Forever Love at Wildflower Lock (The Wildflower Lock #4)

Chapter 31

31

Daisy didn’t have to tell Theo she had bumped into Heather, she decided as she walked back to the camping plot with her arms laden with bags. She could just pretend she had got lost and say that was why it had taken her so long to get back to the car. It would be true, after all. Or partly true. It wasn’t like she had spent anywhere near as long talking to Heather as she had wandering aimlessly around, looking at all the scenery. And it wouldn’t be as if he could judge her for staying silent on the matter. Starting a conversation about Heather when Daisy had been doing everything she could to forget about her was the last thing she wanted to do. And it wasn’t like she expected Heather to come wandering over to their side of the campsite, where people pitched up their little tents on small patches of grass. Not when she was staying in the luxury yurts.

Daisy thought through the practicalities of keeping the encounter a secret. They could turn in early for the night, then wake up early and head back to the hotel. Even if they couldn’t check in until later, it would be perfectly possible to avoid her.

But… Daisy knew the counterargument was going to win before she even tried to convince herself. No matter how much she wished otherwise, she couldn’t keep this from Theo. For starters, there was the fact that Heather might seek Theo out, and if she did, it would certainly come out that she and Daisy had shared an earlier conversation and Daisy would be left trying to explain why she hadn’t said anything without making herself sound like a jealous, paranoid girlfriend. Then there was the fact that the last thing she wanted to do was start keeping things from her fiancé only twenty-four hours into their engagement. That seemed like a disaster waiting to happen. There was also a third reason that Daisy couldn’t keep seeing Heather from Theo. One she wasn’t aware of until she arrived back at their plot, where the tent was already up and large, orange flames were billowing on the fire.

‘Hey,’ she said, as she opened the tent and prepared to put the bags inside. Only before she could move that far, Theo was on his feet. With his hands around his waist, he smiled broadly, but only momentarily, before his expression dropped and his eyes narrowed on her.

‘What happened?’ he said. ‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’

Daisy released an internal sigh that was somewhere between relief and disappointment. She should have known Theo would spot something was wrong with her straight away.

‘A ghost,’ she said with a groan. ‘That’s one way of putting it.’