The Lonely Widow (Completed) (Editing)

Chapter 26

       Birds chirping, wind whistling, footsteps pounding, voices chattering.

        Daisy was aware of the sounds around her, but unable, unwilling to open her eyes, they remained closed. Her heart was crashing in her chest, forcing its way out, refusing to be kept quiet. Her hand moved up to her head and she rubbed her forehead with her palm.

        “Miss?” a voice asked, “Are you okay?”

        Her eyes snapped open and they immediately caught sight of the strange person standing over her with a pained expression on his face. “Uh,” she furrowed her brows and had to ask, “was it you?”

        The stranger took a step back and held his hands out in surrender. “No, Miss, I was running down here and saw you on the floor. A couple of other people have turned up since, and one’s phoned for an ambulance, but – no, Miss you shouldn’t try and stand, wait for the paramedics.” His eyes widened as she tried to sit up.

        “Miss?” she mumbled, shaking her head.

        “Well, I have no other name to call you, you have no ID on you. ‘Miss’ will have to do.”

        Daisy tried to scramble to her feet and gasped. “Y-you touched me?”

        “No, the lady over there.” He pointed to a red haired woman on her phone, probably phoning for an ambulance.

        “Oh.” She settled to sitting on the floor. “My name’s Daisy, Daisy Cole.” She rubbed her head with her hand and groaned. “What happened?”

        “I don’t know.” He told her. “You must have fainted.”

        Remembrance crossed her features and her heart beat quickened as she looked around at the crowd that had now gathered. “Where is he?”

        “He?” The man questioned. “A dog?”

        Daisy shook her head. “No, the man. He…Oh, God.” She groaned, placing her head in her hands. “I really am cracking up.”

        “Excuse me, out the way please.” A voice boomed from the back of the crowd, which within seconds had split in two revealing two very tired looking paramedics. “Quite far out here aren’t we, Love?” the same voice asked as a man of about thirty knelt down next to her. The feeling that she recognised him from somewhere was soon masked with annoyance at the cocky paramedic.

        “Well, I wasn’t expecting to be frightened the life out of – though maybe I should have been.” She rolled her eyes and sighed. A brief laugh escaped his lips before he checked the forming bump on Daisy’s head.

        “Can you tell me what happened?”

        “I honestly haven’t got a clue.” She grumbled, flinching at the paramedic’s touch. “I was running along and I saw… well, I thought someone stepped out in front of me. I must have fainted.”

        “Okay well, it seems like it’s just a bump to the head, but as you fainted, we may need to take you into hospital to do some tests. Do you have a history of fainting?”

        “Um,” she remembered Brandon’s funeral and the panic attack that she’d had.

        “Actually, forget that. I know where I recognise you from now. You’ve quite a habit of fainting in the strangest places, don’t you? Wasn’t it a…Never mind” he remembered that she’d been going to a funeral last time and stopped when he also remembered that it had been her own husband’s funeral.