Christmas at Lilac Cottage - Holly Martin Page 0,18

down her chin and landing with a plop against her shirt.

Penny looked up in shock and Daisy burst out laughing. She was surprised to see Henry fighting with a smirk.

‘Don’t ever call me a pervert again.’

‘Did you just throw your pasta at me?’ Penny said, still unable to believe that the evening had taken this bizarre turn.

‘He and his sister do it all the time, you’d wouldn’t believe they were grown adults,’ Daisy said.

Henry shrugged. ‘I think we’re even.’

Penny scooped up a piece of pasta and weighed it in her hand, taunting him.

‘No, don’t you dare,’ Henry laughed.

Penny launched it across the table and it hit Henry in the middle of his forehead. A laugh erupted from Penny’s throat, a huge genuine laugh that she hadn’t heard from herself for a very long time. Another one joined it, followed by a snort.

Henry’s face lit up at hearing it. ‘Did you just snort?’

Penny shook her head, unable to stop laughing, and just to call her a liar another snort escaped.

Henry’s big booming laugh filled the kitchen and he picked up his knife and fork and carried on eating. The atmosphere between them had vanished.

* * *

Henry watched Penny across the table, tucking into her food with much more enthusiasm than she had been a few minutes before. He was an ass and he shouldn’t have overreacted about her comments that afternoon. It was a perfectly reasonable misunderstanding and he should have just laughed it off.

He really liked having her here. He and Daisy so rarely had company; any women that he dated he normally did so away from his home, wanting to keep that part of his social life separate from his daughter. But this little family dinner with the three of them seemed so right. Penny fitted in with them perfectly. There was something about her that he found he was attracted to that went way beyond her looks. She was fascinating and he could have watched her all night and never got tired of it.

‘So Daisy, you’ll be going to White Cliff Senior School?’ Penny asked.

‘After Christmas,’ Daisy said, over a mouthful of garlic bread.

‘Don’t talk with your mouth full,’ Henry said.

Daisy swallowed. ‘I’m going in for a day to meet people and some of the teachers but I won’t start properly till after Christmas because they won’t have the room for me. One of the kids is leaving so it works out well for me, otherwise I’d have to go to the school in the next town and the bus ride is over an hour. And the art teacher here is fantastic, he’s had work in galleries in London.’

‘Mr Cartwright?’

Daisy’s face lit up. ‘Yes, you know him?’

‘He used to be my teacher too. So you like art?’

‘I love it, just to be able to watch something brought to life with your hands is just wonderful.’

Henry smiled as he watched his daughter come alive as she talked about her passion.

‘Dad said you were an ice carver?’

‘I am.’

Daisy started bombarding Penny with a hundred questions about the process and Henry watched as Penny explained in detail about how she did it. It was clearly a great passion for Penny too. He liked that Penny was talking to Daisy like she was an adult, she wasn’t dumbing down any of the explanations. Most of the women he had been with still spoke to Daisy like a child and she hated that. Lots of people didn’t know how to behave around a teenager, but for Penny, it was the most natural thing in the world. She had behaved the same with Bea in town; there was no singsong voice or cutesy face like Jade.

He finished his dinner and was standing up to take his plate to the sink when there was a knock at the door. He looked up to see Jade outside. He sighed – speak of the devil. She clearly hadn’t gotten the message earlier in the café. She looked like she was about to go on a glamour shoot dressed in a red clingy dress and high heels.

He opened the door and Jade immediately leaned into him, engulfing him in a sickly cloud of perfume. He took a step back and she pouted slightly.

‘Henry, I brought you some dinner. I figured you’d be tired from all the unpacking and I went to The Olive Branch and got you some Italian. I figured we could share it together.’

‘That’s very thoughtful of you, thank you, but I’ve just eaten, though me