‘The manger,’ I called up to him. ‘I was supposed to paint it this afternoon but got asked to do something else. It completely slipped my mind.’

‘Does it need painting?’

‘It’s a cardboard box from the supermarket, with twelve bottles of Merlot stamped on the side so I would say yes, it definitely needs painting.’

Beamish chuckled and climbed back down the ladder.

‘Do you want a hand?’ he offered. ‘I’m all done here and I can’t lock up until everyone’s gone.’

‘I think it’s just us now,’ I said, looking out into the empty car park.

‘Come on then,’ he said, scooping up the doll which had been drafted in to play the starring role. ‘Let’s leave Jesus and his bed of straw here and get this done. I might even be able to give the paint a knotty wood finish.’

‘Oh my,’ I said, following him out of the hall, ‘fancy.’

Beamish, of course, was as good as his word, and after we’d waited for the first coat of brown paint to dry, he then expertly added some knots and bark embellishments in a darker shade which, from a distance looked more or less like the real thing.

‘Well, well, well,’ I said standing back to admire his handiwork, ‘you really are a man of hidden talents, aren’t you?’

‘You’d be amazed,’ he winked and I felt my face flush.

Gestures like that weren’t going to keep my crush at arm’s-length for long.

‘In this job,’ he went on, thankfully unaware of my change of colour, ‘you have to be able to turn your hand to pretty much anything and everything.’

‘For someone with such huge hands,’ I stupidly carried on, making the situation a gazillion times worse, ‘you have a very gentle touch.’

What the hell possessed me to say that? And to make the situation worse, all I could now think about was the way his fingers had rested on my waist at the ice rink.

‘What I mean is,’ I crashed on, ‘is that you’re good with your hands.’

He looked at me and raised his eyebrows.

‘No,’ I said, ‘I don’t mean like that.’

‘What do you mean then?’ he asked, a smile pulling at his lips.

‘I mean . . .’

‘Oh, never mind,’ he laughed, ‘let’s just leave it, shall we?’

More than embarrassed, I nodded and gathered the brushes together to wash them. He came to stand next to me, emptying the jam jars of murky water into the sink as I turned on the tap to start rinsing everything off. The water pressure was not what I was expecting and it came spurting out in a series of short bursts, covering us and everything else within a metre radius.

‘Oh my god,’ I gasped. ‘It’s freezing! Why won’t it stop?’