Page 7 of Cooking Up a Christmas Storm
The road was single track and the passing places were few and far between. ‘Not here. Hold on. As soon as we’re down into the village.’
She nodded mutely. The sweat that was gathering on her top lip and the shiver running down her spine weren’t sickness. They were something else, something Jodie knew too well.
The road came down to the shoreline again and flattened out before the first buildings. Jodie fixed her gaze on a pair of small boats tied up on the shingle beach. Pavel pulled the van over to the side of the road, where it sloped down towards the sea edge. ‘OK?’
She was already halfway out of the van, jumping to the floor and bending double, sucking air into her lungs.
She was on firm, solid earth. She squatted down and pressed her hands into the pebble beach. Safe. Jodie opened her eyes and looked around, trying to remember the routine they’d taught her to bring the panic down.
Five things you can see.
She focused on a particular round grey pebble streaked with white. That was one. The broken skin by her thumbnail. That was two. The chipping paint on the bough of the upturned boat in front of her. Three. A tuft of yellowed drying grass poking through the shingle. Four. And the toe of Pavel Stone’s work boot to her side. Five.
Her breathing began to slow. She just had to keep going and keep her mind in the here and now, not let herself collapse or run as far away from here as she could. Jodie forced herself to continue the exercise.
Four things you can hear.
The water lapping on the shore. One.
A car passing on the road behind them. Two.
Her own heart beating a little too hard. Three.
‘Are you OK?’ Pavel’s voice. Four.
Jodie couldn’t reply yet. Her brain was only holding on to the moment because she was using every fibre of energy to keep her thoughts in a nice neat line.
Three things you can touch.
The pebbles under her palms.
Her belt digging into her waist.
Her breath shallowed as she struggled to focus on a third thing. And then a hand touched gently on her shoulder. ‘You’re all right,’ he said.
Two things you can smell.
The ocean.
Pavel Stone.
One thing you can taste.
The image of pressing her lips to his pushed all the other pictures out of Jodie’s head. It would, she absolutely knew, be delicious. It would take her out of this state and make her feel something urgent. It would be such a Jodie thing to do. Acting first and worrying about the fallout later. The real Gemma had tried to help her be better than that.
One thing you can taste.
Sea salt on the air.
‘Gemma, are you all right?’
She nodded and pulled herself away from his hand and up to her feet. ‘I’m absolutely fine.’
‘Seriously,’ Pavel wasn’t letting up, ‘anything I can do to help?’
Jodie shook her head. She didn’t need help. She’d almost messed everything up already. Pavel was a friend of the people she was going to be working for. She should never have let him see her like this. Gemma glided through life. From now on, Jodie needed to keep her head down and not show the mess that was whirring around inside her. ‘I said, I’m fine.’ She climbed back into the van. ‘Let’s go.’
Pavel hesitated for just a second before he made his way back to the driver’s seat. ‘Whatever you say.’
