Promising Penny

By Joanne Hill

Penny Portman works in her parents’ Auckland cafe and dreams of running her own cakery one day. When old friend Michael – her late brother’s best friend – shows up out of the blue, her old feelings for him resurface, and she wonders if he will ever think of her as more than plain Penny – his honorary sister.
Michael has just had the year from hell – losing his best friend and riddled with guilt over the way he’s neglected Penny, he’s come out of that wilderness to get his life back on track – and most of all, to make it up to Penny for not being around. But he quickly discovers there’s more to Pen than he ever realised.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Joanne Hill
• Release date: Aug 29, 2016
• ISBN: 9780994116673

Joanne Hill

Joanne writes contemporary romance novels, often with a rom-com twist. She researched category romance from a Readers Advisory perspective for her masters degree, and has presented a paper on the research at the Library Association conference. She lives in New Zealand. For more information, visit www.joannehill.com.

Book preview

96

PROMISING PENNY

Joanne Hill

Smashwords Edition (c) 2015

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission of the author, except for review or promotional purposes. This is a work of fiction and liberties may have been taken with some details.

ISBN 978-0-9941166-7-3

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

EPILOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

IT TOOK ONLY a second for Penny Portman to recognise the figure standing on the darkened footpath outside. The sign on the door announced the café had closed, but still, he continued to knock, and Penny’s heart began to beat faster.

She pushed back her shoulders, repeated to herself, I am calm, wiped her unnaturally sweaty palms down her jeans, and unbolted the door.

Michael McGuinn stood looking down at her, a smile on his handsome face, and an endearing warmth in his eyes. It was the degree of warmth he’d shower on a long-lost puppy that had returned.

The look irritated her. Despite the fact she’d been in love with the man for a decade.

What are you doing here? she asked.

He straightened. I haven’t seen you for months, Penelope Portman, and this is what you say?

She folded her arms across her chest. Maybe, she said, "it’s because I haven’t seen you for months, that my greeting is one of, shall we say, utter shock."

It is out of the blue. He pulled back the cuff of his shirt to check his wristwatch. I was heading through this way and took a chance you’d be here. And you are. Geez, it’s good to see you, Pen.

His smile, his charming smile, reminded her just how long she’d been captivated by it.

It was well over a decade. Fifteen years, if she was counting.

He said, So, how are you, Pen?

How was she? There were too many answers to the question, so she said, I’m fine.

You look fine. His gaze skipped down over Greg’s old sweatshirt, and back up to her face. You look good, the same old Pen. Some things never change, he said, as if it amused him.

The irritation compounded, but she bit down on it and gestured behind her, back into her parents’ café where, even though the café had closed over two hours ago, she was still working.

She said, Did you want to come in? I’m just finishing up some work.

Just for a minute. If, he added, I’m not bothering you.

‘You could never bother me,’ she thought, but she said, I can spare you a bit of time.

Then, he said, I will take that bit.

She stood back to let him pass, locked the door behind them, and said, Let’s go through the plant shop down to the café. Everyone else has gone home for the night, so it’s just me.

They began to walk, and he said, This place hasn’t changed either. He glanced briefly at the table of poinsettias, a constant reminder Christmas was just around the corner. It looks good in here. It even smells just like I remember.

She glanced sideways at him. His dark hair brushed his collar in a style that spoke of a designer cut, and he wore the tailored trousers and jacket that screamed ‘lawyer’, which he was, and she wondered why he’d really stopped in here. Why now?

He focused back on her. So, what’s been happening around here? Anything I should know about?

She shrugged as they stepped through the arch into the café of Portmans Garden Café. No, it’s still the same. I’m still baking and spritzing plants, and— She stopped right there. She wasn’t doing much else at all. The truth sounded incredibly dull when she said it out loud.

Michael’s gaze landed on the table she’d been working at, with her laptop and a stack of paperwork. It looks like you’re doing the accounts.

"There is always paperwork in business, she said lightly, even though the truth was, it hadn’t been the café paperwork she’d been working on. It had been the plans for her dream of opening her own cakery. The dream that was turning into more of an if I won the lotto" fantasy than anything close to a reality.

He studied her a moment. Didn’t you once say you’d never be back working for your parents again?

I did, she said, but I’m just doing this for a short while. Helping out mum and dad while they’re away.

Yeah, I heard about that, that they’d gone away for a break to Australia. He shoved his hands in the pockets of his black trousers. When are they getting back?

She pursed her lips. I’m not sure. They’ve been gone four months but they haven’t given a date for coming home, yet.

His dark eyebrows drew together. Four months? That’s a heck of a long time to be away. What are they doing, taking a cruise?

She grinned at the thought of that. Can you imagine my parents ever going on a cruise?

Michael smiled as he stroked his chin a moment. No, I can’t. In fact, I can’t imagine them ever taking a break and leaving the business at all.

Dad could never stomach the thought of taking a long holiday. But they needed a break, and they’re with Mum’s sister up in Queensland. Penny picked up a pot plant from a table and inspected the leaves. Not that she was right at this moment concerned about the health of the plant, when it was her own health that was the issue, with the racing of her pulse and the insanely loud beating of her heart.

He said, Then what you’re saying is that Jackie and Pete just up and left you.

She looked at him sharply. "They didn’t leave me."

It sounds to me like they did.

There wasn’t a lot of choice. With Greg’s illness, and trying to cope when he died, it all began to fall apart. She pulled a dead leaf from the plant with more force than it needed. When Dad knew he had to take Mum away, he didn’t want just anyone managing the café. So I left my job and came back here.

What will you do when they get back? He looked quizzically at her. Stay working here or have you got plans?

She shot a quick glance at the laptop, and her proposal for a cakery. There were her plans.

She said, Life is on the back burner for now, until I know what Mum and Dad are doing. Everything’s up in the air.

He met her gaze full-on. A year is hardly any time at all, not when it comes to that degree of loss. But even so, it strikes me as odd they had no qualms about leaving you, when you were suffering, too.

It was on the tip of her tongue to ask how he even knew what she was feeling when he hadn’t been around to see for himself.

He saw her look and misinterpreted it. Pen, I love your parents, you know that, but you’re their child, their only daughter, and you're still here.

You didn’t see my mother as the months went by after Greg died. She’d spent a lot of time praying for a miracle, she believed so much that he was going to beat that cancer, and when it didn’t happen, she fell apart.

And that, right there, was why she was here. Because there had never been any other option than to step in and manage the café. She had seen how her father had been painfully caught out on what to do. To care for his devastated wife who had nursed their dying son, or to be there for Penny, the daughter who had lost her only brother. Penny had made the decision for him.

I can’t imagine what they’ve been through, Michael said with sympathy. Both sympathy and sadness gleamed in his eyes but along with them, something like regret.

He said, So I figured it was time I did my honorary big brother bit and checked up on you.

Penny smiled against the unexpectedly sharp stab in her chest. Michael had always thought of her as a kid, his best friend’s little sister, and it seemed, still did.

That’s appreciated, she said. Greg would be happy, knowing you’re keeping an eye on me. Like a good brother would.

He frowned, and she realised her tone had sounded snappy. And not at all grateful.

She added quickly, I better not keep you.

He checked his watch. Yeah, I should get going. The traffic is still crazy out there and I’m due at a law society dinner.

They turned to walk back through the café and he said, I am sorry I never dropped in sooner. I know there’s no excuse, but life has been pretty busy.

It was an appalling excuse, she thought, and it was just that. An excuse.

But she said, I understand. Liar. Greg had been his best friend, and the Portmans had become a second family to him. And yet, he hadn’t seen them in so long. So, no, she did not understand that at all.

At the door, he pulled his car keys from his pocket.

She said, Thanks for stopping by.

Thanks for opening the door, he said back. I’m glad you did. He lifted his hand in a farewell greeting. So long, Penny.

He gave her a final smile, stepped out the door into the evening, and then he was gone.

Penny shut the door, locked it, and leant back against it. Her heart was beating as if she’d done a round in the boxing ring.

That’s what liking Michael McGuinn got you, and the feeling was frustratingly familiar.

It was also insane, because no intelligent person would possibly still have those feelings after all this time, after all these years. It was bordering on pathetic.

Penny pushed herself away and made her way back down to the café. Not that Michael had ever known how she’d felt about him. No one had, except Michelle, her oldest friend from school, and that was because Michelle had momentarily considered Michael McGuinn God’s gift to teenage girls as well. But only until she’d met someone else, and she’d relegated Michael to one brief crush among many.

Penny had never been able to do that, even though she’d been painfully aware that she was way out of Michael’s league. She was plain Penny with the frizzy hair who felt most at home in jeans and a sweatshirt.

Michael had gone out with slinky women who wore four inch heels without breaking a limb.

She wondered why Michael had come around now, after all this time, pushed him out of her mind with as much force as she could muster, and pulled out the seat at the table with the laptop and the dreams she hadn’t a hope of ever seeing come true.

CHAPTER TWO

PENNY? Phone for you.

Penny set down the spray bottle and dragged a tissue from her pocket just in time. She sneezed.

Her flatmate, Michelle, shuddered. You look awful.

I feel awful. Worse than awful. She blew her nose. I feel disgusting.

Penny noted Michelle didn’t look much better. She took the phone and cleared her throat. But then, this is what happened when you neglected housework and decided spring cleaning was in order. Even though spring had supposedly gone.

Penny was under no illusions what this uncharacteristic surge of domestic energy was about. The shock of seeing Michael. She’d barely slept for analysing it, then over-analysing it, then running through every single word he’d said. At least the ones she could remember. Then she’d over-thought it all over again.

At least dust allergies took her mind off it. Off him.

She cleared her throat. Penny, speaking.

Hey, Pen. It’s Michael.

She nearly dropped the phone. Oh. Hi. I was just… Thinking about you. She cleared her throat. This is a surprise.

She looked up to find Michelle watching her with raised eyebrows. Penny had conveniently—–or deliberately, whichever way you chose to look at it—not mentioned Michael had come into the café last night.

She said, To what do I owe the honour of your call?

I need to ask your advice.

She frowned. You’re asking me for advice? Really?

Michelle mouthed, Who is it?

Penny shrugged, and concentrated on the phone call as she flicked dust off the bookshelf and ended up flicking it back over herself.

Pen, he began. Carl and I are hosting a work function in a few weeks’ time. We’re thinking of a cocktail party, a kind of pre-Christmas thing, and we’re looking for a caterer. The last firm we used have moved on and it’s been a while since we did something like this. I’ve lost touch with who’s who in town.

She held the phone away as she sneezed again. Do you want me to recommend somebody?

I do.

At the same time a thought blasted into her mind.

She could do it. She could cater his party.

She’d catered before. True, it had been cupcakes and English high teas and baby showers. But she could do something like this, and building contacts was what she needed if—when—she started her own business.

She said, So you’re talking about finger food, a mix of savoury with a couple of sweets?

Exactly, Michael said. And sophisticated. Some of our guests dine at the best restaurants so we don’t want it to be too crazy, too outrageous, but we definitely want some kind of Christmas things in there. It’ll be at my apartment. At this stage we’re thinking around 40 people.

Forty people? That was a breeze. She’d catered for fifty at Greg’s 30th birthday party a couple of years ago, so this was just up her alley. And to prove herself to top-end customers could mean recommendations. The kind of opportunity she’d never get any other way.

She absently flicked the duster across the window frame. "You know, I could do it for you."

There was