Highland Heart by Emma Baird

Author:Emma Baird [Baird, Emma]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: modern romance stories, Sophie Kinsella, Fiona Walker, stories set in the Highlands, handsome heroes, Scottish fiction, Bella Andre, Jenny Colgan, Highlander, Fiona Gibson, Katie Fforde
ISBN: 9781999773847
Publisher: Pink Glitter Publishing
Published: 2019-10-09T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 20

Stewart’s news silenced everyone, making his and Gaby’s sobs all the louder.

“What happened?” Katya asked Stewart, who gulped back tears long enough to say Scottie had sniffed out Mena’s little body hidden behind a hedge just off the main street. As there was blood crusted on her nose, he reckoned a car knocked her down and she’d managed to get up and stumble to the hedge and died there.

The description proved too graphic for Gaby, who thrust her fist into her mouth. She attempted to put her coat on once more. “I’m going to get her,” she told us all. “Poor little Mena can’t...”

Jack took her hand. “C’mon. We’ll pick her up and I’ll bury her in the back garden wrapped in one of our nice blankets.”

He dropped a kiss on Gaby’s head, and Katya welled up too as she watched them leave. Stewart shuffled off to the bar, the trauma too much for him.

“A pint,” he called out. “And a whisky chaser. Ah’ve had an awfy shock.” Scottie put his front paws up on the stool. Whatever the doggie equivalent for a pint and a whisky chaser was, he looked in need of it.

No one had asked the obvious question. “Who did it?” Katya piped up. “Someone hit the cat and left her. You don’t bump into a cat in your car and not notice.”

True. Her mum had done it once when Katya and her sisters were little girls. The five of them howled for hours afterwards, the sickly thump of it too easy to recall. Nice people owned up; however difficult such a confession was. Mena wore a collar that said where she lived.

“Mmm-hmm,” Jolene answered. “Must have been a tourist—someone passing through and taking the road too fast.”

“Rotten luck,” Mhari said. “Poor wee pussy.”

Everyone drifted off, the night spoiled. Mhari told Katya she was off to her mum and dad’s, having run out of clean clothing once again and not willing to risk trying the washing machine in the flat.

Back at the flat, Katya phoned Gaby, who was still sniffling, asking endlessly, “Do you think she suffered?”, and telling her about the poor little stiff body she and Jack picked up off the pavement before the foxes got her.

“No,” Katya said, crossing her fingers it was true. Animals weren’t sentient beings, so they didn’t fear or know death but that didn’t rule out pain. Hopefully, poor little Mena hadn’t lived that long after the car hit her.

And who, who, who could have been as heartless to knock over poor little Mena and not stop and try to find the cat’s owner? A hit and run, Gaby solemnly declared, and didn’t people go to prison for that?

“Yeeessss,” Katya said, “but I’m sure that’s for humans only. Sorry.”

“Jack’s mum said she’d pop in tomorrow. Apparently, Psychic Josie uses spirit animals from time to time, and she reckoned she might be able to contact Mena on the other side and find out if she is okay.”

In the background, Katya heard someone snort.

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