Page 49 of Cooking Up a Christmas Storm (Highland Cookery School #2)

He nodded an acknowledgement but didn’t reply.

Jodie braced herself for the journey to proceed in silence.

Silence made her brain itchy. She forced herself to think through the plan to quiet it.

Just concentrate on one thought. Don’t let your brain freewheel wherever it wants to go .

A seagull swooped low in front of the van.

Jodie remembered being told once that there’s no bird called a seagull.

There were herring gulls, and black-headed gulls and…

she couldn’t name any more types of gull.

Were terns gulls? Or shags? She giggled at the fact that there was a bird called a shag.

‘What’s funny?’ Pavel asked.

She was supposed to be thinking about the plan. ‘Nothing.’

And now she wasn’t thinking about the plan or about seagulls.

She was thinking about Pavel Stone. About the closeness of him.

The kindness of him. The warmth. The touch.

The desperate hole in her heart that he’d left behind.

And now her brain was going to all the places she desperately wanted not to be thinking about.

The adage that it was better to have loved and lost floated into her mind.

Whoever had said that was even more of an idiot than Jodie.

Loving someone and losing them was torture.

Dusk fell as they approached the McKenzie estate by the main entrance.

They’d decided that was the best option to begin with.

Pavel had worked up there recently enough that his van wouldn’t arouse too much suspicion around the main car park, and it would give them the chance to scout out how many staff were around.

Jodie was hoping that, with the event in the evening and the festive holiday, most of the employees would either be coming in later or fully occupied during the afternoon.

The lights were on in the main visitor centre but the sign outside informed them that the centre closed at four p.m. on New Year’s Eve. ‘Right. Let’s leave the van here. If it’s spotted you can say you came to check on something on-site after the storm.’

Pavel nodded.

‘We can do the ones in walking distance from here and then drive round to the far side.’

Jodie zipped her black top up to the neck and pulled a dark beanie out of her pocket.

Pavel shook his head.

‘What?’

‘You worked here less than a month ago. I don’t think putting a hat on will stop them recognising you.’

‘Dark colours blend into the shadows better. I’m not trying to go unrecognised. I’m trying not to be seen at all.’

‘You’re not James Bond.’

‘When you’re in a McKenzie holding cell waiting to be waterboarded and I’ve got away scot-free don’t complain to me.’

‘I don’t think they have holding cells.’

‘You don’t doubt the waterboarding though.’

She knew she was watching his face for every reaction and there was, unmistakeably, a tiny hint of a smile there.

‘Made you smile,’ she teased.

Pavel’s face turned back to granite. ‘Jodie, don’t. Please don’t.’

‘Don’t what?’ As if she didn’t know.

‘Don’t act like things are OK.’

She started to protest that she wasn’t and stopped herself. She knew things weren’t all right. She just couldn’t stop hoping that might change.

He pulled the first few signs out of the van and marched off into the forest.

They only had one sign left to deploy when they pulled into their final parking spot.

She waited while Pavel pulled the van slightly off the track to be better hidden by the trees and checked her map again.

‘The junction is up there, and we need people to come this way?’ she confirmed. ‘Shall I go?’

‘I can. I’ll be quicker.’

He was right, but the assertion still bristled. ‘I can manage.’

‘I never said you couldn’t. I just said I’d get it done quicker.’

Something prickled at Jodie. ‘You’re saying I’m not good enough.’

Pavel frowned. ‘No.’

‘It’s fine. I know what you meant.’ The same as everyone meant. Jodie wasn’t up to it. Jodie wasn’t good enough. The tiny flicker of belief that that wasn’t true was still small inside Jodie but it was there.

‘I was just trying to help.’

‘I don’t need help.’

‘I know. I was just trying to make things easier.’

There it was again. Jodie needed someone to come in and fix things. ‘I don’t need you to fix me. I’m not a project you can swoop in and make right.’ Pavel was Lowbridge’s Mr Fix-It. Why wouldn’t Jodie be a project to him?

‘I don’t want to fix you.’ His face was pained. ‘I never wanted to fix you.’

The red mist was clearing as fast as it had descended. ‘Yeah. Right,’ she muttered.

‘I never wanted to fix you,’ he repeated. ‘I just wanted to make everything around you as good as it could be. I wanted to make you happy.’

Jodie’s heart hurt. ‘I’m sorry. Again.’ She couldn’t look at him. ‘That’s turning into a theme.’

The silence sat between them for what felt like an eternity. Pavel cleared his throat. ‘Do you want to go do the sign then?’

Jodie looked out into the gloom. Pavel was fitter and taller and had been bashing the sign poles into the ground about three times as fast as her. If she tried to think rationally there was nothing to argue about here. ‘No. You will be quicker. Do you mind?’

‘It’s fine. If I’m not back in ten minutes, burn the van and make for the hills.’

Jodie forced herself not to react but that had definitely been a joke.

The guard he had up might not be absolute after all.

She stared out into the dark and she waited.

So much could go wrong with this plan. Any of the drivers could miss the sign, and even if the whole group did make it to Lowbridge there was every chance they’d simply jump back into the minibuses and leave as fast as they arrived.

A sensible person would never try this. A sensible person would never even have thought of it.

She checked the time. Eight minutes since Pavel set off. She knew the ten-minute thing had been a joke but, even so, he should have only been heading a hundred metres or so up the track and the ground was soft so setting the sign shouldn’t have taken him more than a couple of minutes at most.

Ten minutes. Maybe someone had seen him, but Pavel being around the estate wasn’t that odd in itself. He’d done work here before Christmas and whatever McKenzie thought about it the locals still used the footpaths across his land so it wouldn’t immediately look like trespassing.

Eleven minutes. So long as nobody in estate management actually saw him hammering the sign in, they ought to be fine.

Twelve minutes. Jodie jumped out of the van and made her way up the track, staying close to the trees, listening for anyone else around her. She heard the voices within seconds, and she knew it was all over.

Pavel was at the junction and Fiona MacCellan was standing right in front of him, her McKenzie estate four-wheeler stopped a few feet away. ‘What on earth are you doing?’

‘Out for a walk.’ That was good.

‘With a hammer?’ That was less good.

‘Oh yeah. I, I found this.’ From where she was standing, Jodie caught Pavel moving slightly to the side so the sign he’d been hammering in was hidden behind his legs.

‘Where?’

‘Where what?’ Jodie could picture Pavel’s perfect honest face. He really wasn’t built for espionage.

‘Where did you find the hammer?’

‘On the ground.’

Jodie winced.

‘Pavel, it’s a good job I know you, because a man your size wandering round a forest with a hammer could raise alarm bells.’

‘Yeah. Right. Sorry. Like I say, I found it. Someone must have dropped it.’

‘Someone else who was wandering about the forest with a hammer?’

‘Like a workman or someone.’

Fiona nodded. ‘Shall I take it then?’

‘Sure.’

He handed it over.

Fiona paused. ‘This has your initials engraved on the handle, Pavel.’

‘Does it?’

‘Yes. Is this your hammer?’

Oh for goodness’ sake. Jodie stepped out of the shadows. She had Fiona’s attention straight away.

‘What are you doing here? You lied…’

‘So you heard about that then?’

‘I had a very informative chat with Adam Lowbridge. In the end. Nobody was very keen to tell me anything at all.’

‘Right.’ Jodie searched for the right words. What would Adam have told her? Not the industrial espionage part presumably, so what? That Jodie had tricked them and then moved on to McKenzie?

‘I do not have time for this. I’ve got a ceilidh starting in two hours and the band hasn’t turned up.’

Jodie could definitely have explained that if she’d been asked. The band had received a text earlier that morning telling them that due to storm damage to the estate the party venue had been moved.

‘So whatever you’re doing here, just tell me so I can get on.’

Sod it. Truth first. ‘Pavel’s here with me. We’re putting up signs to redirect your guests to Lowbridge for the Hogmanay party there.’

Fiona’s jaw dropped. ‘What?’

Pavel stepped aside to reveal the diversion sign behind him.

‘What?’

‘Yeah. I mean you stole half of them from us anyway. So it seemed fair.’

‘I did no such…’ Fiona stopped. ‘What do you mean “us”?’

So Adam definitely hadn’t told her the full story of Jodie’s employment at the McKenzie estate then.

‘I’m back working at Lowbridge.’

‘You never told me you’d worked there before.’

‘No. Sorry.’ Actually that was true. ‘I am sorry. Honestly.’ But Jodie’s conscience was not the matter at hand. ‘You did steal our guests though.’

‘Again, we didn’t.’ She paused. ‘ I didn’t.’

Jodie’s heart jumped a little. Was it possible? ‘You didn’t know?’

‘Of course not. There were some guests that Saira added to the bookings list. She said they were Mr McKenzie’s special guests.’

‘He didn’t say anything to you about them?’

‘He’s very busy. He doesn’t always tell me everything.’ There was something different about Fiona, a weariness that hadn’t been there before.

‘And you stole our band?’

‘Saira booked…’

‘Mr McKenzie’s special request?’ Jodie hazarded.

‘Yes.’

‘Well, isn’t Saira bending over backwards to keep Mr McKenzie happy.’