‘I have had the best night ever,’ Daisy announced to her dad and Penny moved to the doorway to watch her. Henry was sitting on the sofa, reading a book, which he immediately put down to give his undivided attention to Daisy. He was wearing glasses and his feet were bare and there was something that made her stomach leap with affection for him at these small little attributes.

‘Dad, I came third. Admittedly it was only out of eight people, well six, but still I came third and Jackson Cartwright was a judge and he said he was so impressed by my sculpture and…’

‘Wait, you entered into the competition? I didn’t know you had been creating your own sculpture, why didn’t you tell me? I would have come.’

‘I didn’t think it was any good, it was my first attempt and… I don’t know, I didn’t want you to see me fail.’

‘I’ve told you before, you can only fail if you don’t have a go. I’m so proud of you for entering. I wish you would have told me.’

‘Sometimes you get a bit funny about my art.’

Henry looked shocked. ‘I’ve always supported your art. I’ve paid for courses, I’ve taken you to exhibitions, I’ve bought you art gear…’

‘But whenever I tell you I want to be an artist when I’m older, you always tell me not to neglect my other subjects.’

‘That has nothing to do with me not supporting your art and everything to do with you being a lazy sod when it comes to your homework.’ He put on a high-pitched girly voice. ‘Dad, I don’t need to do my maths homework because I’m going to be an artist when I’m older. Dad, I don’t need to do this history essay because I’m going to be an artist.’

Daisy giggled at the terrible impression.

‘You’re a clever girl, Daisy. You could be anything you want to be when you’re older, a doctor, scientist, astronaut. If you want to be an artist then I’ll be behind you one hundred percent, but that does not mean you get to take it easy in all your other subjects. In a few years’ time you might decide that you don’t want to be an artist any more, you might want to be a vet or a translator or prime minister. You can’t do those things without your GCSEs. You have six months until you finish school and you can study whatever course you want at college but you’re damned well going to work your arse off between now and then.’

Daisy smiled. ‘OK.’

‘And next time, tell me when you enter a competition and then I can cheer the loudest when you win, or boo really loudly at the winner if you lose.’

‘Penny won,’ Daisy said and Henry looked over at her.

‘You did, that’s fab. I wouldn’t have booed at you if I’d been there,’ Henry said and then to Daisy he whispered, loudly, ‘Well, maybe I’d boo quietly.’ Daisy and Penny laughed. ‘I don’t suppose there’s photos of these wonderful sculptures.’

‘I have photos on my phone,’ Daisy said, grabbing her phone and, pressing a few buttons, she passed it to Henry. ‘That’s mine.’

‘Wow, this is really great, and you did all this on your own?’

‘Penny did the chainsaw bit, she wouldn’t let me use that.’

‘Good job too, some of those tools look lethal.’ He flashed Penny a look of concern.

‘She’s very sensible when she uses the tools, and I’ve showed her the correct way to use them,’ Penny said.

Henry still didn’t look happy about this but he clearly decided to let it go. ‘It’s very good, you really do have a skill for this.’

‘This is Penny’s.’

Henry gave a low whistle. ‘That’s seriously good. Wait, what’s this?’

Daisy leaned over to look and laughed. ‘That’s Fabio’s sculpture before it got broken.’

Penny flushed as Henry stared at it. ‘This Fabio seems to be very familiar with his subject.’

‘Hardly, he missed out all my wobbly bits.’

Henry’s eyes cast over her. ‘He seems to have done a good enough job. So you and he…?’

‘No, definitely not, not ever,’ Penny said.

‘Not from lack of trying though,’ Daisy giggled as she pressed a button on her phone and played the video of Fabio’s bizarre proposal.

Henry burst out laughing.

‘Oh, well, on that rather embarrassing note, I’ll leave you all to it. Daisy, I’m really glad you came tonight. I hope the crazies didn’t put you off.’

Daisy shook her head. ‘I loved it, thank you.’

Penny smiled briefly at them and shut the door between them. She walked into the front room where Bernard was on the sofa, upside down, tongue sticking out of his mouth, snoring loudly.

She fiddled around with her iPod, choosing a random playlist and something soft, sweet and slow drifted out of the speakers. She lit a fire and a few candles that smelt of spiced apples and mulled wine. A perfect romantic night for one. She sighed. She didn’t fancy reading or watching telly. She wasn’t sure what to do with herself. Next door she could still hear the soft sounds of Henry and Daisy talking and laughing.

It had been an odd twenty-four hours, with the sea rescue, seeing Kathleen, the farce of the ice carving competition and that incredible kiss that seemed to have almost been forgotten by the man who had done it. She closed her eyes and touched her lips, remembering what it felt like to have his lips there. Her memories replayed the event perfectly: his softness, the way he had held her, the taste of him, his sweet, spicy smell. She could smell him now, the warmth of his scent wrapping round her.

Suddenly her eyes snapped open, realising that his warmth and scent was a real thing. She span around and he was standing right there in her body space.

‘Sorry, I didn’t want to scare you, you seemed miles away.’

She flushed. Did he know she had been thinking of him?

‘I just wanted to say thank you for tonight, I haven’t seen Daisy smile as much for a long time.’

Penny swallowed down the emotion of having him so close. ‘No problem.’

He still didn’t move as he stared down at her. She looked away briefly, to see the connecting door was closed. He hadn’t just come to say that.

He reached out to touch her hair, running one finger down its length and rubbing the end over his thumb. She couldn’t move away from him. He was going to ruin her and there was nothing she could do to stop it. He ran a finger down her cheek and everything in her melted so she was surprised she was still standing. How could something so simple have such an effect on her?

He sighed heavily and stepped back slightly, breaking the spell between them.

‘Daisy has always hated my girlfriends. Even when she was little if I went on a date with a woman she would cry and scream. There was never that many, anyway. Raising a child on your own, there isn’t much time for anything. But I had invited one or two women back when she was six or seven and it always ended with her crying hysterically. I stopped bringing women to the house after that and dated women in secret for years. I vowed that I would never bring anyone home unless it was a serious relationship. Since she’s got older, she’s met quite a few of my girlfriends and never liked any of them either. I think Rosie was the only one she liked. They’d go out together, go shopping. When we broke up I think Daisy was more upset by it than Rosie was.’

He moved his hand to link his fingers with hers. ‘Even though she has hated almost every single one of the girlfriends she has met, she has never asked me not to date anyone before. Until you.’

Penny took a step back, wounded. ‘I’m not good enough for you.’

Henry shook his head. ‘No, that’s not it at all. I’m not good enough for you. She really likes you and she’s scared I’ll hurt you. I am rubbish at relationships, I generally pick people that I think I can have a good time with and don’t think beyond that. I always end things before they get too close, mainly because of Daisy. It’s hard to think about turning our team of two into a three on a permanent basis. It would have to be someone who Daisy gets on with and until Rosie there hadn’t been anyone and I never saw Rosie as someone I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. I have never imagined waking up every day lying next to the same woman for the rest of my life, or sitting down to breakfast and dinner with the same woman every day. There has been no one that I wanted to do that with until now.’ He sighed heavily. ‘I’m really painting myself in a bad light here, aren’t I, and I don’t blame you at all if you just want to be friends but…’