving she needed to do, but that could wait until later.

‘What did you have planned for today?’

Jill picked up on her urgency straight away. ‘I… was going to take you out for the day.’

Penny smiled with love for her. ‘I’d really like that.’

‘Well, go and get dressed then, while I put these breakfast things away.’

Penny nodded with gratitude and ran upstairs.

* * *

The amazing scents of the Christmas market in the next town of Apple Hill