Page 51 of Under the Mistletoe with You

‘Christ.’

Everyone looks at Nash, their faces a mixture of confusion and awe thanks to his general movie-star glow.He catches a few rumblings of ‘an American?’from the audience.

‘Sorry, who are ...you?’Ursula’s words slow and soften as she turns and realises just how handsome Nash is, all the bite falling out of her tone.

‘Hi.Nice to meet you all.My name’s Nash Nadeau.’

The silence turns to a rumble of gasps and outbursts as people clearly begin to recognise him.

‘I’m here for the holidays in town and thankfully got stuck here with you.But I’m not from here and I only really know these two people—’ There’s a brief swivel of looks towards Shaz and Christopher.‘So really I’m very impartial.I’ll do the count.Just tell me what to do.’

Neither Tamara nor Ursula say anything, and the whole room is transfixed on Nash as if he’s hypnotised them.

‘Bloody hell, he’s American,’ calls Mervyn.

‘Canadian, actually,’ Nash corrects, making his way to the front of the room where Tamara stands looking less frustrated and more somewhat amused.‘Now, Ms Ursula, was it?Could you come join us at the stage here?’

It’s absolutely incredible how the roomful of people fall completely under his spell.The spell of charisma and extremely straight teeth.

Without another word, Ursula slinks forwards to him.‘Have we met before?’She holds out her hand as though he might kiss it, but instead he just shakes it.

‘Oh, definitely not.I just have one of those faces.’

‘What a liar,’ hisses Christopher to Shaz, who is pissing herself laughing into her scarf at the whole affair.She’ll be eating this up for months.

‘Thank you, Mr Nadeau,’ says Tamara, trying to bring the meeting back to order.‘Come on, Ursula.’

She takes Ursula by the arm and drags her into the tiny kitchen, shutting the door behind them.

Nash addresses the crowd.‘Okay, we’ll go for a very simple show of hands.No speaking, all right?Let’s all play fair now.’

The crowd rumbles in agreement.

‘All in favour of Ms Ursula?’

Out of respect for democracy, Christopher tries very hard not to look around to see who is voting for who.However, out of the corner of his eye, he does see Mervyn and Enid, the refreshments lady, raise hands to vote.There’s a reluctance to Enid’s hand, as though she’s being watchedover by Ursula.Perhaps she is worried Ursula can sense votes by proximity.

‘And for Ms Tamara?’

All the remaining hands, including Shaz’s and Christopher’s, are raised.It’s not unanimous, but it’s the majority by far.

‘And just to be sure, any abstentions?’

No one raises their hand, but Enid looks as if she might, even though she’s technically already voted.

‘You can come back in now,’ Shaz yells.

‘Yes, thank you for that, Shaz,’ Nash says, as Ursula strides in with a smirk, followed by Tamara.

They join Nash up at the front.‘Tamara has it,’ he announces.This is met by a barely concealed but extremely furious look from Ursula.

‘Thank you for your assistance, Mr Nadeau,’ Tamara says.Nash gives her a nod as he retreats to his seat.‘Anyway, let’s continue, shall we?’

The meeting moves quite swiftly after that.Tamara clearly had prepared a list of topics to cover, and runs through them, making notes as she goes.The roads need clearing, but the weather forecast insists another load of snow is due that evening and there’s no road grit in the area, so instead she organises a group to clear pavements in front of shops the next morning.Nash volunteers himself to do around the bakery and as far as he can, while the couple who run the Post Office and corner shop agree to do the lower half of the high street together.

‘We’ll rope our son in,’ the shop’s owner, Carl Watkins, says.‘I’ll steal the power cable from his PlayStation, and he can have it back when he’s done.’

‘We also need to work out who is going to help man the community centre,’ says Tamara.‘That will be me, of course, but are there any other volunteers?’