Page 3 of Cooking Up a Christmas Storm (Highland Cookery School #2)
She hauled her wheelie case off the train, picturing a decaf latte with hazelnut syrup, and followed the one other person who got out at Strathcarron along the platform and out…
into what? In front of her was a small patch of grass with a tree and a telegraph pole, surrounded by a tiny cul-de-sac with three houses and the path to the station platform.
The other woman strode off towards the house to their left.
Jodie stopped. And looked. Beyond the buildings was a road, a field and then mountains.
Proper snow-capped mountains from a storybook.
A giggle bubbled up from her belly. She was through the looking glass here, a million miles from anyone who knew her and nobody at all knew she was here.
She’d actually managed to disappear. Apart from that, somebody was supposed to be coming to pick her up.
No.
Somebody was supposed to pick Gemma up. She took a deep breath in and ran through the same set of thoughts she’d been battling with ever since she’d left Reading. Hi. I’m Gemma Bryant. Hi. I’m here to start work. Hi. I’m your new events manager. Hi. I’m a total fraud. Please don’t send me back.
Jodie shook her head. Keep it simple. That was the key to any good lie. Don’t overembellish. Don’t add more detail than you need. Stick as close to the truth as possible. That gave you much less chance of getting tripped up.
At least it would if there was any of Jodie’s real-life experience that was going to be useful to her.
Hi. I’m a failed barista, dog walker, student, shop assistant…
she paused … girlfriend, daughter, and basically human , she added, and I’m here to run your business. That wasn’t going to work, was it?
She ran through her mental script one more time as the white Transit pulled up in front of her. The side decal proclaimed Stone serious professional woman; and not one to hook up with random hot builders at all.
‘Miss Bryant?’
Miss Gemma Bryant was strictly a relationship woman. And right now Gemma Bryant was wholly focused on her new job.
‘Miss Bryant? Gemma!’
Finally the voice cut through her thoughts. ‘Sorry?’
‘Are you Gemma Bryant?’
Jodie caught the hesitation, she hoped, just in time.
Although was there really any length of time – even a fraction of a second – that a person could plausibly pause before recognising their own name?
For goodness’ sake. She’d been rehearsing this all night.
‘Hi! I’m the new Gemma Manager Event.’ What?
The muscled god in front of her frowned. ‘You’re…?’
‘Gemma. Just Gemma.’
‘I’m Pavel. Pav. Adam and Bella are tied up at the estate so they asked me to come and pick you up.’
Jodie eyed the van warily. Don’t get in vans with strange men seemed like a fairly basic rule for life.
It was definitely one her mother would have expected her to learn by this point, but this was a strange man who knew Gemma’s name and was here to collect her at a time and place when a lift service had been promised.
Jodie realised she’d been picturing something more in the black-cab – or at least identifiable-Uber – vein than the white-Transit-van category.
‘Hop in then.’ He grabbed her case and pulled the van’s side door open with one hand to lift it in, before stepping in front of Jodie to hold the passenger door for her. ‘Your carriage.’
The drive started out along the banks of a lake. It was pretty. It put Jodie in mind of childhood holidays in the Lake District with high hills in the distance and a welcoming tea shop never too far away.
‘How far is it?’ she asked, as casually as someone who wondered if she was supposed to know that already could manage.
‘Less than an hour. The pass is clear, so we can go the fast way,’ Pavel said.
The road rose sharply up into the hills, zigzagging away from what Jodie now realised was the coastline rather than just a lakeside. ‘It’s beautiful.’
Her granite-faced driver’s expression softened a little. ‘That it is. Sorry it’s a bit of a trek. I guess that’s one thing Bel and Adam’ll be wanting you to think about.’
Jodie’s ears pricked. Bel must be Bella, who was the woman who’d phoned.
The job was events manager, according to the email to the hastily set-up GemmaBryant2025 email address she’d given her over the phone with some spluttered explanation about a dead laptop and a hacked email account.
And Adam was… almost certainly a name she was supposed to know already.
‘Yeah,’ Pavel mused as he drove. ‘It’s going to be tricky to get students over from the station. Maybe a minibus? But you’ll probably want a four-by-four?’
Students? Jodie racked her memory back through the phone conversation. Highland Cookery School had definitely been mentioned. So students for the cookery school made sense. ‘Will they not drive themselves?’
‘You didn’t.’
No. Obviously.
‘And if they all drive you’ll need parking.’ He shrugged. ‘There’s some outside the coach house and just over the bridge.’
Jodie’s head was reeling. Minibuses, parking, students.
All these appeared to be things that she was supposed to have insight into and plans for.
She couldn’t just turn up in goodness knows where, declare herself an events manager and start managing events.
She had no idea what she was doing. Somebody, probably the somebody who was supposed to be paying her wages, would notice that in a heartbeat.
Her own heartbeat was picking up pace. She glanced sideways at her driver. ‘So what’s your role?’
He shook his head. ‘Just a mate doing a favour.’
‘So you don’t work for Bella and…’ Name? Name? ‘Adam!’
‘No.’
Great. So she had fifty minutes to try to glean as much as she could about what on earth was expected of Gemma Bryant from somebody who wasn’t going to be sitting at the next desk from her tomorrow morning. ‘So do you think it’ll be a good place to work?’
‘Yeah. Bel and Adam are great.’
That was a good start. ‘And what sorts of events do they do?’ Was that a reasonable question for an events manager to ask?
‘Anything that’ll stick one to McKenzie, I reckon.’
He dropped the name in as though Jodie was expected to know what he was talking about already.
Gemma would definitely just smile and nod.
Gemma would probably understand, but Jodie only had the rest of the drive to her new workplace to get to the point where she could feign understanding in front of her new boss. ‘McKenzie?’ she asked.
‘Skirting the edge of their estate now,’ Pavel muttered. ‘John McKenzie’s an entrepreneur. Wants to buy up Lowbridge. They’re working their arses off to avoid that. I’d say basically you’re here to make sure they’re profitable enough to be able to afford to say no.’
Jodie laughed – a swell of hysteria pushing its way out of her lips.
Pavel turned his head quickly to look at her, brow slightly furrowed.
‘Sorry. It’s not funny. It’s just…’ Just what? ‘Just a lot to take in,’ she offered.
Her heartbeat thudded harder in her chest. She had stolen Gemma’s job offer. Gemma was off enjoying her new life in Cornwall, so she didn’t need it, but it sounded like these people did need Gemma. And Jodie wasn’t Gemma Bryant. She wasn’t an events manager. She was a mess.
‘Are you OK?’ Pavel Stone’s gaze was flicking in her direction.
‘Fine.’ Her rapidly whitening knuckles told a different story.
‘Let me know if you’re going to be sick,’ Pavel murmured.
‘I don’t feel sick.’
‘OK.’
‘I…’ She opened one eye and quickly closed it again. ‘Can we stop?’
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.