Daisy ran out and Henry went to follow her but Penny snagged his arm. ‘Wait a second.’

He removed his arm from his grasp, her betrayal burning in his gut. She should never have kept it secret. If he had known about this he could have had a civilised conversation with his daughter about sex. He should never have found out like this. His eyes strayed to the condoms again and the anger bubbled back to the surface. ‘Stay away from my daughter and stay away from me. I never want to see you again.’

He stormed out the hut, ignoring the devastation on Penny’s face.

It was hours later by the time Penny went home. Not wanting to face Henry, she had walked the cliffs with Bernard until hours after it had gone dark. She had also cried every tear she had. Finally, when the tears had subsided and only a numb pain remained, Penny made her way back home.

It was ridiculous to fall so hard, so quickly for Henry, it shouldn’t hurt this badly after only knowing him for a week, but even knowing how silly it was to have these feelings there was nothing she could do to stop it.

She let herself in through the back door and her eyes immediately glanced over to the connecting door. Their lights were off and the house was silent. Henry’s car was still parked outside so they hadn’t gone out or, even worse, packed up and left.

She grabbed her keys for her freezer van so she could unload the remaining smaller blocks that hadn’t been used at the workshop earlier back into her walk-in freezer. Luckily she had cut the normal-sized big blocks up into smaller pieces for the workshop so she could carry them on her own, even if they were still heavy.

She carried them into the cool room one at a time and then opened the freezer door. Weirdly, the door stuck but she gave it several big yanks and eventually it came away from the frame.

Inside, a large pool of water had frozen on the floor, creating a mini ice skating rink inside her freezer.

She stared in horror as the reality of the situation settled in. Not only had several large blocks of ice for future carvings melted away to nothing but so had a carving for a corporate party the following night, her competition piece for the Christmas Eve ball and a carving ordered by a man who was going to propose to his girlfriend on Tuesday night. She felt sick. Out of the three carvings that had gone, the proposal one was the worst because she knew her oversized diamond ring was the finale in a whole trail of romantic gestures the man had organised. She couldn’t let him down. If these had melted due to the power cut the night before, then the ice in the block maker machines would have melted too. And they would take three days to refreeze. They might be ready by Tuesday night but not in time for her to carve before the proposal.

She looked at the five smaller blocks sitting in the cool room. She could fuse three of them together to make one big block. The join lines would be quite prominent but she could still create a large ring out of it and surely the man wouldn’t mind as long the gesture was the same. She would refund him if he was upset with the quality but at least he would have the oversized diamond ring. She would have to call the organisers of the corporate party to cancel the other order.

She quickly brought the smaller blocks into the freezer, wet the ends and clamped three of them together to make one big block. It would be ready for her to carve by the next day.

She walked out into the kitchen and saw Daisy waiting for her.

As soon as Daisy saw her, she burst into tears.

Penny rushed over and quickly took her in her arms as Daisy sobbed against her.

‘Hey, what’s with all these tears?’ Penny said, stroking the back of her head.

‘I’m so sorry. All of this is my fault. I should never have hid it from Dad and I should never have asked you to cover for me…’

‘You have nothing to be sorry for.’

‘But now my dad hates you.’

It was like a punch to the gut all over again. Henry did hate her, she had seen it in his eyes. That was the worst part of it, seeing that look in his eyes had confirmed that he had never felt for her what she felt for him. Penny hadn’t manipulated Daisy into thinking that she liked her or used Daisy to get to her dad or even told Daisy a nasty pack of lies like Henry’s previous girlfriend had. Although Henry had every right to be angry at her, she didn’t deserve that kind of anger. She had done the best thing she could for Daisy, but Henry was treating her like she was the lowest form of scum.

She swallowed down the pain as she prepared to lie to Daisy. ‘He doesn’t hate me. He was angry and he had every right to be.’

‘I thought you two would get together and I’ve ruined that now.’

‘You’ve not ruined anything.’

‘I’m not talking to him if that helps,’ Daisy said.

Penny somehow found the energy to smile slightly at that. ‘Honey, I don’t want you hating your dad over this. This is between me and him and I never want to be the person that comes between you two.’

Daisy held her tighter as she cried. ‘Will you forgive him? When he apologises, which he will because I’ll make him. You will forgive him, won’t you?’

Penny pulled back slightly and kissed Daisy’s forehead. ‘Whatever happens between me and Henry, me and you will still be friends, you don’t ever need to worry about that.’

Daisy stared at her for a moment before fresh tears filled her eyes. ‘You won’t forgive him, will you?’

Penny decided for once she was going to be honest with her and she shook her head. ‘I don’t think I can.’

‘Why?’ Daisy cried.

Anger suddenly replaced all the pain she was feeling. ‘Because my last boyfriend treated me so badly and I’m not going to put up with it again. Your dad always told me I deserved better and I do. No one gets to treat me like a piece of shit and then come crawling back and apologise for it later. If you care for someone, you’d never treat them like that in the first place.’

A noise at the connecting door made them both look up. Henry was standing there but, silhouetted in the darkness, Penny had no idea what expression was on his face.

‘You better go,’ Penny said to Daisy. ‘But remember what I said, it’s not going to change things between us.’

Daisy sniffed and nodded and then she walked towards the door.

Penny didn’t wait to see if Henry would say anything to her once Daisy had gone upstairs. She turned away and went to bed.

Penny woke to movement in her kitchen the next morning and wondering if it might be Henry – maybe even half hoping – she pulled on her robe and walked downstairs. She was only slightly disappointed to see Jill banging around and making breakfast.

Jill smiled hugely when she saw her and gave her a big hug. She pulled back slightly and her face fell.

‘You’ve been crying, what’s happened?’

Penny shook her head. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘It obviously does.’

There was a noise from upstairs in the annexe as clearly someone got out of bed and suddenly Penny didn’t want to be there. Either Henry was going to come downstairs and shout at her some more, apologise profusely or ignore her completely and she didn’t want to be there for any of that.

She still had that proposal carving she needed to do, but that could wait until later.

‘What did you have planned for today?’

Jill picked up on her urgency straight away. ‘I… was going to take you out for the day.’

Penny smiled with love for her. ‘I’d really like that.’

‘Well, go and get dressed then, while I put these breakfast things away.’

Penny nodded with gratitude and ran upstairs.

The amazing scents of the Christmas market in the next town of Apple Hill could be smelt from the very back of the car park and it was all the more magical with the snow that was falling quite heavily around them, settling on the car roofs and in the grass.