‘Wait! You can’t just … Phil!’ Tara didn’t care if people were staring. Her heart was racing too fast. Until she’d heard his voice and felt the sudden explosion of colour through her whole body, she hadn’t realized how much she’d missed him. The last time she’d experienced such an instant dangerously out-of-control rush was when she’d given up coffee for Lent and celebrated Easter with a triple espresso.

‘Sorry, gorgeous, I’ve got to go.’ Tara could hear the wink in his eye, the sexy promises in his smile. ‘Just text me – I’m yours, wherever whenever, OK? So long as it’s next Saturday.’ And then he hung up.

‘Oh, for God’s sake.’ Tara stared at the phone, adrenaline still pinballing around her body. What had just happened?

And then she fell over the man with the dog.

It was a Corgi on a long extending lead – the owner was engrossed in an audiobook so hadn’t noticed just how far the lead had extended – and no one was hurt, but Tara was sent flying to the floor, skinning her bare knees in the process. The moment hung in the air like a cartoon – the dog walker’s shocked face, her slow crash to the ground – then, without warning, Tara burst into tears of shock. Big, chest-heaving, shoulder-shaking sobs, the ‘falling over in the playground’ sort that wouldn’t be stopped.

David, ten steps further down the path, turned, horrified, and hurried back to help her to her feet. ‘Tara, what happened? Are you OK?’

‘I’m … fiiiiine,’ she roared, too loud, trying to speak on a sobbing out-breath.

Heads were turning in their direction; the dog owner finally yanked out his earphones and apologized, then quickly dragged the Corgi back down the path towards the bandstand, away from the red-faced woman gasping and weeping like a small child.

David helped her up gently, producing a white hanky which Tara used mainly to hide behind, mortified.

‘Did you hurt yourself?’ he asked, and she shook her head, then wondered if she should have nodded because then she’d have a legitimate reason to be howling like this.

The sobs refused to stop. Tara covered her face with her hands, trying to hide her ugly-crying toddler face, and now she felt David’s hands on her shoulders, steering her towards a bench. She heard him say to someone, ‘She’s fine, honestly … just shock …’ and then she was carefully pushed on to the seat. Where they sat, in silence, his arm around her shoulders, until the sobs subsided into hiccups. It took ten embarrassing minutes, even though Tara had stopped crying after five.

Every time David started to ask, ‘Are you all right?’ she had to hold up a hand to indicate yes, but that she couldn’t talk.

‘How about … now?’ David asked eventually.

Tara took a breath and didn’t hiccup. She nodded OK, tentatively.