Christmas at Lilac Cottage - Holly Martin Page 0,20

mum would she have made when she didn’t even know how to deal with a child who was having a nightmare? Her first reaction was to stroke Daisy’s head and hug her, but Daisy wasn’t her daughter, she couldn’t do that.

Leaving her lying on the sofa with Bernard staying guard, she went through the open connecting door and crept upstairs.

Henry’s door was open and she stole a brief moment to admire him sleeping, the blankets bunched around his waist, his bare muscular chest gleaming in the moonlight that spilled through the open curtains.

She reached forward and touched his arm, the feel of his smooth velvety skin making her stomach clench with a need she hadn’t felt for years.

He didn’t stir, so she shook him gently.

He opened his eyes blearily and suddenly smiled, running his hand up her arm.

* * *

She was here, in his bedroom. He hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her as he fell asleep earlier and now she was here. He was dreaming but she sure felt real, her skin was so soft. She wasn’t dressed in the sexy lingerie the women of his dreams were normally wearing, but she still looked heavenly dressed in cute snowflake pyjama bottoms and an oversized t-shirt. He wanted to pull her into bed with him and see the gorgeous body she hid underneath these big clothes.

He slid his hand down to her fingers and entwined them with his own. He shifted back into the bed a bit and pulled her gently towards him. For one wonderful moment, she came willingly, before she stopped and pulled her hand from his.

‘Henry, it’s me, it’s Penny.’

He was well aware who she was. Although as he became more awake it was very obvious she hadn’t pitched up in his bedroom for a night of hot sex.

He cleared his throat and rubbed his face to try to dispel the images that were playing through his mind.

‘Are you OK?’ he said as he sat up and looked at her.

‘Daisy’s having a nightmare.’

He shot out of bed, all thoughts of passionate sex vanishing. ‘Where is she?’

‘In my front room. I didn’t want to wake her in case I scared her.’

He raced downstairs. Why was Daisy in Penny’s front room? He knew she hadn’t been able to sleep earlier and he’d heard her go downstairs, presumably to watch TV or read – quite why she had gone next door he didn’t know.

* * *

Penny followed him down the stairs and back into her front room. She watched him carefully scoop Daisy up into his arms and place a tender kiss on her head, before he carried her back into the safety of his home.

She wondered briefly if she should follow him but Henry knew how to deal with it; she would only be in his way.

Sleep was a long way off now, especially after what had passed between them in the bedroom.

He had tried to pull her into bed with him and for a moment, maybe a few seconds, she had nearly done just that. What would he have done when he woke properly to find her in bed with him and not some gorgeous model that he had been imagining?

She was pouring some milk in a saucepan to make a hot chocolate, when suddenly there was a noise behind her. She turned to see Henry standing in her kitchen, looking incredible still only dressed in a pair of tight boxer briefs. He had his robe in his hand but he hadn’t bothered to put it on. She quickly looked away.

‘Is she OK?’

‘Yes, she’s fast asleep, and the nightmare seems to have passed.’ He sighed heavily and Penny’s heart ached for him.

‘Does it happen a lot?’

‘More often than I would like, but a lot less now she’s older than when she was a child.’

Penny turned round to look at him, hearing the angst in his voice. He clocked the look of sympathy and smiled sadly.

‘Mainly they revolve around her being abandoned or rejected, despite me doing everything in my power to reassure her that I would never leave her. She had attachment issues for the first ten years of her life, I couldn't leave her with anyone but my parents or Anna and even that was a struggle. She was two months old when her mum walked out and, although Daisy has no memory of her, as a baby it was clearly hard for her to understand why her mum was no longer there. She was three