Christmas Down Under: Six Sexy New Zealand & Australian Christmas Romances

by Rosalind James

  “Because Eugenie feels guilty for leaving you so much when you were growing up. Because she’s grateful for my family for having you around. So it’s a favour. A thankyou really for being your friend.”

  “Your friend.” There was something about the way he said it that struck a chord.

  “Actually, your mother said more than that.” Penny looked Michael squarely in the face. “I think she said it was a – a thank you. For loving you.”

  Inside she said the words. I love you, Michael.

  If I told you, would it mean anything or is this all there is.

  She gestured to the box on the hall table. “Enjoy those Michael.”

  Then without looking back, she turned, and she left.

  Chapter Fourteen

  THE BABY shower was held at Daisy’s shop just off Ponsonby Road - Dreams by Poppy.

  Penny had spent all Saturday preparing the high tea for the predominantly female guests. There were chicken and rocket sandwiches cut in triangles, mini cupcakes, feta and caramelised onion tarts, squares of pink and white coconut ice, scones with cream and jam, and in the middle of the table, a layered red velvet cake with cream filling. Covering the cake were pink iced rosettes and on the top, yellow daisies.

  The girls had asked around and found more cloths and napkins, the Miller sisters’ collection of Grandma Poppy’s Royal Doulton tea cups, saucers and side plates, and Pen had raided her mum’s cupboards to find an eclectic assortment of silver cutlery. Daisy had also knitted tea cosies for the three tea pots. They matched the tableware. It was overkill, Michelle had confided to Penny, but Daisy loved crafts. Like baking was to Penny, crafts were to Daisy.

  It was meant to be a baby shower, although it wasn’t so much a baby shower as the “we’re pregnant” party. And in spite of Daisy insisting in her Facebook invite that no presents were to be bought, an impressive selection was piling up on the counter.

  Penny adjusted the mini cupcakes in the cupcake tower.

  As she checked it, Daisy’s husband Joel came up and gave it a once over.

  “It’s very–“ He stopped, and stared at it.

  Penny frowned. “It’s very what?”

  Joel raised his eyebrows. “Hell, I don’t know. I want to eat the thing. Is ‘pretty’ okay?”

  “Totally does it for me.” She sighed, wondered if she’d ever get her own baby shower any time soon. Probably when she was forty and needing IVF and heaven knows what else, the way she was going.

  She tried not to think about Michael.

  “You okay?” Joel asked.

  Pen wrinkled her nose. No. She wasn’t okay.

  “I gather there’s some guy?” Joel commented.

  Pen sighed. So much for blocking him from her mind. “Pillow talk, huh.”

  Joel looked over to where Daisy was talking to her sister, Petunia.

  Daisy’s hand was on her stomach. The bump was barely there but she was milking this for all it was worth.

  Joel said, “I’m her husband. She likes to tell me stuff.”

  “Isn’t talking about your friend’s relationships a bit girly,” Pen said, annoyed at the defensiveness in her tone.

  “Hell, yeah, but Daisy’s ways are rubbing off on me. So who is this guy and why aren’t you two together?”

  “Because…” Pen shook her head that she was actually telling another man this. “Because he thinks of me as his little sister.”

  Joel arched an eyebrow.

  Pen explained, “He was best friends with my brother and when Greg was dying, Michael promised he’d look after me. Take care of me.” She couldn’t help waggling her fingers in quotation marks. “Like a brother would.”

  “I see,” Joel said.

  Pen shifted some cakes around the plate. “You see what?”

  She shifted them back the original way. There was nothing else to do. It was all under control. Michelle would give a speech, Petunia would give a speech, Daisy would give a speech, then they could all eat.

  “I see what he’s doing,” Joel said.

  “Yeah, well, I see it too.” Penny reached into her pocket and checked her phone. No one had messaged her and why would they? Everyone was here.

  “If you see it,” Joel said, “then why do you look so depressed?”

  Pen looked at him as if he was a donut short of a bakery.

  “Wouldn’t you be? I mean, who in their right mind wants the man they…” She stopped right there. The man they love. She began again. “Who wants they man they have – feelings for - to treat them like a sister.”

  Joel turned around. “You really believe that?”

  “Of course. He told me. Several times actually. He promised Greg.”

  Joel shoved his hands in his pockets. “Look. I may be a complete idiot when it comes to relationships. As Daisy tells me. But I see two things you’re missing here.”

  Part of her wanted to turn away. What was she doing taking romantic advice from a professor? He wrote books on Rome and Greece. True, he happened to be- Pen discreetly glanced up and down at him – a ten. Undoubtedly the most gorgeous professor on campus.

  But then Michael was a ten.

  “Penny, do you even want me tell you?” Joel said. “A glazed look just went over your face.”

  Pen sighed. “Sorry. Do tell.”

  Joel folded his arms across his chest. “First,” Joel began. “You’re a woman. You’re not a kid. Your brother died a year ago and you weren’t a kid then, either.”

  “I know that. He doesn’t.”

  Joel stared at her in disbelief. “Really? You’re what? Daisy’s age? Older than Daisy”

  “Thirty-one? You think I’m older than thirty one?” Horrified, Pen reached in her bag for her mirror, “Hell, I’m younger than Daisy. Four years younger. Why do I look thirty-one? Is it the straight hair?”

  Joel looked at her as if she were an alien. “What’s wrong with looking thirty-one?”

  “Not when I’m twenty seven. That’s four whole years.” She didn’t have a lot going for her but she’d always thought her chubby cheeks were going to hold her in good stead as she got older. Clearly that had been a delusion.

  “I’m sorry I said anything,” Joel said.

  “No, I’m sorry for over-reacting. So I’m this supposedly ancient thirty-one year old.”

  Joel muttered, “Just let it go.”

  “I’m this over-the-hill chick, and he still thinks if me as his little sister.”

  “He’s a lawyer, right? He can’t be that thick.”

  “You were that thick. And you’re supposedly intelligent.”

  He glanced at her hands as they did quotation marks at the ‘supposed.’

  “You really ought to cut that out, Penelope. I’m detecting sarcasm.”

  She held them up again. “Really.”

  “Did anyone ever tell you you’re cute when you’re pissed off?”

  She grinned, lowered her hands and he said “Apology accepted. And getting back to the…” He raised his hands and did quotation marks. “Issue at hand. Yeah, I’m thick about women but I’m thicker than most. I’m one of a kind. This Michael cannot be like me.” He shuddered, seemed to be recollecting his romantic history. “No one can. But this thing he promised? It was that he’d look after you, right?”

  Pen nodded, swallowed, explained, “When he knew Greg was dying. He said he owed him for things that had happened in the past, and he told him he’d take care of him.”

  “Yeah, well, that’s where I beg to differ. I don’t think this Michael was promising this to his mate.”

  Pen stared at him again. “I don’t get what you’re saying.”

  “I’m saying that Michael made a promise. But it wasn’t to your brother.” Joel stared directly at her, raised his finger and pointed it at her. “He made that promise to you.”

  “Gather round,” Michelle said as she stood alongside Daisy who was beaming broadly.

  Everything was ready to go, bar the tea which she’d make wh
en Daisy was on to her speech. Milk was out in gorgeous little china jugs and sugar cubes with silver tongs in silver dishes were alongside them.

  It seemed a waste of time. The baby was only four months in utero. The only baby showers she’d ever been to had consisted of, if not an actual live baby, one that was weeks off entering the world.

  Michelle cleared her throat. “We are here to honour the offspring of my very dear friend, Daisy Miller-Benjamin-“

  “It’s Benjamin,” Daisy interrupted.

  Everyone stared at her.

  She stood up, beamed across at Joel and announced, “As of today, I am dropping the Miller from my name.”

  Michelle frowned. “But you’re a Miller woman. You said it would be a cold day in hell-”

  “I changed my mind.” Daisy grinned again at Joel. “It’s Daisy Benjamin from now on.”

  “Hallelujah,” Joel called out and everyone laughed.

  Pen would have laughed but it was damned near impossible when her mind was buzzing with everything Joel had said just minutes earlier.

  Was it true?

  Had that promise not been about Greg so much as about her? She mulled it over. According to Joel, whose authority was his stage one psychology paper and, he admitted, women’s magazines courtesy of waiting for Daisy at clinic appointments, Michael had promised Greg he’d look after Pen, but in fact, he was using it as a way to stay in Pen’s life. Because, Joel had posited, Michael wanted to be around her.

  The only problem with that observation, Pen had informed Joel, was that soon after Greg’s death, Michael had gone. He hadn’t been around. Not until the day he’d shown up at the café.

  According to Joel, this was because he couldn’t bear to see Pen in pain when there was nothing he could do. Hence waiting a year to come and see her.

  It kind of made sense.

  It also made no sense at all.

  Pen glanced out the window. Because if she, Pen, was in pain, shouldn’t he have been around to help her through it, not to leave her to suffer and grieve?

  And how come he had given her the money and she’d been left with the feeling that it was goodbye? Where did that fit into it?

  Joel came up to her then, and said, “Deep in thought. Not planning to have your own baby shower after you?”

  “No. But happy to cater for anyone else’s.”

  “All I can say is you have done a fantastic job. It looks like something out of magazine.”

  Joel’s praise made her happy. “I’ve been taking photos for my promotional purposes.”

  She looked up at him, said tentatively, “Can I ask you something?”

  “Shoot.”

  “What you said before, about Michael being in pain. I don’t get that. Why wouldn’t he want to do something, to reach out, to see if I was okay? How could he just carry on not knowing?”

  Joel had shaken his head. “See, you’re putting a female perspective on that. That’s what a woman would do. You don’t want to see people in pain so you want to do something about it. We don’t think like that. We block it out.” He glanced over at Daisy. “Apparently.”

  Penny frowned. “You block it out?”

  He nodded. “We ignore it. It’s like our brains have these…”

  “I don’t give a shit about your brain,” Pen said. She glared at him. “Are you freaking serious? You block it out?”

  “So I hear and don’t blame me. I didn’t invent me. Blame my parents.”

  Pen raised her hands. “Who in their right mind blocks out pain? You have to endure it, deal with it, you have to darn well suffer with it.” She stabbed his shoulder. “You do not pretend it isn’t happening. Everyone knows that. It’s so stupid.”

  “Yes. We are. We are frigging stupid. But that’s how we deal with it and you have to remember. This Michael was in pain, too.”

  “Why do you calling him “this” Michael?” Pen asked. “You make him sound like a complete jerk and he isn’t.”

  “He kind of is,” Joel said.

  “No, he’s not. He’s completely gorgeous. He’s smart. He’s funny, He’s so good looking. He plays the piano brilliantly. He was the best friend ever to Greg and my parents thought of him as their own son.”

  “He’s an insecure jerk.” Joel shook his head in disbelief. “Trust me. I know one when I see one because…” He stopped and quietly cleared his throat. “Well, I don’t need to tell you. But this Michael? I’m not trying to diss him. I don’t even know him. I just mean it all in a good way.”

  “You’re not making it sound like “a good way”, Joel.”

  “Don’t need to.” He snagged a tartlet from a china plate, and shoved it in his mouth before Penny could protest.

  “Oh man.” He closed his eyes. “Oh wow. What’s in this?”

  “Blueberries and vanilla, lavender-scented custard.”

  He finished it off. “Wow. Oh wow.”

  “So you really like it?”

  “Amazing.” He swallowed, stared with disdain at all the teapots. “Coffee?”

  “This is a tea party. We’ve got English Breakfast and Earl Grey. But,” she said on a faux painful sigh, “if you must, there’s freeze dried instant out the back.”

  “Not complaining. Beats this “tea” you girls are all besotted with.”

  He followed Pen out the back of Daisy’s shop, to where there was a tiny kitchen which was now packed with all the trappings of the tea party.

  “I’ll get it,” Joel said, spying the packet of instant on the cluttered counter.

  “No, I will.” Pen’s nerves were jumpy and she felt jittery, and she couldn’t blame it on too much coffee, or even nerves over the high tea. She was in her element doing this kind of thing. It made her happy. Gave her joy.

  At least, it was meant to.

  She said, “How do you take your coffee?”

  “Black. Strong.” He eyed up a plate with sandwiches that hadn’t survived the trip over from Pen’s parent’s place. “Can I have one of these?”

  “Go ahead. Have them all.”

  Pen put the kettle on to boil, and spooned coffee into a cup. She glanced over at him. “How do you figure that out? What you were saying about Michael? That he – you know – actually made the promise about me – to me.”

  Joel opened up the bread to inspect it.

  “Herbed chicken and the other ones are rocket and ham, with caramelised onion,” Pen pre-empted him.

  He took a bite, nodded appreciatively, and said, “I just know.”

  “You just know? That’s so lame. You steal my food and you criticise my – friend. That makes you the – arsehole,” Pen accused.

  “Language, Penelope. These are good. What was wrong with them?”

  “The bread got a little squashed.”

  There was a rap on the open door, and Joel’s friend, Rob Rafferty stepped in. “When are those girls going to do what they came here for and get stuck into that food?” He eyed up the plate of sandwiches. “What’s going on out here?” He narrowed his eyes at Joel. “What’s all this?”

  Pen gestured to the plate. “Help yourself. Before your friend here eats the lot.”

  “These are the seconds,” Joel said as he took another. “But there’s nothing second about them. What have I missed out there?”

  “Not a thing. Just all this baby talk. My wife, as the only one so far who’s actually had a baby, is divulging stuff I don’t want to hear, and you know why? Because I’ve seen it and I can’t un-see it, and that’s the thing.” He stabbed the air. “I admit she was there at the birth, but she never actually saw it. She never witnessed it. I damn well did and I don’t need to hear about it over and over and over again.”

  “I hear you,” Penny said. “I have no desire to hear all the details either and I’m a girl.” There was a tug on her heartstrings. She’d never thought she’d want a baby, that she wanted to be a mum. And she didn’t. She’d never been maternal, beyond her happiness when she baked and people got joy out of that
.

  Pity the poor child, anyway, if she ever did have one. She glanced at the box of cupcakes she’d made, extra ones in case they were needed. The kid would probably grow up with a weight problem and have food issues, anyway. Best she steered clear of inflicting that torture on her own child – for all their sakes.

  Her mind flicked back to Michael, as she poured water over the coffee and stirred.

  “So tell me, Joel,” she said. “Are all men stupid?”

  Rob had zeroed in on the sandwiches too, now. “Hell, yeah.” He snagged another. “Why do you ask?”

  “Your friend here has just made some pretty major accusations against one of your sex.”

  Joel sighed, wiped his hand on a paper napkin. Pen handed him his coffee.

  “Coffee,” Rob sighed. He looked plaintively at Pen.

  She took down another cup, made him his coffee as Michelle poked her head around the door.

  “Five minutes,” she said holding her hand up. She did a double take at Joel and Rob, the sandwiches and the coffee, and retreated.

  Penny began to make the tea.

  “You need to communicate,” Rob said. He inspected a sandwich and Joel said, “Herbed chicken.”

  Rob devoured it and Penny said, “I can’t risk it. I can’t…” She shook her head. “I can’t say to him how I feel because it’s…”

  She took a deep breath. “It’s not some random relationship. It’s not some guy that I can put out of my mind and forget all about.” She felt a sob in her chest and tamped it down. This was going to hurt so bad she didn’t want to think about how bad the pain was going to be.

  “So your choices,” Joel said, “are to tell him how you feel and risk rejection, or tell him how you feel and maybe there’ll be happiness.”

  It wasn’t even the risk of rejection. It was more than that. Much, much more but she couldn’t even think of the words to say it adequately.

  “I’m my own worst enemy,” Pen sighed heavily. “I’ve made up these scenarios, I’ve over-thought, I know I have. And now I don’t know where I am except…” She raised her shoulders. “Except that I have loved Michael for years, and it hasn’t gone away. I’ve pretty much loved him the first day I saw him.” And she feared, always would.