Page 29 of Cooking Up a Christmas Storm (Highland Cookery School #2)

‘OK. I’ll text her and check it’s OK, but put it for now.’

Jodie typed in the address Darcy dictated to her. ‘Why would I be staying there?’

‘I dunno.’ Bella shrugged. ‘Maybe you’re shagging Pav.’

Darcy giggled. ‘Someone ought to. It’s a damn waste.’

‘I thought he was with Jill,’ Jodie asked as casually as she could.

Bella and Darcy exchanged a look. ‘I don’t think he’s with with her.’

‘Not yet anyway.’

Noted.

‘I think we should keep your work experience as close to the truth as possible,’ Bella suggested. ‘Less chance of you slipping up that way.’

That was sensible. Only an idiot or a sociopath would get a job based on a CV they weren’t familiar with.

Gemma’s first listed job was as Visitor Host at Reading Abbey during her degree. Jodie paused. Gemma had never mentioned that. She’d mentioned volunteering to pick up litter there a couple of weekends.

Jodie read on. Retail Supervision Associate .

She’d been a shop assistant, hadn’t she?

She scanned down to the most recent employment.

Marketing Executive for Pizza Now. Jodie cursed herself again for not paying more attention to Gemma’s work, but Jodie could have sworn that Gemma’s boss – a slightly too flash chap called Evan – had been the executive.

The penny that was dangling in the air of her brain started to drop.

Had Gemma padded her CV a little? Jodie looked through the employment history again.

Not a little. Quite a lot. That was Gemma though, wasn’t it?

And it wasn’t a lie, not in the way Jodie had lied.

It was confidence. It was Gemma giving herself credit for the work she’d actually done.

She’d always said her boss was useless and she carried him. Surely she deserved the rewards.

‘I’m wondering if we should change marketing exec in your last job to assistant?’ Bella asked. ‘So it looks less weird that you’re applying to be an assistant now? If that’s OK. I mean I don’t want to do you down.’

‘I agree.’ Always better, like Darcy said, to keep your lies as close to the truth as possible.

She got an interview. Or rather Gemma pretending to be Jodie got an interview.

Of course she did. Gemma was the perfect candidate, just made slightly less high-flying by Jodie’s interventions.

Which created a new problem. Jodie’s lack of corporate executive clothes had gone unnoticed so far in the laid-back atmosphere at Lowbridge Castle.

Now she had to explain having nothing to wear that was interview appropriate.

‘I lost a lot of weight, you see,’ she offered. ‘So I didn’t bring any of my old work suits cos they didn’t really fit any more, and I haven’t really needed anything like that here.’

‘That’s fine, sweetie. I have all the clothes.’ Darcy beamed. ‘We’ll find something perfect.’ She looked down at Jodie from her impressively model-esque height. ‘And then we’ll ask Flinty to take it up.’

Darcy really did have all the clothes. Jodie pulled a black suit from the wardrobe. ‘What about this?’

Darcy’s usually irrepressible smile faltered for a second.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing. It’s a nice suit. I wore it for Alexander – my husband’s – memorial. I haven’t…’ She shook her head. ‘I haven’t since.’

Jodie cursed herself in her head, and slid the suit awkwardly back into the wardrobe. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘It’s all right.’

‘What was he like?’ Was it rude to ask that? Darcy hadn’t seemed to mind before. Maybe it was ruder not to ask and look like you didn’t care.

‘Oh. Gosh. Nobody ever asks me that any more. He was just the laird to people here. They all knew what he was.’

‘But who was he?’

‘Oh, bless you.’ Darcy sat down on the end of the bed.

‘He was my Alexander. We were something of an odd couple to most people. He was very studious. Quiet. A little bit obsessive even. Always said he got on better with nature than people. Sometimes I think I was as much his interpreter as his wife.’

‘You make him sound difficult?’ Jodie wished she could swallow the comment back. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…’

‘No. You’re right. I think lots of people did find him difficult.

Even Adam sometimes. But not me. For me he was the easiest person in the world.

’ She dabbed her eye delicately with a fingertip.

‘I wonder if that’s what love does. Makes the most complicated things in the world utterly simple.

’ She took a deep breath in. ‘Thank you for asking, Gemma. Normally people don’t.

I get it. They’re embarrassed and they don’t want to upset me, but it means I never get to talk about him.

And I loved him so much. I think it’s good to remember him with someone. ’

Pavel was preparing for his date with Jill for the second time.

He’d put two different shirts on and taken them off again.

And then put a T-shirt on because it was lunch with Jill.

And then changed back to a shirt because it wasn’t just lunch with Jill.

It was a date with Jill, and that made everything feel so much more complicated.

Finally time made the decision for him. If he didn’t leave soon, he’d miss the tide to take the boat over and driving down to the bridge would make him even later.

Black T-shirt under open denim shirt won the day by default.

He slung his trainers into a backpack, pulled his wellies on and hurried down to the shoreline.

Taking the boat was always his favourite way to get to Raasay or Skye.

The drive over the bridge was still beautiful, but going over the water was something else.

Even close in to shore the sense of scale and being alone in nature instantly gave Pavel a frisson of excitement and possibility, as though life was suddenly big and uncertain and could be anything at all he chose it to be.

As he drew nearer to Portree itself he radioed ahead for permission to moor and was directed to a spot on the old berth.

Then it was a short walk up into town. He saw Jill standing outside the pub they’d arranged to meet at.

She was looking from side to side, her big blonde curls swinging as she moved her head.

He held up a hand in greeting as he approached.

‘Hi.’

‘Hi.’ She laughed slightly and then stopped too abruptly. ‘I didn’t know whether to go in. I don’t know why. I’d normally go in, and then I thought maybe this was different and I should… I don’t know.’

He wasn’t sure if her nerves were making his better or worse. ‘Shall we go in now then? Or, you know, we could go somewhere else if you prefer? There’s a seafood place down…’

‘This is fine.’

‘Right. Good.’

They went into the pub, which was unexpectedly quiet for a weekend.

‘Drink? What do you want? You can have wine. Or a beer. Or whatever you want.’ Pavel willed his mouth to stop talking. He’d bought Jill hundreds of drinks and he’d never turned into a wreck doing it before.

‘Wine. White. Just a small one. I drove over.’

‘OK.’

‘I mean, I know you would have given me a ride back, but I didn’t want to assume. Or for it to look like I was assuming I’d come back with you. I don’t mean back with you, like back with you. But…’ She took a huge breath in. ‘A small wine.’

Pavel headed to the bar. It was possible that he was actually in hell.

It was possible Jodie was actually in hell.

The reception area for the McKenzie estate’s corporate office was so covered in tartan that Jodie could still see the lines and squares when she closed her eyes.

She feared she might never stop seeing them.

That garish purple, blue and brown pattern was going to haunt her dreams.

Adam had dropped her at the end of the access road, not wanting to drive further into enemy territory and risk being spotted, which meant she’d walked a good kilometre in the very stylish, but also massively too big, boots she’d borrowed from Darcy.

Skirts could be taken up. Shoes were somewhat harder to shrink.

‘Miss Simpson?’ The woman calling her name was perfectly made-up, perfectly manicured and perfectly dressed in corporate purple. She held out a hand to shake. ‘Come on through.’

The décor inside the office was slightly more neutral but still leaned heavily on the purples.

‘Have a seat.’ The woman gestured towards two low chairs set around a tinted glass coffee table. ‘I’m Fiona MacCellan. So today is just a few informal questions to find out about you. I’m going to be asking everyone the same questions so it’s fair. You don’t mind if I take a few notes, do you?’

Jodie nodded. ‘That’s fine.’

‘So what attracted you to this position, Jodie?’

She’d rehearsed this answer with Bella at some length and agreed that honesty was absolutely not the best policy so rejected ‘I want to spy on you on behalf of your main rival with the bonus of you paying my salary while I do that.’ Instead she arranged her hands neatly on her lap and smiled in a way she hoped was approachable and warm.

‘I love this part of the world, so being part of an organisation so committed to the Highlands and building a modern business without losing the traditional charm appeals.’ She also remembered Adam’s sole contribution to the interview prep.

Fiona was lovely, he said – despite the raised eyebrow from his fiancée – but also a little insecure.

She’d respond well to flattery, he thought.

‘And also,’ Jodie continued, ‘it would be so exciting to work for such a well-respected female executive. I’m so impressed with everything you’ve achieved here.

I’m sure I could learn so much from you. ’

Was that too much? Fiona’s instant smile suggested not. ‘Oh, you’re very kind. Of course, John, Mr McKenzie, is really the power behind all this. I just help out where I can.’