that Mum never fought for me, that played right into his hands. It was too easy to believe Dad’s diatribes that women were terrible creatures.’
‘Right.’ Luke mused. ‘So… you pick women who don’t last long, women you can’t fall in love with. Women who don’t possess the power to hurt you, how am I doing so far?’
Jack’s jaw fell open. It was as if this man grilling pitta breads had seen into his soul. Luke seemed amused by his expression.
‘Thought so. Jack, mate, piece of advice: you’re doomed if you don’t break your pattern of picking women you don’t really fancy that much but think you should. What’s the point in having all the trappings of success if you have no one to share them with?’
‘I know,’ said Jack. ‘I hate going home to a big echoey house every night. I see my friends and what they have: wives, children, laid-back houses, sensible cars and smiles on their faces and I want it so much but… there’s a barbed wire fence between their world and mine.’
‘No there isn’t,’ Luke refuted. ‘Your brain has imagined it there to give you the illusion that it can’t be yours, the excuse. But it can, trust me. You just need to do what you’ve done with your business and step out of your comfort zone or you’ll be running around in it in small circles for the rest of your life.’
Jack let Luke’s words sink in. Could it really be that simple?
‘You’re very wise,’ he said.
‘I’ve made a lot of mistakes. People who have and who’ve learned from them usually are quite savvy.’ Luke left it a beat before continuing. ‘Mary’s lovely.’ It was written all over the woman’s face in emotional Sharpie what she thought about her boss. Jack must be blind if he didn’t see it.
‘Yes, she’s…’ Jack was going to say efficient again, ‘…awfully good at her job.’
‘Oh, Jack, get over yourself. She’s also a woman. You should take off your office glasses and see her as a man would.’ Luke put the second batch of pitta breads under the grill.
‘Don’t be ridiculous. As I told you before, she sees me as her boss. I’ve never given her the slightest bit of encouragement to think otherwise either,’ said Jack, dismissing the notion outright.
‘I can well believe that,’ said Luke, turning his attention back to making lunch.
* * *
Everyone was ready for something to eat by the time they brought it through. The six of them sat at the long table, passing around dishes of the various ingredients and, simple fare as it was, it felt like the best kind of banquet. The lounge had been fully warmed up by the fire, which cast a cosy orange glow into the room in stark contrast to the bluey-white snowy exterior beyond the stone inn walls.
Radio Brian gave out a grim warning of ceaseless snow for the next twenty-four hours at least. No one would be home or in a luxury Scottish hotel for Christmas Day.
‘So looks like we’re all going to be lumped here together tomorrow,’ Charlie said with considerable glee. ‘We should prepare.’
‘Prepare?’ asked Jack. ‘Whatever do you mean, Charlie?’
‘Celebrations,’ explained Charlie. ‘We have to make merry for Christmas Day of course.’ He bobbed his head towards Mary. ‘As the Norwegians would do, by making the best of our situation.’
‘Precisely,’ Mary added to that. Playing draughts with Charlie had salved her injured feelings no end. ‘We should cook a Christmas dinner. There’s plenty of ingredients in the larder for it and they’ll probably be wasted otherwise. We’d be doing the landlord a favour.’
‘Absolutely,’ said Luke, high-fiving Mary for her altruism.
‘I was hoping to have mine cooked for me by a Michelin-starred Scottish chef,’ said Robin in a grumbly voice. ‘But, as the Norwegians would’ – he also gestured towards Mary – ‘I will embrace the alternative with gusto.’
‘That’s the spirit,’ said Charlie.
‘Let’s do a Secret Santa,’ suggested Luke, clapping his hands together with childish glee. ‘We’ll each go on a hunt around the inn and find something to wrap up for someone else. We don’t have to keep it and get arrested for stealing when the owner comes back. It’s all about the opening anyway.’
‘Sounds good,’ said Bridge. She got up from her seat and tore a page from Mary’s notebook on the bar. She ripped it up into six, wrote their names on the pieces, folded them and put them in a dimpled beer glass.
‘Right,’ she said, returning to the table,