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Epub ISBN: 9781473551381

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Ebury Press, an imprint of Ebury Publishing,

20 Vauxhall Bridge Road,

London SW1V 2SA

Ebury Press is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com

Copyright © Sheila Norton, 2018

Extract from The Pets at Primrose Cottage: Part Four © Sheila Norton, 2018

Cover design and illustration: Head Design

Sheila Norton has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

This novel is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental

First published in the UK in 2018 by Ebury Press

www.eburypublishing.co.uk

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 9781785034213

CONTENTS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Sheila Norton lives near Chelmsford in Essex with her husband, and worked for most of her life as a medical secretary, before retiring early to concentrate on her writing. Sheila is the award-winning writer of numerous women’s fiction novels and over 100 short stories, published in women’s magazines.

She has three married daughters, six little grandchildren, and over the years has enjoyed the companionship of three cats and two dogs. She derived lots of inspiration for her animal books from remembering the pleasure and fun of sharing life with her own pets.

When not working on her writing Sheila enjoys spending time with her family and friends, as well as reading, walking, swimming, photography and travel. For more information please see www.sheilanorton.com

Also by Sheila Norton

The Vets at Hope Green

Oliver the Cat Who Saved Christmas

Charlie the Kitten That Saved a Life

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

With grateful thanks once again to Sharon Whelan, this time for her advice about rescuing a pony. And to Sue Viney for her first-hand knowledge about keeping house rabbits! And as always, to everyone at Ebury for all their hard work in bringing my stories to the readers.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Where was I? What had happened? I held my hand up to my head. I was burning up. I tried to sit up, but everything started to spin around again.

‘Lie still,’ someone said. The voice seemed to come from a million miles away. ‘I’m taking you to hospital.’

Hospital? Why? I shook my head, trying to make sense of it, but it just made my head hurt even more. I blinked and my surroundings suddenly became clearer. I was lying on the back seat of a car. And we were moving. Who …? And then I remembered.

‘Shane!’ I gasped. I sat up, trying to ignore the dizziness and nausea. ‘Stop the car! Let me out!’ I made a grab for the door handle, and the car screeched to a halt. Through a haze I saw the driver jump out of the car.

‘Hey, what are you doing?’ he yelled, wrenching the back door out of my grasp, but I’d already fallen back onto the seat, unable to move. ‘For God’s sake, Emma, just lie still. You fainted. You’re ill. We’re going to A&E, OK?’ He paused. ‘Who’s Shane?’

I stared back at him. Blinked again.

‘Oh. Matt.’

‘Yes. I found you collapsed in the street. It was lucky I just happened to be passing. Now, could you possibly just stay in the back there and not throw yourself out of the car?’

‘OK,’ I said, weakly. ‘Sorry.’

I couldn’t work it out. I felt too ill. I closed my eyes again, and when I next came to, I was being lifted into a wheelchair and taken into the hospital. And it wasn’t until I was, eventually, waking up again in a bed on a ward, with a drip pumping intravenous antibiotics into me, that I noticed the state of my arm. It was red and swollen from elbow to wrist, the wounds where the cat had scratched and bitten me looking twice as big and twice as nasty as before.

‘Cat scratch fever is bad enough,’ a nurse told me a little later. ‘But their bites are often really dangerous. Cats have all kinds of horrible bacteria in their mouths from killing and eating their prey. You’ll be all right now, thankfully, but I’ve nursed patients before who needed emergency surgery because their infections went right down to the bone.’

I flinched. That bloody vicious tabby cat! ‘Sorry to have caused so much trouble,’ I muttered.

‘Not at all. It was lucky that young man found you. Apparently you’d passed out at the side of the road.’

‘Matt,’ I remembered. ‘Yes. Lucky he was there.’

But as the nurse walked away, I frowned, trying to clear my head. I’d been at Bilberry Cottage. What a coincidence that Matt had turned up there, just as I collapsed. And – was that a dream I’d had about Shane appearing in the window? It must have been! A hallucination, perhaps, because I’d been running a fever. I shuddered. It had scared the life out of me to think he might somehow have found me here in Devon. Not that he’d ever want to see me again, of course, but he might be looking for revenge, after what I’d done. No, I had to think logically – it couldn’t have been him. Someone had been in the cottage, though, so perhaps it was occupied, after all. So that certainly put an end to my dream of buying it myself one day!

I had no idea where the hospital was – the journey had been a blur – but at least I had a mobile signal there, so I was able to call Primrose Cottage and tell Lauren and Jon what had happened. Once the doctor had pronounced me fit to be discharged on oral antibiotics, Lauren arrived to take me home.

‘You poor thing!’ she exclaimed, looking at me anxiously. ‘What an awful thing to happen. Are you sure you’re going to be OK?’

‘Yes, I feel much better now. Sorry to drag you all this way.’

‘Don’t be silly. I’m just glad Matt was kind enough to rush you here when you collapsed.’

‘Yes.’ I frowned, remembering the argument I’d had with him the day before I was taken ill. Although he’d still been good enough to bring me to the hospital, I guessed he’d probably left as soon as he’d deposited me in A&E, and I supposed he didn’t want to see me again in a hurry. I sighed. I ought to get in touch with him, if only to thank him. I wished we hadn’t fallen out, but I didn’t see how we could stay friends if he was going to keep on wanting to write stories about me, probably digging into my past despite all his earlier promises.

But of course, this being Crickleford, even though I’d refused to talk to Matt for the paper about the incident with Sugar, it was soon being gossiped about all over town.

‘I hear you’ve been the Good Samaritan again!’ Mary said when I met her while I was walking a Scottie dog for a man who’d gone to London for the week. She raised her eyebrows at me. ‘I’m surprised Vanya hasn’t thrown her old man out, putting her precious cat in danger like that.’

I shifted from foot to foot, feeling uncomfortable. ‘I don’t think I ought to be discussing my clients with each other,’ I said.

Mary gave me a smile. ‘And that’s a very commendable attitude, too. But well done, anyway, for the rescue. People are saying it was that nasty tabby cat, the one we all complain about, who attacked poor Sugar. Is that right?’

‘Well, it was a big angry tabby, yes – and I’m pretty sure it was the same one who was tormenting Pongo, Pat’s Alsatian, when I was looking after him. Do you know who he belongs to, then?’

‘He lives on Collier’s Farm up on the moor. Roams for miles, he does, hanging around people’s doors looking for food and scaring off anything that gets in his way. Used to try to get through other cats’ cat-flaps, until he got too fat and got stuck halfway through one. Wish they’d left him there. Nasty-tempered thing.’

‘I know,’ I said ruefully. ‘I ended up in hospital because of him.’

‘So I heard, love. Glad to see you’re OK now. Is Vanya aware of it?’

‘I don’t know,’ I said. But it seemed everybody else was! I’d only got a bit further into the Square when Annie came flying out of Ye Olde Tea Shoppe, having spotted me from the window.

‘I ’eard tell you got took bad, maid. Anguish in your arm, from a cat bite, was’t? That Montgomery woman, ’er be like a hen with one chick, all she care about be that buggering cat. Bettering now, bist thee?’

‘Annie’s asking if you’re feeling OK now,’ a woman who’d followed her out of the café translated for me.

‘Oh, yes, I’m fine now, thank you,’ I said. ‘Really, it’s not a big deal. I was just relieved Sugar wasn’t injured any worse.’

‘That buggerin’ tabby be a nasty cradded thing, oughta be kep’ up there on the farm instead of aggravating folk around town. Even sneaks in the café ’ere sometimes when I baint lookin’, on the sniff for crumbs drop’ by folks. An’ by all accounts ’ee do fritten the livin’ daylights outa that gurt cow-baby dog of Pat’s.’

‘I know,’ I said. ‘Poor Pongo. Well, I’ll be watching out for that tabby in future, Annie.’

‘Good fer you.’

The other woman had been listening to our conversation. ‘You’re a good girl,’ she said, grabbing my hand and pumping it up and down. ‘Local heroine, that’s what they’re all calling you. You should get your picture in the paper—’

‘No!’ I said, a little too loudly, and she dropped my hand, recoiling slightly. ‘Sorry,’ I went on. ‘But I’m … a bit shy. I don’t like a lot of fuss. Honestly, it was nothing out of the ordinary, I was just looking after my client’s cat, that’s all.’

‘Well, I know one thing: it’s you I’ll be asking to look after my cats when I go on my holidays now,’ she said. ‘And I’ll tell all my friends too.’

‘Thank you.’ I smiled at her. My diary for the summer was already filling up. The publicity certainly wasn’t what I’d wanted, but there was no denying it was good for business. And that evening I had a surprise visit at Primrose Cottage. It was Vanya Montgomery, bearing flowers and chocolates.

‘But you’ve already given me extra money!’ I protested.

‘That was before I knew you’d been ill and ended up in hospital because of what happened,’ she said. ‘I’m so sorry, Emma. I can’t tell you how angry I am with Rob. But you’ll be pleased to hear Sugar has made a full recovery, thanks to you. There’s no sign of her injuries whatsoever now. Just in time for the show tomorrow.’

‘So she’s on course to win Best in Show?’

‘Fingers crossed! I’ll let you know.’

I watched Vanya walk back to her car, wondering which version to believe: was she, despite her rather supercilious and overbearing manner, really a pleasant lady who was frankly a saint for putting up with her husband? Or was he right – did she love Sugar to the exclusion of everything and everyone, including him? Although I was still angry with him for the incident that could have ended up with Sugar being so much more seriously hurt, I had to admit to a certain degree of sympathy with him. She seemed to view him with complete contempt. I just wasn’t quite sure whether he deserved it. Relationships were far more complicated, I realised now, than I’d naively assumed when I fell in love with Shane, when I was little more than a child.

Over the next few days, the weather stayed fine and I went for long walks with Jock, the stout little Scottie dog I was looking after now. The fresh spring air helped to clear my head. The trees along the lanes were sprouting bright new green leaves and some were already wearing their pretty new outfits of pink and white blossom. Cottage gardens were coming alive with flowers, their walls suddenly garlanded with baskets of colourful blooms. During my years in America, I’d forgotten how beautiful England could be in late spring and early summer – and I was already aware that it didn’t get much more beautiful than Crickleford on a sunny day. Now that I’d recovered from my brief spell in hospital, I was feeling fit and healthy again. The regular exercise was doing me good; I could now get up Castle Hill without pausing for breath. The sight of the old castle walls, golden in the sunlight, never failed to lift my heart, and the view over the town and the river from the top of the hill was lovely too. On other days, I took the footpath out to Windy Tor and gazed out across the vast expanse of Dartmoor, now ablaze in every direction with the bright yellow flowers of gorse.

But one place I stayed away from that week – and for the next week or so to come – was Moor View Lane. Whenever I thought back to the illusion I’d had of seeing Shane in the window of Bilberry Cottage, I felt sick with dread. I knew it must have been my fever, giving me hallucinations, but I just couldn’t chase the fear away yet. And the other place I didn’t visit was the office of the Crickleford Chronicle. I’d seen Matt, briefly, in the newsagent’s on Town Square a couple of days after I came out of hospital, and thanked him effusively for his help in taking me there after I’d collapsed.

‘You’re welcome,’ he’d responded. ‘I hope you’re feeling better now.’