Page 37 of Cooking Up a Christmas Storm (Highland Cookery School #2)

And then the tempo shifted, incrementally harder and faster and more desperate. He lowered her to the floor, only to free up his hands to pull at her elf tunic, and help her wriggle out of her tights. She grinned slightly. ‘Sorry. This isn’t my sexiest look.’

‘I’m not complaining.’

She caught his eye. ‘Good.’ She stepped back towards him and pulled his sweater and T-shirt up from the waist, revealing a taut, slightly tanned torso.

Pavel pulled one of the fur rugs that had been acting as North Pole set dressing onto the floor, before sweeping Jodie’s legs from under her to lift her up and lower her down onto the rug. He kneeled in front of her. ‘Oh, I don’t know if I have any…’

‘I’m on the pill.’

‘Are you sure?’

She raised an eyebrow. ‘Sure I’m on the pill?’

‘You’re making jokes now?’

‘Sorry.’

‘Why?’

‘What?’

‘Why are you making jokes?’

‘To hide how scared I am.’

‘Of what?’

Almost every instinct was to make another joke, or to grab her clothes and run the hell away. Jodie fought to keep hold of the other instinct. ‘I’m scared of how right this feels.’ That wasn’t quite it. ‘How real.’

Pavel bit his lip. That was exactly it. That was exactly what had held him back in the ballroom.

There was a feeling with Gemma Bryant that something wasn’t quite right, something was being held back.

And now nothing was. She was naked in front of him, in every possible sense.

He took a deep breath in. ‘Me too,’ he whispered.

‘I want this though. I do.’

‘Me too,’ he whispered again.

Afterwards, after the passion and the heat and the feeling of her all around him had passed, he pulled more rugs and blankets from the grotto and wrapped her snug and close to him.

‘That was…’ He didn’t have the words.

‘Yeah.’ She nestled her head into his shoulder. ‘Were there fireworks going off as we… finished?’

‘In here or out there?’

‘Both. Either?’

‘I think both.’

‘Cool.’

‘I can’t promise the fireworks every time.’

‘So there’s going to be more times?’ she asked, her voice muffled by his chest.

‘I… I hope so.’

‘OK.’

The silence sat between them for a moment.

There was something strangely peaceful about being able to feel her against his body but also staring up at the grotto ceiling, talking only into space.

It made him feel like he could say the things he usually left inside.

‘I don’t really do things like this,’ Pavel admitted.

‘Have sex in a Christmas grotto? No. Me neither.’ She paused. ‘Actually… well, I don’t do it loads. Hardly ever in summer.’

‘So many questions,’ he replied. ‘I meant I don’t really believe in sparks.’

‘You think we have a spark?’

‘You don’t?’

‘I didn’t say that. But you failed to kiss me twice so we hardly rushed into anything.’

That was true. It wasn’t how it felt to Pavel though. Doing something for no other reason than that he wanted to was a rarity. ‘It felt impulsive to me.’

‘I know your name. Surname and everything. This is practically waiting until marriage for me.’ She buried her head deeper. ‘That doesn’t sound great, does it?’

‘Sounds better than being a total coward.’

‘I don’t believe you’re a coward.’

‘I think I am. I don’t take risks. I don’t grab what I want.’

‘I have fingermarks on my arse that would beg to differ.’

Pavel laughed. ‘I mean I don’t jump in. It’s scary.’

‘I jump into the wrong things.’

‘Am I a wrong thing?’

She shook her head. ‘No. I’m scared cos I think you might be a very, very right thing.’

And then not looking into her eyes stopped feeling all right at all. He shifted onto his side, cupping her face in his hands. ‘I think this could be everything. Let’s agree not to screw it up.’

That sounded so straightforward. It was a wonderful idea – that you could create something good and pure and precious and then not break it. ‘Screwing things up is sort of my speciality,’ she whispered.

‘But not this,’ he replied. ‘And I never screw up. I’m so sodding reliable. So if you feel like you’re going to screw up, just bring it to Pavel and he’ll fix it?’

‘Really? You’re going to fix me?’

‘I don’t think you need fixing.’

If only he knew. And that was the niggle at the back of Jodie’s head.

Pavel Stone was good and kind and honest and reliable and, if she could believe what he said – which by her own logic she must be able to – he was falling in love, right now, right in front of her eyes.

With Jodie? With Gemma? With Jodie pretending to be Gemma pretending to be Jodie?

It was the tangliest of webs and now she’d tied up someone who deserved a million times better than her.

Than any of the versions of her she could ever hope to be.

‘I need to…’ Needed to what? If she told him the truth everything would fall apart.

Could you turn a lie into a truth if you told it hard enough?

Gemma’s life was going way better than Jodie’s.

Gemma had a job, which it turned out Jodie wasn’t awful at.

She had friends. She had, if she accepted what she felt and let it happen, an incredible boyfriend.

She had everything she knew she didn’t deserve. ‘I need to kiss you again.’

He grinned as he bent his head to hers. His lips were soft and warm and the kiss was more confident and more sure. Jodie let herself relax into it. Everything was going to be…

Bang.

She started at the knock on the door, and pulled the rug over her body as quickly as she could, slightly hampered by Pavel instinctively trying to do the same.

‘Is that door locked?’ he whispered urgently.

Another knock.

‘I don’t think so…’

The door swung open. Jay from Redd Level was silhouetted in the doorway. ‘Right well, not the room I’m looking for then.’ He glanced back at Pavel and caught Jodie’s eye. ‘Nice.’

‘I’m so sorry,’ Jodie started.

The door was already swinging closed. ‘Wow. Grottos have really changed since I was a kid. Merry Christmas!’

‘Merry Christmas, Jay from Redd Level!’ Jodie called back.

Pavel dropped Gemma off at the castle gates. ‘Do you want to come in? You can. I mean, everyone will see you and we’ll be the talk of the village before breakfast.’

‘Would that bother you?’ he asked. ‘People knowing.’

Gemma shook her head. ‘Not at all. I want to parade you down the high street shouting “look what I pulled”.’

He laughed. ‘Yeah. Don’t do that. You want to tell people though?’

For a second the bravado she wore like a shield faltered. ‘If you want to…’

‘I want to, but let me go home tonight and tell my mum first. I’ll get hell if she thinks Anna knew before her.’

Gemma nodded. ‘So long as Anna’s not secretly in the Redd Level WhatsApp group I think we’re safe for now.’

‘I’ll see you tomorrow though?’ he asked.

‘You’re coming to the lights parade?’

‘I am. After a full morning of fixing all the lights for the villagers who only got them out yesterday and then discovered half the bulbs were blown or the plug was faulty.’

‘Oh, Pavel, my hero.’ She kissed him, full and hard, on the lips until his resolve about not coming in with her wavered. ‘See you tomorrow.’ She grinned.

He left the van parked outside the coach house on the grounds that that was where he’d be on Monday, and jogged back over the Low Bridge to the village. His mum was in the kitchen. ‘What are you making?’

‘Yule log. For after the service tomorrow.’ She batted his finger away from the bowl of icing in front of her. ‘Bella’s doing mince pies and Christmas cake slices. I said I’d bring something chocolate for the kids.’ She glanced up at him. ‘And the big kids.’

Pavel took a seat at the breakfast bar his grandfather had built.

Granddad always referred to it as Pavel’s first job, but Pavel wasn’t sure that wearing a toy tool belt that was two sizes too big and holding a screwdriver really counted as helping.

His Granddad had been adamant though. Pavel had been born handy – good at building things, fixing things and making things right.

That, his granddad had always said, was what made a man.

Taking care of things, mending them, protecting things that needed protecting.

He stroked the grain of the wood, softened and warmed with age.

‘What are you looking so pleased about?’

‘Yule log?’ he suggested.

His mother shook her head. ‘That’s not yule-log happy. That’s… I don’t know. Something else.’

‘I’m sort of…’ What was he doing? His brain lingered over the details he had no intention of sharing with his mum. ‘I’m seeing someone.’

He expected her to ask if it was back on with Jill. She nodded. ‘That Gemma lassie from the castle?’

‘How did you know?’

‘I’m your mother and you are not the closed book you think you are. Not to me anyway.’ She lifted the board with the rolled chocolate sponge into the space in front of her, and arranged an offcut to look like a smaller side branch. ‘Does she make you happy?’

‘So happy.’

‘Not like that.’ She pulled face. ‘Really happy? Does she make you feel more like you?’

He shook his head. ‘No. She makes me feel much braver than that.’

Back at the Dower House Jodie wandered from room to room, trying to quiet the itch in her brain that said she ought to be doing something.

Pavel’s presence quieted that voice. He filled her senses and kept her in the moment.

She felt his absence in every room. There was no way she was going to sleep now.

She made her way over to the castle in the hope that someone would be around to talk to but the usually bustling kitchen was empty.

On the island was a square wooden crate full to the brim with Brussels sprouts.

That had been her very first task. Work out what to do with a glut of sprouts, and despite making Old Man Strachan a global sensation and getting a few nice comments on Bella’s reels about fun ways to cook them, she hadn’t actually used up any of the estate’s own crop.

An idea hit, one of those ideas that, now it was in her head, Jodie knew wasn’t going to go anywhere.

She’d need more than just the sprouts, but there was all sorts still in the ballroom and there were art supplies for the toddler group somewhere.

Jodie set to work through the night, and then in the early hours, before the rest of Lowbridge was up and awake, she loaded her creations back into the crate and carried them across the Low Bridge to the village.