Page 22 of Cooking Up a Christmas Storm
‘Right.’ What on earth had she agreed to?
‘That’s why I was so excited about your Hogmanay proposal. Everyone else’s plans were all for small, sustainable growth and I get that, but yours was bold. And you were so confident you could pull it off.’
‘Absolutely.’What proposal?thought Jodie.
‘Great. So where do you want to start?’
No idea.
‘What do you need from me?’
Absolutely everything.
‘Well…’ Jodie had nothing.
Bella pulled up an email up on her phone and scrolled through. ‘I love it. The balance of community and visitors coming in. Properly Scottish but not cheesy.’
Jodie nodded. ‘Yeah. That’s what I was going for.’
‘Brilliant. Where do we start?’ Bella was staring at her, eyes full of faith and hope.
There was no choice, was there? Jodie had no clue what they were supposed to be talking about. ‘OK. Well, the thing is…’ The thing was what? Jodie was back in school, standing in front of a teacher desperately trying to explain why, despite her genuinely good intentions, she hadn’t done the coursework or finished the project or remembered her reading book. ‘It’s just that…’ The dog ate her homework? She left her folder on the bus? Her mum put the permission slip in the washing machine?
‘Oh my goodness!’ Bella gasped.
‘What?’
‘You lost your email, didn’t you?’
What?
‘Your laptop blew up.’ Had it? Of course. She’d had to explain why Gemma suddenly had a new email address. Had Jodie actually said her computer blew up? In her head she’d been vaguer and, she thought, more plausible than that. ‘You’ve probably lost all your notes.’
Jodie could have kissed her new boss. She didn’t. Spontaneous snogging was not Gemma’s style at all. ‘Yeah. Sorry.’
‘I’ll forward all this back to you to your new address.’
Thank goodness.
‘Morning.’ The voice behind them was deep and already familiar.
Bella jumped up. ‘Pavel! When did you get here?’
‘Just bringing the toddler group outdoor play stuff back for Mum. Adam said we could stick it in the south wing.’
‘Course you can.’
‘Mum said to give you a few quid for the storage.’
Bella shook her head. ‘Don’t be daft.’
Pavel folded his arms. ‘You know she’ll insist.’
‘And I’ll refuse. It’s space we’re not using anyway.’
‘I thought we needed the money.’ Jodie blurted her thought out loud before her embryonic inner Gemma had the chance to censor her. ‘I mean, it’s not up to me. Sorry.’
Pavel nodded. ‘She’s right.’ He pulled a small wodge of notes out of his pocket and pushed them into Bella’s hand.
