“Sebastian, young man. Good to have you here. It’s been a while,” Jim said, half standing, his usual floral shirt covered with one of my favorite of his Christmas jumpers: a green sweat shirt with a picture of his grandkids dressed up as elves on the front. Jim, the village florist, had a different Christmas jumper for each day of December.
“Too long,” Sebastian said, shaking Jim’s hand. “I’m here to work and don’t want to interrupt. What’s on the agenda?”
Every now and then I’d heard people talk about Ivy’s grandson, who used to visit Snowsly often as a child, but I’d never met Sebastian before. When Ivy said she was going to get him to come up and help, I’d expected a teenager with overgrown hair sporting a t-shirt featuring a band I’d never heard of. The last thing I’d been expecting was a . . . man. A man so tall he had to duck under the doorframe when he walked in. A man in an expensive-looking suit and a face that belonged more on the big screen than the back living room of a small hotel in the middle of England.
The first man I’d noticed since my boyfriend had left me.
“Celia?” Ivy prompted. “What’s next?”
I almost jumped as she interrupted my appreciation of her grandson. “Priority for tomorrow are the market stalls—or huts or miniature German houses, whatever you want to call them. They’re being erected on the village green. The company we’re renting from can’t supply as many people to put them up as usual, so we’ll need to provide reinforcements. Also we need to finish getting the decorations up in the Manor—I’m going to try to do that tonight.” My phone buzzed in my hand and I tried to ignore it but when I glanced down at the screen, I could see the company we were renting the stalls from calling. “Sorry, I have to get this.”
I tried to keep my breathing even as I listened to Bruce tell me how there was not only a shortage of people coming tomorrow to set up the stalls, but a shortage of stalls, too. “Thanks for letting me know,” I said. “We’ll see you tomorrow.”
“What is it?” Ivy asked.
“Nothing I can’t handle,” I replied, smiling as if it was no problem at all to source additional lookalike alpine huts. Where would I start? Maybe pull a couple out of my cleavage or from the back of my wardrobe. Surely if Bruce was short, it meant there was a supply issue all over.
“We’re all in this together,” Keely, the always immaculate art-gallery owner said. “What happened?”
I took a deep breath and shook my head. “We’re going to be two short on Christmas stalls. But it’s fine. I’ll figure something out.”
“We’ve had to tell the Christmas Shop they can only have one stall as it is,” Keely said. “How are we going to tell two other stores they can’t take part in the market? The market brings in twenty percent of my entire year’s sales. I know it’s the same for the other shops in the village.”
“We’re all aware of how important the Christmas market is to the village,” Ivy said. “That’s why we’re all here. That’s why Sebastian has cancelled his trip to Barbados to be here. Snowsly is synonymous with Christmas and the destination for people looking to celebrate the lead-up to Christmas. Nothing’s going to change that.”
My smile was fixed in place. It wouldn’t do to panic. Things would start to spiral and that was going to happen over my dead body. “There’s a solution,” I said. “An easy fix. Just leave it with me.” I hadn’t thought of it yet, but I knew I’d come up with something. I had to.
“Maybe Sebastian could help,” Ivy said.
“Happy to be of assistance with any hut crisis that comes along,” he said.
I wasn’t sure if he was being sarcastic or genuine. I glanced up a him and he offered me a tight smile and for a second my mind wandered and I wondered what he used on his hair to get it looking that shiny.
“Yes,” I said, pulling myself back to the moment. “Christmas stalls should be a priority for everyone tomorrow.” I glanced between Howard and Barbara, who were sitting either side of Ivy and Sebastian. I was trying to avoid looking directly at him, like making eye contact would cause me to burst into flames. “We need to get them up and we need to get them decorated. Everything needs to be perfect for the opening of the Christmas market in two days.” I had to get out of this meeting so I could figure out what to do, because I was pretty sure my boobs or my wardrobe weren’t going to produce a solution. “I suggest we focus on that and meet back here again tomorrow at six. In the meantime, I’ll source some additional huts and decorate Snowsly Manor.” I was sure that as soon as I started decorating the Manor, a creative solution to the lack of stalls would come to me. Then we’d be back on track to having the best Christmas in Snowsly history.