‘Whoops, maybe I should just sit down here and pass these to everyone.’
‘Open that one first, Mum. That’s from Tom.’
Vanessa picked up the gift and tore away the wrapping.
‘Ah, Tom,’ she said, touching her chest. She showed the album of Rod Stewart’s Christmas songs to Doug and Frankie. ‘Bless his heart. I don’t think I have a Christmas album of Rod’s. How is he?’
‘Who? Rod?’
‘No, darling. Tom.’
‘He’s okay. Spending Christmas with his folks down in Weston.’
‘Well, please tell him thank you very much and there’s a present here somewhere for him too. Now, here’s one for you.’ Vanessa stretched across the carpet to hand a pillow like present to Frankie.
Frankie ripped off the wrapping with zest and pulled out a heavy duffel coat with a fur hood. She leaned over and kissed her father and blew one to her mother.
‘Thank you. I could do with a new coat.’
‘Doug, this one’s for you.’
Vanessa handed him a small present, which hadn’t come from Frankie’s bundle. She and Vanessa waited eagerly for him to reveal it.
‘Cufflinks!’ Doug cheered. ‘A horse on this one and this one says—’ He peered through his glasses at the other cufflink, ‘— “Hung like a”.’ He squinted at a beaming Vanessa. ‘Huh? Oh, right. I get it. Thanks, lovie. Ha ha.’
Frankie was saved from having to admire his present by the Big Ben-tuned doorbell.
‘I’ll get it,’ she said, shaking wrapping paper from her lap. ‘You expecting anyone else?’
‘No, unless it’s Santa,’ Vanessa said. ‘And if it is, tell him he’s a good few hours late.’
Laughing, Frankie jogged down the hall in her socks and opened the front door.
A courier man, dressed in thick motorcycle gear with his helmet visor clipped back, stood holding a wide flat box.
‘Delivery for Miss Cooper?’ he said.
Frankie’s heart bounced around her chest for a moment.
‘Yes, that’s me.’
‘Sign here, please.’ He passed her a clipboard and pen and pointed to a space beside her name. ‘Thank you. Merry Christmas.’
‘You too. Thank you!’
‘Who is it, darling?’ came her mother’s voice from the lounge.
Frankie came back into the lounge, proudly holding aloft the box.
‘That was a courier. It’s for me,’ she said faintly. She sunk onto the sofa and ran her hands over the silver and blue paper. It looked professionally wrapped.
‘What is it?’ Vanessa said, crawling forward on her hands and knees away from the tree.
‘I don’t know.’ Maybe it was because it was so immaculately wrapped or because the paper looked so expensive, but Frankie took extra care to tug the tape free.
‘A giant pizza?’ suggested Doug.
‘Dominos have certainly upped their customer service if it is,’ Frankie replied.
With the paper finally cast aside, Frankie slid open the lid. She gave an involuntary gasp.
‘What is it?’ Vanessa asked again.
Frankie reached into the box and lifted out a beautifully styled Burberry jumper from a bed of fine tissues.
‘Wow,’ she breathed.
Vanessa, still on all fours, looked up with her mouth open.
‘Who’s it from?’ she said, finding her voice at last.
Still holding the jumper up, Frankie squirmed in her seat to find a card or a note. Doug plucked a small card from the tissues.
‘“To keep you warm when I’m not there. RB”,’ he read.
Frankie’s mouth fell open in amazement. How could she ever have doubted Rhys’s resolve? This present must have put him back at least five hundred pounds. You could buy a second-hand car for that.
‘Who’s RB?’ Doug asked.
Frankie’s grin faded. Oh yeah, she’d forgotten this bit might happen.
‘No one,’ she said vaguely and busied herself putting the jumper back in the box.
‘It can’t be no one if he’s sending you designer clothes.’
Frankie shrugged and tried to play it coy.
‘Ooh! Ooh!’ said Vanessa. ‘Let’s guess! Who has those initials, Doug? Russell Brand? Richard Burton?’
‘Isn’t he dead, Mum?’
‘Oh yes. Um—oh!’ As obviously the right person entered her mind and she was about to shout it out, Vanessa remembered where she was. She froze with her open smile fixed in position.
Doug looked from his wife to his daughter in frustration.
‘Who? You know who it is, Vanessa. Tell me! I don’t know anyone with those—’ Doug also stopped in mid-sentence. He ran his tongue over his teeth, almost in a grimace.
Frankie inched further away from him on the sofa and discreetly moved the expensive wrapping paper out of his reach.
‘It’s Rhys Bradford, isn’t it?’ he said.
Half-hiding behind the fluff of the jumper, Frankie nodded. Doug looked panicked. His eyes darted from his daughter to the box to his wife.
‘But what is he doing sending you expensive gifts like that?’
‘Well, um,’ Frankie began. She attempted a consolatory smile. ‘Rhys and I have been seeing a bit more of each other in past days.’
‘Seeing more of each other? As in dating each other?’ Doug’s face took on a distinct red hue.
‘I guess you could say that.’
Doug leapt to his feet and away from Frankie as if she’d just opened up a box of anthrax.
‘You’re dating Rhys Bradford.’ He said it more as a statement than a question, as if he was trying to get it into his head. He looked at Frankie in disbelief. ‘Why? How? I thought you hated him?’
‘Well, no, not really. I mean, sure, at first he wasn’t my favourite person in the world, but lately—well, lately I’ve seen a different side to him. And I think I maybe misjudged him.’
‘But it’s Rhys Bradford!’ Doug cried.
The pom-pom on his Santa’s hat bounced around as he flung his arms out, making him look like one very unhappy elf. This conversation was never going to have gone well, but it still caught Frankie unprepared. She was torn between her loyalty towards the new Rhys—the real Rhys, and the addictive need to please her father.
‘Rhys is good though, Dad. Really he is. He makes me happy. That’s what you want, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, of course I want you to be happy! But couldn’t you have found happiness with someone else?’
Frankie bit her lip, resentment that Doug thought she’d had a choice in this matter, that she’d purposefully fallen for Rhys just to spite him.
‘You don’t know him, Dad. I don’t know what happened in the past with Alan Bradford, but Rhys isn’t like that. He hates his father.’
‘That means nothing though!’ Doug said, ripping the Santa’s hat from his head and flinging it to the ground. ‘You can see he’s just like Alan just in the way he rides.’
‘Doug—’ Vanessa tried to intervene, but he ignored her.
‘He’s arrogant, he’s cocky. I mean just look at that note! What does he mean by “when I’m not there”? Are those the occasions when he’s warming someone else up?’
‘No—’
‘I know his type better than you think, Frankie! The Bradfords are all the same. They only know how to look after one person and that’s themselves.’
‘Stop it, Doug!’ Vanessa exclaimed.
Doug and Frankie both stared at her in surprise. Vanessa rarely raised her voice except in song.
‘And you knew about this?’ Doug said, redirecting his anger. ‘How did you know this–this gift was from Rhys Bradford?’
‘Don’t go getting all cross with me, sunshine. Just because I’m quicker than you at name games doesn’t mean I was in on it.’
Still brained, Doug looked back to Frankie then crept over to sit beside her again. He looked at her imploringly.
‘Frankie, honey. I’ve never tried to
tell you how to live your life, but you’re making a mistake here. I’m not saying this because of my past, I’m saying this because I love you and I don’t want to see you hurt. Please don’t do this.’
Frankie sighed.
‘Dad, please don’t ask me that. I’m not going to get hurt, and if I do, so what? That’s what life and love is about, right? You can’t hide away from it just because it might turn around and bite you on the arse later on.’
‘Love?’ Doug looked horrified. ‘Who said anything about love? You’re not in love with him, are you?’
Frankie repeated the question to herself silently. A flutter in her stomach and a tingling of warmth made her cheeks glow and she hid the tiny smile that tugged at her lips.
‘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?’
Chapter 30
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 didn’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 onto 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 later,’ 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.
Giving Chase (A Racing Romance) (Aspen Valley Series #2) Page 20