Finally ready to face the day, I switched Dad’s coat for my better fitting and cleaner Barbour, which I had previously left behind. There was a 4x4 I didn’t recognise parked in the yard, but I soon worked out it belonged to the person laughing in the barn.

‘If you want them back, then you’ll just have to come and get them, won’t you?’ crooned a seductive female voice.

The words were followed by a mischievous giggle. There was a brief silence and then Ned answered. To my ears, he sounded every bit as amused as his as yet unidentified companion.

‘I’m hardly going to do that if you only keep letting me catch you when you’re positioned under the mistletoe, am I?’ he said.

I could tell me was smiling and my heart gave a slow and heavy thud in response.

‘I don’t see why not,’ the woman purred. ‘It didn’t stop you last year, did it?’

‘That was a one-off,’ said Ned. ‘And you took advantage. You knew I’d had too much to drink.’

My heart beat faster and I wondered if Ned only made a habit of kissing women when he’d had a skinful. If that was the case, then I’d really made too much of his inebriated embrace and determinedly pushed the now tainted memory of it away.

‘If you say so,’ came the woman’s voice again and I rushed to rattle the barn door before walking in.

Bandit gave a gruff bark then, realising it was me, bounded over. I bent to fuss him, putting the moment of looking at the owner of the flirtatious voice briefly off. I might not have seen her yet, but I couldn’t miss the huge ball of mistletoe which had been lashed to the office ceiling and which definitely hadn’t been there the day before.

‘Liza,’ said Ned. ‘I didn’t realise you were about.’

‘I’ve just come over from the lodge,’ I told him, noticing his face was flushed.

‘Come and meet Maya,’ he said, stepping aside to reveal the woman standing next to him.

She was incredibly pretty and in her early twenties. Her dark blonde hair was swept into a high ponytail and her face, free of make-up, had a healthy outdoor glow. She was much taller than me and, as so often when faced with tall and attractive women, I felt immediately inadequate.

‘Liza,’ she beamed, tossing a bunch of keys at Ned before reaching for my hand and pumping it up and down. ‘I’m so pleased to meet you at last!’

I was totally taken aback. Her welcome was both warm and genuine and not at all what I would have expected, given that I’d just interrupted her sultry seduction.