Page 43 of Cooking Up a Christmas Storm (Highland Cookery School #2)

It was the following lunchtime that Jodie stepped off the train to Hastings after four trains and an uncomfortable night at Euston.

This was the place she’d sworn she wasn’t going to end up, but after everything she finally did have no choice.

She dragged herself and her suitcase through the shopping centre and over West Hill to Collier Road, and stopped outside her parents’ home.

It was a three-storey rambling old townhouse that had always been filled with lodgers and dogs and stray cats and anyone, and anything, else her mother invited in.

The door opened in front of her before Jodie had got close enough to ring the bell. Jodie took a deep breath and looked up into her mother’s eyes. ‘I thought you might have got stuck at the bottom of the path.’

Jodie shook her head. ‘I was just taking a minute.’ She looked her mother up and down. She’d always been a bundle of energy, never moved at a stroll when she could stride out or dash from place to place.

‘Are you going to come in then?’

‘Yeah.’

Her mother glanced down at Jodie’s case. ‘So not just a flying visit?’ Her voice was hopeful.

This was what she’d fought so hard to avoid.

It wasn’t her parents’ anger or disapproval.

That wasn’t who they were. Sometimes Jodie wished it was.

She wished they’d shout at her. She knew how difficult she could be.

Having them pretend otherwise only made that worse. ‘I need somewhere to stay for a while.’

‘Of course.’ Her mum’s face lit up and then crashed back down into a mask of concern. ‘Are you all right?’

There was no point pretending any more. There was no bravado left in her. Jodie shook her head. ‘No. I don’t think I am.’

Her mum moved carefully down the step, leaning on her cane, and met Jodie on the path, pulling her into a deep hug. ‘Then I’m really glad you’ve come home.’ She kissed her daughter on the top of the head. ‘Hot-chocolate not all right, or gin-and-tonic not all right?’

Jodie couldn’t answer. She was ‘need a hug from my mum’ not all right.

She followed her mum through the house and out to the conservatory, which was really – in her dad’s care – more of a glorified house-adjacent greenhouse.

Even in December it was full of plants – containers brought in from the garden to overwinter and houseplants lovingly tended all year round. He looked up as they came in.

‘Jodie!’ He glanced at his wife. ‘We weren’t expecting you?’

‘No. I just thought I’d…’ Thought she’d what? ‘Drop in,’ she finished.

Her dad came and hugged her in welcome, but she could sense him looking past her. ‘Just you, is it?’

Of course they’d be expecting Gemma. Another disappointment.

‘Erm, yeah.’ She pulled back from the hug.

‘Gemma and I split up.’ She couldn’t meet either of her parents’ gazes.

She knew perfectly well that Gemma had been good for her.

She knew that in her head, but somehow she couldn’t feel it any more.

The face she saw every time she closed her eyes wasn’t Gemma any more.

‘Oh, I’m sorry, pet.’ Her dad frowned. ‘In Scotland?’

‘No. Before that. Then I… I got a job in Scotland and so I’ve been up there for, erm, about six, seven weeks.’

Her mum squeezed her shoulder. ‘This definitely sounds like a hot-chocolate conversation.’

Two hours later she’d told them everything.

Well, not everything. Not about how she’d been fired from Diane’s coffee shop.

She’d told them most things. Well, not most things.

Not precisely how she’d stolen the job in Scotland.

She’d told them a lot of things. Well, not a lot of things.

Not how she’d snuck away at the crack of dawn after she’d messed up again.

She’d told them some things. She hadn’t told them about him.

She’d really meant to, but even as the words tumbled out of her, explaining the break-up and the long journey to the Highlands and the castle and the cookery school and the village and the Christmas lights and even how she’d gone undercover at Lowbridge’s great rival, every time Pavel hovered on the edge of the story her brain shut down.

His name would not pass her lips. Jodie had messed up again and again and again but this one was too awful.

Finally she was done. There was so much more to tell, but she’d given up everything she was able.

Her dad was frowning again. ‘It sounds like you were doing well though, pet. Why did you come away?’

She shook her head. He clearly hadn’t been listening at all. ‘I wasn’t doing well. They needed someone who could cook and we lost our band and people kept cancelling.’

‘Doesn’t sound like any of that was your fault, and they knew about the cooking,’ he pointed out.

And that got her stuck at the big thing she hadn’t told them at all.

Jodie took a deep breath. ‘I lied,’ she admitted.

‘Go to your cookery class.’ Pavel’s mother was standing, arms crossed, in the entrance to the gym.

Pavel shook his head. ‘I’m giving it a miss today.’

‘I don’t think you are, and you’re going to damage your hands if you stay here punching that thing any longer.’

Pavel caught the punch bag that hung from the beam in the garage gym and stabilised it with his hands. ‘It makes me feel better.’

‘Does it?’ Nina perched on the edge of the bench.

‘This doesn’t look like better to me. You didn’t go to work yesterday, and clearly not today either.

Mrs Timberley rang last night cos she thought you were walking her dog for her.

Young Strachan texted cos he’s been at the coach house all morning with no one to tell him what needs finishing off and you’re not answering your phone. It’s not like you.’

That was true. It wasn’t. ‘I don’t know what I’m like.’

‘Yes. You do. You’re a good man.’

Pavel shook his head. He’d always thought that.

That was who he’d always been. Pavel was a good guy.

Reliable guy. Salt of the earth. But that Pavel had been in a trap as well.

Always doing what other people needed, being there for everyone, but never wondering what he wanted for himself.

And he’d broken out. He’d worked out what he wanted.

He wanted her and he’d gone after her despite the risk, despite the fear.

He’d chased after the person his heart truly desired.

He’d stood in front of her and he’d begged her to stay.

And after all of that, he was supposed to step back into the Pavel-shaped hole in the village and be the person who’d never met Jodie Simpson, who’d never fallen in love, who’d never had his heart ripped out, who’d never tried, really tried for the first time in his life for something he knew was meant to be his, and failed.

‘You don’t have to be OK.’ His mum rubbed her eyes. ‘You just have to keep going. One step at a time. Please.’

And now he’d made his mum worry. That wasn’t fair. He nodded. ‘Just let me grab a shower.’

He was the last to arrive for the cookery session, and he hesitated at the kitchen door. The last time he’d been here he’d walked in thinking the world was at his feet and run out a different man. He took a deep breath and stepped inside. The babble of chatter stopped the minute he walked in.

‘Don’t mind me,’ he muttered.

The two younger Strachans looked to the eldest who looked right at Pavel. ‘I’m sorry about your lass.’

The others nodded in agreement. Pavel couldn’t respond.

‘Right then. Shall we make a start?’ Bella clapped her hands together. ‘Strach,’ she nodded at the youngest Strachan, ‘why don’t you work with Pavel today?’

And with that Jodie’s absence was glossed over and the rest of the world moved on.

‘Today we’re looking forward to Christmas. We don’t have time to do a full turkey but I thought that if we learned the makings of some of the great side dishes then you could make them for your own Christmases, or if you want to, bring them along to join us for Christmas here.’

Pavel looked up. ‘Here?’

Bella nodded. She looked even more exhausted than usual. ‘Who knows where we’ll all be next year? So we thought this Christmas we’d invite everyone who wanted to come along. Christmas here for the whole community.’

It sounded wonderful, but somewhere in his heart Pavel knew it could be Bella’s farewell to the village, and if the castle went then all the community groups that had sprung up under its roof would go as well. And then what?

Bella was still talking. ‘And for dessert we’re going to Poland with a traditional poppyseed cake. This is a makowiec – am I saying that right, Pav?’

‘Near enough.’

‘And this is eaten at celebrations like Christmas, yes?’

Pavel nodded. ‘My granddad’s speciality.’

‘So I understand.’

And so Pavel understood. This lesson was for him.

This was Bella trying to tell him, with food – the only language she knew how to express this in – that these people saw him and cared for him and wanted to find something that would bring him back to himself.

So long as he wasn’t another thing too broken to fix.

The poppyseed roll, it turned out, was an exercise in patience and understanding that these were ingredients that couldn’t be rushed.

‘This is a yeasted dough,’ Bella explained.

‘And the yeast is alive and we need it to bring this dough to life. And like any living thing yeast can be temperamental. You can’t rush it or make it move at your pace.

You have to give it all the love you can and then let it do its thing, and trust that everything will come together and work out in the end. ’