Christmas at Lilac Cottage - Holly Martin Page 0,63

said.

‘What’s this, the outsider knows something the local doesn’t?’ Henry said.

He parked the car along the road near the path that led down to the beach. Surprisingly there were lots of other cars there too.

He got out and took her hand, leading her to the steps that curled down to the sand. It was well lit, with little lanterns sending puddles of light down the stairs and across a small wooden path that led across the beach towards the caves. She carefully picked her way down the stairs in her stupid high heels and onto the wooden path. The tide was in but it didn’t reach all the way to the back of the beach, leaving a good twenty metres of sand untouched.

‘I used to play here when I was a child, in the caves, but I haven’t been down here for years,’ Penny said, still wondering where they were going.

Henry helped her up a few stone steps into the cave and she followed him down a well-lit tunnel, but as she rounded the corner into what had been a large cavern, she stopped in shock. There was a tiny lake in the middle of the cavern and dotted around the edges were about twenty tables lit up by lanterns and candles, the lights sparkling off the water like fireflies.

‘Henry, it’s beautiful, how long has this been here?’

‘About two weeks, according to Anna. She and Steve came here last week.’

One of the waiters came over and Henry gave them his name and they ushered him to a table.

Penny looked around. In the darkness of the cave, the lights looked like orbs of gold, shimmering over the water. There were tall plants dotted between the tables along with outdoor heaters, lending a certain amount of privacy to the diners and giving it a slight Mediterranean feel, too.

‘The menu is limited, a lot of it is barbequed or they have a large pizza oven, but apparently the food is amazing.’

Penny reached across the table and took his hand. ‘Thank you for bringing me here, it’s just wonderful.’

‘I wanted something special for our first date and then I remembered Anna talking about this place.’

Penny smiled at the trouble he had taken to do something nice for her. ‘It feels so secret, like no one knows it’s here.’

‘Secret place, secret meetings, I bet everyone here is having an affair.’

She laughed and looked around. At the next table was a young man in a very expensive suit sitting opposite a blonde with a very short skirt.

‘I think he is a CEO of a big corporate company and that’s his assistant that he is shagging behind his wife’s back,’ Penny said.

Henry glanced over and nodded. ‘And look at that couple, she’s old enough to be his mum. I bet she’s sleeping with her daughter’s husband.’

Penny looked over and laughed. ‘That’s Mary Buttercoombe and her son, Simon. So probably not sleeping together. White Cliff Bay may seem like an odd little town but I don’t think incest is on our list of hobbies.’

‘Ah, OK, what about those two?’

Penny glanced over at a slightly round man, dressed in leather with a long ginger beard and a bald head, sitting opposite a woman in a sweet flowery dress. ‘They met online and this is their first date.’

The waitress came over to them. She was impossibly tall with a long curtain of blonde hair that was flicked over one shoulder. She had inexplicably large breasts. Henry glanced up at her, suppressed a smile and returned to looking at his menu.

They gave their drinks order and she left.

‘What’s made you laugh?’

‘I was just thinking, if we are creating life stories for all the people in here, I think she is a secret porn star.’

Penny laughed. ‘I must admit you’re not anything like what I first thought, when I met you.’

‘What did you think of me when we first met?’

‘That you were grumpy, moody, inappropriate because you were flirting with me when I thought you were married and sexy as hell.’

He laughed so loudly it echoed around the cavern.

‘And you don’t think I’m sexy as hell now?’

‘Ah, you’re not bad to look at, I suppose.’

He laughed again and Penny loved the sight of him smiling so much.

‘I am grumpy, thankfully not all the time, but when I get in a bad mood, everyone knows about it. I have a hell of a temper, which has only reared its ugly head a few times in my life but it isn’t pretty when it