‘Yes,’ I said, scrabbling to my feet and tugging down on the hem of my dress to make sure my legs weren’t on display. He saw more of you than just a pair of naked legs the last time you met, I reminded myself, which did nothing to stop the heat of a blush from creeping onto my cheeks.
Rhys pulled off his sunglasses, and I was momentarily distracted by the brilliant green of his eyes. Seriously, how did people ever concentrate when he looked at them the way he was looking at me right now?
‘This is a happy coincidence, running into you,’ I said, smiling wide enough so the young girl knew I was including her in the greeting.
Even so, she seemed a little wary, hanging back behind the protective shield of the tree. Rhys extended his hand, and she slid her small one into it.
‘Tasha, this is my friend, Ellie.’
‘Hello, Tasha. It’s very nice to meet you,’ I said, extending my own hand for a second before catching the confused look on the child’s face and hastily dropping my arm. Idiot. From Rhys’s hastily smothered smile, I knew he’d seen my rookie error.
‘Are we interrupting your work?’ Rhys asked, inclining his head towards my laptop and folder. I wrinkled my nose in reply.
‘Not really, I was just...’ I gave a small shrug, wondering if he would understand if I attempted to explain why I’d felt the need to come here.
‘I get it. I’ve been here a couple of times myself since it happened.’
That made me feel a great deal better, or was it just that I always felt a little bit better in his company? These were definitely not the kind of thoughts I should be having around his daughter – nor anybody, come to that.
‘My daddy was here when the tree was hit by a huge bolt of lightning,’ Tasha told me earnestly, as though sharing a secret.
‘Ellie knows that, sweetheart,’ Rhys said, pulling the little girl to his side and giving her a brief cuddle. ‘She was here on that day as well. It got her too.’
Tasha’s eyes widened in awe, and she gave me a very slow head-to-toe appraisal.
‘Did you get the magic marks on you too?’
I realised then what she’d been looking for, and in the same breath realised the Lichtenberg figures Rhys had acquired when the lightning had struck were fainter but still there.
I turned to study him with the same kind of scrutiny his daughter had just given me.
‘They’re starting to fade,’ he confirmed, but I saw that wasn’t entirely true. Although in places the figures were now faint and insipid, as though he’d been tattooed with invisible ink, where they disappeared beneath the collar of his shirt, the marks still looked as vivid as ever.
Tasha’s interest in me was quickly overtaken when she caught sight of a large ginger cat, who I recognised as one of the park’s most regular visitors.
‘Can I go and see the cat, Dad? I promise I won’t touch him.’
‘You can. Just stay where I can see you.’
Tasha immediately took off at a run, two blonde bunches flying like streamers through the air behind her.
‘I think he’s okay for her to pet. He’s not vicious or anything.’
Rhys’s eyes were still on his daughter, who had caught up with the moggy who was now lying on his side in one of the park flowerbeds.
‘It’s not that,’ he said, his eyes narrowing as Tasha dropped to a crouch in front of the cat but made no move to reach out and stroke him. ‘Sometimes animal fur can set off an asthma flare-up.’
In a move I suspected he’d done a thousand times before, Rhys reached into the back pocket of his jeans and pulled out a small inhaler. It lay in his palm for a moment, as though he’d needed visual confirmation that it was close at hand, before he slipped it back into his pocket.
‘She has her own on her,’ he explained, his eyes never leaving his daughter. ‘But I like to be certain that I do too.’
I felt more than a little ignorant.
‘It must be hard, having to be so vigilant.’
He gave an easy shrug. ‘You get used to it. And Tasha is very good at knowing how to avoid her triggers.’ He gave a sigh. ‘The worst of it is that she absolutely adores animals. She wants to be a vet,’ he said with a rueful expression.
His eyes took on a new gentleness as they settled on his daughter, now engaged in a deep conversation with the sunbathing feline.