The Little Christmas Shop on Nutcracker Lane. Jaimie Admans

run a Christmas shop in a Christmas village? And since when are there vacancies here? You know how crazy the availability for these shops was. I had to register our interest at 12.01 a.m. on a January morning, submit an application by February along with our stock samples, and then we had to wait months while they assessed all applicants and chose the most suited ones. He makes it sound like he wandered past and they happened to have a spare shop. And if they did have a vacancy, why not go back to the original applications and offer it to the next best?’

      ‘I think you might be overthinking this …’

      Once again, I’m annoyed by how well she knows me. What am I doing – looking for flaws in his story that might somehow prove he’s a wooden doll come to life? Trying to prove that you can’t take anything a man says at face value?

      ‘Do you know you haven’t stopped smiling since you got back in here? And even mentioning Brad hasn’t done it. Maybe this James guy is some kind of magical prince after all … It would definitely take magical powers to put a smile like that on your face.’

      ‘Nooo,’ I say quickly. ‘He’s exactly the type of person I hate, Stace. He hates Christmas and is keen to tell everyone how much he hates it at any opportunity. It’s fine if people don’t like this time of year, but they have no right to try to stop other people’s enjoyment of it.’

      ‘He’s selling Christmas decorations. And judging by that nutcracker you’re lovingly caressing, he’s giving them away too. It doesn’t sound like he’s trying to spoil anyone’s enjoyment of it. Is he single?’

      ‘I don’t know, but there’s no way. You haven’t seen him. Men who look like that aren’t single. And he was nice too – sweet, funny, engaging. No wedding ring, but his left arm is in a cast up to his thumb; he’d probably have taken it off.’

      ‘Or he could be a magical nutcracker come to life solely meant for you to fulfil your wish on another magical nutcracker … There seems to be an influx of magical nutcrackers around this place.’

      ‘Which, once upon a time, was what made it so popular.’ Thinking about Nutcracker Lane and its rapid decline is one thing guaranteed to get the smile off my face. ‘And I don’t actually think he’s a nutcracker, I just think there are a lot of coincidences.’

      ‘Like the universe is winking at you—’

      I cut Stacey off with the old British excuse for everything. ‘Didn’t you say something about a cup of tea?’

      I hurry off to the back room to make it with our little kettle, because I can’t think about things like that. James seemed lovely, and even though there was something about him, he’s just going to have to be lovely from a distance. Single or not is irrelevant. I’m nowhere near ready to trust another man, and after so many relationships ending in lies and cheating, I’m not sure I ever will be again.