Page 13 of Cooking Up a Christmas Storm
Gemma Bryant, whom he’d deposited at the castle not more than three hours before, was hauling her wheelie suitcase down the path towards him, dragging it behind her with a fairly impressive determination. Pavel suppressed a smile. She stopped when she saw him.
‘Where are you heading?’
‘I… I’m…’ She hesitated before glancing down at her case and marching resolutely towards him. ‘I can’t do this.’
‘Do what?’
‘All this. I made a mistake taking the job. Best all round if I head off now and they can find someone else.’
Pavel’s heart went out to Adam and Bel. The last thing they needed was another problem. ‘What did they say when you told them?’
‘They’ll be fine about it.’
‘Theywillbe fine about it?’ That wasn’t how you behaved. ‘You’re leaving without telling them?’
‘I don’t want a fuss.’
‘Like them discovering you’ve gone, having no clue where and calling the police, for example?’ Pavel was incredulous. ‘That type of fuss?’
‘I left a note,’ she muttered.
‘Oh, well, fine then.’ Bloody English girls coming up here without a clue. Pavel shook his head at the uncharitable thought. Bella was a bloody English girl and she’d settled in fine. Jill was another one. Darcy was from New York, for goodness’ sake, and had embraced the Highlands like she’d been born to live here. It wasn’t Gemma’s southern-ness that was the problem. ‘So where are you heading?’
‘Back to the station.’
So maybe it was partly her southern-ness. He shook his head. ‘The station it took us an hour to drive from? How are you getting there?’
Jodie folded her arms across her body at Pavel’s tone.How are you getting there when the drive here made you lose your mind?was clearly what he was implying.
‘I’ll get a bus.’ She would not be pitied.
He frowned.
Jodie ignored his scepticism, grabbed the handle of her suitcase and made to march past him.
‘It’s Sunday.’
‘So?’
‘No buses,’ he said.
Jodie glanced back at the castle. Was she actually stuck here?
‘If Bella hired you,’ his tone softened a little, ‘she must have thought you were the best person for the job.’
Not, in the circumstances, as reassuring as Pavel probably imagined.
‘Why are you being nice to me?’
He frowned. ‘Why wouldn’t I be?’
A thousand reasons. Jodie was a stranger. She was a stranger who’d had a meltdown in front of him within an hour of them meeting. But he was being nice to her. Was that her way out? ‘You could drive me. I could pay you.’ She could not pay him.
‘I could but there’s no trains after about three on a Sunday.’
‘There must be trains somewhere.’ She stepped towards him. Pavel was a big, solid hunk of man. Maybe she could damsel-in-distress her way to persuading him to help her out.
‘I’d have to take you to Inverness.’ He glanced at the smartwatch on his wrist. ‘No. Sorry. I’ve got stuff to do this evening.’
