“Well, seems to me,” Rob murmured, “that either way, you’re screwed on this.” He reached for another sandwich. “And as a man, I can tell you that if he has feelings for you, he’s probably more scared of them than you are of yours. He’s running.
Which means, Pen, that you’re in the box seat with this. And it depends what you’re going to do about it.”
“So it’s down to me.” She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t risk it. She couldn’t.
“You’re the stronger sex,” Joel said as he drained his coffee. “It’s probably time you acted like it.”
“You’re both so lame,” Penny fumed.
Rob nodded as he pushed himself off the bench. “With a capital ‘L’. I’ve been true to myself my entire thirty-whatever-it-is years and never tried to deny it”
“Same.” Joel got his feet. “So that guy, Penny?” He reached out to carry the teapot out to the table. “All I can say is, good luck with that.”
Chapter Fifteen
“I WANT to talk to you.” Michelle came in, sat down next to Penny, took the glass of wine from her hand, and said, “I want to say how sorry I am.”
Pen glanced at her. “What have you done now?”
“I’ve been a bitch.”
Pen’s mouth curled up. “Who to?”
“To you.”
Pen glanced at her wine glass in Michelle’s hand and felt as if the world had just shifted. “I think I need that back.”
Michelle grinned. “I think you’re right.” She handed it back to Pen, went out, and a minute later, came back with her own.
She held it up to Pen. “Let’s make a toast. To you and me. To our miserable love lives.”
Pen clinked it, tried not to think just how accurate the words were. It hurt. The pain went deep. It so hurt. It sucked.
“To our miserable love lives,” she echoed. She took a sip, and prayed, Block it out, God. Block it out now so I don’t have to feel it anymore. So I don’t have to be the loser you so clearly created with all that ‘formed in the womb, I know the hairs on your head’ stuff she remembered from her brief foray to church.
She took another sip. Waited for something to happen.
She made herself think of Michael and it was still there. The pain was still there. The loss. But what had she lost when she’d never had him, not in that way.
She took another sip, then another, but she needed something else. “Have you got any cigarettes?”
Michelle stood up. “What kind of dumb question is that?”
Outside, out the back of the house on the back porch, Michelle reached into her pocket, and pulled out a half empty pack.
“Wait.” Pen looked around. “We can’t do it here.”
Michelle looked longingly at the packet. “I know I’ve never smoked here at your folk’s house. But why not? They’re not here.”
“I know.” Pen beckoned across the fence. “But Mr Caine is and you know he’s a nosy neighbour, and as soon as he sees mum and dad, he’ll report me. And the others are smoke Nazis. They’re campaigning to get smoking banned from inner city parks.”
Michelle looked appalled. “Screw that. It’s the only place I ever do it.”
Pen laughed at the look on Michelle’s face, and for a moment felt the heaviness lift. Just as quickly, she realised the absurdity of it.
Pen hadn’t smoked a cigarette in years.
You’re driving me to it, Michael McGuinn. You are driving me to it.
She said, “We’ll have to go and sit in the wood shed.”
They went over to the shed, Pen yanked open the door with one hand, and nearly spilled her wine as she stumbled.
In the dim light, Michelle held up her lighter and they glanced around. There was the remaining wood from last winter piled up, dust and, no doubt, spiders and cobwebs. Pen tested her dad’s chopping block, smooth from years of use, and Michelle gingerly sat on a pile of wood.
“You might get splinters,” Pen said. “Here.”
She shrugged out of her jacket and Michelle sat on it.
There was enough light coming in through the gaps in the timber cladding and when Pen was perched on the chopping block, Michelle handed her a cigarette, and lit it for her.
“I haven’t done this in years,” Pen said.
“There comes a time when no one in the world has the right to pass judgement,” Michelle said.
Pen inhaled, coughed, inhaled some more. Her brief flirtation with smoking had been for a boy she’d been trying to get over when she’d been nineteen, and maybe a few here and there after that but that had been years ago.
“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” she said. She wondered what Michael was doing now, wondered if emphysema was already settling in her lungs. She inhaled more steadily. “Bloody cancer sticks.”
“I bloody love them.” Michelle lit up, sighed happily, and for a second they sat in the silence.
Pen waved the smoke away even though she couldn’t see it. “It’ll get all over my clothes. I’ll smell like a nicotine addict.”
She could imagine the smoke swirling around them and sitting on their clothes and in their hair, and realized she actually didn’t care. Who was going to smell it anyway?
And it wasn’t as if Michael was going to storm over and tell her to harden up.
In the dim light, Michelle grinned. “I won’t tell your folks.”
Pen took another inhalation, and marvelled at the glow of the burning ash. Michelle said, “We’re nuts. We’re like stupid ten years old.”
“We’re worse. I didn’t even do this when I was ten. I was anti-smoking right up until my first adult break up. I’m still anti-smoking.” She took another puff, felt mildly ill, and muttered, “Men.”
“They screw you over,” Michelle said.
Pen smiled as they picked up their glasses and drank some more wine.
Then Michelle sighed.
“Pen, I meant what I said before. I want to apologise to you. For being an absolute bitch.”
Pen was silent, watching the dark image of Michelle through the smoke and the faint glare of the burning cigarette.
Michelle said, “I was wrong about Michael and I was wrong about your feelings for him.”
Pen shook her head. “No, you were right. You were right all along.”
“No, I was wrong. And I will go to my grave admitting that I was wrong because the thing is, I kept thinking it was some stupid crush, just like I’d had on him all those years ago.”
She was silent a moment. “But I just don’t think life’s that cruel. It can’t be. Not to you. And I was thinking about something all day today and I just couldn’t get it off my mind.”
“What were you thinking?”
“I was thinking – what if it’s meant to work out with the two of you? Like some cosmic plan.”
Pen tamped quickly down on the spark of hope. “It won’t.”
“Pen. What if it could?” Michelle stopped then and took a deep, inhalation. “Have you ever allowed yourself to think about the ‘what if’?”
Pen bit down on her lip, felt the pain begin to surface.
“No.” She hadn’t. Not for a long time. “Because I can’t,” she said. “I can’t think about that, I can’t let myself even go there-“
“But what if?” Michelle said it stronger and there was a determination in her voice. “What if you told him you loved him, that you were in love with him, what if he told you he loved you-“
“Michelle, quit it.”
“What if you got married to him, what if you had babies, what if he was your perfect lover and you were his perfect lover-“
“There’s no such thing.” Pen squeezed her eyes shut tight. “And I would never be his perfect lover.”
“What if it was meant to be and all this – all this absolute confusion that’s gone on, everything that’s gone on, has just been a way for you to be together because you’re meant to be together, but he can’t see it because–“
�
�Stop.”
“No, I won’t stop, because what if he actually really does love you but he’s ignoring it because he thinks you think of him as a brother but all the time, he loves you, Pen, he wants you.”
Pen stood up so fast she kicked the glass on the floor, and it toppled and smashed.
The noise was loud.
She stood still as Michelle’s words washed over her.
What if.
Michelle took a drag, while Pen went to the door.
“Michelle, I…. I can’t think that. It’s a dream. It’s a fantasy. That’s what it’s been like with Michael right from the beginning. Just a crazy dream that won’t go away.” That sadness that was so familiar to her now settled heavily again on her chest. “I can’t think that,” she repeated, half to herself.
“Yes. You can. You have to. Because there is always going to be a ‘what if’ with this. I don’t think it’s ever going to leave you because it hasn’t yet.”
“That’s what I dread. I’ve tried to put him out of my mind and every day I wake up and think, I’m not going to think about him. I’m going to push Michael out of my mind, but it comes back. He comes back. It never lasts.”
“Maybe that’s because you’re meant to be together and he’s too blind to see it and you’re too thick to even think it could happen and if that sounds harsh, Pen, then I don’t care because maybe..” She stopped, took a drag on her cigarette, and Pen waited.
“Maybe,” Michelle said, “It’s because it’s the truth.”
“I just need to forget him,” Pen said quietly. Even saying that made her heart ache so badly. She took an exceptionally long drag.
“No. You don’t, because this has gone on too long. I don’t think life can be this cruel because this isn’t some stupid crush that lasts six months, then a year later you wonder what you ever saw in him, and that’s it. I know you, and this is different, and you are always going to wonder. You’re always going to think, what if it could have been? Why didn’t I take a risk and go to him and lay my heart on the line because what if? It will haunt you. The ‘what if’ will never go.”
“You’ve been reading too many romance novels at Daisy’s shop,” Pen accused.
Michelle laughed. “Romance novels are nothing like this, because this is reality. Michael McGuinn is a man who assigned you a place in his life as Penny Portman, the sister, and if he starts to think of you as a woman, maybe even his lover, he can’t do it because he’s got this guilt complex which your bloody brother gave him. So he forces it to the back of his mind or some other compartment men are supposed to have, which we clearly don’t have because he can compartmentalise it and not deal with it.” She took a drag. “You really should read, “The A to Z of Guys and Girls.” I’ve got a copy sitting in Daisy’s shop. I’ll bring it home one day. It’s all there under ‘C. Compartmentalisation.” And I think D for Disassociation. I must look it up when I go to work.”
Penny glanced dubiously in Michelle’s direction. “Is that even real? I’ve never heard that before.”
“That’s because you’ve never been in a situation where you’ve had to hear it.” She looked at her. “You’ve never been in love with anyone else. Not like this.”
Pen sighed. That was true.
Michelle said, “Daisy would tell you it is all psychobabble. But I don’t see it like that.”
Penny buried her face in her hands. “So what am I meant to do then? Bare my soul to him? Risk my heart? Go to him and tell him how I feel, even though I have no idea what he’s going to say, what he’s going to think?” The idea of it made her nauseous, made her want to go away and just let it lie there and pretend she’d never had these feelings. Pretend that she and Michael had never had those moments. To just block them out.
She said, “What if he tells me I’m wrong and he loves me as a sister and that he never has had feelings for me?”
“Then he’s lying.”
Pen took a drag on the last of the cigarette. She felt even sicker, and debated the sense of having another one.
She leant back instead, felt the dusty wooden frame of the shed beneath her hair. “You forget one thing. He made a promise to Greg. He told him he’d look after me and Michael owes Greg that. He wants to keep an eye on me, to do that brotherly thing. And I don’t think there’s any way he will ever admit anything else. Ever.”
MICHAEL PARKED across the road from the café – soon to be Pen’s café – and stared across at it.
He’d been here a few times over the past few years but he’d never hung around long. He’d ordered coffee to take away, and once he’d sat inside and eaten lunch. Every time, he’d been going to see Jerome.
Every time he’d chickened out.
And in a few months’ time, this would be a cake shop. Pen’s shop with her name on it. Her dream. Her business.
Her new life.
He climbed out of his car, locked it, waited for a break in the traffic, and then jogged across the road.
He paused for a minute, and glanced around. She’d do well here. There was a market for good cafes with the kind of food Pen did, and he had no doubt now. She was going to be a success.
Stuck to the window was a sign announcing the café was moving premises to a bigger, brighter store when they re-opened after the New Year break.
They’d done well here, in this spot and sometime soon there’d be a different sign on the window. One announcing the opening of Pen’s café.
Had she come up with a name yet?
He stepped inside, and the scent of coffee instantly teased him. As he went up to the counter, he glanced briefly at the noticeboard. The owners contributed a lot to the community, contributed to a church foodbank, helped out with the homeless that populated the street, and he could see Pen doing that. She had a good heart.
He could imagine her walking down the street, boxes of cupcakes in her arms, imagined how good it would make you feel if you were down on your luck and someone handed you a perfectly iced cake.
His gaze slipped past the community advertisements to a sheet of paper with a dog staring out. The dog had been missing for several days, and the family were desperate to get him back. He read the writing beneath it, felt his heart twinge at the loss of a much loved pet.
Michael shoved his hands in his trouser pockets as he stared at the dog.
A staff member suddenly stopped next to him, a tray of dirty plates in her hands and she exclaimed, “I was meant to take that poster down this morning.”
“Did something happen to the dog?” Michael asked curiously.
“Oh, yeah. They found him. The minister at the church up on the corner spotted him yesterday, and returned him. Everyone around here knows Jimmy.” She began to reach out and Michael pre-empted her before she lost her load of crockery.
“I’ll get it.” He took out the pin, and the paper as the girl said, “I’ve never seen the owners so happy as when they came in last night with Jimmy.” She sighed. “We were all in tears.”
Still holding the poster, Michael ordered a long black from the counter, and took a seat at an empty table by the window.
He sat back, shut his eyes, and the heaviness that had been sitting inside him suddenly began to ache.
What a mess this all was, this thing with him and Pen. What a God damned mess.
What a confusing mess.
He opened his eyes and looked out over Ponsonby Road.
Why hadn’t she been open with him? Why hadn’t she told him about her dream?
Yet she’d confided in his father, had confided it all.
That bugged him. Bugged him that Eugenie had been behind the idea, that his folks who had known Penny all of a few weeks, had been the ones to make it a reality.
Yes, he’d given her the money, but it had been Jerome and Eugenie who had wanted this to happen for her, who out of gratitude for her being a sister to him, had made this happen.
She’d only told him the truth once she had the money in her account.
His coffee arrived, and he automatically pulled his phone out to check his calls.
A second later, he stuck it back in his pocket, all interest gone.
He stared again at the Lost notice. Jimmy was a five-year-old Scottie, crossed with something else, a family pet.
At least, he thought grimly, the owners had found their pet. He was happy for them about that.
Losing a pet was rough. Not that he knew from his own experience, but he knew it from friends. He’d never had a cat or a dog to even know what that felt like, but loss was hideous, and when you loved someone, eventually one of you had to lose.
He’d lost Greg. Everyone had lost Greg, but the Portmans had suffered the most. No parent should have to lose a child, ever.
You’ve been afraid of losing Pen.
Michael stared, suddenly still, at the face of little Jimmy on the paper. The thought came to him again, and he mulled it over.
Had he been afraid of losing her?
Her branching out, her proving to the world she was more than a woman who made cupcakes, had tugged at something within him, something he hadn’t wanted to analyse.
He tapped his fingers on the table top, and stared down at the picture of Jimmy.
He’d had Pen in his life as much as he’d had Greg. He’d had Dave and Jackie, too, and he knew he’d never lose them.
Dave had told him the day of the funeral that he, Michael, was a link to Greg, so No, he wasn’t going to lose the Portmans.
But Pen…
He stopped tapping his fingers, and stared blankly ahead.
He was scared as hell of losing her.
The moment he’d gone to the café that Thursday night, and seen her, she hadn’t left his mind or his heart.
And the thought that she wouldn’t be around was like a corkscrew to his heart, being twisted and turned and then twisted again for good measure.
He’d promised Greg he’d look after Pen nearly two years ago.
He’d thought he’d done it for Greg.
Had he been using Greg to keep Penny?
To keep Penny because he loved her.
Loved her so much he’d been blind to the truth.
Christmas Down Under: Six Sexy New Zealand & Australian Christmas Romances Page 97