Presently, they drove the couple of minutes to the village hall, Daisy claiming the passenger seat by joking with Niall, ‘It’s my auntie’s car so you get the loser’s seat in the back.’

Niall pretended to weep, cracking Daisy up, and Laurel grinned at their happy, teenaged joking around. When she drew up in the car park near the big Christmas tree, now authentically laden with snow, and saw Grady’s red truck, though, her smile faded and her stomach flipped. How much easier life would have been if, when she’d met the adult Grady, she’d experienced nothing stronger than faint recognition. It was hard to dismiss her stomach, pulse and heart acting as if they were in the mosh pit at a rock festival, without caring about Pippa or Mac. She wished her brain would follow suit.

The teenagers raced off, each trying to make it into the village hall entrance first. Laurel gathered up the cardboard, bubble wrap and tape needed to transport the artwork safely, before following. Inside, the hall looked very different now. In place of decorated stalls and crowds of shoppers was echoing space. Only the part-dismantled art show remained and the standard village hall Christmas decorations of balloons and tinsel. A shiver went through her. It was eerily reminiscent of that long-ago night of the under-eighteens party when the same floor on which her feet now echoed had been for dancing. She’d avoided the mistletoe because Grady hadn’t been there.

But this time Grady was.

He was laughing with someone, shaking back his hair before lifting down a framed drawing of a black cat with white socks and placing it carefully on a table. Several people milled around with cardboard and carrier bags and now the art wall bore more empty spaces than exhibits.

Grady looked up with a grin as Daisy and Niall skidded up to him, then his smile softened as his gaze slid past them to her.

By the time Laurel joined them, Daisy was already asking, ‘Can you get my nan’s paintings down, please, Grady? And Laurel’s?’

‘You’re certainly too short to get them yourselves,’ he joked, carefully lifting down each painting in turn.

Laurel had wondered how he’d be when they met again, after being so pensive and frustrated when they’d talked yesterday afternoon. But the moment his hands were free he gave her a hug and a kiss on her nose, and relief flooded through her.

‘Hey, that’s my auntie you’re messing with,’ Daisy warned, mock ferociously.

Grady released Laurel. ‘That’s not messing,’ he retorted. ‘This is messing.’ He ruffled Daisy’s hair, pulling it over her face and making her squeal.

Then he went to his list on the table and ticked off their items as collected. While Daisy rearranged her curls and Niall wrapped his picture for the short journey home, Grady caught Laurel’s hand and pulled her close enough to murmur in her ear, ‘How about you come back to mine? The last people collecting work have just arrived. I’ll be locking up soon.’