Page 39 of Cooking Up a Christmas Storm (Highland Cookery School #2)

‘Look. I’m sorry…’

Jill held up her hand. ‘Nothing to be sorry about. I wanted to reassure you. I’m sure, the way people talk around here, that you’re going to hear that me and Pav were some great romance, but we’re friends. Good friends. Romantically it’s just not there.’

‘That’s what he said.’

Jill nodded. ‘And he’s a terrible liar.’ Her voice dropped. ‘At least to other people. Anyway, I’m his friend. I’m not competition. You haven’t done me dirty or anything like that. Of course, cos he is my friend, if you hurt him I’ll have to…’

‘Kill me? I know. You’re the second person who’s told me that.’

Jill laughed. ‘His mum?’

‘Yeah.’

‘And she’s way scarier than me. Anyway, I was going to say I’d have to forgive you. Goes with the job, I’m afraid.’

‘That is less scary,’ Jodie agreed.

‘It would be a very aggressive forgiving.’

Jill moved away to mingle with the rest of the villagers. Jodie could see Nina and Anna starting to distribute lanterns for the walk along to the castle. It was turning out to be a really lovely event. Despite herself, Jodie had done something right.

She turned to find Pavel and liberate him from the huddle of kids and found herself staring directly into a distinctly less friendly face. Fiona MacCellan. ‘Fi.’

When had she got here? Had she seen Jodie introducing the whole event? That might still be something she could style out. Fiona knew she was living in Lowbridge. But if she’d seen that she’d also have seen…

‘You stole my pop star.’

Right. So she had definitely seen that part.

‘I didn’t even invite him.’

‘And Father Christmas. I paid his travel all the way from Edinburgh.’

‘It was his day off,’ Jodie spluttered.

‘Gemma!’

No. No. Not now.

‘Gemma!’ Anna bore down on them both. ‘We’re nearly ready to start the walk.’

Jodie nodded mutely. ‘I’ll be there in a minute.’

‘Why are they calling you Gemma?’

‘It’s a nickname.’

‘Gemma short for Jodie?’ Fiona wasn’t an idiot. Jodie really, really wished she was.

‘No. It’s like…’ What could she say? ‘I… when I first came here I’d just broken up with someone and things were really hard and maybe I wanted to be someone else for a while. It was a misunderstanding really. That I didn’t correct.’

Fiona shook her head. ‘Right. So you moved to the other end of a country and adopted a fake name cos you were having a difficult time.’

Put like that it did sound ridiculous.

‘Jodie?’ Another voice cut across Fiona’s reply. ‘Jodie Simpson? Oh my goodness, it is you. I thought I saw you yesterday up where we’re staying, but I thought don’t be ridiculous. What would she be doing all the way up here?’

Jodie could have kissed the woman hurtling towards them.

‘Diane.’ Yesterday she’d run and hid away for fear of exposure.

Today Diane was a life raft and Jodie jumped gratefully aboard.

She turned to Fiona. ‘This is Diane. We knew each other before I moved up here. This is Fiona. She’s my boss at the McKenzie estate.

’ She arranged her face into what she hoped was an expression of realisation.

‘Oh my goodness. Is that where you’re staying? ’

Diane nodded. ‘Lovely to meet you, Fiona.’

Fiona looked utterly confused. Jodie tried to remember what her CV said her last job had been.

Pizza Now, of course. So how to use Diane to get her out of one mess, without getting her into a bigger one?

‘I used to do a few shifts for Diane in her coffee shop back in Reading when I was free. She’s a friend of my mum. ’

Please let her pick up on the family-friend angle and not the terrible-barista element.

‘That’s right,’ Diane confirmed. ‘I’ve known this one’s family since she was tiny.’

Fiona still looked bemused. ‘Jodie’s family?’

‘That’s right. I lived near them when I was younger. When Jodie moved to Reading her mum asked me to keep an eye out, you know?’

‘Right.’ Fiona rallied. ‘What a coincidence.’

‘Isn’t it?’ Diane squeezed Jodie’s arm. ‘Are you doing this lantern-walk thing? It sounds absolutely lovely. Are visitors allowed to join in?’

‘Of course. If you go over there’ – Jodie gestured towards the shop, expecting to see Nina and Anna handing out lights. They seemed to have found a new minion – ‘Jay from Redd Level will give you a lantern.’

Fiona stayed quiet until Diane was out of earshot. ‘I am so sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking. I do this. I don’t think and I jump to the wrong conclusions and…’

Jodie shook her head. Now she had to add gaslighting Fiona to her list of crimes. ‘No. It’s fine. I mean, I did sort of borrow your Santa. I’m sorry about that.’

Fiona pursed his lips. ‘His contract does say he can’t take any other jobs while he’s with us.’

‘We’re not paying him.’

‘That’s probably technically allowed then.’ She sighed. ‘John will be…’

‘What if we didn’t tell Mr McKenzie?’

Fiona’s face froze as if she was struggling to process this radical idea.

‘I mean, what we all do on our days off isn’t really up to him, is it?’

‘I am his…’ Fiona lowered his voice. ‘We don’t make a show of it in front of people. He’s very private, you know. But I am with John.’

‘He’s not with you today though?’

‘He had to be somewhere else today.’

At home with his wife probably, Jodie thought.

And with a flash of certainty she knew she was right.

Maybe not a wife, but another Fiona somewhere out there picking up scraps and desperately trying to piece them together into something that made her feel special.

She had another question though. ‘Fiona, why did you come to this?’

‘No reason. I was passing through.’

Lowbridge wasn’t a place people passed through. It was barely a place people came to. ‘OK.’ Jodie didn’t bother to hide the scepticism in her voice.

‘Ge…’ Pavel’s voice stopped abruptly. ‘Fiona.’ He smiled. ‘Lovely to see you. And Jodie, hi.’

The recovery was fast enough and Pavel’s big, honest face was trustworthy enough for the slip-up to go unchallenged.

‘We’re starting the walk through the village,’ he told them.

‘Are you going to come?’ Jodie asked.

Fiona shook her head. ‘I should get back. I don’t want to intrude.’

‘You wouldn’t be.’

‘I might. There are plenty of people here who think my family sold out.’ She nodded quickly. ‘Lots to do anyway. And John said he might be around this evening so I should go.’

Jodie watched her leave, heading back to a car parked across from the shop in front of the small pebble beach. ‘I feel sorry for her.’

‘Me too, and she’s wrong.’

‘What about?’

‘People don’t blame her family. They definitely don’t blame her. You’ve seen what it takes to hold on to an estate these days. Adam’s barely managing and he’s got his own business somewhere else.’

‘I blame John McKenzie,’ Jodie added. ‘For pretty much everything at the moment.’

‘He’s not here.’ Pavel wrapped her hand up in his. ‘You’ve got cold hands.’

‘I’m sure you can find somewhere warm to put them.’

He shot her a look that managed to combine ‘stop now’ with ‘you bet I can’. Something inside Jodie went a little bit wibbly.

The walk through the village was magical. Houses flicked their lights on as the group approached and finally the pub was lit up in sparkling cascades of white and gold, before they continued over the bridge and into the castle’s chapel, lit with candles and the walkers’ lanterns.

Jill led them singing ‘O Little Town of Bethlehem’, ‘Silent Night’ and ‘The First Nowell’, before she invited Nina and the children and parents from toddler group up to sing ‘Away in a Manger’, which involved very little singing and a lot of waving at nanas in the congregation.

‘I think we have time for one more. And I hope you’ll indulge me with one of my favourites. Let’s close with “In the Bleak Midwinter”.’

As the first chords played Jodie felt something pricking at her eyes. She wasn’t going to cry. No. Jodie was always overemotional. Gemma had said it was adorable, but even she’d pointed out, very sensibly, that most people would find it a bit much. Jodie had to be better at keeping it together.

The congregation around her flowed into song. In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan . The words were gentle and plaintive and the voices of the village, raised together, washed over her.

She wasn’t upset. The tears that were pricking at her eyes weren’t born out of sadness or anger or even joy.

They were more like an over-spilling from a soul simply too full of emotion – every emotion.

And she let the tears fall, and the words and the music wrapped around her.

It was ridiculous. It was pure Jodie behaviour.

Gemma would have play-punched her on the arm and told her to pull herself together.

Next to her she felt a hand brush against hers and then wrap her fingers in its grasp. She squeezed Pavel’s hand and leaned her head gently against his arm as the tears continued to flow.

Pavel didn’t crowd Gemma for the rest of the evening, but he did keep an eye on her.

The last few days seemed to have unlocked an openness in her that he’d only glimpsed before, but that had brought a vulnerability with it.

All her emotions were on the surface, raw and unguarded. Pavel had to find a way to protect her.

Before he could go back over to her he was accosted, or perhaps more accurately ambushed, by Anna, his mother’s friend Netty, and Flinty. ‘So what’s this with you and our Gemma?’ Flinty asked.

‘We’re going out.’

‘From what your mother said it sounds more like staying in,’ Anna suggested.

‘What did my mother say?’

‘She said you were seeing one another.’

Pavel nodded. ‘Yeah. Well, we are.’

‘Did you break the Reverend’s heart?’ Flinty asked.

Jill was currently deep into her third mince pie chatting to Bella by the food table. ‘I think she’s fine. You can go and ask her though?’

‘We’re asking you.’

‘Right. Well, I think she’s fine.’

‘Can I keep the same hat?’ That was Netty.

‘What?’

‘Can I wear the wedding hat I bought for you and Jill for you and this Gemma?’