Christmas at Lilac Cottage - Holly Martin Page 0,73

it’s about, but it’s for charity. Daisy, do you want to do it?’

‘We make a gingerbread house? Do we get to eat it afterwards?’

Penny laughed. ‘It’s the annual Giant Gingerbread House Race. The White Cliff Bay Furniture Company holds it every year. Everybody in the town goes to watch. But it’s not real gingerbread, they use plastic walls and foam and plastic sweets and decorations. The gingerbread walls are six-foot panels and I’m pretty sure the icing they use isn’t edible. There’s normally around eight teams and you have about an hour to build your house into something wonderful. It’s great fun.’

‘So you can be in our team too,’ Henry said, decisively.

‘I can’t, it’s families of employees only.’

‘You can be part of our family,’ Daisy said simply and Henry smiled that his daughter had just given her seal of approval so readily and unknowingly.

‘Edward isn’t going to care too much about who is on my team, he won’t exactly be demanding to see a marriage certificate before he lets us in,’ Henry said.

‘I’ll do it if you do it, Penny,’ Daisy said. ‘And it is for charity so you can’t really say no.’

Henry laughed at the exact same persuasion technique that Penny had pulled on him to get him to agree to the ball a few days before.

‘I’m rubbish at building things. You really won’t want me on your team, I’d be more of a hindrance than a help. When I built the barbeque in the summer, I ended up with pieces upside down and several pieces left over.’

‘We need you on our team, you have the inside edge, you’ve seen what other people have done before to win and we don’t have that. As newbies we need a fighting chance. And Daisy and I can’t do it alone, other teams will have five or six people in them. You can’t let us down, Penny, will you be part of our family?’

He fixed her with his best puppy dog eyes and she laughed.

‘OK, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.’

‘Now you’re part of our family, I think you should come for dinner every night,’ Daisy said. ‘It gets pretty boring looking at his ugly mug every night.’

‘Hey!’ Henry said.

‘Well, that sounds lovely, it does get a bit dull talking to Bernard every night, especially as he doesn’t talk back, but understand I’m only doing it for you, Daisy, to save you the tedium of talking to your dad.’

‘Hey, I am sitting here you know,’ Henry protested and Daisy laughed.

‘Except I can’t come tomorrow night, I have plans.’

‘Ooooh, do you have a hot date?’ Daisy said, getting excited about the prospect of some gossip. Henry rolled his eyes; she was going to thrive in this town.

‘No. I—’

‘I saw Fabio come round earlier, do you have plans with him?’

Henry was surprised by this. ‘Fabio was here?’

‘He was next door for over half hour and when he left he was looking pretty pleased with himself,’ Daisy said. ‘I saw it all from my bedroom window.’

Henry stared at his daughter incredulously. ‘I’ve raised a spy.’

‘Well, as we’ve already established, living with you can be really boring so I have to provide myself with some entertainment.’

‘What did Fabio want?’

‘Nothing much, to apologise for his behaviour the other night and to ask me out on a date.’

He cleared his throat. ‘And you’re going?’

‘Dad, it’ll be nice for Penny to go on a date. Let’s face it, her dates with you aren’t going to set her world on fire.’

‘I don’t think I did too badly last night.’

‘It was OK,’ Penny shrugged, clearly fighting with a smirk. He couldn’t help the smile from spreading across his face as she blushed bright red and focussed her attention on her spaghetti again.

‘So you’re going out with him?’ Daisy asked.

‘Sure, why not? I love a guy in leather pants.’

‘Hear that, Dad? If you really want to impress the ladies you need to wear leather pants and maybe get a medallion too. It seems the old clichés never die.’

‘I’ll be sure to remember that, especially as my dazzling conversation skills clearly need a lot of work. I have plans too tomorrow night. I’m going for dinner with a guy from work. You can come if you want, Daisy?’

‘Nah, I’m fine here. Shame though, there’s a mince pie making class at Linda’s bakery tomorrow night, I was going to suggest you go as your mince pie making skills are absolutely dire.’

‘Hey, I’m not that bad,’ Henry said, indignantly. ‘Why don’t I take you