Read Online Christmas at Lilac Cottage: (#1 White Cliff Bay) by Holly Martin - Free Book Online Page A

embarrassingly erupting in goosebumps at his proximity. Why was she so attracted to this man? Sure, he was good-looking, any idiot could see that, but there were lots of good-looking men in the town and she’d never reacted like this around them before. Was it the way he stared at her, as if he saw deep inside her? Was it having him in her home, the one place she always felt safe, and she just felt nervous about him being in her space? He wouldn’t hurt her, she knew that, well not physically, but he was exactly the sort of man who would ruin her. She feared for that.
    ‘You’re cold. Here, put this on,’ Henry said, draping his soft towelling robe round her shoulders. The scent of him washed over her, sweet, intoxicatingly spicy. She pushed her arms through the sleeves. The warmth of the robe did nothing to dispel the goosebumps.
    ‘I’m sorry she woke you.’
    She turned round to face him, determinedly looking at his eyes and not at those abs that she just wanted to reach out and touch.
    ‘It’s no problem at all.’
    He stared at her. What was with all the staring, that solid, unblinking, grey gaze? It made her want to run away and hide from it.
    ‘I’m sorry about…’ he gestured vaguely to upstairs and his bedroom. ‘I’d just woken up and thought I was dreaming.’
    She smiled, wanting to tease him to break the tension between them. ‘I gathered you were dreaming when you tried to pull me into bed with you. Who did you think I was, Angelina Jolie or Keira Knightley? I had a dream once that I was in bed with Brad Pitt and when I woke up I was cuddled up to poor Bernard.’
    He frowned. ‘I was dreaming about you and then I woke up and you were there.’
    There were no words in Penny’s head, nothing at all.
    Henry stepped a bit closer and pulled the robe tighter around her, fastening it with the belt. ‘Best dream I’ve ever had.’
    Part of her felt euphoric at the attention he was giving her but part of her was annoyed. He wasn’t really interested in her – flirting for him was like breathing. Henry could have any woman he wanted; he certainly wasn’t going to choose someone like her.
    He moved in, he was so close she could feel his warmth, feel his breath on her face, but he didn’t touch her, just leaned round her to pick the saucepan off the stove.
    ‘Your milk is boiling over.’ He poured the milk into the mug filled with the drinking chocolate and gave it a good stir, then pushed the mug into her hands. ‘Now drink this and get back to bed.’
    He flashed her a devastating smile and walked out without a look back.
----
    P enny woke to the smell of bacon cooking the next morning and she smiled. Bright winter sunshine was already filtering through the crack in the curtains, indicating that it was a lot later in the day than she would have liked. She had barely slept at all after Henry had left, as she tried to work out whether the looks, comments, little touches amounted to anything or nothing. She had finally fallen asleep at six in the morning when the darkness of her room had turned to a muted grey.
    She climbed out of bed, her hand hovering over Henry’s robe for a moment before she decided against wearing it for a whole host of reasons and settled on her own robe.
    She padded downstairs and smiled at her friend Jill standing in the kitchen frying bacon.
    Penny walked up behind her and wrapped her arms round Jill’s waist, leaning her head on her back. Jill jolted with shock for a second, before squeezing Penny’s hand and then resuming her cooking.
    ‘That’s a lovely greeting for this time in the morning,’ Jill said.
    ‘It’s lovely to be woken with the smell of bacon, but you know you don’t have to cook for me any more.’
    ‘And you know I like to. Tea is in the pot. You can pour me a mug too.’
    Penny smiled with love for her. She had known Jill Stratton her whole life as she had been the housekeeper, cook and unofficial nanny to her and her brother growing up. She