Page 48 of The Wisteria Tree Cottage

‘You will. Your dad will send it to your Kindle and then you can read it for yourself,’ Bear said.

‘That’s so exciting.’

‘You’ll love it,’ Heath said.

‘I… umm, also sent it to three agents and a publisher this morning, just to put the feelers out,’ Bear said, hardly believing he’d done it.

‘If they don’t snap you up it’s their loss,’ Heath said.

‘Well, let’s see what they say first, there’s probably a lot of room for improvement.’

‘Not from what I read last night. I thought it was brilliant.’

Bear couldn’t help smiling at his words. It felt good to finally share his hard work and to hear words of encouragement after all this time.

‘Bear, have you seen the iguana over there?’ Star said. ‘He’s so cute, and he’s wearing a little hat. The man let me hold him and he’s really heavy. You must go and see him.’

Bear frowned. ‘An iguana?’

‘Yes, his name is Cucumber. Daddy, can we go and see the clay pots now?’

‘Oh yes, I want to try my hand at those myself.’

Star waved goodbye to Bear as she dragged Heath off to another stand.

Bear looked around and sure enough he could see a man with an iguana curled round his shoulder. What were the chances of that? Either Twilight, being a local girl, had brought her daughter to Dwelling and had been messaging him when he was only a few metres away in the office at the front of the field or… Or Twilight was actually Meadow and she had lied to him about her Connected Hearts name, knowing full well he would have teased her for the connection to that bloody film. God, now he thought about it, there were so many similarities between Twilight and Meadow. The fact that they both had a daughter, they both loved riddles, they both hadn’t dated for a very long time. Their relationship with their parents. Christ, had he really been talking to Meadow all this time?

He grabbed his phone and brought up the Connected Hearts app, then he did a search for Iris Starfish. Her profile came up straightaway and he gave a little sigh of relief. His heart sank though when he saw that he and Iris Starfish were a twelve percent match. Twelve! They couldn’t be more different. All this time he had been completely in love with her and they had nothing in common. That couldn’t be right. Or maybe it was and the old saying of opposites attract really did ring true. It was hard to accept that he wouldn’t even have looked at Iris with such a low match percentage, he would have just passed her by.

He read through her profile and none of her answers to the questions seemed to chime with the person he knew, but he was aware that a few typed answers to stock questions wasn’t the best way to reveal someone’s character.

He decided to send her a quick message to see.

Hi, this is Bear.

He watched her online light come on as she read the message and then he watched the three little dots move as she wrote her reply.

Hi Bear. As we are such a low match, I’m sure you can understand that I don’t want to take this conversation any further. Goodbye.

Bear’s mouth fell open. How rude. He glanced around the field to see if he could spot Meadow and, sure enough, he saw her sticking her phone back in her pocket, a big grin on her face. She was messing with him and it made him laugh.

He wandered over to talk to her. She was looking at what appeared to be a wedding dress with a very natural vibe, perfect for an event such as Dwelling. It was quite a simple straight style but it was covered in embroidered flowers.

‘Hey,’ Bear said and he felt warm inside when her whole face lit up at seeing him.

‘Hi.’

‘So you’re looking at wedding dresses now for the dream wedding?’

She laughed. ‘I was looking at the embroidery actually. It’s so pretty. I’ve never really thought what my wedding dress would look like but I definitely didn’t think about something like this. But now I’ve fallen in love with it.’

‘Wouldn’t you make your own wedding dress?’

‘I suppose I could. Not having a boyfriend or a fiancé it’s not something I’ve ever thought of. My embroidery is good but it’s not like this. This would take forever to achieve.’

‘From the photos you showed me the other night, your embroidery skills could easily compete with this. Though I’m sure you’re right about how long it would take.’

She turned to face him. ‘While we’re alone talking about my dream wedding, I wanted to talk to you.’

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