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‘Feel here, Josh,’ said Hannah. She grabbed Josh’s hand and slid it over the belly of the cat.

‘But her leg,’ said Vera. ‘What’s going to happen?’

Hannah started to answer but Josh cut her off.

‘Grey cat—Daisy—is badly injured, and the leg may not be the worst of her problems. She may have internal bleeding, and if that’s the case, then our job is to help her on her way as quickly and painlessly as possible. We also need to deliver these kittens by C-section. There’s a lot of unknowns, Vera. They may well not live. You need to step out into the waiting room.’

She shook her head. ‘No, Josh, please. I can’t leave her.’

‘That wasn’t a request, Vera. Off you go.’

She looked at his face. No smile in his eyes. No look of the easygoing sweetheart she’d pushed out of her life. He looked like a stranger.

‘Can’t I stay? Please. She’s all I’ve got.’

Graeme slipped his arm around her shoulders. ‘Come on, honey. We’re stepping out the door, and we’re staying right there, close by.’

Vera walked out to the dimly lit waiting room and collapsed in a chair, covering her face with her hands. There was no way she’d be allowed to keep kittens in prison.

CHAPTER

39

Who knew quilting could be so cathartic?

Vera had stitched her way through the long hours of the night, waiting in dread for her phone to ring with the terrible news.

But the phone didn’t ring.

Not until dawn, anyway, and when she answered, it was Hannah on the other end.

‘Daisy’s awake. She’s weak, but she’s accepted water and managed to muster up enough energy to sink her canine tooth into my little finger.’

‘Oh, thank heavens.’

‘It’s fine,’ said Hannah. ‘I didn’t need that finger.’

‘So you think … she’s going to make it?’

‘Let’s take this day by day, Vera. But’—she wasn’t imagining the smile in Hannah’s voice, was she?—‘early signs are promising.’

‘And the kittens?’

They’d let her hold the two speckled kittens for a few minutes, before Graeme had driven her home and ordered her to bed. They were so new, and their mother cat so fragile, they would need rigorous care when they were released from the clinic.

A few weeks ago she would have baulked at the prospect of taking on that role, but now, the thought of having a little family to care for warmed her.

Hanrahan had changed her.

Hanrahan had given her back her hope for a rosier future.

‘The kittens are as pretty and perfect as they were last night,’ Hannah said. ‘Get some rest, Vera. Me and Josh have got this.’

Vera set down the phone and ran her fingers over some crooked stitching where she’d placed a fabric square askew. In time gone by, she would have pulled that patch out and worried at it until its edges were aligned perfectly from north to south, but Marigold had taught her the value of a crooked stitch.

‘Leave it,’ she’d said often and again at craft group. ‘A few frazzled stitches are a sign that this is a homemade work of love, Vera. I adore this part of the quilt. The wonky bits are what make it personal.’

That, her need to be sure and precise and have her edges all tidy, had been the reason she’d pushed Josh away. She’d sworn to herself that her days of making dumb decisions were over; but what she hadn’t taken the time to see—or perhaps had been too hurt to see—was that Josh wasn’t a dumb choice.