Chapter 5
He couldn’t stop thinkingabout her.
Ever since their verbal tug-o-war Mike couldn’t get the thought of Penny from his mind.
The thoughts had escalated to guilt by the time he and Ian returned to the Easton. Ian had explained, though reluctantly, what had instigated Kate’s best friend’s caustic reaction three years earlier, and why it would have ignited her ire the night before.
Mike knew that pain all too well.
The moment his eyes settled upon her, seated the in same chair as the night before, he wanted to say something, to apologise.
If he had known, if he’d had even an inclining what Penny had been going through at the wedding three years ago, he would have left her alone.
He knew what it was like to have people hovering around you, wanting things from you, when all you wanted was to be alone. Hide.
“Where’s Kate?” Ian asked as he and Mike shuffled into the living room with a huge spruce.
“She’s cleaning Toby up. Messy lunch.” She stood. “Need a hand with that?” she asked, already clearing a path for them, shifting the coffee table out of their way.
She surreptitiously glanced in Mike’s direction but said nothing.
“Hey,” he murmured as he passed her, helping Ian hoist the tree into place.
“Hi.” Her eyes shifted away from him. She returned to her seat.
The next half hour was spent making faces at Toby, while Kate, Ian and Mike tried to get the tree straight in the stand.
“No, it’s still leaning.” Kate said, tilting her head. “Shift it more your direction, Mike.”
“Penny, can you help us out here? Advise my wife that this isn’t a show house, it doesn’t have to be straight,” Ian called from beneath the bows of the blue spruce.
“Not me.” She tickled Toby’s nose with her finger. “I know better than to get in Kate’s way when she’s decorating.” Penny continued bouncing the toddler on her knee as Ian struck the table with a red plastic hammer.
“Thank you, Penny. Now…more to you Mike.”
By the timethe decorations were brought out, both men were exhausted and Kate was slightly agitated. She liked things to be perfect and hated when it wasn’t.
The tree wasn’t. It bent to the right.
Ian had picked a faulty tree.
“Don’t fret Kate. You can’t really tell from the way we have it leaning back like that,” Penny tried to pacify her, but it was no use.
She would be put out for the rest of the evening. It was one of those things you either loved or hated about Kate; she was a perfectionist.
As they began hanging the finely crafted ornate balls from each of the willowy bows, Penny found herself transported to other Christmases.
There was her first real Christmas, with her foster family, O’Connells. They’d been nice to her while she was in their care. They treated her almost like their own, until it was time for her to go back.
You never got to settle when you were a foster child. You never really had a home.
It wasn’t until she met Kate in her last year of primary school, that Christmas began to have a whole new meaning.
She glanced at her friend as a wave of affection wafted over her. Kate had been her one constant in life, a true friend.
So was her family. They had welcomed her into their home and into their lives. Every Christmas, except before they left for New York, she’d spent with them in their Wimbledon home.
As she continued dressing the tree, the last thing Penny expected was to bump heads with Mike. Her forehead collided with his chin.
