My hand flies to my face in a panic. Is she serious? I know I kissed him a lot last night, but I’ve never had stubble rash in my life. No wonder she knows there’s something going on between us. Why didn’t I look in the mirror this morning? It doesn’t feel sore or raised, but I rub my fingers over my chin worriedly, and she produces a handheld mirror from her pocket and hands it to me.

I open it gratefully and turn it this way and that, tilting my chin towards both the normal side and the magnifying side. There’s nothing there. ‘I don’t have stubble rash.’

‘Ah, but you wouldn’t have even questioned it unless you’d been doing something that might’ve given you stubble rash.’ She beams as she whisks her mirror back out of my hand, looking extremely pleased with herself.

‘People your age are supposed to be above such sorcery,’ I say, even though I’m kind of impressed by her innovativeness in her quest to get us to admit to something we might not have done.

‘You don’t get stubble rash from kissing Chihuahuas,’ Noel says as he walks past with a tree over his shoulder. ‘I’ve just heard there’s a bath pearl gone wonky on your tree, Fiona, you should go and double-check it before the kids get here.’

She falls for it and rushes off even though the schoolchildren who are judging won’t be here for hours yet, and I thank him for rescuing me.

He laughs. ‘I don’t know how she knows, but she knows. She’ll try to catch you out again, believe me. I was late one morning last year, and she’s still trying to get me to admit where I really was, even though it was nothing more interesting than oversleeping.’ He holds his hand out to help me up into the truck bed. ‘C’mon, make sure you’re busy before she comes back. You can pass me trees and pumpkins down and I’ll get the stall set up.’

In the bed of his truck, there are still a couple of crates of pumpkins – although they’re culinary pumpkins rather than ones for carving now – and a few crates full of Glenna’s goodies. She’s really gone overboard in preparation for the extra customers the competition will bring in today. Apart from trees, I’ve got some bunches of mistletoe and a few wreaths I’ve made from the branches of unsellable Christmas trees, fronds of fern, with twists of mistletoe, pine cones, and holly leaves and berries.