Christopher's Medal (26 page)

“Yes, that’s what happened.” Grace pushed a stray lock of hair from his forehead. “You were scared. You didn’t know you and you didn’t know me.”

“So it wasn’t a bad one then.”

“No. You shouted a bit at first, but that was all.”

“I’m sorry, Gracey. Something usually happens every night. There’s always nightmares, there’s always something.”

“It’s all right.” She sipped her coffee. “I don’t mind.”

He pulled the duvet over his legs. “I don’t think I’ve had a decent night’s sleep since it all happened,” he sighed.

“Perhaps they’ll go away eventually. But don’t apologize, you don’t need to do that. That’s why I’m here, so you have someone to turn to when you have those nightmares.”

“Thanks, Gracey.” Another sigh as he sipped his coffee. “I guess there’s a few things you need to know just so you realize the mess you’re now in.” He took her hand and threaded his fingers through hers. “When you came to see me, when I was less than welcoming, there were one or two things I said that were true.”

She looked at him, at the sorrow in his eyes.

“I love you, Gracey, I really do. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t, but I don’t feel things the way I used to. It’s like I’m feeling everything through a…filter. I can’t put it any differently than that. I know that I love you and, in some ways, I feel that as strongly as I ever did.” He kissed her cheek. “I get angry a lot. I can’t explain it. I don’t know why, I just do.”

“It’s all right, we’ll manage.”

“Then there’s my leg.”

“What about your leg?”

“Physio. You’ll have to help me with that. I’ve got the instructions from the physio at the hospital. You’ll have to be strong. I’m a bastard when I’m doing the physio because it bloody hurts. I’ll curse you to hell and back, I’ll yell, I’ll scream. I’m ashamed to say I made Mum cry more than once these past few weeks.” He set his coffee down with a sigh. “Basically, you’ve just got yourself stuck with a big, bratty child.”

She set her coffee cup down and took his face between her hands. “I’ve spent the last four years of my life working from sun-up to sun-down with neurotic racehorses, a half-mad Russian who can hardly scrape enough English together to order a drink and a yardman who can’t make it to work until he’s had three shots of whiskey with his cornflakes. I’ve had to deal with slimy estate agents, groping bankers, bent jockeys, patronizing trainers and stewards, all the low-life that racing can throw at me and I’ve coped just fine. I think I can handle a big, bratty, beautiful child.” She kissed him.

He sighed into her mouth and kissed her back, a hesitant, sweet echo of a long-ago summer. “Thank you, Gracey.”

* * * *

The snow had clearly settled in for the day. It whirled past the kitchen window while Grace prepared breakfast. She peered out of the door and heard the thump of wheelbarrows and her father telling everyone to get a move on so they could all get home and stay warm. Christopher was in the other room—she could hear him twiddling with the radio and humming.

“There’s a weather warning,” he called to her. “Six inches of snow.”

She tipped the scrambled eggs onto the toast and carried the plates into the room. “Really? I suppose I’d better get some groceries in. These are the last three eggs and the last couple of pieces of bread.”

“You don’t have any food in?”

“Not a lot, no. I wasn’t expecting a housemate.”

“Ah, sorry about that. When I saw your friend turn up with my boxes, I felt like I’d been stabbed.” He set his fork down. “I’d spent the last two weeks wallowing in self-pity and feeling sorry for myself. I regretted every word I said to you, but I was too bloody proud to tell you. When Steve stood there on the doorstep with a box in his arms and told me he had five more, I just knew I’d made the biggest, stupidest, most appalling mistake of my life and he had just presented me with an opportunity to make things right.” His hand covered hers. “I sent him into the kitchen and Mum gave him lunch and I packed the rest of my things. I kept thinking of all the horrible things I said to you and wondered how I could make things right between us. I just hoped that you wouldn’t turn me away when I turned up. I wouldn’t have blamed you.”

“I can never resist a challenge.”

“I told my Mum and she just burst into tears and said that it was about bloody time. We both cried. Steve must think I’m mad.”

“He’s married to Jane. He’s used to madness.” She looked beyond him at the shifting veil of snow. “I’m just glad that you’re here. We’ll get by, Chris. We’ll get through this. But we’ll starve if we don’t get out to the shops.”

* * * *

The snow was already beginning to settle on the roads when Grace drove nervously to the supermarket.

“I can’t believe you.” Christopher chuckled when Grace edged the car into a parking space. “You think nothing of riding a galloping horse flat out on a racecourse and yet you’re a wreck driving in half an inch of snow.”

“It’s not me I’m worried about, it’s the other idiots around here.” She turned the engine off and stared at the sloppy flakes of snow as they slid down the windscreen. “We don’t get much snow round these parts. People panic. You can bet that there’ll be hardly a loaf of bread to be found in there, because everyone will be stocking up for the apocalypse.”

They picked their way across the car park, careful with Christopher’s leg and slippery places. It was strange and seemed impossible to Grace that he was there, holding her hand as she took a trolley and looked at her scribbled list.

“You do realize,” she told him, “that by the time we reach the checkout line, everyone will have had a good old nosey at you.” She smiled at someone she knew and pushed the trolley toward the produce aisle. “This is Newmarket where everyone knows everyone’s business.”

“It’s as bad as that?”

She sorted through the carrots. “Only if you do bad things but if bad things happen to you, then people are very nice.” She squeezed his hand.

“Bloody hell, Gracey, should I put a bag over my head?”

Grace laughed. “It’s all right, I was only joking.” She added some potatoes to the trolley. “If we’re lucky no one will bother us because most everyone is still at work.”

Chapter Fifteen

Grace was thankful for the snow. It kept well-meaning visitors away from their door and shrouded their world in soft, white silence. She had no doubt that Christopher’s troubles would re-emerge once the joy and novelty of being with her had worn off but, for the moment, she was determined to enjoy the peace while it lasted. They sat side by side on the settee. Christopher had loaded the CD player with the CDs he had given her. He held her hand while they watched the snow dance past the window. She had made a stew in the slow cooker and the aroma of it drifted through the house.

“God, Gracey, I can’t tell you how many times I dreamed of days like this. Peace, quiet and you.”

Grace rested her head against his shoulder. “Same here, such a simple, uncomplicated thing to wish for.”

“There were times when I thought that I wouldn’t live to see this, to just hold your hand.”

She turned and touched his face. “It’s all right. Now you’re here.”

“One of these days, I may even find the guts to tell you all about it.” He kissed her hair. “But today isn’t that day. I’m just so happy to be where I belong.” He winced as he moved his leg.

“Are you all right?”

“It’s hurting a bit, that’s all.”

“Shall I get you something? Do you want a tablet?”

“It’s all right, darling. I’m not due a tablet for another hour or two. I think I’ll just have a nap.” He put his arm around her waist while he fidgeted and shifted on the settee, lying down behind her, on his side. “Join me? I think there’s room for two of us.”

Grace didn’t want to leave him, even to sit on another chair. She stretched out beside him, resting in the crook of his arm as he wrapped himself around her.

His long sigh ruffled her hair. “Could we just forget the world, do you think?”

“I’d like that.”

“So would I.” His voice was a sleepy growl.

Grace closed her eyes when he curled his fingers through hers and fell asleep, holding her. She wished that she could suspend time and remain like that until he was healed.

* * * *

“So,” Jane asked as Grace emptied the muck sack, shaking it to get the last, damp pieces of straw off, “how’s it going?”

After two days of peace and quiet, Christopher had suggested that she should go back to work because he didn’t want her getting in trouble. “It’s good, so far.” She folded the sack. “He has nightmares and his leg really bothers him but, so far so good.”

She had spoken to her father. He’d suggested that mornings should be enough for the time being.

“You need to spend time together,” he’d told her. “He needs you, Gracey. We can manage without you for evening stables and it’s not as if I’m going to cut your pay. Take as long as you need.”

“Did he tell you what happened when Steve turned up?”

Grace followed Jane into the tack room to escape the chill of the March wind. The snow had gone, leaving the ground damp and the air cold. “He said that he saw Steve standing on the front porch with one of his boxes and saw his opportunity to sort things out. He said it was like a knife in the gut.” She sat down on the traveling trunk and shivered. It was difficult to crawl out of bed, leaving Christopher’s warmth. He had mumbled in his sleep and reached for her, his arm tight around her waist.

“Don’t leave me, Grace.”

Grace gazed out of the tack room door and thought wistfully of the cottage, of the man sleeping in her bed.
Our bed
. “He apologized for being such a selfish arse. Right now, things are good, but I don’t know how long it will last. There’s so much that he’s not saying. He’s not ready to talk about what happened, and the longer it festers inside him, the worse he might get.” She looked down at her hands. “I love him, Jane. I love him so much that I’m prepared to put up with whatever’s going to happen. I’m just going to take each day as it comes.”

“That’s probably best.” Jane stubbed out her cigarette. “What is he going to do with himself while you’re working?”

“He claims he’s going to paint the spare bedroom. Then he says he’s going to put bookshelves up because mine aren’t big enough and there’s two more boxes that he hasn’t unpacked because they’re full of books. But most of all, he’s going to rest. He needs to.”

“I suppose you’re knackering each other out making up for lost time.” Jane winked.

“Nope, none of that. Not yet, apart from the odd kiss on the cheek, or holding my hand, he hasn’t touched me.” Grace sighed and groped in her pocket for a cigarette. “It’s going to be hard. It took a huge effort just for him to go and get groceries with me the other day. He just wants to be left in peace for a while.”

Grace glanced up as her father made his way out of his office and walked toward the yard. “Now, we’d better pull our fingers out before Dad catches us slacking.”

* * * *

Grace returned home to the smell of paint and fried bacon and to Christopher, his clothes splattered with blue paint, fast asleep on the settee. She crept into the hall and surveyed the results of his labors. One wall was partially painted, a bold splash of royal blue against the dismal, boring magnolia shade. A plastic sheet, liberally spotted with more paint, covered everything. She noted that he had, at least, cleaned the brushes and put the lid back on the paint tin before he’d succumbed to exhaustion. She returned to the kitchen and removed her boots. A bacon sandwich rested on a plate next to a note.

Sorry, Gracey. I’m knackered, but I made your lunch.

Love you.

She wiped her eyes and wished she could kiss him awake, just to thank him. Instead, she took her sandwich and her mug of tea and sat at the table with the
Racing Post
. When she finished, she looked with longing at the settee and the man sprawled on it. A day’s worth of stubble clouded his pale cheeks and there were crescents, dark as bruises, beneath his eyes. In sleep, his face was closed to her. The early afternoon sunlight found flecks of blue paint scattered across his nose and cheekbones. He was too much to resist. Grace settled into the space beside him and fell asleep.

* * * *

Grace limped back to the cottage, longing for a hot bath to rid herself of the aches and pains of breaking in yearlings. The bay filly, sweet-natured in the stable, showed a bit more spirit when being ridden around the paddock. She’d sent Grace flying with an impatient, petulant buck when she’d asked her to trot. As falls went, it wasn’t bad. Nothing broken, but Grace was certain that by morning there would be a massive bruise on her thigh.

“Chris?” The erratic pounding from the spare room shook the cottage. A glass trembled on the countertop and Grace paused in the kitchen at the sound of splintering wood.

“Chris?” She crept into the hall while the banging continued uninterrupted and peered through the gap between the frame and the door. The room was a mess of shattered wood and chipboard as Christopher, sobbing, slammed pieces of board against the wall.

Everything in Grace slid to her feet. She felt heavy and shook when she pushed the door open with a trembling hand. “Chris?” Her voice was a small, feeble whisper and she curled her hand around the doorknob, gripping it until her fingers cramped on the cold metal.