Page 5 of Cooking Up a Christmas Storm
‘I’ve got a Zoom with a client. Ravi’ll kill me if I miss it.’ He shook his head. ‘Can Darcy go?’
‘She’s out riding,’ Bella replied. That wasn’t unusual for Adam’s stepmother. She’d taken to life in the Highlands after growing up in New York incredibly well, and that was – at least in part – down to the fact that living at Lowbridge meant she had space to keep horses. ‘I told her I didn’t need her back till the students turned up.’
‘Flinty?’
Normally the estate’s former housekeeper, Maggie Flint, would be on hand to help out whether she was asked or not. Today Pavel shook his head. ‘I took her over to Portree first thing. Sorry.’
‘Shit.’ Adam closed his eyes for a second. ‘Pav… mate…’
Pavel laughed. ‘Sure. Who is she and where am I meeting her?’
Jodie’s first shock after deciding that all her problems would be fixed by moving to the Scottish Highlands was discovering that, in order to arrive at Strathcarron station at a sensible hour, she needed to set off the day before. Staring at the map hadn’t in any way helped her understand this conundrum. The UK was, in her mind, quite a small country. There was London, the south coast, and there were the Home Counties and then there were… she wasn’t sure… possibly dragons, but they were quite handy not-too-far-away dragons, weren’t they?
It turned out they were not. Making one’s way from west London to Strathcarron involved an actual sleeper train – something Jodie thought only existed in Poirot movies – and then another train from Inverness right across the Highlands to bring her to Strathcarron. She’d expected to alight in some sort of cute Highland market town. Diane, her now former boss, had told her about childhood holidays in the Highlands. Jodie had got that it was off the beaten track, but she hadn’t imagined so far from the beaten track that there wouldn’t be at least a Costa and a Tesco Express.
She hauled her wheelie case off the train, picturing a decaf latte with hazelnut syrup, and followed the one other person who got out at Strathcarron along the platform and out… into what? In front of her was a small patch of grass with a tree and a telegraph pole, surrounded by a tiny cul-de-sac with three houses and the path to the station platform. The other woman strode off towards the house to their left. Jodie stopped. And looked. Beyond the buildings was a road, a field and then mountains. Proper snow-capped mountains from a storybook. A giggle bubbled up from her belly. She was through the looking glass here, a million miles from anyone who knew her and nobody at all knew she was here. She’d actually managed to disappear. Apart from that, somebody was supposed to be coming to pick her up.
No.
Somebody was supposed to pick Gemma up. She took a deep breath in and ran through the same set of thoughts she’d been battling with ever since she’d left Reading.Hi. I’m Gemma Bryant. Hi. I’m here to start work. Hi. I’m your new events manager. Hi. I’m a total fraud. Please don’t send me back.
Jodie shook her head. Keep it simple. That was the key to any good lie. Don’t overembellish. Don’t add more detail than you need. Stick as close to the truth as possible. That gave you much less chance of getting tripped up.
At least it would if there was any of Jodie’s real-life experience that was going to be useful to her.Hi. I’m a failed barista, dog walker, student, shop assistant…she paused… girlfriend, daughter, and basically human, she added,and I’m here to run your business.That wasn’t going to work, was it?
She ran through her mental script one more time as the white Transit pulled up in front of her. The side decal proclaimedStone & Son Builders. Jodie ignored it. She was expecting someone from the Highland Cookery School.
The chap who got out of the van was a tiny bit harder to ignore. Comfortably over six foot and almost as wide across the shoulders. Jodie suppressed a tiny gasp of appreciation. If she was in the market for a distraction he looked like a damn fine one. Jodie would, very happily, climb him like an oak tree.
‘Miss Bryant?’
That was her. Miss Gemma Bryant – events manager extraordinaire; serious professional woman; and not one to hook up with random hot builders at all.
‘Miss Bryant?’
Miss Gemma Bryant was strictly a relationship woman. And right now Gemma Bryant was wholly focused on her new job.
‘Miss Bryant? Gemma!’
Finally the voice cut through her thoughts. ‘Sorry?’
‘Are you Gemma Bryant?’
Jodie caught the hesitation, she hoped, just in time. Although was there really any length of time – even a fraction of a second – that a person could plausibly pause before recognising their own name? For goodness’ sake. She’d been rehearsing this all night. ‘Hi! I’m the new Gemma Manager Event.’ What?
The muscled god in front of her frowned. ‘You’re…?’
‘Gemma. Just Gemma.’
‘I’m Pavel. Pav. Adam and Bella are tied up at the estate so they asked me to come and pick you up.’
Jodie eyed the van warily.Don’t get in vans with strange menseemed like a fairly basic rule for life. It was definitely one her mother would have expected her to learn by this point, but this was a strange man who knew Gemma’s name and was here to collect her at a time and place when a lift service had been promised. Jodie realised she’d been picturing something more in the black-cab – or at least identifiable-Uber – vein than the white-Transit-van category.
‘Hop in then.’ He grabbed her case and pulled the van’s side door open with one hand to lift it in, before stepping in front of Jodie to hold the passenger door for her. ‘Your carriage.’
The drive started out along the banks of a lake. It was pretty. It put Jodie in mind of childhood holidays in the Lake District with high hills in the distance and a welcoming tea shop never too far away.
‘How far is it?’ she asked, as casually as someone who wondered if she was supposed to know that already could manage.
