Page 107 of Cooking Up a Christmas Storm
The coach house was close to being ready for paying guests. All Pavel really needed was to unveil his work, officially, to Adam and Bella. He headed over to the ballroom, to find Adam, Bella and Darcy already in there.
‘Hi. I came to see what still needed doing in here.’
Bella spun around, arms extended to encompass the whole room. ‘Everything.’
‘Not everything.’ Adam put his arm around her shoulders. ‘For all the mess, Jodie has done a pretty good job of sorting out the junk from the stuff to keep. And this pile is all stuff we can sell, which is great.’
Pavel was pretty sure that was the pile Jodie had been intending to put straight in a skip.
Darcy and Bella looked distinctly less positive. ‘Even once it’s cleared it needs repainting and everything is filthy,’ Darcy pointed out.
‘We can do that,’ Adam insisted. ‘We’ll get Flinty in to help. And we can all roll our sleeves up and… we’ll make it work.’
‘So you’re going ahead with Hogmanay?’ Pavel hadn’t been sure. With Jodie gone everyone would have understood if the laird and his fiancée had decided it was one battle too far.
Adam nodded.
Bella looked at her partner with trusting eyes. ‘You’re sure?’
‘I am. I mean, what choice do we have?’
‘None really,’ she confirmed. ‘We’ve got too many bookings to cancel now. Although more cancel every day.’
‘We don’t even have a band,’ Darcy pointed out.
‘Jodie had an idea for that,’ Pavel reminded them.
Adam winced. ‘We can’t do that though. Can we?’
Bella shrugged. ‘They stole them first.’ She looked at Pavel. ‘You’re still in?’
‘Sure.’
‘But we won’t know if it’s worked until the day.’ Darcy was anxious.
‘Then we’ll have Hugh on standby with his accordion.’
Pavel pulled a face. ‘Have you heard Hugh play the accordion?’
Bella’s shoulders slumped. ‘Yeah.’
‘Old Strachan plays bagpipes,’ Adam suggested.
‘Is he any good?’ Bella asked.
‘He might drown out Hugh’s accordion,’ was the most positive response Pavel could come up with.
‘Right. Well, I guess we can’t worry about what we can’t control. We need to focus on the things we can,’ Bella announced.
‘OK then. I need to check on the horses.’ Darcy smiled. ‘That’s not for Hogmanay. The horses don’t know any of this is going on. It’s kind of wonderful.’
‘And I’m going back to the kitchen to finalise the menu.’
‘Before you do that, there’s something I need to show you all.’ Pavel led all three of them across the courtyard, through the gateway and out to the coach house.
Bella sighed. ‘I hope you’re not going to rub our noses in another thing we can’t afford.’
‘Why don’t you take a look?’
