Page 42 of Cooking Up a Christmas Storm (Highland Cookery School #2)

‘What?’ Adam wasn’t making any sense. ‘She’s pretending to be Jodie at the McKenzie place.’

‘Yeah. She is, but that’s her real name.’ Adam spoke quickly. ‘She’s Jodie Simpson. Gemma, the real Gemma, was her ex and that was who we offered the job to. Jodie pretended to be her.’

‘No.’ Why would Adam be saying something like this?

‘I’m not joking.’

Pavel looked at his friend’s face. He really wasn’t joking. People didn’t do that though. They didn’t pretend to be someone else to get a job in a run-down castle in the middle of nowhere. They didn’t travel across the country based on a lie and a prayer.

And then Pavel remembered her on the very first day, trying to run away before she’d begun, convinced that she’d made a terrible mistake.

He remembered the way she shut down every time anyone asked about her home or her life before Lowbridge.

He remembered Bella teasing her for lying about how much she knew about cookery before they offered her the job.

He remembered every time he thought he’d seen her, and every time she’d closed down again.

He hadn’t known what was wrong, but he’d known that something was.

He’d known that she wasn’t showing him all of herself.

But he had seen her. He’d seen the way her face changed when he called her darling. He’d seen her fighting for breath when panic was overtaking her. He’d seen her weeping at the strains of a carol. He’d laughed with her. He’d made love to her, and that had been real. She’d promised him it was real.

Adam was still holding the envelope Bella had handed him. ‘She left this.’ He pulled out two sheets of paper and held one out. ‘This one’s for you. Well, it’s for us to tell you but you might as well read it for yourself.’

Pavel unfolded the paper.

Please tell Pavel I’m sorry. And tell him it wasn’t all a lie. Tell my darling Pavel that all of that was real. I’m so so sorry if I hurt him.

‘If she hurt me?’ He looked at his friend.

‘I know, mate.’ He shook his head. ‘She told us last night. I told her she had to tell you. I thought she would.’

Pavel thought back to last night at the cottage. Had she started trying to tell him something? And then what? Fear, he guessed. Fear of how he’d react. ‘I wish she had.’

‘What would you have done if she had?’

‘I don’t know.’ Was that true? ‘Asked her to stay.’

Adam nodded. ‘That’s what I was going to do too.’

‘What?’

‘Me and Bel talked about it. I mean we’re furious obviously, but she’s done good stuff since she got here, and Bel’s fond of her.

And Darcy’s incapable of turning away a lost soul, so yeah.

I was going to check if you were OK with it and then ask her to stay.

And then Bella was going to make her wash up after every cookery school session for the next six months. ’

Too late for that. Gemma – no, Jodie – had made the decision for all of them. And that wasn’t OK. Suddenly Pavel wasn’t sad any more. He was angry. ‘How dare she?’

‘What?’

‘Run away. Decide for us. Did she tell you where she’d gone?’

Adam shook his head. ‘Six o’clock on a Monday morning? And none of us drove her anywhere.’

‘School bus to Lochcarron?’

Adam nodded. ‘That’d be my guess.’

Pavel was out of the door and jumping into his van before Adam had finished the sentence.

School bus to Lochcarron probably meant regular bus from there to the station.

He could go straight there without going round the houses to all the tiny hamlets and farmsteads like the bus did.

He could still catch her. He could still make things right.

And so Jodie’s Highland adventure was going to end where it started, at the tiny station in Strathcarron, looking forward to hours and hours of travelling.

Twelve hours ago she’d been happy, or at least as close to happy as she ever managed to come.

Twelve hours ago before Veronica had called her to one side and blown up the gossamer web of lies she’d constructed. And she’d been kind about it.

That was the thing Jodie’s brain kept coming back to. Veronica hadn’t called her names or shouted or humiliated her. She’d been kind. Jodie didn’t deserve kind.

She checked the information board again.

Her first train would take her to Inverness and from there she could change for Edinburgh, Newcastle, even London.

She could be far away from here by lunchtime.

But then what? She was starting again. Again.

The money she had in the bank wouldn’t last more than a few weeks and she had nowhere to stay and no job to go to.

At least the station was quiet. There was nobody around to witness her failure.

It also meant that as soon as another person stepped onto the platform she was aware of their presence, as if she wouldn’t have been aware of his presence in any place on any day.

She didn’t turn her head as he got closer. ‘What are you doing here?’ she asked.

‘That’s what I was going to ask you.’

She slid along the bench to make room for him to sit down next to her. Pavel remained standing. He pulled her phone out of his pocket and handed it to her. ‘You left this.’

‘Thanks.’

‘You’re running away?’

So he hadn’t come all this way just to bring her phone back. ‘I’m leaving.’

‘Why?’

Wasn’t it obvious why? Bella and Adam must have told him.

For him to turn up here he must have known she was leaving, and if they’d told him that they must have told him why.

Surely? She finally looked up to face him.

And then she knew. His face was blank, cold and, worse than that, closed.

Pavel Stone was an open book. Easy, kind, generous.

Now he was guarded and she’d done that. She’d taken something beautiful and she’d broken it all over again. ‘I lied.’

‘I know.’ He blew out a long breath. ‘I didn’t ask about that. I asked why you’re running away.’

‘You don’t want to ask about the lies?’

He looked up at the display board. ‘You’re getting the Inverness train?’

She nodded.

‘Then we’ve only got ten minutes. I thought if we dealt with the running away first then we might have time for the proper conversation.’

‘A row, you mean?’

‘What do you think?’

Honestly, Jodie wasn’t sure. Pavel didn’t seem angry. She wasn’t even sure she could imagine him angry. She knew she’d seen parts of him he kept close – the passion and the tenderness – but anger was something else. ‘You don’t seem that cross.’

Pavel shook his head in clear and utter disbelief. ‘I’m furious. And confused. And I don’t know what else, but right now none of that matters if you go.’

‘It would be worse if I stayed.’ It was true.

If she stayed he’d make her tell him the truth about everything.

All the lies. All the deceit. And everything before that as well.

That she was a deadbeat who turned everything she touched to ash, and seeing her as she really was would eventually do the same to him.

‘No.’ Finally Pavel sat down next to her and took her hand into his.

‘No. Nothing would be worse than you leaving. I’m so angry with you.

For lying, but even more so for not telling me, even when everyone else knew.

But you going now and me not seeing you again is still worse.

If you stay I can fix this. I can make it better. ’

He was wrong. ‘I’ll ruin things again if I stay. You’re better off…’

He shook his head. ‘I’m not going to let you do that. It’s a get-out-of-jail-free card, isn’t it? You’re leaving for my benefit? You are not. You’re leaving for yours. Cos you’re too scared to stay and face the music.’

She didn’t reply. She couldn’t. She couldn’t admit he was right because if he was right then the next thing would be to stay and try to make things better. Jodie couldn’t face failing at that.

‘You said you didn’t think I was a coward,’ he continued.

‘But I am. I’m only here now because I found something that scares me even more than admitting how I feel.

I’m terrified of loving you. But I’m more terrified of losing you.

’ He squeezed her hand a little tighter.

‘So I’m here. I love you. Stay.’ He pressed her hands to his lips.

‘Let me find a way to make all of this better.’

Maybe she could. Maybe, even if she messed up, Pavel could be a good enough man for the both of them. Maybe he could love her enough to make her better. She could hear the problem in her head without even saying it out loud. Pavel Stone couldn’t fix her. Nobody could.

‘I want to stay,’ she admitted.

‘Then do.’

The station announcement cut through the moment. The train now approaching platform one…

‘That’s me.’ She started to stand up.

Pavel shook his head, hand still tightly wrapped around hers. ‘Don’t.’

‘It’s…’ She looked into his big, kind face. She owed him the truth. Even if it was just this once. ‘I think I could love you.’ That was only a half-truth. ‘I could love you, but I daren’t.’

‘Coward.’

‘Yeah.’ It was true. ‘But I daren’t love you because I don’t think I can without hurting you even more.

I don’t know when or how yet, but I would mess this up and I didn’t run because I was scared of how angry you’d be.

I ran because I couldn’t face being there when you found out.

I didn’t want to see the damage I’d done. ’

Pavel finally released her hand. ‘The damage is there whether you see it or not. Maybe you need to face it?’

The train was rumbling on to the station.

‘Stay,’ he whispered again.

‘I can’t.’ She really couldn’t. ‘You’re right. I should face the damage, but…’ There was so much damage. Everywhere Jodie went, she left pain in her wake. It had to stop. Pavel Stone couldn’t fix her. She had to stop herself. ‘I’m sorry.’