Giving Chase (A Racing Romance) (Aspen Valley Series #2) (12 page)

Frankie had come to think of the Golden Miller as a quiet place to unburden the soul, where Tom would be sat in his usual spot in the corner with his beer and Joey would be leaning his elbows on the spotless counter with a cloth slung over his shoulder, listening to him. The restaurant area would murmur with in-between mouthfuls of dinner conversation and the glass cleaning machine hidden beneath the bar would rattle and beep when it finished its cycle.

Not so, Becher Chase Saturday night it would appear. It wasn’t exactly heaving, but a good crowd were there to interrupt Tom and Joey. Including Rhys and Donnie, she noted.

Tom frowned at her when she stopped before him.

‘Your hair’s green.’

Frankie plonked herself down on a neighbouring stool.

‘I don’t know what they put in the water jump at Aintree. Is it that bad? I didn’t have time to wash it.’

Tom wiped his top lip and shook his head.

‘Nah.
Just don’t stand under the light. How are you feeling?’

Frankie shrugged.

‘At least it was a soft landing. Did you see what happened?’

Tom shook his head.

‘It’s got to be one of the simplest fences in the whole race,’ she said. ‘He got in close to just about every other fence worth standing off of then he decided he’s friggin’ Pegasus at the one fence that you need to get in close to make the spread.’ Frankie chewed her lip, reliving how each disjointed jump Peace Offering had made over the monstrous Aintree fences had wedged her heart further and further up her throat. Then after he had lost his backend in the water and deposited Frankie into its sub-zero depths, all she could compute was the relief that
it was over
.

She shook her head in shame. Her eyes locked onto
Rhys’s across the bar and she quickly looked away. ‘Now Pippa wants to meet up tonight. I don’t know if she wants to jock me off—I wouldn’t blame her if she did—or commiserate with me.’ She gave herself a mental shake, reminding herself that she wasn’t the only one with problems. ‘How’s your day been?’

Tom sipped his drink and gave a wry smile.

‘Heard back from the adoption people this morning.’

Frankie held her breath. She
tried not to look too excited—she would be over the moon if her best friend’s father was Colin Firth—but Tom wasn’t exactly dancing on the tables.

‘
I got them to look on the Contacts Register for Adelaide Mann. That’s where people put their details in case the adopted child ever comes looking for them.’ Tom wiped the condensation from his beer glass, looking at it with a mirthless smile.

‘And?’
Frankie leaned forward.

‘She’s not on it. Just like with the internet forums. She’s just not interested.’ He paused. ‘Your hair looks green again. Lean back out of the light.’

Ignoring him, Frankie reached out and squeezed his hand. She couldn’t think of anything to comfort him with. Unlike internet forums, Adelaide Mann must certainly have been aware of the Contacts Register. Tom blinked with increased rapidity.

‘I mean, I’m not trying to be the son she didn’t want or anythin
g, I just want to know who I am; who my father is—or was. Is that such a selfish thing to want?’

‘Maybe she wasn’t in a good place when she had you. She might have felt so guilty tha
t she didn’t want to be found—I know I’d be feeling bad in her shoes. And her hormones will have been all over the place, you know what they say about pregnancies. But people change, she might want to be found now. She might have been really young back then, and now, as an adult, she might think differently.’

‘She was twenty-two.
Old enough in my book to be pretty set in her ways. I looked at the census records. There haven’t been many Adelaide Manns born here. There was one from 1908, which I doubt very much will be the right one, then two more who both died before I was born. Then this one was born in 1962. It has to be her, don’t you think?’

‘If she’
s English. You might not necessarily see the birth records of someone born in Australia or America who immigrated over here. Or Mann might have been her married name.’

‘
Which would mean that since my father’s name isn’t listed on my birth certificate she had an affair.’

Frankie despaired.

‘These are just speculations though. We don’t know the whole story yet.’

T
om grunted and took another swallow of his beer. He nodded to the Golden Miller’s entrance behind her.

‘Whatever. I think your date has arrived.’

Frankie’s stomach belly-flopped with dread. She swivelled round to see Pippa shrugging off her coat and walking their way.

*

‘Hi, Pippa,’ Frankie said with false cheer.

Pippa beamed at her.

‘Sorry I’m late. What can I get you to drink?’

‘No, let me.’ If Pippa was about to jock her off the Grand National favourite she was going to do her damnedest to keep her sweet.

‘Oh, okay. White wine then, please. I’ll go grab us a table. Bar or restaurant?’

‘I don’t mind.’ Yes, anything to keep the owner sweet.

Pippa grinned.

‘Bar then.
Less far to go for a drink.’ She turned away and laid claim to a nearby table. Frankie gave Tom a look that showed her nerves.

‘You’ll be fine,’ Tom said
. ‘She doesn’t look like she’s about to trash your dreams.’

‘Shh, she might hear you,’ Frankie
replied out of the corner of her mouth. She caught Joey’s eye and he came over. Even with an apron and cloth, he looked more like a ballet dancer than a barman.

‘Hi Joey.
White wine and a vodka and orange, please.’

‘Don’t you want something stronger?’ Tom said. ‘You look like you’re about to go to the chair.’

‘I did go to The Chair, but I fell at the next fence,’ she drawled. ‘Maybe I’ll have a Pina Colada.’

‘Not something I’d share with the world,’ a deep voice said behind her.

Frankie’s neck hairs stood on end. She looked across the bar to where she’d last seen Rhys. Donnie was sitting alone, watching her with that annoying grin on his face. She instinctively moved out of the bar’s overhead light so she wouldn’t look quite so green.

‘And what is so wrong with
a Pina Colada?’ she said, turning to face Rhys.

A blackening bruise curved over his nose to his narrowed eyes.

‘You know what I’m talking about. What happened out there with Peace Offering today?’

Was that alcohol she could smell on his breath?
Surely not. She was pretty sure he didn’t drink. Then again, she recalled the miserable look on his face earlier, watching all the other jockeys file out to take their ride in the Becher Chase. All but him. After Frankie and Peace Offering’s poor display, it had probably been knocking around his head that he could have done a better job.

Aware of Pippa sitting within earshot but apparently studying the Golden Miller’s menu, Frankie cros
sed her arms. She surveyed Rhys and the purple bruise which swelled uncomfortably over his nose to his eye sockets.

‘I might ask you the same question about Ta’ Qali.’

Rhys shrugged.

‘That had nothing to do with me. He was acting like a crackpot before I got on him. I think under the circumstances we didn’t do too badly.’

Damn. She had to concede he was right. Despite Ta’ Qali’s unsettled run, he’d still managed to finish sixth—only three places behind she and Roosevelt.

‘Well?’

She looked towards Joey. He was still mixing her cocktail. She should have stuck to her original order.

‘Jack says he was probably just ring-rusty. He needed the run,’ she said, tilting up her chin and flicking her fringe off her face.

Rhys’s eyes glittered onyx black.

‘Really?
I could perhaps see his point if you’d gone two and a half miles then started to make mistakes. But you were both struggling from the outset.’

Frankie hazarded a look at Pippa. Peace Offering’s owner was now gazing into the distance.

‘And those watching from the sidelines probably wouldn’t have noticed what the TV viewers were able to see close up.’

Frankie swallowed uncomfortably.

‘Which was?’

‘You were scared shitless and Peace Offering had no confidence in you. That was why he fell.’

There was a definite tang of whiskey fumes in the air between them.

‘Rhys, stop it. I know it doesn’t seem fair that you’ve lost the ride on the National favourite
but—’

‘But he’s not favourite anymore, Frankie. Haven’t you heard the latest antepost betting? After you abandoned ship and Skylark went on to win,
he’s
become favourite. Peace Offering’s price is drifting like a barge.’ He smirked in the face of her shock.

Joey came over with her drinks and Frankie slapped a ten pound note down on the counter.

‘Save your breath, Rhys.’ She gathered her order and gave him a flippant once over. ‘Doubtless you’ll need it to blow smoke up someone else’s arse.’

*

She hoped Pippa didn’t notice the rattle of the glasses as she set them down on their table. Even more, she hoped she hadn’t overheard her confrontation with Rhys. She looked back as she sat down. Rhys took a swaying step towards her and Pippa. She braced herself. With a quiet sigh, she noticed Tom coolly motioning Rhys to go back to Donnie. He thought twice then walked back to the other side of the bar.

Fr
ankie exhaled. For the briefest of moments she relaxed, but then it returned. If Rhys had been able to see how scared she’d been earlier then Pippa, who had been watching the race from the grandstand, might have seen it too.

‘So are you feeling okay after your inopportune bath?’

‘Yes, thanks. One of the softest falls I’ve had.’ She giggled nervously. ‘Which sounds odd considering the course we were jumping.’

‘Oh, good.
I was worried it might have shaken you up.’ Pippa took a sip of her wine. ‘You know—first ride on Peace Offering, first ride round the National fences. It would rattle me, that’s for sure.’

Frankie nodded and tried to appear as confident as she could muster.

‘It turned my hair green instead of white,’ she grinned.

Pippa
laughed. Then, like a sail losing its breeze, she stopped. Her face took on a serious expression.

Frankie’s heart thudded in her ears.

‘Jack said Peace Offering probably needed the run,’ she rushed.

‘Hmm.’

Frankie got the impression Jack might have said a fair few more things on their drive home from Liverpool. He’d been supportive of her after her fall, but she’d got the distinct impression he was still in the Rhys Bradford camp.

‘It took him a few runs to win last season,’ Frankie tried again. It had only taken him one run to become favourite for the National, she added silently.
And just one to revoke that title.

‘
True, and it’s not like he has an unblemished record to protect—far from it, in fact,’ Pippa agreed.

Frankie nodded, willing Pippa back into her camp.

‘We’ll definitely improve on this run. The National’s still four and a half months away.’

Pippa looked up, concerned.

‘You’re still happy with riding him then, after today?’

Frankie nodded with more conviction. She refused to dwell on
Rhys’s judgements.

‘Yes.
Definitely.’

‘Well, I’m happy if you’re happy,’ Pippa said with a wide smile. ‘I understand the reasons why you want to win the National, just so long as
you’re
happy with those reasons.’

Frankie’s mind flitted to the phone call she’d made to her parents when she’d got home after racing. Doug had spoken to her, had asked if she was all right after her fall and had then handed her over to Vanessa to discuss Sunday lunch plans. He hadn’t said it, but Frankie knew he was disappointed. He would hav
e seen the race on television—his daughter riding at Aintree, his daughter who hadn’t even managed to get round a third of the course. She had to dispel that disappointment. She was going to make sure that Doug Cooper would, for once, be proud of his daughter.

Sunday lunch was turning out to be not as disastrous as Frankie had envisaged. It might have been because the Coopers were more focussed on salvaging what they could from the pork belly presented by Vanessa than on Frankie’s performance at Aintree the day before.

‘I was only following Heston’s recipe,’ Vanessa said, watching Doug saw through the meat. ‘It said to cook it for nine hours.’

‘But at what temperature?’ Doug rubbed his tired jaw.

Vanessa pouted.
She crossed her arms over her tight-fitting James Bond T-shirt, obscuring the words
“I’d snog Pierce but I’d shag Daniel”
.

‘I thought it was a typo when it said ninety-five degrees. I mean, who cooks anything at such a low heat? I thought it must have meant one hundred and ninety-five.’

Frankie snorted.

‘You’ve outdone yourself, Mum. At least there won’t be much fat left for me to burn off for next week.’

‘I ruined a perfectly good casserole dish trying to make this. One which was given to us as an anniversary present. I don’t find that very funny.’

‘Given to us by the Becketts,’ Doug said.

Vanessa pulled a face.

‘Maybe not such a tragedy then.
Susan Beckett probably put a curse on it.’

‘Who are the Becketts?’ asked Frankie through a mouthful of leather.

‘Old friends,’ Doug said. He exchanged a wicked smile with Vanessa. ‘Until your mother offered to do Susan’s hair.’

‘Ooh, that sounds ominous,’ Frankie grinned at her mother’s pained expression. ‘What happened?’

‘I don’t know why she couldn’t just laugh it off like any normal person,’ Vanessa said. ‘I was trying to be generous. She had some local television interview at an animal sanctuary and her usual hairdresser was down with the ’flu so I offered to do it instead.’

Doug leant in conspiratorially and waggled his knife.

‘She slipped while doing Susan’s fringe. Made her look more like Captain Spock.’

Frankie gasped in delight.

Vanessa shrugged and tried to make inroads into her dinner.

‘I lent her a wig
.’

‘Yes, love, but it got eaten by an alpaca live on air.’

Frankie choked on her giggles. Vanessa kindly leaned over and thumped her between the shoulder blades.

‘Don’t bother with the pork anymore, darling. I don’t want to be held for homicide.’

‘Shall I make us a salad?’ Frankie suggested.

‘Go on then. I got some lovely big tomatoes at the market the other day.’

*

Peering into the fridge, Frankie equipped herself with lettuce, cucumber and feta cheese. She rummaged around for the tomatoes. She looked suspiciously at five vegetables leaning drunkenly against the back of the bottom tray.

‘Tomatoes or red peppers, Mum?’ she called out.

Vanessa appeared at the doorway. Frankie held up a pepper and her mother’s face brightened.

‘Yes, those are them—oh, dear, they are peppers aren’t they? I did think they were a funny shape. Never mind, we can have peppers in a salad, can’t we?’

Frankie grinned and tossed one into the air. Beneath the glare of the kitchen light she set about chopping and deseeding the fraudulent vegetables.

‘Frankie,’ Vanessa said in a concerned tone. ‘I don’t want to alarm you, but…’

Alarm bells in Frankie’s head immediately began to whirl
.

‘What?’

‘Well, your hair looks ever so slightly green in this light. I didn’t notice it before.’

Frankie held her ponytail so she could see it and grimaced.

‘Damn, I thought I’d managed to get it back to normal this morning. I fell off at the water jump at Aintree yesterday.’

Instead of deepening concern, Vanessa looked relieved.

‘Oh, that’s all right then. I can give you some tint if you’d like to help it along. We saw your race on TV.’ She looked over her shoulder into the lounge. ‘Didn’t we, darling?’

Frankie peeled off the frills of lettuce into the salad bowl and listened for Doug’s reply. She could just make out a grunt.

‘It was such bad luck,’ Vanessa continued. ‘And Channel 4 had really made quite a deal about you riding beforehand.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes, because that horse you were riding was the Grand National favourite—although between you and me, he didn’t look like the favourite for anything the way he was jumping. Anyway, they took a trip down memory lane and showed a clip of your dad on some horse that was a Grand National favourite from years back.’

Frankie rushed to the door to look at her father sitting in his easy chair.

‘Is that right, Dad? You and I were both on TV? Who were you riding? I didn’t know you rode a National favourite! Did you ride him in the National too?’

Doug gave his wife and daughter squashed in the doorway a look of long-suffering.

‘Crowbar. In the Charlie Hall Chase. And yes, he was the National favourite. But no, I didn’t ride him in the big one.’

‘I remember him!’ Frankie said. ‘Well, I’ve heard of him obviously because he went on to win the National. But I didn’t realise you’d ridden him before!’ Her heart swelled with pride. ‘Why didn’t you ride him in the National?’

A muscle leapt in Doug’s jaw and he looked away from Frankie. He drummed the arm of his chair with gnarled fingers.

‘Because somebody else rode him instead.’

Frankie opened her mouth to ask more questions, but felt her mother’s hand on her shoulder.

‘Why don’t we have a game after lunch?’ Vanessa suggested, nodding to the card table. ‘Loser has to load the dishwasher.’

Frankie shut her mouth, taking her mother’s hint. She smiled, understanding—although, not quite.

*

Using Vanessa’s collection of glass stones as betting chips (yellow worth a fiver, green worth a tenner and blue worth fifty each), they sat down to the serious business of mother-daughter poker.

Frankie laid down her small blind of one yellow stone and dealt them both their two cards.

‘I’m afraid I can’t ask you back to talk at my Guides meeting,’ she said.

Vanessa looked crestfallen.

‘Why ever not, darling?’

‘You remember how you came along
to help on the crafts night to show them how to make mosaics with glass stones?’

Vanessa nodded.

‘Well, when you told them we use the glass stones for playing poker and then proceeded to teach the group how to play, that didn’t go down too well with the mums.’

‘But it’s just a card game,’ Vanessa protested.

‘I know, but I think the mums were expecting tales of how their darling angels can now make pretty mosaic patterns, not how they were now experts at Texas Hold ’Em.’

‘Well, that’s just silly in my opinion. There’s such a stigma about poker,’ she tutted. ‘And I’m also going to raise you twenty.’ She dropped a couple of green stones onto the table.

Trying to keep a straight face, Frankie looked at the cards on the table then at her hand. A pair of sixes wasn’t going to get her very far. She shook her head and folded. Vanessa grinned and revealed her cards.

‘You had nothing!’ Frankie cried. ‘Really, Mum. You’re a complete shark.’

Vanessa winked and collected her winnings.

‘So
, are you settling in okay with the job?’

At ease now, Frankie regaled her with stories of her first week
s at Aspen Valley, not putting too much emphasis on horses’ or people’s names. It constantly amazed Frankie that despite being married to an ex-jockey for nearly thirty years and having raised two racing-mad children, Vanessa still knew next to nothing about the sport. ‘What about the people you work with? Are they nice?’ Vanessa asked.

With a pair of kings in her hand and one already on the table after the first turn, Frankie raised the stakes before answering.

‘They seem nice enough. Jack is so respected there, he’s almost like a god. June works next door to me so I probably know her best. She’s been there years apparently. She’s cool, except…’

‘Except?’

‘I dunno. She’s really friendly. It’s just that sometimes I feel she’s too friendly.’

Vanessa fiddled with her stones and matched her bet.

‘Is she a lesbian?’

‘No, I don’t mean it like that.
’  Frankie turned the last two cards and grinned in anticipation. ‘I mean her friendship feels a little false. I don’t know. I can’t explain it.’

‘Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. Right, what have you got? I’ve got four of a kind.’

Frankie’s smile disappeared.

‘What? I thought I had you with a full house.’

‘Darling, you’ve been grinning like an idiot this entire hand. You’re easier to read than a nursery school pop-up book. Have you ever heard the expression “poker-face”?’

Mildly disgruntled, Frankie gave her mother most of her betting stones.

‘I managed okay when I beat Rhys.’

‘Rhys? Who’s Rhys? I don’t think I’ve heard his name mentioned before.’

‘Rhys Bradford. He also rides at Aspen Valley.’

‘Bradford?’ Vanessa
looked up in surprise.

Frankie frowned. She knew Rhys was a bit of a head-turner, but if she mentioned his name much more, both her parents would be in neck braces at this rate.

‘Yeah. Have you heard of him? Dad gave me the same reaction when I told him a while back that we worked together.’

Vanessa pulled a nonchalant face and
retrieved the cards she’d dropped.

‘Name sounds vaguely familiar.’

‘Well, he is quite well-known,’ Frankie said. ‘He and Jack just about swept the board at Cheltenham Festival a couple of seasons ago. Then he went and broke his leg at Kempton’s last Boxing Day meeting. Horse was killed, poor thing, and it was one of the stable stars. And then of course, he was the one who got jocked off Peace Offering when Pippa gave me the ride.’

‘Hmm.
That was unlucky,’ Vanessa replied absently. ‘Is he nice?’

Frankie made a non-committal noise.

‘I don’t really know. I’m not his favourite person in the world, although I wish he’d hurry up and forgive me. He is quite good-looking.’

‘Be careful, Francesca. Jockeys are bad news.’

‘You’re married to an ex-jockey, Mum. Should I be concerned?’

‘No, of course not.
Your father’s different,’ she said airily. ‘Why don’t you marry Tom instead of lusting after jockeys?’

Unsettled, Frankie snorted.

‘Mum! I’m not
lusting
after Rhys. Besides, Tom and I are just friends. Best friends. Kissing him would be like kissing a brother.’

‘But he’s not your brother,’ Vanessa pointed out. ‘Why don’t you bring him round some time? Tell him if he agrees to learn poker, I’ll cut his hair for free.’

‘Mum, I’m not sure I want you bribing my friends into taking up a gambling habit.’

Vanessa sighed and looked at her pityingly.

‘See? Everyone’s got a stigma about poker.’

*

Frankie couldn’t wait to get home that evening. Not only was she still starving, but curiosity over her father’s association with Crowbar was eating her up. Once she’d refrained from bringing the subject up again, Doug’s earlier good mood had eventually resurfaced. He’d given her a warm kiss goodbye.

‘Take care of
yourself, Frankie,’ he said, patting her arm. Frankie had hugged him hard. She could see he was trying so hard not to be disappointed in her Becher Chase flop. He must have been terribly embarrassed that the two of them should have been shown on television and while he had gone on to win his race, she had bailed out on the first circuit. She still wanted to know who he’d lost the Grand National ride on Crowbar to though.

A note on the kitchen table informed her Tom was at the Golden Miller if she cared to join him.

‘You’re spending an awful lot of time down at the pub, Tom Moxley,’ she murmured.

Atticus Finch jumped up o
nto the table and demanded a fuss then food.

O
nce she’d opened a sachet of gourmet cat food for him, he turned his back on her.

‘You’re so fickle, Atticus.’

Feeling guilty about carbohydrates, Frankie made herself a chunky peanut butter sandwich and a cup of coffee. It wouldn’t do to be doing detective work on an empty stomach. She thought of the leathery pork which her insides would be working hard to digest and the small salad.

‘Well, maybe half-empty,’ she conceded, biting into her sandwich and stomping upstairs to her bedroom.

She sat cross-legged on her bed and switched on her laptop. She logged on to the
Racing Post
website and searched for Crowbar’s form history.

No records found

‘Damn,’ she muttered. ‘Too long ago, I suppose.’