Page 9 of The Cottage in the Highlands

The birds fizzed amongst the trees, but there was no sign of a cockapoo puppy.

A sickening dread gripped my insides. Where the hell was she?

I scanned the field. Panic reared up again. What if she had run off, made for the main road, and been hit by a car? Or what if she had fallen down a hole and got stuck?

With the cool steel of the whistle banging against my chest, I picked up speed. I continued to scream her name, my voice getting shriller. I couldn’t lose her. I just couldn’t. I was supposed to be the one looking after her, for pity’s sake!

I had adopted her. I was supposed to be the person who was giving her a better life, not losing her in a field, with the darkness descending!

I screamed her name again, racing onwards through the tall fronds of grass, until a flicker of movement to my right made me draw up.

Harley?

I started to run across, but disappointment clawed at me. It wasn’t her at all. It was a fox, all sharp-featured and russet-coated.

Then a bark made me gasp. Oh, thank goodness! Harley must have seen it too.

I searched ahead of me, hoping to see her, until my attention honed in on Harley’s flapping ears and the fox streaking into the undergrowth. There she was!

“Harley!” I puffed. “Oh, thank goodness. Come here! Stop!” The underarms of my sweatshirt clung to me in patches under my jacket.

I took another ineffectual puff at the whistle. It fell away from my lips as I loped on, feeling increasingly desperate. I couldn’t lose her. Where had she gone now?

Darkness was beginning to bleed across the skyline and the air was cooler.

I felt as if I was stuck in slow motion. I picked up speed but Harley was infinitely faster. She was dragging all the energy out of me. Right. That was it. I made up my mind to restart my gym membership.

If anything happened to her, it would be my fault. Rescued from a puppy farm in Edinburgh, only to tumble down a well when I was supposed to be giving her a safe, loving, and secure life.

A disagreeing voice argued there were unlikely to be wells situated in the area, but my imagination was streaking ahead of me.

I stopped, bending over to inhale ragged gasps of air. Tears gathered in my eyes. “Harley!” I yelled into the countryside. “Where are you?”

Then came a louder bark. My heart gave a little lift of optimism. This one was closer.

I straightened up in time to see her bomb under a hedge. I let out an agonised sigh and took after her again. The hedge led out onto a woodland floor of twigs, fallen leaves, and bark. At least it wasn’t a main road. Pictures of Harley gambolling in front of a car flashed in front of me again.

My breath was now coming in shorter, sharper bursts.

I was about to give the whistle another blast when I stumbled and almost fell over something. I realised the object was Harley. She plonked down in front of me, her tongue rolling out of her mouth as if she were grinning from ear to ear.

Fright, relief, and then annoyance swept over me. “You little bugger!” I erupted, scooping her up into my frustrated arms.

She lashed my scorching, sweaty face with doggy kisses.

“You’re supposed to come back when you hear this.” I brandished the whistle around my neck. “This means you don’t ignore me and chase off after foxes. More recall practice for you, I think. And no letting you off the lead again until you’re five.”

She gazed up at me and I nestled my head in her coat, squeezing back a torrent of frightened, exhausted tears. “If I had lost you just now…” I gazed down at her enquiring little face. I’d adopted her from a rescue charity when she was four months old and she’d wrapped herself around my heart from the first moment I happened to come across her photo on the charity’s Facebook page. I hadn’t been planning on getting a dog but her and her sibling’s tragic puppy-farm backstory was heartrending and then when I’d spotted her cheeky expression in her photo, I’d fallen instantly in love. This little toffee-coloured toot needed me and I needed her. Miles and I had broken up at the beginning of the year, and for the past six months Harley had been my little rock. I gave myself an inward talking-to. She was safe and didn’t appear to be any worse for her little adventure. I cuddled her tighter to me. “Come on, you. Let’s get you home. That’s more than enough excitement for one day.”

I set Harley down on the ground and snapped her lead back on to her pink and black harness.

We’d only just begun to move away, heading back for the car, when something glinted through the woodland over my shoulder, catching me unawares.

While Harley investigated a snail, I tilted my clammy head to one side, curious. I made sure I had a tight hold of her lead this time.

Straight ahead, through the cross-cross network of tree branches, was an intermittent shimmer of something. I hadn’t imagined it.

All I really wanted to do was take Harley home and collapse on the sofa with some dark chocolate, but my journalistic nosiness wouldn’t allow it.