He nodded in recognition. I sent up a silent, desperate prayer that she’d stop short of giving him the address along with my phone number.

‘So, yeah, anyway, we’ve sort of lost our sense of direction. Do you know the best way to the road?’

‘Hatherstone Lane? Where it meets the village?’

‘Yes! That’s it. End Cottage.’

‘If you take that path, and follow it round, it’s maybe fifteen minutes.’ He paused, turning to look at me, still hovering in the shadows like Steph’s socially awkward sidekick. ‘Twenty. Depending on how used you are to walking.’

‘Oh, we’re very used to it. Ollie here walks all the time, don’t you, Ollie?’

He quirked one eyebrow up, still smiling as he waited for me to confirm this untruth.

‘Well. Um. Yes. But I mean, that’s more like walking in the city. On the pavement. I don’t really… I haven’t much… anyway, thanks for your help!’

Then I turned and started hurrying down the path he’d pointed at without even checking if Steph was coming with me.

‘Oh my,’ she gloated, once she’d caught up with my frantic strides and managed to stop giggling. ‘You totally love the hot man of the woods.’

‘Excuse me?’ I huffed with the tiny amount of breath I had left. ‘I wasn’t the one shamelessly flirting.’

‘Well, perhaps you should have been!’ she crowed back. ‘I deliberately left flirting out of the No-Man Mandate because you need the practice. And you never blushed like this over Mark.’

‘I’m not blushing, I’m warm from the exertion of trying to get away from a totally embarrassing situation!’

‘Oh, chill out. I was only asking him for directions.’

I didn’t bother replying to that, instead tramping along in silence until we saw the cottages up ahead.

‘He was pretty damn gorgeous, though, you have to admit,’ Steph said eventually. ‘For a second there I thought we’d stumbled across the May photo shoot for a Mr Forest Ranger charity calendar.’

I tried my best to give a reproachful glare as I stopped to yank open the gate, instead bursting into laughter. ‘Okay, I do admit to finding the random man we happened to walk past in the woods quite pleasing. Happy?’

Steph linked her arm through mine once we started crossing the garden. ‘As happy as I can be until I know you’ve not bottled it at this dinner tonight. Hopefully Mr May will be something of an incentive to get moved in and that list complete. Maybe the countryside is full of charming, rugged men wielding power tools.’

‘Well, I’m going to be far too busy to notice, even if it is.’

She bumped her elbow against my side. ‘There was nothing in the mandate about noticing, either.’