Christmas at Lilac Cottage - Holly Martin Page 0,3
and Iain Banks. She loved a man who liked to read.
Henry sighed, softly. ‘Here, I’ll get these, you take this. It’s pillows so it should be a bit lighter for you.’
Penny took the box, unable to miss the sarcasm in Henry’s words. This wasn’t going well at all. She walked back into her house and into his lounge. She wondered where would be best to put the box that would be out of his way, but everywhere was going to be in his way, he filled the whole room. As it was pillows, she thought she could just put them straight upstairs for him. She turned and walked straight into him as he ducked into the room. She bounced off him, hit a plant on the shelf behind her and watched in horror as it fell to the floor, sending dirt cascading all over the cream carpet.
He rolled his eyes and sighed, heavily.
‘Oh crap, I’ll get my Hoover, I’ll clean it up.’
‘Please don’t take this the wrong way, but I think it’s best if I just unpack myself. This place is small enough without the two of us banging into each other.’
‘Of course, sorry, I’m not really helping, am I? Let me just clean this up for you and—’
‘Just leave it.’ Henry was clearly trying to stay calm when he was well and truly pissed off.
Penny nodded, stepping back out into her own kitchen. ‘Well, feel free to cut through my house, it will probably be quicker—’
‘I think I’ll just use my own front door, start as we mean to go on.’
Disappointment slammed into her at that obvious statement of segregation.
‘Shall I run through a few things with you, how the oven works and—’
‘I’m sure I can work it out and I know where to find you if I get stuck.’ He forced a smile onto his face. ‘Thanks for your help, I’ll see you around some time.’
He closed the door between them and Penny stood staring at his shadow in the frosted glass.
She rolled his words around her head. ‘I’ll see you around some time.’
She swallowed, sadly. Of course it was stupid of her to expect they might use the connecting door as their front door, that they would let themselves in through her kitchen and they’d chat over a cup of tea or dinner on a daily basis. They would have their own lives to lead. They had rented a property and that was it. Making friends with her was clearly not on the top of their to-do list, especially as they were planning on moving out soon.
She watched Henry look around the room and then he moved away. She heard the sound of furniture being dragged across the floor. The huge shadow of the bookcase was pulled in front of the door, blocking out all the light from the window and then it stopped, resting against the door. He clearly had no intention of ever using the connecting door, now or in the future. He had made a blockade to keep her out permanently. Penny felt the tears that sprang to her eyes at this gesture and she dashed them away angrily. She had been rejected.
Chapter Two
Penny zipped up her jacket and walked into the cool room that was attached to the kitchen. The heating was on very low in here and she felt the cold envelop her straight away, but in her warm clothes she didn’t feel it too much on her body. It was only her face and hands that felt it.
She looked around her newly converted room; it was so much nicer and roomier to work in here than it was before. The room was large with the ice-block-making machines up one end that made the metre-long blocks of ice and there was a large space in the middle for her to work. The floor and walls were tiled to maintain the coolness of the room and for easy cleaning.
She opened up one of the block machines; the water was oscillating slowly inside to keep the ice pure and clear. The water was partly frozen at the bottom, the perfect time to add some of the decorations her clients had asked for. This particular one wanted fairy lights, interwoven with snowflakes. She placed the glittery snowflakes in a rough pattern in the middle of the block and weaved the fairy lights in between them, weighing them down so they didn’t float to the top of the water and taping the cable for the lights