‘Maybe she’s just gone off to buy your Christmas present,’ Penny suggested, knowing that wasn’t it at all.

Henry scowled as he moved round the table towards her. ‘Talking of that, I need to go and finish her tree decoration. Will you be OK for half an hour?’

Penny nodded and he kissed her briefly before disappearing out the back door.

Doubt niggling in her mind, she opened the front door and stepped out onto the drive. At the bottom of the driveway stood the observation hut which was used by birdwatchers to keep an eye on the nesting cliff-dwelling birds, especially in the spring and summer months. It was also the place where some of the teenagers of the town used to hang out, especially teenage couples. She had used it herself in her youth to meet up with one or two boys. They’d sit, talk and listen to music. For her nothing further than a few kisses had happened in that hut but, with a small gas fire, gas lamps, a soft bench to lie on, it had been the place where several of her peers had lost their virginity. It was silhouetted against the pale twilight sky and, as she watched, flickering lights suddenly came on inside.

That’s where Daisy had gone. It was entirely possible that Daisy had gone there to meet up with her new friends Maisie and Rebecca. But that didn’t explain the two plates of cake crumbs and two glasses the night before. Her guess would be that Daisy was meeting up with Josh. Now, should she go down there and catch them in the act of doing lord knows what? Should she go and tell Henry that his daughter was currently lying in the aptly named ‘Love Shack’ with a seventeen-year-old tattooed thug, at least in his mind, or should she just pretend she knew nothing? Daisy was a sensible girl and any bridges that Penny had built with her would be destroyed if she marched straight into that hut now acting like an over-protective mum. Henry’s relationship with Daisy would be strained too if he found out and reacted in the way that Penny thought he would. And knowing Josh and his shy, sweet nature, they probably weren’t doing anything beyond holding hands. It was probably best to do nothing for now and get Daisy on her own later and maybe have a little word.

‘Come on, hurry, up, all the best trees will be gone,’ Daisy said as Penny tried to find a parking space at the tree farm that was big enough to hold her freezer van. Henry had had to help her deliver two ice carvings after dinner and it didn’t make sense to go back to the house to drop the van off. Plus as the van was so big it meant they could use it to stick the tree in the back.

‘I can’t just stick the van anywhere, plus they have hundreds of trees, I think there’ll be plenty of choice.’

‘There’ll only be little ones left.’

‘You can only really get a little one, the annexe is quite small.’

‘We always get the biggest, fattest tree we can find.’ Daisy bounced up and down in her seat like a small child. Penny loved her enthusiasm for life. ‘Will you get a tree?’

‘I’ll probably get a small one too.’

‘Noooo, you have all that space in front of the window. Or behind the sofa, you could get a massive one. I know, why don’t we get a shared one and we can all decorate it together.’

Penny parked the car and tried to dispel the huge lump of emotion that had lodged in her throat with that simple statement of togetherness from Daisy. She had accepted Penny into their little family so easily and readily.

Penny nodded. ‘OK.’

‘Yayyyy!’ Daisy bounced out the van and set off at a sprint towards the plethora of trees.

As soon as she was out of sight, Henry leaned across and kissed her sweetly.

‘She adores you,’ he whispered. ‘And I do too.’

He got out and lumbered across the grass after his daughter. Penny smiled as she watched him go. This was turning out to be the best Christmas ever.

She got out and walked across the grass. It was snowing lightly again and she looked up at the occasional star that shone through the cloud-filled sky as the soft flakes dusted her cheeks.

She caught up with Henry and had to shove her hands in her pockets so she wasn’t tempted to hold his hand.

The trees were stacked in size order and she watched as Daisy walked past the smaller ones and headed straight for the big ones at the end of the farm.

They reached the part that sold the biggest trees and, although all of these were way too big for the house, she didn’t have the heart to say anything, not when she had been inducted into their little decorating team. Daisy was going from tree to tree, feeling the needles, smelling them, looking at the labels. Penny had never bothered to look at the trees before, she had just bought the first smallest one she had seen and that was it.

‘Surely all the trees are the same,’ Penny said.

‘No, definitely not,’ Daisy said. ‘There’s three main types: a pine, a fir or a spruce. The spruce is generally rubbish. There are several different types of fir and pine trees and we want one that has a good needle retention, even without water. You want soft needles too and something that smells good. Generally we are looking for a Nordman or a Noble fir but I’d settle for a White Pine.’

Penny glanced at Henry as Daisy disappeared round the back of the tree. ‘She knows her trees?’

He nodded. ‘She takes this part very seriously, and the fact that you’ve been invited to join us shows how much she likes you.’

Penny smiled.

‘OK, this is the one,’ Daisy said, triumphantly, lovingly stroking the winning tree.

Penny looked up and up. It had to be at least twelve feet high.

‘Daisy, that’s never going to fit in my house, let alone yours.’

‘It will if we stick it under the stairs, you have that space going up to the second floor – and so what if the top sticks through the bannister a bit, or rests on the ceiling? This is going to look fab.’

Henry was already moving off to tell one of the staff which tree he wanted, clearly knowing that Daisy wasn’t to be talked out of it.

Before Penny could protest any further, the tree was bagged up into a big net and between the three of them, Henry carrying most of the weight, they just about managed to get the tree into the van, with the top three feet sticking out the back.

Henry secured the doors to make sure they weren’t going to swing open and Penny drove them home.

They struggled to get the tree in as Bernard, showing the most life she’d ever seen from him, ran around barking at them as they brought the invader into his home.

They stuck it in the corner so the top of the tree protruded up somewhere on the second floor at the top of the stairs.

There were never going to be enough decorations in the world to fill this thing. Penny guessed they’d have to go for a minimalist look.

‘I’ll get the decorations,’ Daisy said, running off to the shed where lots of their boxes were stored.

‘We should probably just stick to one colour, I have lots of silver baubles upstairs, we could have a silver theme…’ She trailed off as Henry was looking at her incredulously.

‘A silver theme? Erm, our decorations are an eclectic mix, there certainly isn’t a theme to them.’

‘But it will look really busy.’

He grinned. ‘We like busy. Why don’t you put some Christmas music on and heat up some of your wonderful mince pies and I’ll go and help Daisy with the decorations.’

She frowned slightly as she watched him go. She couldn’t pick holes in their tradition, not after she had been accepted so easily into the inner sanctum of the tree decorating team. A multi-coloured tree certainly wouldn’t go with her rather tasteful green and white light garlands and decorations but she would just have to let it go.

She built a fire in the fireplace, put on some Christmas songs and went to sort out the mince pies just as Daisy came back, weighed down by three large boxes.