Blue Skies Over Wildflower Lock (The Wildflower Lock)

Chapter 34

Daisy was sprinting, yanking the lead as she dodged past one person, then another, trying to get to the pavement before he disappeared.

‘Wait! Wait!’ she yelled after the figure who was still jogging away from her. All she could see was the back of him. Large headphones were firmly fixed on his black hair as he weaved in and out of the other pedestrians. Daisy never weaved. She didn’t have the elegance to weave at the best of times, but it was even harder with a thirty-five-pound dog attached to a rope at the end of her arm. But she was determined the man wouldn’t get away from her. Somehow, little by little, she was catching up with him.

‘Please, please wait!’ she yelled again, even though he was unlikely to hear her with his headphones on. Her legs were tiring and once again, the man was gaining a distance between them. Daisy was about to give up altogether when she noticed a crossroads in front of them and the set of traffic lights that were about to turn red for all the pedestrians. If she could just reach there, while it was still red, she would have him.

With every bit of energy she could muster, Daisy sprinted towards the traffic lights. The cars were moving again, and the man had been forced to stop with everyone else, though he was jogging on the spot and she knew he wouldn’t be there for long.

‘Sorry, sorry!’ Daisy apologised as she squeezed her way past one person, then another until she was finally only inches away from him. The traffic lights were about to change again, though, turning red for the cars and green for the people, and Daisy could see the man poised, ready to start running. She needed to grab him now.

It was a leap. That was the only way she could describe it. An outright leap off the pavement and into the air with her arm outstretched. She reached forward, her eyes half on the traffic lights, half on the shoulder in front of her. And then, somehow, she had it. She had the fabric in her hand.

Relief flooded through her. She had found her man. She had found the man she needed to thank for saving her from the marsh.

‘I’m sorry, I just didn’t think I’d?—’

The man turned around on the spot, glaring at her with his deep-brown eyes.

‘What the hell are you doing?’ he said.

‘It’s me, it’s the woman you?—’

Daisy stopped. The man’s brown eyes were still narrowed on her, and that was the problem. She recalled with perfect clarity the way she had locked on to those bright irises when they had pulled her out of the mud. Bright green irises. Not brown.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I think I’ve made a mistake.’

The man shook his head and muttered. A moment later, he was sprinting across the road, leaving Daisy and the dog alone once again.