Page 18 of Cooking Up a Christmas Storm (Highland Cookery School #2)

Pavel left his van outside the McKenzie estate visitor experience hub and looked out for Tom Barclay.

Tom was a decent builder, based in Lochcarron, but the spa at McKenzie’s place would be the biggest job he’d bid for, and Pavel was well aware that most of the McKenzies’ building work had been done by big national outfits.

Tom was going to be a minnow in amongst some big fish.

‘Pav!’

Pavel waved to his friend across the car park and jogged over to join him.

‘Thanks for coming.’

‘No bother.’

‘Now I know they’re probably going to go with someone bigger, but they’ve got all this guff on their website about supporting the local economy so I’m going to be leaning heavily on that.’

Pavel nodded. ‘Sounds good.’

‘Did you take a look at the plans?’

‘Aye.’ Tom had sent over the architect’s spec for the new spa the week before. ‘Looks fancy.’

‘And they say they want all top-end materials and finish.’

‘Sounds pricey.’

Tom grinned. ‘You get what you pay for.’

‘True enough.’

Pavel had done a lot of site visits to deliver a lot of quotes in his time, and corporate jobs were often the easiest. The person you were talking to was in the same boat as you.

You both had a job to do. So long as it got done, nobody was going to burst into tears about dust on the flock wallpaper.

This meeting wasn’t like that. They were barely through the doors to the McKenzie estate’s vigorously tartaned foyer before a purple-clad woman descended on them. ‘Pavel Stone!’ she squealed. ‘I didn’t have you on my list.’

‘Fiona?’ Fiona MacCellan. Of course it was.

With hindsight, Pavel should have anticipated that.

Despite steering clear of Facebook and muting the old school WhatsApp group, he knew that Fiona had taken a job with John McKenzie when her father had been forced to sell the family estate.

‘It’s Tom’s meeting. I’m just the hired help. ’

She glanced at Tom and then down at her tablet.

‘Tom Barclay.’ She held out a perfectly manicured hand.

‘So how about I give you guys the grand tour and then we have a talk about the spa itself? Mr McKenzie is absolutely set on it providing the best relaxation and wellness experience in the Highlands.’

Was he now? Over the course of the next hour Pavel discovered a lot of things that Mr McKenzie was set on making the best in the Highlands. Not only the spa, but the hotel, the retail space, the four gourmet eateries.

‘We’re very lucky to have Mr McKenzie leading on all of this,’ Fiona gushed.

‘No doubt.’ Pavel had lots of doubts, but with Adam unable to pay him for the coach house refurbishment he couldn’t turn down potential work.

Finally they arrived at the proposed spa site. Pavel let Tom lead on the questions. The plans were ambitious. ‘Nothing but the best,’ was Fiona’s instruction on materials and finishes.

‘Does he have a budget in mind?’

‘He does but he’s not sharing that at the moment.’ The voice that cut across Tom’s question was smooth and confident. He held a hand out. ‘Mr Stone.’

Pavel shook John McKenzie’s hand.

‘And Mr Barclay, I presume.’ He turned quickly back to Pavel. ‘Surprised to see you here. Thought you were well and truly Team Lowbridge.’

Pavel stumbled to find a response.

‘Don’t worry. I’m joking. We know there’s no real competition there.’

Did he mean there was no need for the two estates to be in competition or that he didn’t see Lowbridge as competition? Pavel bristled silently.

McKenzie turned his attention away. ‘Could I borrow you for a moment, Miss MacCellan?’

‘Excuse us.’

‘New Year? I don’t think so.’ Fiona’s voice drifted towards him. She was still deep in conversation with McKenzie.

‘I’m not having them out…’

Pavel’s eavesdropping was interrupted by his phone.

‘Pavel!’

‘Hi, Jill.’

‘Look, I wanted to say sorry properly for the other night. It was a real emergency.’

‘I know.’ He’d never doubted it.

‘I just didn’t want you to think I’d got cold feet, you know? About us… going out. Cos I haven’t.’ She paused. Pavel didn’t answer. ‘Unless you have?’

Why would he have? The memory of Gemma brushing his arm at the cookery school flashed into his mind. He shut it down. That was nothing. He’d told Jill he’d take her out. Of course he would do what he’d promised. ‘Course not.’

‘Great. Do you want to try again then?’

They fixed a date for Saturday lunchtime. ‘I’ll see you then.’

Fiona was standing unobtrusively at his side when he hung up the phone. ‘That must have been your nice clergy lady?’

‘What?’

‘Sorry. You know what gossip’s like round here. My dad was in the Lowbridge shop last week. Apparently Anna told him all about it. I think she’s pretty much bought a hat.’

Pavel sighed. ‘We’re mates. It’s one date.’

Fiona’s face was blank for a moment. ‘It’s nice that everyone approves though. That must be…’ She stopped. ‘Anyway, did you have any more questions about the site?’

If the Hogmanay Gala was definitely happening, and Gemma was definitely planning it, and Jodie was stuck being Gemma, then there was no option but to crack on. The key, she decided, was not to look at the whole seven-page event plan. The key was to tackle one thing at a time.

First up, booking musicians for the ceilidh. Actually, that was second up. First up was googling precisely what a ceilidh was and what sort of band she would need to engage to play at one. That was a simple task though – a quick check and then on to actually looking for a band.

Two hours later the thing that always seemed to happen had happened again.

She’d watched parts of seventeen different ceilidh videos on YouTube, and was now, for some reason that she couldn’t entirely explain, reading the Facebook page of an American bluegrass band who were available for private parties in Nashville, Chattanooga and all points in between.

Lowbridge was probably a touch too far away.

Why did Jodie always do this? That wasn’t fair.

She didn’t always do this. When she’d been at school she’d struggled, always struggled, with coursework and deadlines but she’d done her schoolwork at the kitchen table while her mum made dinner.

Somehow having someone else there, knowing they were expecting her to concentrate, quietened the distractions in Jodie’s mind.

She picked up her laptop from the dining table in the Dower House and made her way into the castle.

She’d intended to work in the kitchen, like she had done as a child.

Bella was nearly always there, bustling around.

Today the kitchen was empty. She made her way across the hallway and knocked on the door of the estate office.

‘Yeah!’ Darcy called out. ‘Come on in.’

Jodie pushed the door open.

‘You don’t have to knock.’

‘I wondered if I could work in here for a bit.’ There was a fairly moth-eaten armchair in one corner. ‘I can just perch here.’

Darcy frowned. ‘You’ve got a whole house and we have about a hundred and eight rooms and you want to camp in my corner?’

What could she say? I can’t concentrate if there isn’t a proper adult around to keep an eye on me wasn’t really an explanation. ‘Sorry. Don’t worry about it.’ She started to back out.

‘It’s fine. I’m joking.’ Darcy called her back in.

‘I get it. When I first came here I found all of this a bit overwhelming. I was used to never being more than three feet away from another human and then I come here and you can spend half a day looking for the people who live in your house. It’s unnerving.

You make yourself comfortable, sweetie.’

‘Thank you.’

Jodie settled into the squishy armchair and opened her laptop.

Darcy’s fingers were tapping away on her keyboard on the edge of Jodie’s hearing.

And so she got to work and quickly found three ceilidh bands within a couple of hours’ drive, and sent an email through the website of the one that had the best testimonials and reviews online.

She braved another look at the real Gemma’s plan. Music, people, venue and refreshment were the four headings under which she’d organised everything. And Jodie had done something about music.

People next. That meant selling tickets.

That meant letting people know about the thing.

A wave of overwhelm hit her. Where was she supposed to start?

Jodie closed her eyes for a second. Darcy was still tap-tap-tapping away.

Facebook. She could start on Facebook. She could search for groups about life in the Highlands and visiting the Highlands and share word of the event there.

That would mean she would need a graphic.

Suddenly she was on fire. The sounds of Darcy working a few feet away drifted into white noise and Jodie was wholly occupied creating images to share far and wide advertising the upcoming Hogmanay Gala.

She was putting the finishing touches to her image when an email pinged in.

Thanks for getting in touch. Normally we’d be booked up for Hogmanay

by now, but you’re in luck. We weren’t planning to play this year for

family reasons but it turns out we are available so we would love to

come over to Lowbridge.

Cen ‘The Ceilidh Guy’

Jodie scanned the rest of the email confirming the price and the timings she’d suggested were acceptable and replied straight away.

That’s fantastic. You’re booked. Is it OK to take pictures and info

from your website for our promotions?

Cen was clearly still online because his reply popped up less than a minute later.

No problem.

She added the band’s details to her graphics and set about posting them everywhere she could think of – Facebook groups, Instagram, Bluesky and Threads – and then she edited together a series of images for TikTok.

Next up, the tourism websites. Over the next hour she sent details of the Lowbridge Hogmanay Gala to listing sites, travel bloggers and vloggers, the local tourist board and every Scottish community or visitor guide she could find.

Her flow was only broken by Darcy pointedly clearing her throat. ‘Are you coming for dinner, sweetie?’

Jodie laughed. It was barely past lunchtime. She’d only just sat down. All she’d done was send a few emails while Darcy was at her desk. Only Darcy was standing by the door. Jodie rubbed her eyes. ‘Sorry. I didn’t hear you get up.’

‘I got up an hour ago, honey. I’ve been in the kitchen with Bella.’

Jodie finally checked the time on her screen. Twenty past six.

‘You were engrossed.’

‘Yeah. That happens sometimes.’ It used to drive Gemma up the wall – those moments when Jodie disappeared into a task and was oblivious to the world around her. ‘Sorry.’

‘Don’t be. I saw the Instagram post. It looks like you got lots done.’ She smiled. ‘Come on. You can tell us about it over dinner.’

‘Ragu or sprout-based?’ Jodie asked, warily.

‘Fingers crossed for ragu,’ was the reply.