Giving Chase (A Racing Romance) (Aspen Valley Series #2) (34 page)

‘Your father and I never wanted to stand in the way of what you wanted to do with your life,’ Vanessa said. ‘We’d never have forbidden you from
your chosen career—well, except if you’d wanted to be a hooker or a drug dealer. It’s your life. It isn’t for us to say how you should live it.’

F
rankie looked at her, dumbstruck.

‘Seriously?’ was all she could muster.

‘Yes,’ Doug sniffed.

Frankie looked back at her father.

‘You don’t want me to ride?’

‘I know you love to ride, Frankie. I wouldn’t ask you to quit, but racing is just so dangerous. You could be killed. I don’t
know what I’d do if you were–were—’

Frankie looked away distractedly. What was happening? What was she doing? She remembered that night snug
gled in Rhys’s bed when he’d asked her what she dreamed about and she’d answered making her father proud. The only way she’d ever considered this possible was by winning races. Yet now, in contrast, Doug was saying that he didn’t want her to race-ride. She’d built an entire career on a delusion.

She looked back at him, feeling dazed. Her father’s blue eyes
searched hers desperately.

‘I–
I have to think about it. I don’t know what else to say,’ she stammered. ‘Racing’s my job. It’s the only thing I know how to do.’

Vanessa patted her thigh and got to her feet.

‘We can’t ask for more than that. I’d better go check on the food.’ She made a move to the kitchen then paused. She held up an inspired finger. ‘On second thoughts, while I’m busy in the kitchen…’ She trotted out of the room in the opposite direction to the kitchen.

Frankie and Doug looked at each other.

‘What do you reckon she’s up to?’ Doug said.

‘Beats me.’

A moment later, Vanessa reappeared with a stack of photo albums piled in her arms. She dumped them on the table beside Frankie.

‘Here you are. I think now is a good opportunity for you two to catch up on some good times. Show Frankie the times you’ve been proud of her.’

Frankie opened the first album and gasped. Behind the laminate, a six-year-old Frankie sat in front of the Christmas tree; presents which were now old and tired looked sparkling and new. She flipped through the pages, gazing at the pictures which so often showed her on Doug’s shoulders, of the two of them playing in the surf in Cornwall.

Doug grunt
ed as he got off his knees and came and sat beside her. Frankie tore her eyes away from the pictures to look at him.

‘Where’ve these been? I’d forgotten about these times.’

Already feeling cheerier, she giggled at the photo of herself and Seth burying Doug in beach sand, with ten-year-old Seth moulding two lumpy breasts onto his father’s chest.

*

With Vanessa excusing herself to the kitchen, they sat together, reliving Frankie’s childhood. Frankie felt Doug was being particularly brave about not baulking from the memories of Seth. She reached for the last album, dog-eared and more old-fashioned than the ones they’d already looked at. The photographs had long lost their sticky backs and were gathered haphazardly along the inner spine of the album. Frankie picked up one and snorted.

‘You had a moustache, Dad?’

Doug took the photo and shook his head with a wry smile.

‘God, this was a lifetime ago. I only had the moustache for a short while. Your mother fancied Tom Selleck so I grew it to impress her, but she didn’t like it on me.’

Frankie giggled and flicked through the loose photos—photos of Doug riding racehorses, eighties hairstyles and superhero-esque shoulder pads. She studied a Polaroid of a young dark-haired Doug with his arm around an equally young good-looking blond man. They were sat in a pub and both held up pints of lager in a toast. Her interest piqued by the friend’s good looks, she turned to her father.

‘Who’s this?’

Doug gave her a bemused look.

‘Don’t you know?’

Frankie looked closer. She mentally ran through all her far-flung uncles, but none of them matched the man in the photo.

‘I don’t think so. Should I?’

‘It’s Alan Bradford. Rhys’s dad.’

She gasped. His hair was blond and straight and his face fuller, but with closer scrutiny, she recognised the man’s crooked, teasing smile.

‘My God,’ she breathed. Her attention flickered to a woman standing to the right of the picture.

‘Who’s that?’ she asked. ‘Do I know her?’

‘Wouldn’t have thought so. She was gone long before you were born. That was Heidi.’

Frankie threw him a wary glance.

‘Heidi, as in the one Rhys’s dad was having an affair with?’

‘Yup.’
He shook his head with a heavy sigh. ‘The one and the same.’

Frankie’s reply was interrupted by her mobile bursting into song from her jeans pocket. She squirmed under her tray of photo albums to retrieve it. It was Tom.

‘Hey, Tom. You okay?’

‘Frankie. Thank God you answered,’ Tom said breathlessly.

‘What’s wrong? Have you locked yourself out the house?’

‘No. I’m inside. I’ve just got home. It’s Atticus, Frankie. I think he needs to go to the vets.’

Frankie sat bolt upright.

‘Atticus?’

‘Yeah. He doesn’t look well. I think there’s something wrong with him.’

Panic swelled inside her.

‘Like what? Is he vomiting? What?’

‘
No, he’s just lying here like–like—I don’t know. But he doesn’t look good, Frankie.’

‘Okay, I’m on my way.’

She cut the call with a trembling finger.

‘It’s Atticus. He’
s sick. I’ve got to get him to the vet.’ She stood up in a rush, spilling the photo albums all over her bag and the floor. ‘Oh!’ Her knees shook as she scrabbled to pick up all the loose photos.

‘Leave it, honey. Let me deal with this. You go on.’

‘God, I’m sorry, Dad. Thanks.’ She looped her bag over her shoulder and made for the door. ‘Tell Mum I’m sorry.’

The surgery waiting room’s deathly silence was punctuated by Atticus Finch’s less than complimentary yowls as Frankie and Tom waited to be called.

‘He’s not
sounding pleased,’ she said, peering into the cat carrier.

Atticus glared at her
with yellow eyes.

‘Let’s hope
his vocalising’s a good sign then,’ Tom replied.

A door opened and Mr Warnock, Aspen Valley’s regular vet, stepped out.

‘Atticus Finch?’

Frankie leapt to her feet and grabbed Atticus’
s carrier.

‘I’ll wait here for you,’ Tom said, picking up a
Your Pet
magazine and making himself comfortable.

Mr Warnock smiled at Frankie and stepped aside to let her into the examination room.

‘Hello, Frankie. Not often I see you outside the yard.’

‘Thankfully,’ Frankie said, lifting the cat carrier onto the table. Realising how that sounded she clapped her hand over her mouth. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that.’

Mr Warnock laughed.

‘I know what you meant. Now what’s the problem with Atticus Finch?’

‘We’re not entirely sure. Tom came home tonight and found him lying in the kitchen, yowling like he was in pain. He’s not the liveliest cat, but he’s acting more lethargic than usual. And he’s fifteen years old so we thought it best to have him checked out.’

‘Quite right,’ Mr Warnock said, unclipping the carrier and extracting a rigidly reluctant Atticus.

Chewing her lips, Frankie watched as the vet’s gentle hands prodded and probed the elderly cat. He lifted him onto a weighing tray then checked his teeth.

‘He’s got a good set of gnashers for his age. What’s his appetite like?’

‘Very healthy. He’s always hungry.’

‘Hmm.
Well, he’s a little underweight. Worming up to date?’

Frankie nodded. Atticus scowled as the vet probed his intestines.

‘…Feels like he’s got a stool waiting to pass. Okay, okay, old boy, I’ll let you keep your dignity.’ He took a thermometer and contrary to his words inserted it in Atticus’s most undignified orifice. Atticus’s eyes bulged at this violation. Frankie would have laughed if she hadn’t been so concerned.

With temperature and heart rate checked, Mr Warnock gave Atticus a consolatory pat on the head.

‘Well, there’s nothing obviously wrong with him. It might just be that he’s eaten something which he’s struggling to pass. It’s not unusual for older cats to have digestive problems. But since he’s as underweight as he is, I’d like to keep him in, do some blood tests. We’ll have a much better idea of what might be troubling him after that. Do you have pet insurance?’

‘Yes.’

‘Jolly good. Just let Ali know at reception and give us a call on Thursday.’

‘So he’ll be okay?’

‘I can’t say for sure until we have the blood tests done, but he doesn’t appear to be on his death bed. He might just be feeling a little lethargic like we all do sometimes. Nothing to worry about, I’m sure.’

Relief that Atticus wasn’t on the last of his nine lives flooded through her.

‘Oh, thank God.’ She fondled Atticus’s bony back, but thought better of the kiss she was about to drop on his head. He looked about as thrilled as a turkey on Christmas Eve.

*

The house felt empty without the arthritic bag of grey fur wandering around and Frankie plonked down at the kitchen table and stared glumly at the opposite wall.

‘He’ll be okay,’ Tom said. ‘I probably over-reacted by calling you like I did.’

Frankie gave him a grateful smile.

‘I’m glad you did. Thank you.’

‘Don’t mention it. You had anything to eat?’

She shook her head.

‘I’m not hungry.’

Tom extracted a tin of chocolate digestives and came to sit opposite her. Frankie closed her eyes, shutting out the image of the creamy chocolate biscuits, but her mouth still watered.

‘How did it go at your folks’?’ he mumbled through a mouthful of crumbs.

‘I told them,’ she shrugged. ‘Dad wasn’t best pleased, as you can imagine.’

‘Should Rhys think about getting police protection?’

Frankie gave a half-hearted laugh. It would be a good long while before she could make jokes about Rhys.

‘Nah. In a way, it turned out to be quite a good evening. Well, maybe not
good
,’ she said when Tom raised an eyebrow. ‘Productive, more like. I learnt a few things about Dad that I didn’t know before.’

‘Oh?’

‘Yeah. I discovered he doesn’t really want me to be a jockey.’

Tom spat out biscuit crumbs.

‘What?’

Frankie raised a wry smile.

‘I know. Ironic, wouldn’t you say? I spend my time trying to impress him by becoming a jockey, while all the time he wanted me to quit.’

‘Why did he never say anything?’

‘Mum and Dad have always been very good about letting me choose my own path. They thought this was what I wanted.’

‘And is it?’

Frankie lifted her hands in a gesture of defeat.

‘I don’t know. Honestly, I really don’t. I mean it just seems that all my goals, all my ambitions have suddenly disintegrated.’

‘Are you considering quitting?’

She grimaced, her loyalties torn.

‘I don’t want to quit Aspen Valley,’ she said. ‘I love it there—well, I did until me and Rhys split. It’s all a bit egg-shelly now.’

‘But the racing side of things?
Come on, Frankie, do you really enjoy it that much?’

Frankie wrinkled her nose. She watched Tom munch through another biscuit.

‘Probably not as much as I should. But I couldn’t quit. How could I do that to Jack? He’s done so much for me this season. I’d look so ungrateful if I just jacked it all in after only one season.’

‘I’m sure he’d appreciate it a lot more if he knew he had a jockey who actually wanted to be a jockey.’

Frankie sighed. Her thoughts turned to Ta’ Qali and Dory, Bold Phoenix and Asante, all the horses at Aspen Valley that she’d grown so attached to.

‘I don’t want to leave though. I do love Aspen Valley. And I love working with the horses. But what if Jack decides he doesn’t want another work rider, that it’s this or nothing? Then there’s Rhys and… I don’t know. It’s too complicated.’

Tom shrugged.

‘It looks pretty simple from where I’m sitting. You could work as a groom and exercise rider. That’s the stuff you enjoy doing. What’s so great about being a jockey anyway? You put yourself in the line of fire, risk death and injury, starve yourself,
make yourself ill. And for what? Just another winner. And since you’re an amateur you don’t even get any prize money.’

‘And I’m not even that competitive.’

‘Exactly. The only reason you’ve stayed in the game this long is because you thought this was what your dad wanted. Now he’s given you a get-out clause, what’s stopping you from doing what you really want to do?’

Frankie paused to think. She scratched at the table with a dirty fingernail.

‘Nothing, I guess. Apart from disappointing Jack and forever being in danger of running into Rhys.’

‘Hey, if it was
an easy job everyone would be doing it.’

Frankie smiled, meagrely reassured.

‘Yeah, you’re right. I–I’ll think about it. I’m not going to make any drastic decisions now. Not with so much going on. I might end up regretting it.’

Tom slid the biscuit tin across the table to her.

‘Go on,’ he whispered. ‘Take that first step.’

She eyed the biscuits and swallowed. She licked her lips. Gingerly, she reached forward and picked up the top biscuit. She bit into it. She closed her eyes at the explosion of flavour in her mouth and moaned.
Tom laughed. Frankie opened one eye and wagged a finger at him.

‘You’re a bad influence on me, Tom Moxley.’

‘Rubbish. See me as your guiding light instead.’

Frankie snorted and reached for a second biscuit.