Page 51 of Cooking Up a Christmas Storm (Highland Cookery School #2)

The first ever Lowbridge Castle Hogmanay Gala was a roaring success.

The band were on fire. The people of Lowbridge and their guests – both accidental and intentional – had scrubbed up well.

The room was a riot of tartans and sequins.

The dancing was enthusiastic rather than skilled but people did dance.

And the food, everyone agreed, was exceptional.

Adam, Bella and Darcy charmed their guests and the presence of a genuine laird elevated everything.

Even Veronica’s presence was appreciated as she sat, perfectly poised, in a corner.

Jodie heard at least one guest ask for a selfie, telling their friends that they’d met a real-life dowager, just like Maggie Smith.

The only bigger star of the night was Old Man Strachan, who was constantly surrounded by a gaggle of visitors queueing for selfies and calling out for him to tell them to get in the bin.

Jodie made her way through the crowd, checking everyone was happy and everyone’s glass was charged. A dark-haired man in his late thirties stepped out in front of her. ‘Are you in charge here?’

‘Er, no.’ Jodie looked around for Bella but she was busy with another group of guests.

‘But you work here?’

‘Yeah. Sort of.’

He smiled. ‘I’m Kenny. I’m from A2Z Travel.’

The tour company name rang a bell from one of Fiona’s endless lists. ‘Oh. Great.’

‘Yeah. Miss MacCellan told me about the…’ He paused for half a beat, the hint of a smile pulling at his lips. ‘Mix-up. So good of you to accommodate us.’ He handed her a business card from his pocket. ‘Do make sure you send the invoice direct to me. My bosses can get weird about changes of plans.’

So Fiona had definitely told him at least part of the story. ‘But not you?’

Kenny looked around. ‘My visitors are happy so I’m happy.

’ He smiled more broadly. It was a good smile, open and warm and more than a little bit sexy.

If Jodie wasn’t so utterly infatuated elsewhere she could have fallen for a smile like that.

‘Honestly, I find the whole set-up at the other place a bit clinical. You know what I mean?’

‘We’re a bit more informal here.’

‘It’s great.’ He turned to head back to his group.

‘Oh, actually, odd request – I always used to go to church with my grandma on New Year’s Day.

She reckoned it was good to start the year on the right front with the guy upstairs, if you know what I mean.

She’s gone now, but I kind of like to keep up the tradition.

I don’t suppose you know if there are any services near here tomorrow? ’

Jodie didn’t, but Jill was sitting at the next table, sipping a glass of red and listening to a selection of Strachans bend her ear about the perils of internet celebrity. Jodie took Kenny from A2Z Travel by the arm. ‘Let me introduce you to someone,’ she said.

She left Kenny topping up the Reverend Jill’s glass, and walked straight into Bella. ‘Thank you,’ she whispered. ‘For coming back. I know how hard that can be.’

‘I’m so sorry for everything before.’

‘I just wish we’d found out who was sharing our information with McKenzie.’

It had slipped out of Jodie’s mind with so many other things going on. ‘I think I half did. Saira Summers. It was definitely her giving the information to McKenzie, but I don’t know how she got it.’

‘Saira Summers?’ Bella’s face opened up in recognition.

‘You know her?’

‘She applied for your job, for Gemma’s job. For… you know what I mean. She was local so we interviewed her here, in the office. Do you think she could have copied down a password or something?’

‘Maybe.’ Jodie’s mind boggled. ‘Wow. So I wasn’t the worst person you could have hired after all?’

‘Technically I didn’t hire you.’

‘I’m still really sorry.’

Bella shrugged. ‘All’s well that ends well. And Fiona’s conversion to the light side means we live to fight another day.’

‘I’m so glad. It has ended well, hasn’t it?’

Bella looked across the room to where Pavel Stone was desperately trying to sit out the next dance, despite his mum, Netty and Anna all demanding he get back on the floor. ‘Maybe not for everyone.’

‘He’ll barely talk to me.’

‘Can you blame him?’

‘Not really. I did try though.’

Bella moved away to rejoin Adam for the next dance.

Jodie really had tried over the hours in Pavel’s van driving around the rival estate.

She’d made jokes to break the ice. She’d let him be quiet.

She’d tried to give him space. And she’d hoped he’d come back to her.

And she’d failed. She knew now that messing things up wasn’t a fundamental character flaw.

She wasn’t broken. She didn’t need to change every fibre of who she was to deserve love.

But she also knew that she had hurt Pavel terribly and she might have to live in a world where he never forgave her for that.

On the stage the band leader cleared his throat and leaned in to the microphone.

‘So this is the last dance of the year. I always reckon you should never sit out the very last dance. Don’t end the year on a regret, and always start the new one living life to the full. Everyone onto the dance floor!’

Not ending the year in regret. That sounded like good advice. Jodie walked right across the dance floor, through the gaggle of women still trying to lure Pavel up for a spin. ‘Can we talk?’

‘I was going to dance,’ he replied.

‘No. He wasn’t.’ Nina put her foot down. ‘He’s free and he’s grumpy. Good luck to you, pet.’ She led the others away.

Pavel looked up. ‘Outside then.’

They walked away from the castle, past the Dower House and along the side of the walled garden.

‘I wanted to say sorry.’

‘You’ve said that already.’

‘Not for lying.’

He rolled his eyes.

‘I mean I am sorry for lying. But I’m sorry for going.’

He wasn’t meeting her eye.

‘You asked me to stay and I didn’t trust myself enough to say yes.’

‘It felt like you didn’t trust me.’

‘No. You’re… I thought you were far too good for me.’ Truth first. ‘You know with Fiona, all the stuff she was saying about John McKenzie?’

‘What a shit.’

‘It was kind of like that with me and Gemma. The real Gemma. I thought she was perfect and everything bad in our relationship was me. I believed that. I believed that I was so broken that I would break anything good that came near me.’

‘So when you went off at me about trying to fix you?’

‘It felt like another person who thought I needed to be different somehow.’

‘I never thought that.’

‘I know…’

He held a hand up to quiet her. ‘But then I found out I never really knew you at all, so what does what I think matter anyway?’

‘It matters. A lot. To me.’ That was what she was trying to tell him. ‘You are so good. That’s why I ran away. I couldn’t face seeing you broken. I couldn’t face knowing I would do that to you.’

‘But you did anyway.’

‘I never thought you’d come after me. When I left you at the Dower House.’ Why would he? Jodie was beyond saving. ‘I didn’t want to drag you down with me.’

‘You should have given me that choice.’

‘But you always do the right thing.’

‘And what is the right thing when you’re in love with an identity thief?’

He was in love with her. Jodie’s heart grew.

‘Just for the record though, asking you to stay wasn’t me doing the right thing. I wasn’t thinking about being good or honourable or fair. I wanted you to stay. Selfishly. For me.’

‘I did want to stay.’ There were no words that would make this right. All she had left was the truth. ‘I went because I couldn’t face the thought of hurting you and I came back because I saw the storm on the news and I couldn’t bear the thought that you might be hurt somewhere out here without me.’

‘That’s why you came back?’

It was. ‘And then I saw you and you looked through me and I got scared again. You looked like you hated me.’

For the first time he moved towards her. ‘I don’t hate you.’

‘That’s a start. Tell me how to fix this.’

He shook his head.

‘I thought you were the man who could fix anything.’

‘You don’t need fixing. I love you. I think I love you.’ Something was holding him back.

‘What are you scared of?’

For a moment she thought he wasn’t going to answer. She had no right to expect that he would. He took a deep breath in. ‘I’m in love with someone I don’t even know.’

‘You do know me.’ Jodie absolutely knew that was true. ‘I lied about details, facts and stuff, but I never lied to you about what I’m really like. When we were together, I promise. That was all me.’ She stepped closer to him, hoping she might have said enough.

He stepped back. ‘And, now every time I look at you I’m terrified you’re going to leave again.’

‘Only if you come with me.’

‘I want to believe you.’

‘You can. Home is where you are.’ They both knew what that meant. ‘So home is here.’

His brow furrowed. ‘What do you mean?’

‘You’re Lowbridge. You belong here.’

‘I always have. But not for the last few weeks. I think you did break me.’

Jodie felt like all the air had been knocked out of her. Everything she’d been holding on to was a lie. Gemma was right all along. Jodie broke things and hurt people.

‘I mean,’ Pavel continued, ‘you broke me out of something. It hurts but I think it might be good. I never thought of going anywhere else, or living any other life. But now this life doesn’t feel the same when you’re not in it.

I’m more scared of a life without you in it than of anything else.

’ Now he reached a hand towards her. ‘You promise you won’t run without me, my darling? ’

His darling. ‘I promise. I don’t want to run away any more though. I could make this home.’

He was quiet.

‘What are you thinking?’

‘Just that I’ve never tried anywhere else.’

Jodie thought about that. Lowbridge was the first place she’d felt like she was capable, the first place where she’d found something she was good at, but now there was one, maybe there were others. ‘So the future’s unknown?’

Pavel nodded.

‘Scary?’ she asked.

‘A bit, but I think I need to get better at remembering that some things are out of my control.’

‘You don’t have to fix everything, you mean?’

Finally he smiled. ‘Not when it doesn’t need fixing.’ Down below them the strains of ‘Auld Lang Syne’ drifted out on the breeze, and Pavel Stone bent his head towards her and found her lips. They stood for a long time, bodies locked together, until finally they moved apart. ‘Happy New Year, Jodie.’

‘Happy New Year, my darling.’