Page 31 of Cooking Up a Christmas Storm (Highland Cookery School #2)

‘I saw the potential in her. See the same thing in you. A mind we can mould to the McKenzie way.’

Jodie’s smile didn’t budge an inch. Was this a job or cult? ‘Can’t wait to get started.’

Out of the corner of her eye she could see that not only was Fiona fixated on John’s every move, but Saira was as well. Another piece slotted into place in the jigsaw in her head. I see you, John McKenzie, she thought. I see you.

Once John had disappeared to do whatever terribly important things he didn’t involve Fiona in, they got down to work.

Fiona showed her round the key elements of the estate.

The visitor experience hub. The three retail spaces.

The multiple convenience kiosks offering refreshments around the estate.

The four different gastronomic experience venues.

And finally the main events space, adjacent to what Fiona referred to as the central administration and management hub.

‘Over there is the hotel, and we’ve got lodges all over the site.

Four star officially but obviously deserve a fifth.

The health club is down there too, and the spa site. ’

That building was the job Pavel was hoping to be working on.

‘That spa will help us get that fifth star,’ Fiona added.

‘I mean, we should have had it from the start. John was…’ She paused for a second.

‘He was very cross about that.’ She shook her head and, within a second, the corporate happy face was back.

‘I mean, none of us were happy. We’re all really invested in this place. ’

‘It seems like a wonderful place to work.’ Jodie reminded herself that she had a whole other job to do. ‘Why don’t you show me the event space? I’m excited to hear what you’ve got planned for Hogmanay.’

What they had planned for Hogmanay, it turned out, was everything plus the kitchen sink.

Jodie had thought Gemma’s plan for a gala evening, with accommodation, a nature walk and a low-key breakfast on the first of January for the survivors was a lot to organise.

McKenzie’s plans took things to a whole other level.

The guests arrived on the thirtieth of December and stayed until the second.

As well as the ceilidh – advertised, Jodie noted, as being hosted by the Highlands’ most in-demand ceilidh band – on Hogmanay itself there was also a murder mystery evening the night before – which actually sounded fun, and something they could definitely put on at Lowbridge – and live music and a quiz on the evening of New Year’s Day.

And that was before you got to the menu of additional activities guests could pay extra for during daylight hours.

Quad biking, wildlife jeep tours, spa treatments.

‘I thought you didn’t have a spa yet?’

‘There are treatment rooms in the health club, obviously,’ Fiona explained, as if the absence of treatment rooms was a horror no McKenzie estate guest should ever have to contemplate.

Jodie read on. ‘Cinema afternoons?’

Fiona nodded towards the door off the small event room they were sitting in. ‘We have a screening room that seats up to sixty.’

Of course they did.

There was also archery, field and target, shooting and fishing, art sessions and dance lessons.

‘We’ve got someone from Strictly coming to do those,’ Fiona explained. ‘Not one of the good ones. One of them that only lasted a couple of series. We wanted Anton Du Beke, but his people have got him doing panto.’

‘Maybe next year?’ Jodie muttered.

‘Maybe. And we have Jay from Redd Level turning on our Christmas tree lights next week.’

Jodie’s incomprehension must have reached her face, because Fiona explained.

‘Redd Level. With two Ds. You know, the song where they’re on the bus and they’re trying to get to the Christmas party.’

‘No.’

‘You do know.’ Fiona popped her tablet down on the floor next to her and held her hands out as if turning a massive steering wheel and sang uncertainly, ‘It’s Christmas, in my heart.

It’s Christmas, and I’m gonna dart right back to you.

On a train! On a plane! On a bus! There’s no fuss.

I’ll be there for Christmas babe with you… ’

By the time Fiona was recreating the plane wings with her arms, the dance routine and the whole damn song was back in Jodie’s head. ‘I remember. Wow. Was Jay the one that turned out to be gay?’

Fiona shook her head. ‘That was Pete, with the white-boy dreadlocks. Jay was the blond one.’

Jodie just about managed to swallow her laughter. Anna and Nina would be apoplectic when they heard the McKenzies had a celebrity for their lights turn-on.

‘That’s next Saturday. Jay and Santa, of course.’

‘Of course.’

‘Actually,’ Fiona pulled a face, ‘I know it’s not really your job, but John does like everyone to muck in.’

‘OK?’ Jodie suspected John McKenzie liked an atmosphere where everyone else mucked in.

‘Santa will need some elves, and we quite often ask a few of the team to take part. Saira will be donning the tights as well.’

Dressing as an elf was not Jodie’s idea of a good time but she was a very long way away from anyone who knew her – given that the Lowbridge locals were very unlikely to put in much of an appearance at the McKenzie place – and she was supposed to be getting the inside track on the set up here.

Appearing to be a committed team player was exactly what she needed to do.

‘Of course I will.’ She beamed. ‘Can’t wait. ’

‘Great stuff. John was right. You are turning out to be precisely our sort of person.’

Pavel had arrived home from lunch with Jill to find his mother sitting in her garden. He had started to tell her that the grand romance was off. She’d stopped him with a wave of her phone. ‘Save your breath. Jill already texted me.’

‘Sorry, Mum.’

‘Don’t be sorry. If there’s no spark, there’s no spark.’ She’d left him with one thought. ‘I just hope you don’t miss it when there is one.’

A week ago Pavel would have said he didn’t believe in sparks.

He believed in being a good person and doing what you could and had assumed, he supposed in so much as he’d ever thought about it at all, that at some point he’d do those things alongside someone else who thought the same.

He’d have thought that anyone he might fall for would be easy and would fit into the life he had.

He’d have imagined someone open and relaxed.

He’d never have imagined he could experience a moment where actually nothing happened at all, with a woman he sometimes felt he barely knew at all stuck in his head like a scratched record.

He told himself that the fact that she was the only one who knew what he was doing at the coach house wasn’t the real reason he was spending so much time here at all.

He was spending every spare minute after, and even before, his regular work at the coach house.

The job was bigger than he’d acknowledged and he was exhausted.

But it needed doing. Having proper guest accommodation would give his friends the best chance of holding on to the estate.

He was determined to continue. And some evenings, if Bella was teaching a class, or was too tired to talk about work, Gemma would sneak over to see how he was doing.

She would sit cross-legged in the corner of the room he was working on, notepad open in front of her, phone in her hand, scribbling down details for Hogmanay and making notes on her day at the McKenzie estate. Most evenings they didn’t even chat, but he was constantly aware that she was there.

This evening he was alone. He could see the light from the castle kitchen, telling him that the household was awake. Bella and Gemma would be at the kitchen island deep in conversation.

Pavel’s phone vibrated on the floor alongside him.

He checked the message – Tom confirming they’d got the McKenzie job and asking if he could start in a couple of days.

Pavel fired off a reply. The idea of working for the McKenzie estate had made him uneasy from the start but now there was a fizz of excitement too.

Gemma was at the McKenzie estate, wasn’t she?

He’d probably done enough for tonight. He picked up his stuff, and opened the door to the outside world a crack to check nobody was around.

Adam was standing right in front of him. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘I erm… I thought I’d left something here last time I was over, but no. Can’t find it.’

‘What? I’ll help you look.’ He started towards the door.

‘No. It’s fine. Just some tools, but they’re not here. I probably left them at the pub.’ He pulled the door closed behind him and strolled as casually as he could out into the dark. ‘How’s everything with you?’

Adam shrugged. ‘Apart from adding a baby to the list of things we can’t afford right now? Well, it’s full steam ahead with the Hogmanay Gala. I figure we might as well just commit at this point.’

Pavel shook his head. ‘How do you do that?’

‘Do what?’

‘Dive into stuff.’

Adam leaned against the coach house wall. ‘Not got much choice. People are coming whether there’s a party or not at this point.’

Pavel didn’t reply.

‘Why do I think this talk might not be about a party?’ Adam asked.

What was it about? Pavel had never questioned his life.

He was needed in Lowbridge. He fit into a Pavel-shaped hole.

It had never felt like a cage before. ‘Why did you move to Edinburgh?’ Adam had left at eighteen and only returned earlier in the year when he’d inherited the barony, rather earlier than anyone had anticipated.

‘What?’

‘I mean, you were the heir to the manor and you upped and left.’

‘For university.’

Pavel shook his head. ‘You didn’t go for three years and then come home. You went went. I didn’t think you’d stay even… even after your dad died.’

‘I didn’t plan to.’

‘So what happened?’

Adam leaned back and stared up at the ceiling for a moment. ‘I fell in love.’

‘With Bel?’

‘Well, yeah, but then she fell in love with here and I sort of started seeing it through her eyes and I don’t know.

I fell in love with Lowbridge again as well, I guess.

’ He let the silence sit for a moment, but Pavel knew they’d known each other too long for Adam to let him off entirely. ‘Why do you ask?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Are you thinking of leaving?’

‘No.’ No. Of course he wasn’t. ‘I’ve always been happy here.’

‘Then what?’

He wasn’t sure he could put it into words. He was good at doing things, and fixing stuff, and helping out. He wasn’t always so good at saying the things that needed to be said. ‘How do you cope with the shocks?’

‘Like my dad dying?’

Of course that was what Adam would think of. It wasn’t what Pavel had meant.

‘I don’t think I did. I tried to power through. It didn’t work.’

‘What about the rest? Bella?’ Pavel did smile now. ‘A baby?’

Adam splayed his hands out from the side of his head to show his mind was blown at this point. ‘Those are happy shocks though. I didn’t go off on some stag do intending to come home engaged. We were not planning a baby. But those are brilliant shocks, aren’t they? What could be better?’

‘When you got together with Bella, didn’t it feel risky? Jumping in so fast.’

‘Course it did. But the risk of not seeing her again was worse. That wasn’t just scary. It was unimaginable.’