Page 90 of Cooking Up a Christmas Storm
‘I am. After a full morning of fixing all the lights for the villagers who only got them out yesterday and then discovered half the bulbs were blown or the plug was faulty.’
‘Oh, Pavel, my hero.’ She kissed him, full and hard, on the lips until his resolve about not coming in with her wavered. ‘See you tomorrow.’ She grinned.
He left the van parked outside the coach house on the grounds that that was where he’d be on Monday, and jogged back over the Low Bridge to the village. His mum was in the kitchen. ‘What are you making?’
‘Yule log. For after the service tomorrow.’ She batted his finger away from the bowl of icing in front of her. ‘Bella’s doing mince pies and Christmas cake slices. I said I’d bring something chocolate for the kids.’ She glanced up at him. ‘And the big kids.’
Pavel took a seat at the breakfast bar his grandfather had built. Granddad always referred to it as Pavel’s first job, but Pavel wasn’t sure that wearing a toy tool belt that was two sizes too big and holding a screwdriver really counted as helping. His Granddad had been adamant though. Pavel had been born handy – good at building things, fixing things and making things right. That, his granddad had always said, was what made a man. Taking care of things, mending them, protecting things that needed protecting. He stroked the grain of the wood, softened and warmed with age.
‘What are you looking so pleased about?’
‘Yule log?’ he suggested.
His mother shook her head. ‘That’s not yule-log happy. That’s… I don’t know. Something else.’
‘I’m sort of…’ What was he doing? His brain lingered over the details he had no intention of sharing with his mum. ‘I’m seeing someone.’
He expected her to ask if it was back on with Jill. She nodded. ‘That Gemma lassie from the castle?’
‘How did you know?’
‘I’m your mother and you are not the closed book you think you are. Not to me anyway.’ She lifted the board with the rolled chocolate sponge into the space in front of her, and arranged an offcut to look like a smaller side branch. ‘Does she make you happy?’
‘So happy.’
‘Not like that.’ She pulled face. ‘Really happy? Does she make you feel more like you?’
He shook his head. ‘No. She makes me feel much braver than that.’
Back at the Dower House Jodie wandered from room to room, trying to quiet the itch in her brain that said she ought to be doing something. Pavel’s presence quieted that voice. He filled her senses and kept her in the moment. She felt his absence in every room. There was no way she was going to sleep now.
She made her way over to the castle in the hope that someone would be around to talk to but the usually bustling kitchen was empty. On the island was a square wooden crate full to the brim with Brussels sprouts. That had been her very first task. Work out what to do with a glut of sprouts, and despite making Old Man Strachan a global sensation and getting a few nice comments on Bella’s reels about fun ways to cook them, she hadn’t actually used up any of the estate’s own crop.
An idea hit, one of those ideas that, now it was in her head, Jodie knew wasn’t going to go anywhere. She’d need more than just the sprouts, but there was all sorts still in the ballroom and there were art supplies for the toddler group somewhere. Jodie set to work through the night, and then in the early hours, before the rest of Lowbridge was up and awake, she loaded her creations back into the crate and carried them across the Low Bridge to the village.
Chapter Fifteen
After far too little sleep, the Lowbridge lights switch-on day dawned bright and crisp and cold, and Jodie’s weather app promised her things were going to stay that way. That ticked one potential problem that was beyond her control off her list.
At half past one, she headed out, over the Low Bridge and into the village. Nina and Anna were waiting for her outside the pub, the last stop on the planned walk on the village side of the bridge. The lights on the pub were all in place, so they strolled back through the village checking everything was in order.
‘We have to check,’ Anna explained. ‘In twenty nineteen there was an incident.’
Nina nodded gravely.
‘What sort of incident?’
‘One of the old houses had teenagers then.’
‘Both off in Glasgow now,’ Anna added.
‘They’d… how can I put this?’ Nina hesitated.
‘They’d put tinsel and fairy lights round an inflatable cock and balls,’ Anna explained.
‘Yes. That’s exactly what they did.’
Jodie couldn’t suppress the giggle. ‘Not really the tone you were going for?’
