Chapter 23
A hand reached down to Daisy. A perfectly clean hand, and yet she didn’t hesitate. She grabbed it fully with her mud-covered palms and fingers, although the grip wasn’t enough – as the man tugged her upwards, she quickly slid back down. On the second attempt, Daisy shifted her hands up onto his forearm, plastering it in muddy handprints. When she finally had a decent hold, Daisy allowed herself to be hoisted up and back onto the dry, stable footpath, where the sandy stones and shingles promptly stuck to the mud and her bare foot.
‘You appear to be without a shoe.’ The voice spoke again, and this time Daisy looked up to see the speaker.
The young man appeared to be of a similar age to Daisy, with dark hair and blazing green eyes, which were currently locked on her. Rather than being embarrassed that he had found her trespassing on private property, Daisy was both relieved and horrified, but also confused. It had to be the runner. There was no one else around, but he wasn’t dressed for exercise. Instead, he was wearing a pair of chinos and a polo shirt and would have looked very smart if the outfit had not been splattered with mud.
‘Thank you. I have no idea how I would have got out of there without you,’ Daisy said, breathless from both the exertion and the shock of the event. ‘I didn’t realise it was marshland.’
‘I gathered as much. But you’re okay now? Bar the missing shoe?’ the man said.
Daisy glanced at her foot, although she couldn’t make out her toes under the thick cake of mud that was covering it. Still. A shoe was replaceable. She couldn’t have imagined how much worse a state she would have been in if the man hadn’t come along when he did.
‘I’m okay. Thank you. I can’t thank you enough. I really can’t. I was just trying to get a photo, that was all. A photo of a plant. A marsh orchid.’ It was only when she paused to catch her breath that she saw the man wasn’t actually looking at her. Instead, he was looking back down the pathway, the way he’d come.
‘Do you need any more help?’ he said. ‘I don’t mean to sound rude, I’m just incredibly pressed for time, and if you’re okay?—’
‘I’m fine,’ Daisy insisted. The last thing she wanted to do was ruin the day of a man who had just been her saviour.
‘Are you sure? Do you have far to walk? Can you do it in only one shoe?’ He was talking to Daisy, but his eyes were still skitting around.
‘Yes, yes, I’ll be fine,’ Daisy said. Finally, the man looked at her again, once more fixing that bright-green gaze on her.
‘In that case, I’ll leave you. And try to stay on the path this time.’
A moment later, he was jogging away from Daisy, who was still dripping with mud, wondering exactly what had just happened and who the hell her knight in shining armour was.