‘Don’t want to get in more trouble with the boss, eh?’ He astutely said, his bushy grey eyebrows twitching.

‘Quite,’ I agreed. ‘And there’s this one too.’

I handed him a second sheet which had planting out guidelines on.

‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘Right. I think that’s everything, isn’t it? We now have the right tree and that fool of a boy will be able to sleep tonight.’

‘It really wasn’t his fault about the mix-up,’ I quickly said. ‘I should have double checked the label.’

‘Yes, well,’ he said, looking at the tree again. ‘No harm done and it’s kept him on his toes. I daresay we’ll have an engagement announcement over Christmas, if his courage doesn’t fail him.’

After the phone call yesterday, I had thought the guy might have been a bit of a wimp, but having now met Mr Stott in person, I retracted that unfair assumption. He was the bravest of the brave to be taking on this man as a father-in-law.

I heard Maya clattering the sack wheels up the ramp behind me and beat a hasty retreat back up the drive.

‘We’ll leave you to your day then,’ I said to Mr Stott, ‘and again, I’m so sorry about the mix-up. Thank you for being so understanding.’

‘That’s all right,’ he said. ‘Ask David if there’s anything to pay for keeping the tree, would you? I want to settle the account ahead of picking out another next year.’

I would look forward to telling Ned he’d said that. If Mr Stott was willing to choose another tree then the Wynter’s reputation wasn’t in the total tatters he imagined.

‘Of course,’ I said. ‘Someone will be in touch. Goodbye.’

‘See you next year,’ Mr Stott called after me. ‘It will be fun to start again with a tiddler.’

Just for a moment, I rather wished I was going to be around to see that.

‘That’ll be interesting,’ said Maya, voicing my thoughts as I scrambled back into my seat and fired off a quick email asking David to update the Stott account and issue a final bill. ‘I bet Mr Stott’s idea of a tiddler won’t be a teeny two-foot effort, will it?’

‘Definitely not,’ I laughed, feeling better now that the first part of the plan was sorted and had gone smoothly.

‘You’ll have to let me know what they go for.’

Maya indicated and pulled on to the road, side-eyeing me as she did so.

‘Why, where are you going to be?’ she frowned.

I felt my face flush. ‘I mean, if I forget what he’s just said,’ I hastily said. ‘Or I’m off-site when he visits.’

‘I don’t think you’ll forget about this in a hurry,’ Maya laughed.

‘No,’ I said. ‘I don’t suppose I will.’