‘We’re going to catch them snogging behind the bike sheds one day.’ Noel leans down to whisper like he can read my mind. ‘They nip off for coffee every morning and they always return ten minutes later, all giggly and clinging onto each other.’

It’s probably a good thing that we don’t have any bike sheds. Because I could easily imagine myself kissing Noel behind them.

I shake my head at myself. Lingering gazes, desires to touch, and kissing men behind sheds or in any other place … I don’t know what’s got into me lately.

Chapter 10

‘Not like that, like this.’

It must be the fortieth time Noel’s said it so far this morning, and I still haven’t got the hang of it. We’re out in the Balsam fir field below the stream, Gizmo’s safely at home with Glenna due to the proximity of sharp knives, and Noel’s trying to teach me how to shear a Christmas tree.

‘Did that tree drunkenly catcall you or something?’ He looks sorrowfully at the overgrown thing I’ve just wielded my knife at. ‘It’s obviously done something to make you hate it.’

I’d never seen a shearing knife up close until I spent an hour in the barn this morning trying to work out how to sharpen them and polish them. They’re like a cross between a sword and a massive knife, and I’d feel a bit like a swashbuckling pirate if it wasn’t for the fact he’s insisted I wear leg and arm protectors and goggles. I actually feel like a foam-covered Transformer off to a welding class, with protective plates covering my jeans from foot to knee, knee to upper thigh, and again from wrist to elbow. I’m not sure if they’re to stop me getting injured or just because he wants to see me look like an idiot.

Noel, of course, swishes two knives around like a cross between a master swordsman and Jack Sparrow. He walks around each tree, cocking his head to the side and looking along the edge of the knife to judge the angle, and then swish, swish, swish, like a better-looking Edward Scissorhands, and the tree in front of him has gone from an overgrown jumble of branches to a perfectly conical tree that would look good in anyone’s living room.

‘How are you doing that?’ I haven’t even got to grips with the one-handed method yet and he’s twirling both two-foot long blades around like a demented hairdresser.

‘Like this.’ He executes another perfect swish and unwanted branches spray from the tree in a snowstorm of green needles that make the balsam scent even stronger and drop to the ground in a perfect circle.

‘You’re just showing off now.’