Giving Chase (A Racing Romance) (Aspen Valley Series #2) (21 page)

‘I guess I am a little bit,’ she said.

‘Jesus Christ!’

‘Rhys is good, Dad. You have to trust me on this one. I know what I’m doing.’

‘Do you, Frankie? Do you, honestly?’

Frankie licked her lips. Was she ever particularly certain of anything she did? So often, things
that seemed a great idea at the time didn’t appear so attractive later on. But she’d survived this far without too much damage.

‘I do,’ she whispered. She searched Doug’s face for some sort of consent or blessing
, but all she saw was remorse.

‘I just don’t want you to get hurt.’

‘I know, Dad.’ She leaned over and kissed her father’s cheek. ‘And I promise nothing bad will happen. He makes me happy. And that seems to make him happy. We’re happier together.’

Doug hung his head in resignation.

‘I hope so, honey.’

Deciding this to be an opportune moment, Vanessa clapped her hands from her kneeling position on the rug and beamed at Frankie and Doug.

‘Shall we open some more presents?’

As a way of conciliatory gesture, Frankie wore her parents’ duffel coat gift to Kempton Park the next day. There would be plenty of occasions in the future for her to wear her Burberry jumper for Rhys. Today she had just the two rides, but such was the quality of the field, she felt privileged to have even those. She was on Asante in the first on the card, a novice hurdle, then she was aboard Romulus in the Christmas Hurdle to be pace-setter for Rhys’s and Donnie’s mounts, Dexter and Dust Storm. She knew her chances in that race were about the same as the temperature outside, a bone-chilling minus three, but she was quietly hopeful that Asante might run into a place in the novice hurdle. Though he never particularly stretched himself at home, she was sure he had more to give. He would have to give if she was to get anywhere close to a place.

Frankie was welcomed into the warmth of the weighing room by the buzz of Irish and English accents with a sprinkling of French.
Kempton’s Boxing Day meeting always pulled in the best horses and jockeys even from beyond British shores. Frankie was also well aware that she was the sole amateur riding throughout the whole card.

She
nipped into the main changing room on her way to the lady jockeys’ to deliver Tom’s present. Rhys was sat on the bench in just his breeches, pulling on his boots. Above and behind him hung six different sets of silks which he would wear through the course of the day and his saddles. Frankie felt a bit like she’d pitched up at an airport to go on holiday with a friend and found that they’d bought along three suitcases while she’d only brought a hold-all.

Rhys looked up and smiled.
A lollipop stick stuck from the side of his mouth. He slapped his hands to the left of his chest.

‘You’re breaking my heart, Frankie,’ he said
then gestured to her wardrobe. ‘I’m disappointed.’

‘I got this from my parents. After your gift arrived yesterday, I figured I should wear this as a peace offering.’

‘You’d need to get a lot hairier and walk way better on all fours before you’d get close to that.’

‘Eh?’

Rhys flapped a hand.

‘Never mind.
Didn’t your parents appreciate it much then?’

Frankie did
n’t want to hurt his feelings—what worse feeling could there be than when, in the first straits of love, you found your potentially future in-laws hated your guts? Or maybe she was getting a bit ahead of herself here. But just in case…

She gingerly stepped on
to the tightrope between truth and deception.

‘Mum thinks it’s lovely.’

Rhys gave her a sober look and took out his lollipop. His tongue was red.

‘And your dad?’

‘Well, Dad’s a bit of a tricky customer. I’ve always been his girl, if you like, and I think because he’s been a jockey he knows about the usual promiscuity, so he was a little…
protective
. Yeah, protective.’ There, that didn’t sound so bad.

‘Did he give you a hard time?’

Frankie saw the first signs of regret in his eyes and she gave him a reassuring smile.

‘No, he was fine. How did you get my parents’ address, by the way?’

Rhys gestured behind her.

‘From that fella over there.’
She turned to see Tom walking by the other side of the tables. ‘Do you want to come by my place later?’

‘Come on, Rhys,’ Frankie laughed. ‘You’re riding the two favourites in the two biggest races today. You’re bound to want to celebrate later.’

‘I certainly am. And I can’t think of a better way than with you.’

Frankie’s heart flapped like a butterfly’s wings.

‘You mean that?’

Rhys grinned at her, looking like Hannibal from
The A-Team
with the lollipop stick between his teeth.

‘I’ll catch you la
ter,’ she told him.

‘Not too soon, I hope. Jack will have a hernia if Romulus beats Dexter.
Poor guy’s already crippled with nerves. Thinks the Christmas Hurdle has a hoodoo on him.’

Frankie remembered today would be the first anniversary of Black Russian’s fatal fall. It would also be the first anniversary of Rhys busting his leg.

‘You feeling okay?’ she asked.

Rhys
pulled on his vest and body protector. With the white long-sleeved vest tight over his shapely arms and chest and the dark blue of his body protector beefing him up, he reminded Frankie of a superhero. Perhaps one whose special power was to turn into some superfast stallion. He reinserted the half-sucked lollipop into his mouth. Okay, maybe not such a superhero, after all.

‘Yeah.
Don’t worry about me.’

*

Worrying Rhys was the last thing she was doing two and a half hours later. She stood up in her stirrups as Romulus rounded the home turn and stopped urging him on. The puffed-out horse slowed immediately. There were still two hurdles to take, but he had reached the end of his race. Frankie strained to make out the commentator’s echoing voice yelling the other horses home. She held her breath as the leaders met the last hurdle and it seemed the packed crowds had as well. A fresh roar tumbled from the grandstands as Rhys sent Dexter further and further clear. Frankie sat down in the saddle as Romulus slowed to a jog then a walk.

‘Well done, Rhys,’ she murmured. She smiled. ‘Well done, Jack. And well done you,’ she added, patting her mount’s steaming neck. ‘You played your part in that victory too. You set a great gallop. Good boy.’

*

Through leaden eyelids, Frankie looked across at the alarm clock on the bedside table.

3:44

She lay quietly, contented, still a little druggy from sleep. She listened for the deep breaths of Rhys sleeping beside her. He was breathing, yes, but he didn’t sound asleep.

‘You still awake?’ Frankie looked over at him and stretched.

In the darkness, she could make out the flutter of his eyelashes as he blinked.

‘Yeah. Did I wake you?’

‘No,’ she mumbled, snuggling into his shoulder again. ‘You okay?’

Rhys lay on his back, looking up at the ceiling.

‘What do you dream about?’ he said after a pause.

Frankie raised her head alertly. That was the last time she was eating cheese-on-toast before bed.

‘Was I talking in my sleep?’

‘No, nothing like that. I mean day dream, like consciously.’

Frankie rolled onto her back to contemplate the ceiling as well. She tried to zone in on one dream, to picture herself succeeding. But even though she could feel the buzz of success, she couldn’t see herself. She could only see her father’s beaming face, full of pride, applauding.

‘I guess I dream about making my dad proud. How about you?’

Rhys looked quickly across at her then back at the ceiling. The shaking of his head made the pillow rustle.

‘No, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked you if I was never going to answer that myself.’

‘Come on,’ Frankie said, giving him a playful smack on the chest. ‘I bared my soul. Now it’s your turn.’

Rhys sighed. He didn’t answer.

Frankie thought he was
going to remain unresponsive when he broke the silence.

‘Have you ever dreamt,’ he began slowly, ‘of being the first to skirt The Elbow at Aintree for the run-in? After
defying death over thirty jumps and four and a half gruelling miles in the biggest steeplechase in the world, you look up. All you see on the horizon is that red lollipop by the finish and a smooth pathway of green grass between you and it.’ Rhys held up his hand as if he could touch it. ‘No more big scary jumps, no other horses. To your right is this black booming mass of people cheering you on. And as you gallop up and over the line, you have time to absorb those tiny particles of history in the making.’ His hand flopped down again onto the duvet. ‘And you know that you have been part of it.’

Frankie continued to gaze at him with her mouth ajar.

‘Wow. Something tells me you’ve thought that one through on more than one occasion.’

Rhys gave her a mischievous smile.

‘Sometimes I add a loose horse or two to make it more exciting.’

Frankie giggled. Then she sobered. She was only just beginning to realise how her dreams had shattered
Rhys’s.

‘You want to win it so bad,’ she whispered.

Rhys waved her away with his hand.

‘No more than the next guy.’ He rolled onto his side so he was facing her.
‘Including you.’

Grateful to see he wasn’t sinking into depression, she returned his smile.

‘So I’m just one of the guys now, am I?’

‘Believe me, what I am about to do to you I have absolutely no interest in doing with the other guys.’

Frankie giggled as Rhys ducked beneath the covers. His hair tickled her ribs and she squirmed. He trailed kisses over her stomach before burrowing up and gently holding her hardening nipple between his teeth.

Frankie pushed her head into the
pillow and closed her eyes.

‘Rhys, no,’ she moaned. ‘I’ve got to get up early tomorrow. We don’t have time.’

Rhys’s black curls appeared from beneath the duvet, shortly followed by his face.

‘“
Time is a companion that goes with us on a journey. It reminds us to cherish each moment because it will never come again. What we leave behind is not as important as how we have lived”.’

‘Look at you, Professor Bradford of the Philosophy Department. Whose words of wisdom
are those? Aristotle?’

‘No, Captain Jean Luc Picard in
Star Trek
.’

Frankie
rolled onto her side in giggles. When she’d recovered, she turned back to him. She could see him smiling in the darkness.

‘Can I ask you a favour?’ she said.

‘Depends on what it is. You should know I don’t do violence and while it’s okay for some people, I really don’t go in for foot fetishes.’

‘No, it’s nothing like that.’ She hesitated. ‘You know I help out at Girl Guides?’

‘Yeah,’ Rhys said guardedly.

‘Well, we organise these events for them, themed events. They’re kind of like badges but they’re called Go
For Its.’

‘Okay.’

‘I’m meant to be organising a couple in the new year. One’s called Lights, Camera, Action and the girls get to learn about film production and acting and stuff like that.’

‘Frankie, I know Hollywood is missing out on its next leading man while I’m over here, but I’m a jockey. What favour could I possibly do?’

Frankie stroked his cheek, bristly with shadow. He would make such a sensuous leading man.

‘Well, you’re a bit of a film buff and you do all of your photography. I thought maybe you could come along and teach them about how a camera and tripod and things work.’

Rhys groaned.

‘No, Frankie. No, no, no. I couldn’t, I’m sorry. I’d be the worst teacher. And I very much doubt whether I could tell them anything about cameras that they don’t already know.’

‘Of course there is. No one takes photos like you do without knowing a thing or two about—I don’t know what you’d call it—framing and lighting, I guess. Please. It’ll be fun. Everyone gets to dress up as a movie character.’

‘
Oh God, no.’ He lay his arm over his eyes then peeped from beneath it when she didn’t respond. Frankie gave him her most doe-eyed look. Rhys covered his eyes again.

‘Say you’ll think about it?’

Rhys sighed.

‘I’ll think about it.’ He raised his arm to look at her again and pointed a finger. ‘That is not a “yes” though. It’s
a “I’ll think about it”.’

Delighted that he hadn’t given her an outright “no”, Frankie snuggled deeper into their bed.

‘That’s good enough for me.’

Rhys curled up behind her, neatly fitting his body against hers and nuzzled her neck. Frankie felt like purring.

‘Now this is what I call a quality Rhysy-spoon,’ she murmured.

‘Except that sausage
and eggs are off the menu,’ Rhys replied. He kissed her neck. ‘Sweet dreams.’