Blue Skies Over Wildflower Lock (The Wildflower Lock)

Chapter 48

Daisy should have known. Never work with small children or animals, wasn’t that the saying? And while she wasn’t working with the dog, the same rule applied; it was bound to do exactly the thing she didn’t want it to do, and at that exact moment, the second she untied the leash from the dog, in a busy park full of people, in an area of London she wasn’t familiar with, he bolted.

‘Hey! What did I say!’ Daisy yelled, waving her arms as the animal sprinted away from her. ‘Get back here!’

Daisy didn’t run. While many women her age had caught the running bug and could be seen out in their high-vis at all times of the year, listening to music as they ran along the towpath, Daisy had not once been tempted to join them. She’d hated running at school. Not all sports – she’d liked netball and hockey, things that involved a team and a ball – but not running. She just couldn’t see the point in exerting that amount of effort for no outcome. No goals, no tries, no baskets. Nothing. Just moving your legs until you ended up in the exact same place you started. It just didn’t make sense.

Only now she wasn’t running without reason. She had a very definite goal – to get to the dog.

‘Stop! Stop, will you!’ she shouted in between countless apologies. She cut across a football match, then jumped over a family picnic. And the entire time, she could see all the heads shaking at her – everyone was tutting at the woman who had lost control of her dog. But he wasn’t her dog – that was what she wanted to yell at these people. She was just a good person, doing a good deed. Or trying to.

The fugitive dog was now running towards two men playing badminton, and for one horrifying moment, Daisy assumed he was going to jump up and steal their shuttlecock mid-air. But he didn’t. Instead, he swerved around them and directly towards another man who was striding across the park. Daisy waited for the dog to swerve again, trying to anticipate what direction he was going to go, but he didn’t alter his path. Even when he was only a few feet away from the man, he was still going full pelt.

‘Watch out!’ Daisy yelled, envisioning a collision that would send the man flying. But instead, the dog slowed just in time. Rather than swerving or bolting again, like he had done before, he jumped up and began licking the man.

By the time Daisy reached them, the dog was on the ground, with his belly in the air, lapping up all the attention he could get.

‘I am so, so sorry,’ Daisy said to the man who was currently mid tummy rub. ‘I… I really don’t know what got into him. I’m so sorry.’

‘Don’t worry, I’m a dog person,’ the man said, looking up at her.

He was wearing a comic book T-shirt and shorts, though it was his face that held her attention the most, his dark hair and blazing green eyes that were locked straight on hers. ‘You look a little lost. Are you lost? Maybe I can help.’

Daisy shook her head, the words falling from her lips.

‘It’s you,’ she said. ‘You’re the man who saved me in the marsh.’