Christmas at Lilac Cottage: (#1 White Cliff Bay)

by Martin, Holly

  Her eyes widened as she took in the same clothes he was wearing the night before.

  ‘Did you spend the night with her?’

  He closed the door behind him. ‘Yes but not like that, she was upset, I was just comforting her. I fell asleep on her sofa but I promise, no clothes were removed, I just stayed with her, that’s all.’

  That and two incredible kisses but he didn’t want to tell Daisy about that yet. He had to figure out how he felt for Penny before he told his daughter. She wouldn’t be happy, he knew that.

  ‘I need a shower and then I’m going to work for a few hours. Will you be OK around here for a bit?’

  Daisy nodded. ‘I’ll see if Penny will mind me watching her ice carving again. Or maybe I can walk Bernard with her.’

  ‘Well, don’t harass her, I’m sure she’s very busy with all the carving jobs she needs to do and I think she has a competition tonight.’

  ‘I won’t be in the way.’

  He smiled. ‘I’m sure you won’t.’

  He ran up the stairs. He never wanted her to feel in the way again.

  * * *

  Penny stared at the flowers. There were bouquets of every colour, flower, size and arrangement covering her table. She sipped her tea and wondered if it would be safe to go into town later or whether she would be lifted on people’s shoulders and paraded through the streets. Maybe it would be easier to stay up here out the way.

  She heard the connecting door open and peered through the blooms to see a pair of pink-socked feet which she guessed belonged to Daisy.

  ‘Wow, did someone die?’ Daisy asked.

  ‘These are from Sam and Alex’s parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, neighbours and anyone else in the town that heard about last night’s little adventure. It doesn’t help that Pippa, the boys’ mum, is the Mayor of White Cliff Bay. There’s a certain amount of glory that comes from saving the Mayor’s kids.’

  ‘In that case, surely you should get the Victoria Cross or some other kind of medal.’

  Penny laughed. ‘I have better than that: there’s five cakes in the fridge and four bottles of wine. Would you like a slice of cake?’

  ‘Oh yes, if there’s some going spare.’ Daisy sat down opposite Penny and cleared a small space so she could see her through the flowers. Penny stood up to get some cake. ‘Did they come round then, Sam and Alex’s parents?’

  ‘Yeah, I’d just got back from walking Bernard and they were here waiting for me, there’s been a steady stream of deliveries ever since.’

  ‘What did they say? We saw who I presume was the boys’ dad running out of a café when it all kicked off. What kind of parents would leave their kids to play outside on the street while they go and have a cup of tea in the café? Alex couldn’t have been older than eight or nine and Sam looked about five. It’s neglectful.’

  Penny put the chocolate cake on a plate and cut two slices. ‘Pippa is pregnant and she nearly passed out while they were watching the fire breather. Mike rushed her into the café and told the boys to stay where they were for a second. He was only gone for two minutes.’

  ‘They shouldn’t have been left at all.’

  Penny smiled at the outrage of someone who had never had the responsibility of looking after a child twenty-four hours a day.

  ‘You can’t watch them every second of the day, and even when you do watch them, accidents still happen. Mike apparently asked Jade to watch them for a few minutes while he took care of Pippa.’

  ‘What? That’s even worse than leaving them on their own.’

  ‘Well yes, she was just the nearest person there at the time.’

  ‘So did Jade just wander off and leave them?’

  ‘Mike doesn’t know, there was no sign of her at all when he came back out. They were both very apologetic and thankful. I don’t think we should judge them too harshly.’

  Penny passed Daisy her cake and sat down to eat her own. Daisy took a big bite and moaned with pleasure. ‘Well, if they bring cakes like this round, I guess not. Dad loves chocolate cake so if you want to find a way to his heart, definitely ply him with lots of this.’

  Penny scooped a bit of chocolate icing up from the plate, deliberately not looking at Daisy. She got the sense that Daisy didn’t want her to date Henry, though she wasn’t sure why.

  ‘I know he stayed the night last night.’

  ‘Nothing happened,’ Penny said, awkwardly. Apart from the best kiss she’d ever had. ‘I was just a little upset.’

  ‘What about?’

  Penny smiled at her brazen confidence. ‘The pub is owned by my ex-boyfriend’s parents, it just brought back some memories. Do you want to carry on with your snowflake?’

  Daisy didn’t notice the subject change, but her eyes lit up at the prospect of carving again.

  ‘I have a competition tonight, you’re welcome to come with me if you want to. You can meet some of the other carvers too. I’d like to say they are a friendly bunch but some of them are a little weird, but it should be fun. Some of them have very different techniques to me and I can talk you through some of them when we see them.’

  ‘I’d love that, I’m sure Dad won’t mind.’

  ‘Brilliant. Oh, and Josh will be there too.’

  Daisy’s face split into a grin. ‘He’s lovely. We chatted a little bit while we were waiting for you yesterday. Does he work for you?’

  ‘He’s my assistant and mainly my muscles. The ice sculptures are very heavy and you need two people to lift them and move them. He comes up here two or three times a week to help to take the ice blocks out of the machines and helps me transport all my sculptures to events. I put an advert in the local paper for a big, strong man and he applied. I got the piss taken out of me for months afterwards. He’s very quiet, very sweet. He’s only seventeen. I’m sure you’ll get on with him.’

  ‘It would certainly be nice to make some friends round here,’ Daisy said, a mischievous glint in her eyes that Penny didn’t like.

  ‘Well, let’s get changed and then we can carve for a bit before tonight’s competition.’

  Henry was definitely not going to thank her for setting his daughter up with a tattooed, muscular seventeen year old. Nothing was ever simple.

  * * *

  Henry stood on the warehouse floor of the White Cliff Bay Furniture Company. He looked around at the other workers and at the natural light flooding through the windows that sent ribbons of gold over the dark wood. He was going to enjoy working here. He was going to get to work with his hands every day, nurturing and perfecting beautiful pieces of handmade furniture. He was going to learn new processes and skills too and that was always something he was keen to do. White Cliff Bay Furniture Company was one of the biggest names in the world for handmade pieces and he was going to be a part of that.

  He had met several members of the team he would be working with after Christmas when he started properly. They all seemed happy, cheerful people, singing and chatting and laughing while they worked. He knew he was going to love working with them.

  He was waiting for Daniel, his line manager, to come back with some paperwork for him to sign when he heard the click-clack of heels across the hard floor. As all the women who worked on the factory floor wore steel toecapped boots, he turned to look at the foreign sound.

  It was the fiery red hair he saw first, cascading in long curls down one side of her face. In a black trouser suit and sky high red heels, she looked like a force to be reckoned with. She was beautiful, there was no denying that, but there was a cold arrogance that marred her features. She didn’t look at anyone as she passed, almost as if they weren’t good enough to be looked at.

  She was walking straight towards him.

  ‘Clara Stratton, CEO.’ She offered out a hand, clearly hoping he would be impressed with that title. He wasn’t, he’d already met who he considered to be the real CEO, Edward, who had stopped to talk to almost every person on the factory floor earlier. He shook her hand anyway, noting her eyes
were as cold as ice, a direct contrast to her fiery hair.

  ‘Henry Travis, I’m starting work here after Christmas.’

  This news clearly surprised her; she obviously had no idea about new staff, whereas Edward had recognised him from the interviews and made a point of coming and chatting with him for a good half hour when he saw him earlier.

  ‘Oh, that’s a pleasant bit of good news. It’s nice to have a bit of eye candy to look at every day at work.’

  Henry refrained from letting his jaw drop. Surely if it had been Edward chatting to a new female employee like that, she could have slapped a sexual harassment suit on him faster than he could blink. But Henry would be nice to her, he had to. He couldn’t do anything to risk his job here before he had even started. He forced a smile onto his face.

  ‘I think you’ll be very happy here. I can help you settle in if you like. We should go out for dinner one night and we can talk about the White Cliff Bay Furniture Company, the expectations we have for you.’

  ‘Well, I think Edward and Daniel, my line manager, have explained that very clearly. I know how important the reputation of this company is and I’m delighted to be offered a place here based on my skills and experience.’

  He hoped that would be the end of it.

  ‘We’re a family business here. I do like to know the people who work for our family. Dinner would let us get to know each other better.’

  ‘Well, I was just about to join Daniel for lunch in the staff canteen, you’re welcome to join us. I hear the cheese and pickle sandwiches are to die for.’

  She narrowed her eyes at his deliberate obtuseness. Just then Daniel came back. He looked at Clara in confusion – obviously it wasn’t the norm for her to be seen talking to the carpenters.

  ‘Oh hello, Ms Stratton,’ Daniel said. ‘Are you lost?’

  Henry clenched his lips together to stop the laugh from bursting from his mouth.

  Clara forced her eyes from Henry to look at Daniel.

  ‘What do you mean, lost?’

  ‘We don’t normally see you down here, I thought you might have taken a wrong turn,’ Daniel said, innocently. ‘Henry, here are your papers, are you coming to lunch?’

  ‘Yes, of course. Clara, are you joining us?’

  Daniel gave a blatant laugh which he turned into a coughing fit.

  She glared at Daniel before returning her attention back to Henry. ‘Perhaps another time.’

  She turned and strode away, back the way she had come, her bum swaying frantically at the speed she was departing.

  ‘Bloody hell, Henry, the last person you want to get involved with is Clara Stratton,’ Daniel said, when she had gone. ‘I’d try to stay out of her way from now on if I was you.’

  Henry sighed. The perfect job was coming with a red-headed downside.

  * * *

  Penny stepped back to look at her finished sleigh. She had to drop it off at a party tonight before she went on to the competition. She loved the bulging sack with a tumble of presents coming out the back. The intricate bows and shapes of the presents had taken quite a long time to get right, but she was proud of the finished result.

  She glanced over at Daisy who had been working silently and diligently for the last hour, taking her time with her piece. Penny had showed her a few skills to work on that were particularly useful for this sculpture and, as she had picked it all up very quickly, Penny had pretty much left her to it.

  She moved round to look at the snowflake now that it was largely finished and felt her mouth drop in awe. Daisy had already asked Penny to cut the block vertically in half so the snowflake was a lot thinner, even though Penny had warned Daisy that this could make carving a lot harder because the thin bits could be broken off. But Daisy had done a wonderful job. All the tiny delicate fingers of the snowflake had been carved to perfection, each branch rounded so the snowflake looked like it was made from thin tubes.

  ‘Daisy, this is incredible.’

  Daisy looked at her in shock. ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes, you have a real talent for this stuff. I can’t believe this is your first time.’

  ‘I did do that wood carving course in the summer, so that taught me a lot of things.’

  ‘Yes, but even so you’re an absolute natural at this stuff. The thing with carving and sculpture is you either have the eye or you don’t, it’s not something that can really be taught. You’ve definitely have the skills to actually do this professionally.’

  ‘Nah, I mean it’s OK, but it’s not like yours.’

  ‘It’s better than mine, and I’ve been doing it for ten years. Why don’t you enter it into the competition tonight?’

  ‘Oh god, I couldn’t. All those professionals and my crappy snowflake.’

  ‘What have you got to lose?’

  ‘My dignity, when I come last.’

  ‘I never enter to win, I enter just to be a part of the experience. Come on. I promise you it’s good enough to be entered.’

  Daisy stared at the snowflake and then back at Penny, a grin slowly forming on her face.

  ‘OK.’

  ‘Brilliant. Come on, let’s get warmed up and changed. Josh will be here soon and I need to wrap up the sculptures ready for moving them.’

  Daisy helped Penny put the carvings back in the freezer and walked out the cool room, bumping straight into Henry as he came through her back door.

  ‘Oh hey, Dad, you looking for me?’ Daisy asked.

  Henry flashed Penny a quick glance that told her he’d actually been looking for her. ‘Yes, I wondered if you were in here.’

  Daisy wrapped an arm round his waist and he planted a kiss on her forehead. Penny loved how tactile they were with each other.

  ‘How was work?’ Daisy asked.

  ‘Interesting,’ Henry said, giving Penny another glance. ‘The people are great, I think I’m going to enjoy working there. And I love the furniture they make, it’s so stylish, I can’t wait to be a part of that. I met Clara too.’

  Penny tried to keep her expression neutral. She’d seen Clara around town a few times and she knew how beautiful she was. She wondered what Henry’s impression was of her.

  ‘The boss lady?’ Daisy asked.

  ‘Yes, she came downstairs to talk to me specifically.’

  ‘Oh, that’s nice, maybe I was wrong about her,’ Penny said, turning away. She wasn’t wrong, Clara had come downstairs to speak to Henry because he was hot and that was the only reason.

  ‘She asked me out for dinner.’

  Penny opened up a can of beans and poured the contents into a saucepan, throwing the empty can into the bin a bit harder than was necessary.

  What must it be like for Henry to have all these smart, beautiful, rich, successful women throwing themselves at him? He could have any woman he wanted, yet he had kissed her. Had he kissed her simply because she had been upset and he felt sorry for her? That would be an awful reason to kiss her. Now his boss was asking him out. Surely it would be professional suicide to turn her down. And as she was so beautiful it wasn’t exactly a hardship.

  ‘Eww, Dad, don’t go out with your boss, that’s such a cliché.’

  ‘I have no intention of going out with her. It would be beyond awkward if things turned sour. Besides, she isn’t my type.’

  Penny glanced over at him, and although he was talking to Daisy she felt like he was saying all this for her benefit.

  ‘You mean she didn’t have sleek blonde hair, big tits and a tiny waist,’ Daisy laughed. She grabbed an apple from the fruit bowl and went to take a bite out of it before Henry snatched it from her and put it back in the bowl again. Daisy pouted.

  Penny looked down at her tiny breasts and definitely not tiny waist. This conversation was getting better and better.

  ‘I don’t just go for blondes, I don’t have a type. I’m attracted to personalities, not looks,’ Henry said.

  ‘Yeah right. That’s why all your girlfriends have been verging on the supermodel end of the
spectrum.’

  ‘You’re not painting me in a good light here,’ Henry growled at Daisy and she laughed, completely unperturbed with the idle threat in his voice.

  ‘You create your own reputation, that’s nothing to do with me.’

  ‘Come on, trouble, we’ll leave Penny to some peace and quiet.’

  ‘She asked me to come with her to a competition tonight, it’ll be great experience for me to see the other carvers and their work. Can I go?’

  Penny waited for Daisy to tell Henry that she was submitting her own piece to the competition but she didn’t.

  Henry looked over at Penny. ‘Is that OK?’

  ‘Yes of course.’

  Henry shrugged. ‘All right then. Well, let’s go and have dinner and Penny can knock for you when she’s ready to go.’

  He ushered her out through the connecting door and gave Penny a little smile as he closed the door behind them.

  If that conversation about Clara had been designed to make her feel better it’d had the complete opposite effect.

  Chapter Ten

  Henry finished washing up the dinner things when a movement caught his eye outside the window. There was a huge man outside and, as Henry watched, he let himself into Penny’s house through the back door.

  Henry quickly rushed to the connecting door and opened it a crack. The man was big and muscular but quite young too, maybe early twenties. He was wearing a t-shirt and both arms were covered in tattoos. The man looked around the kitchen, spotted Penny’s rucksack and loaded it with her purse and her mobile phone. He spotted a camera and threw that into the bag too. Then he opened the fridge and helped himself to a handful of chocolate bars, which joined the other stuff in the bag. He zipped up the bag and moved back towards the door.

  Henry slammed the connecting door open, making the man jump out of his skin.

  ‘Going somewhere with all that stuff?’ Henry asked.

  The man stared at him with wide, terrified eyes. He pointed vaguely to the open door, made some kind of squeak of pure fear and then bolted out the door, taking the bag with him.