Page 51 of Cooking Up a Christmas Storm
‘That’s…’ What was that? ‘How do you know what’s right?’
‘What’s best for the people around you.’
‘What about what’s best for you?’
He didn’t get the chance to answer, before Darcy yelled from the hallway. ‘She’s coming out.’
Jodie ran back into the corridor. ‘I’m sorry. They all just appeared.’
Bella’s eyes were red but she was smiling. Jodie found she was holding her breath.
‘And?’ Veronica asked.
Bella smiled even wider. ‘I’m afraid I need to talk to Adam first.’
Jodie let out an un-Gemma like squeal of glee, that was hidden by Darcy’s much louder shriek. Within seconds, Bella was enveloped in hugs and shouts and congratulations. Jodie hung back, composed herself. Gemma was here for work. It wasn’t for her to get excited. This wasn’t her family. This wasn’t her home.
Sooner or later she would mess things up. She would do something wrong, or they would find out about the massive, great, definitely wrong thing she was already doing and everything would fall apart. She wasn’t going to be here when Bella had her baby. She wasn’t a part of this. She never would be. Being part of a place like this was more than Jodie would ever deserve.
Chapter Ten
Pavel offered Bella his congratulations, promised faithfully not to say anything to Adam until she’d spoken to him, and headed back out towards the coach house. He stopped by the door to check nobody was watching before going inside. Youngest Strachan, Strach, would be joining him tomorrow for a few days so they’d get into the bigger jobs and try to speed through the most urgent decorating then. Pavel figured that if Tom got the job at McKenzie’s he’d be able to use the money from that to pay Strach for his time. That plan pleased him – if he was going to take money from John McKenzie he might as well redirect some of it to Lowbridge to level the playing field a touch.
He was collecting a new tap for the second bathroom from his van when Jill came out. ‘Hi.’
‘Hi.’ He leaned against the van, holding the tap awkwardly behind him.
‘What are you doing?’
‘Nothing.’ He angled the tap back into the van. ‘Just checking I’ve got everything for my next job.’
‘Right. So Saturday still OK?’
‘Yep. Yep. That’s what we said.’
‘It is, isn’t it?’
‘Yep.’
She took a step towards him. Jill always hugged goodbye. And hello. And often several more times mid-conversation. Today she stopped, patted him tentatively on the arm, and stepped away. ‘I’ll see you then then.’
He was still by the van when he heard a new set of footsteps behind him.
‘Oh. Sorry.’ Gemma Bryant was walking towards him, phone in one hand, Post-it note stuck to the other. ‘Bella’s on the phone to Adam, and Darcy and Flinty are halfway to redecorating the nursery already.’
‘So you’re hiding?’
She shook her head and then stopped. ‘Not hiding. Just, it’s a lot of noise, you know? So I thought I’d look round out here.’ She nodded towards the coach house. ‘See if I could get some pictures for the website. For the whole indoor fancy glamping thing.’
Pavel shook his head. ‘I could do that for you.’
Gemma frowned. ‘It’s fine. I can do it.’
Obviously she could. ‘It’s just, it’s a mess in there at the moment.’
‘Right. Then I can see what needs clearing.’
‘No.’ He moved to stand in front of the coach house door. ‘It’s not safe.’
