Page 15 of Cooking Up a Christmas Storm (Highland Cookery School #2)

Adam appeared as they were finishing up, grabbed a bowl and heated the rest of the soup in the microwave. ‘You don’t need me for anything this afternoon?’

Bella shook her head. ‘Gemma’s here if I need another pair of hands.’

‘Great. I’ll be in the office if anything kicks off.’

Bella laughed. ‘If anything kicks off?’

‘You never know. Room full of men with whisks – anything could happen.’

‘Yeah. Someone could over-beat their meringue. The horror!’ She kissed her fiancé quickly on the lips.

Jodie looked away. Had she and Gemma shared that sort of casual intimacy? Not recently, she thought. Gemma hadn’t liked big public displays of affection anyway.

‘And Pavel’s coming. I think he’d be way more help than you if someone got fighty.’

Adam shook his head. ‘Charming.’

The first students appeared at the kitchen door as Adam disappeared.

Bella was all smiles. Jodie tried to think how Gemma would behave.

Friendly but professional – a perfectly competent middle ground between Jodie’s own twin tendencies to withdraw into herself or be entirely too much.

Bella thrust a sheet of paper into her hand.

‘Can you tick people off? It’ll give you a chance to meet everyone. ’

‘OK.’ The first two students were older men – one in his seventies at least and the other maybe fifty or sixty.

The older man nodded at her. ‘They call me Strachan.’

‘And me,’ the younger one added.

Jodie checked her list. There they were halfway down. Old Man Strachan and Young Strachan. ‘Right. I can’t call you both Strachan.’

The faces she was looking into were blank. ‘Everyone else does.’

‘Aye. And my boy’s parking up. He’s Strachan too.’

Jodie rechecked the list. There he was in neatly typed letters: Also Strachan???? The row of question marks reassured her. Even Bella had recognised the Strachan thing was getting silly at this point. A younger man came in – maybe nineteen or twenty, closely followed by Pavel Stone.

‘Pav’s got some labouring work for me next week, Dad, if you don’t need us on the farm.’

‘Vet’s coming on Monday but apart from that you’re fine.’

The boy looked back at Pavel. ‘Tuesday to Friday OK?’

‘Great. Thanks, Strach. You’ve helped me out there.’

The young lad disappeared into the castle to use the toilet and the older man shook Pavel’s hand.

‘Thanks for that. It does him the world of good to get out and off the farm for a day. And the money he brings in makes all the difference.’ He turned to Bella.

‘Your lad’s been great holding the rent level but it’s getting harder and harder, and we’ll need to start adding to the flock’s feed soon. ’

‘I know. Anything we can do to help, let us know. And take a lasagne with you when you go. For you. Not for the herd.’ She turned to Pavel. ‘You too.’

‘And some sprouts,’ Jodie added.

The men stared at her. Pavel shook his head. ‘Already got a load from Hugh.’

Old Man Strachan smiled at Bella. ‘We’ll take the lasagne though. And there’s all the lamb you can use for you next year, lass.’

‘Which we will pay you a fair price for.’

The old man shook his head. ‘Better than that other lot offer anyway.’

‘What other lot?’ Jodie asked.

Oldest Strachan frowned. ‘You can tell you’re new round here.’

Young Strachan clarified. ‘The McKenzies. Offered to buy our lamb for their shop, paying less than the supermarkets. And he’s all shouting about locally sourced everything and charging his customers a premium for it.’

Bella shook her head. ‘The more he runs the price down, the more chance you’ll pack it in and we’ll lose the rent. One more step towards Adam having to sell.’

Old Man Strachan patted her hand. ‘You won’t let it come to that though, will you?’

‘Not if I can help it. And especially not now Gemma’s here to help.’ She turned to Jodie. ‘If we had a proper shop here we could sell produce from across the estate, not just our own herd. We should talk about that.’

‘OK.’ Great. She was starting a retail empire as well, and saving a whole community, not just one business. She felt her heart rate jump up. Breathe. Concentrate on the here and now. The final two students arrived. Two younger men. Jodie ticked them off her list, thankful for a simple, solid task.

The first of the pair told them he’d been sent by his mum because she didn’t think any woman would look twice at, in her words, such a useless domestic waste of space, and the second was here after an ultimatum from his girlfriend who sounded like she was regretting her foolishness for having looked twice.

They both seemed harmless enough, but were very clear that their culinary skills peaked at pouring milk over cereal.

‘What about the rest of you? Does anyone cook very much already?’ Bella asked brightly.

The general staring at the floor suggested that no, the group were not regulars in the kitchen. Old Man Strachan piped up first. ‘My Betsy did everything in the kitchen.’

The younger Strachans both nodded. ‘Nana was a great cook,’ the youngest agreed.

‘Since she went, we’ve been a bit stuck in our ways, haven’t we, lads?’

‘Toast and ready meals,’ Middle Strachan confirmed.

‘And oven chips. And sausages. Granddad fries a mean sausage.’

‘What about you, Pavel?’

‘It’s lack of time really.’

Bella raised an eyebrow.

‘And my mum still cooks for me.’

Jodie suppressed a giggle at the six-foot hunk of man’s slight sheepishness about his mother still popping round with a shepherd’s pie.

‘And what about you, Gemma?’

Jodie realised all eyes were on her.

‘I’m here to help out,’ she offered.

Bella grinned. ‘Sure, but you’re going to do the lesson while you’re here, aren’t you?’

‘Yes.’ Bella already knew she wasn’t much of a cook but Jodie also knew that the real Gemma was and had mentioned that in her phone interview.

She needed to keep this pitched at the level where her interview talk could be viewed as harmless exaggeration rather than wholescale deception.

‘I used to cook with my family when I was little, but I’ve got out of the habit, I guess. ’

‘Great. Well, apparently nobody’s vegetarian, and I know you three love your chips, so we’re going to start with a classic today. Steak sandwich and chips. And then either pavlova or Eton mess for dessert depending how neatly things turn out. How’s that sound?’

‘Ambitious,’ Youngest Strachan joked.

‘I mean, a nice piece of steak isn’t a cheap thing so it’ll be a shame if we ruin them, but also it’s one of the most basic bits of cooking there is.

Simply applying oil, heat and a bit of seasoning to a good ingredient and letting the magic happen.

If you can master that it’ll stand you in good stead.

And it’s a crowd-pleaser, isn’t it? And great for a date night if you want to invite someone over.

Dessert first though. Meringues take a while to cook and then they’ll need to cool. ’

Bella started off trying to divide the group into pairs so Jodie could float a little bit, but the three Strachans so clearly came as a set and, as they pointed out, wanted to learn together so they could cook for the whole family. ‘How many Strachans are there?’ Jodie whispered to Bella.

‘Honestly not sure anyone knows.’

That meant that after the two latecomers had paired up, Jodie was left with Pavel. She sidled over to his station at the side of the kitchen. ‘Hi again.’

‘Hi.’ He looked sideways at her and Jodie looked away.

She felt shy around him. That wasn’t like Jodie.

Normally when she liked someone she was a bull in a china shop.

She charged in, no thought to the consequences.

That’s how she’d been with Gemma – it had been lucky Gemma was open-minded enough to see past Jodie’s chaos.

For a while at least. The thought played itself through Jodie’s head again.

Normally when she liked someone… She liked Pavel Stone.

Not just fancied or desired or lusted after. Liked.

Pavel broke the silence. ‘I should probably tell you that last time I did one of these sessions I ended up keeled over on the floor.’

‘What?’

‘My… er… friend I was with cut herself.’ He shrugged. ‘Not great with blood, it turns out.’

‘OK. Well, I’ll try not to bleed then.’

‘That’s kind of a goal for everyone,’ Bella called. ‘Right. Let’s get started.’

Meringues, it turned out, were mostly an exercise in whisking.

Egg whites were whipped up into what Bella referred to as stiff peaks.

She lifted her beaters out of the mix and tilted the bowl to show how the egg white held its shape.

She set the group separating eggs and beating the whites.

The other groups got electric beaters, but Bella approached Pavel and Jodie apologetically.

‘I’m really sorry but my other electric whisk conked out when I was checking the equipment this morning.’ She smiled hopefully at Pavel. ‘And I thought Pavel’s strong. You can totally count it as arm day.’

Pavel rolled his eyes, but set about their egg whites with an impressive gusto. Jodie satisfied herself with watching the display, as the muscles tensed slightly under his warm, tanned skin. ‘I’ve always had a thing about forearms.’

‘Sorry?’

Jodie bit her lip. She’d said that out loud, which was, unfortunately, the sort of thing she did. Her unfiltered mouth had got her into a lot of trouble over the years. It was definitely not the sort of thing Gemma would do. ‘Nothing. You’re doing really well.’

‘Aren’t you going to have a turn?’ He held the whisk and bowl towards her.

‘Fine.’ Jodie started to mix as quickly as she could, spinning her wrist until her muscles seized up.

Bella appeared at her elbow. ‘If you alternate turning from the wrist for a bit and then from the elbow you’ll fatigue a lot slower.’

Jodie tried the change of technique and quickly concluded that Bella was a big fat liar. She handed the egg whites back to Pavel, barely any more beaten than when she’d started. ‘Can I film you?’

‘You what?’