Chapter 53
Jenni had been up, washed and dressed since six-thirty.
She still couldn’t quite believe Oscar had been found, and she was dazed and confused, even after a fitful night’s sleep.
She’d answered her phone impatiently, ready to give the caller the brush off for ruining the moment with Ben, but when the woman on the end of the line asked if she was speaking to the owner of a missing cat, Jenni had felt her veins run cold and her knees buckle beneath her as she braced to the hear the news she had been dreading for the past week.
But instead, the woman said she was calling from a veterinary practice in Kent and that Oscar had been found alive and well, a bit hungry and tired, but absolutely fine.
She’d been barely coherent as she’d struggled to understand how on earth he’d ended up so many miles from home.
Jenni listened as the vet explained that he’d been found in a storage shed at a builders yard in the Isle of Sheppey.
He’d put up a bit of a fight, but the man that found him had managed to scoop him up and take him to the vet to be checked for a microchip.
The yard turned out to be the office site for the building firm who had been working on the huge house renovation on the corner of Jenni’s road, and they thought Oscar must have jumped into one of their vans for a snooze at some point and ended up being driven all the way back to Kent.
Jenni felt giddy with relief and completely overwhelmed with gratitude when the vet said that the builder who found him, Dave, had offered to bring Oscar back with him when he travelled up for work the next day.
Now, the following morning, Jenni was waiting anxiously for Oscar’s safe return, and trying not to think about what might have happened with Ben had the phone call not interrupted them.
Her phone pinged and she was startled to see a message from Ben.
Let me know when he’s home. Hope he’s okay.
What? Her heart sank at the tone of his message. There was none of the warmth she’d come to expect from him. No reference to what had happened, or nearly happened between them. Nothing.
She was trying to think how best to reply when the doorbell rang.
She dashed to answer it, and through the glass panes of the front door she could see the outline of a man holding a big square box.
Oscar.
Her heart raced as she wrenched open the door and asked breathlessly, ‘Are you Dave?’
‘Yep, and you must be Jenni?’
When Jenni nodded, he continued. ‘This is one feisty cat you’ve got here! He’s been shouting at me the whole way!’
As if he knew he was being talked about, a loud and prolonged yowl of protest came from the box as Dave handed it carefully to Jenni.
‘Thank you so much for bringing him back, I’ve been so worried about him. I can’t believe he ended up in Kent of all places!’ Jenni said, overwhelmed to finally have him back home.
‘No problem, love. Just glad to see him back home, safe and sound.’
And with that, Dave sauntered back down the path, his paint-splattered overalls straining uncomfortably around his middle.
‘Come on, you,’ Jenni said, stepping back in her flat and closing the door behind her. ‘Let’s get you out.’
She lowered the box onto the kitchen floor, flipping the lid open as Oscar’s purrs filled the room. He pushed his head into her hand as Jenni tickled the magic spot behind his ears, making him purr even louder as relief flooded through her.
She couldn’t believe it – Oscar had made it home again.