Reckless Runaway at the Racecourse (17 page)

     ‘I’m leaving. I’ve called a taxi.’

     Silence. Fliss wasn’t sure if that was better or worse than the blistering rage she had half-expected.

     Shakily she reached the ground floor but kept her distance from Luke. ‘I’m sorry I won’t be able to work out the last week.’

     Luke shook his head. ‘I don’t care about that. Stay. Please,’ he begged urgently. ‘Just for the rest of the week, if you want.’

     Fliss shook her head. She didn’t dare try to speak in case the tears started to fall again. Luke would hate that as much as she would.

     His mouth was pressed into a tight line. Fliss couldn’t read the expression in his eyes. She only knew she had to get out of the house before she did something stupid. Like say yes.

     ‘Well, then,’ he said.

     ‘Well, then,’ she managed, not looking him in the eye. ‘It’s been fun, Luke.’

     He stepped towards her, taking hold of her shoulders and gazed down at her inscrutably. ‘Fun,’ he repeated eventually, putting her away from him. ‘Yes, I suppose it has.’

     Outside the taxi driver tooted his horn to let them know he’d arrived.

     ‘Where will you go?’ asked Luke, arms crossed over his chest.

     She shrugged. ‘I’ll call a few friends. Someone will let me sleep on their sofa for a few days until I get sorted out.’

     ‘You could go to your mother.’

     Fliss twisted her lips. She wasn’t going to answer that. It wasn’t as if Luke was in any position to judge - he didn’t even speak to his mother.

     ‘I have to get going. There’s a train.’

     ‘Right.’ He moved aside, then turned to follow her. ‘I’ll carry those.’

     Luke put her cases in the taxi while Fliss bent to say goodbye to Benjy.

     ‘Wait a moment,’ he ordered. It wasn’t until Fliss looked up that she realised Luke had been addressing the taxi driver, not her.

     He appeared again a few minutes later, with an envelope and a pink shiny card. ‘Here. The rest of your wages.’ She took the envelope without a word. ‘And this.’

     Fliss looked down at the card he’d placed in her hand. ‘Owners and Trainers,’ it said, with Saturday’s date.

     ‘Come,’ Luke said. It was an entry badge for the Derby meeting. ‘Please come. You deserve to be there, after everything.’

     She swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry. Saying goodbye wasn’t supposed to be this hard. Fliss gazed up into Luke’s face, wondering how she’d ever thought him arrogant. There was so much understanding in his eyes. Almost as if he knew why she was running away. Too kind to call her out on it, to tell her what a coward she was. Too much of a gentleman to make her stay, though they both knew he only had to kiss her and she’d be unable to leave.

     Fliss nodded shakily. ‘I’ll try.’

     Luke’s mouth tightened but he nodded. ‘I’ll look out for you. Sensible shoes, remember.’

     ‘And a clean pair of knickers. I remember.’

     He laughed then. They both did, and Fliss was glad. This was how it was supposed to end. While it was still fun. Before they hated each other. Before they’d come to depend on each other.

     As the cab drove away Fliss turned back in sudden panic, screwing her head around and sticking it out of the window to grasp one last chance to memorize it all: Luke standing on the gravel drive; Benjy jumping up at his ankles; Marshmallow peering round the open door then scampering to hide under the hydrangeas; Luke calling Benjy to heel; the roses rambling over the kitchen window; the path down to the stables; Luke turning his back…

     It felt like leaving home.

     It felt like running away.

     Luke watched until the car pulled out into the road where it was hidden from view behind the tall hedgerows laced with delicate creamy frills of traveller’s joy. He ought to wish Fliss joy in her travels, he supposed. He would, if he thought that was what would really bring her joy.

     ‘I should have found a way for her to stay,’ he told Benjy. ‘She needed me to do that for her and I failed. I was planning on having another week to work it out but I should have realised I’d pushed too hard and she was ready to bolt.’

     The spaniel pressed his head against Luke’s knee and looked as miserable as Luke felt.

     ‘She’ll be back,’ he said, and it felt like a promise.

     He hadn’t called.

     No matter how many times Fliss told herself she wasn’t expecting Luke to get in touch, she couldn’t help checking her phone every five minutes. No text messages, no emails, no phone calls.

     Of course he was busy this week. Fliss had seen the daily schedule pinned up inside the tack room and the lists she had compled for Luke in the office. He had counted on her being there to help share some of the load. She would have been the one to deal with the daily phone calls from Mr Zhao. She would have taken care of double-checking the arrangements for stabling the horses overnight at Epsom. And she would have made sure that Luke was eating properly. He couldn’t survive a week like this on takeaway food and coffee cake.

     She could go back. Tell Luke that she was just coming to be his temp for a few days. Sleep in a different bedroom.

     Her body revolted at the thought. There was no way Fliss could sleep in Luke’s house without wanting to be in his bed.

     Besides, there was no way she could go back without causing even more chaos and disruption and she wouldn’t do that to Luke now, not when he already had so much on his plate. She needed to look to the future instead and let Luke take care of himself. She hadn’t even signed on with an agency since she’d been back in London.

     She’d told Luke she wanted to go travelling. Maybe she should do that instead. Fliss reached for her laptop and started to search for round the world tickets. But none of the destinations caught her attention. She didn’t want to go to Mauritius or Australia, Chile or Canada. She wanted to go to Newmarket. She wanted to go home.

     He could call her. Luke still had Fliss’s number saved on his mobile phone. More than once he’d thought about it. Planned how the conversation might go. He could tell her how Marshmallow was doing. Or Chrysanthemum. Ask her the best way to stop Mrs Zhao for talking for hours on the phone when he had things he really needed to do. Every time he stopped himself. It wasn’t fair to Fliss.

     She’d decided to leave and he needed to give her that space. If she came back - when she came back - it needed to be her own choice. She needed to overcome her own demons and, as much as it pained him to admit it, Luke knew he couldn’t do it for her.

     He scooped Marshmallow up and let the kitten curl up happily on his lap. He was glad that Fliss’s cat was still here. It was as if she had left a promise that one day she would return. And if, in the meantime, Marshmallow chose to sleep on Luke’s warm bed, snuggled into the duvet, he wasn’t going to complain. There wasn’t anyone else he wanted warming his bed until Fliss returned, after all.

     At least he could be thankful that his week was full. Work kept his mind off Fliss, more or less. Chrysanthemum was looking better and better every day. The antibiotics were completely out of his system now and he was working hard. Luke no longer had worries that he would stay the distance. There was stamina as well as speed in the stallion’s strong form. He was the most incredible horse Luke had ever trained and he’d been around the business long enough to know he might never have another like this.

     Each day Luke worked methodically through the lists Fliss had made for him. He stuck to his schedule and didn’t allow himself to dwell on Saturday. There was no point living through the anxiety more than once. He knew what needed to be done, and worrying himself into a frenzy wasn’t going to help. The stable lads were already on edge and the jockey he hired to ride out each day was looking increasingly awed by his task. They all needed Luke to be their calm centre to keep them focussed on their task without panicking.

     What Luke needed was someone waiting at home to distract him at the end of the day. Someone to make him smile and relax with the twinkle of her green-gold eyes or the dimple at the corner of her extremely kissable lips. Someone who only had to slide a hand under the hem of his shirt to have him thinking the wickedest of thoughts. He needed Fliss. God, he hoped she would come on Saturday. He didn’t know how he was supposed to get through the day without her there.

     Fliss took out the pink shiny badge for the hundredth time.

     ‘You’ll wear that out if you’re not careful.’

     She looked up, but her mum was smiling. On an impulse she hadn’t liked to examine too closely, Fliss had taken Luke’s advice. She’d called her mother from the station and asked if it would be okay to come and stay for a week or two.

     They had made her welcome. Hugo especially had gone out of his way to make sure she felt at home. Her mother just looked at her with so much love and gratefulness that Fliss knew she’d done the right thing.

     ‘I know,’ Fliss sighed. ‘I just can’t decide whether I should go or not.’

     ‘Tell me about him,’ her mother invited. ‘I’ve made a pot of tea and there’s a coffee and walnut cake.’

     Fliss smiled ruefully. ‘That’s Luke’s favourite.’

     ‘I thought it was your favourite.’

     ‘It is.’

     She took her tea gratefully and sipped it slowly while she wondered what to tell her mother.

     ‘He scares me.’

     Jill raised her eyebrows. ‘Scares you? How?’

     Fliss bit her lip. She wasn’t completely sure herself. But when she thought about Luke, she felt as if she was standing at the top of a high cliff, terrified of falling but unable to move away from the edge. She’d started having nightmares again, dreams that had haunted her childhood, of falling down stairs, or out of windows. Fliss woke with a thud each time she landed, shaking and fearful, and hardly sure if she was still alive.

     Her mother handed her a large slice of cake. Fliss thanked her shakily and started to crumble the cake into pieces.

     ‘Darling, what is it that you are so afraid of?’

     Fliss tried to explain. ‘He makes me want to promise things I can’t. He makes me want to risk everything and when I daren’t, he makes me feel like a coward.’

     ‘You love him.’ Jill gave her daughter a knowing look.

     Fliss shrugged. ‘Maybe. Yes. So what?’

     Of course she loved him. How could she not love him? He was
Luke
. He was kind and strong and fun and serious and sexy and patient and gorgeous, and he loved her.

     That wasn’t the problem.

     The problem was whether she could keep loving him. Whether he would keep loving her. Whether it was worth the risk of breaking his heart and having hers broken.

     ‘And he loves you?’

     ‘He says so.’

     ‘Then, darling, what are you doing here?’

     Fliss stared at her mother in bewilderment. If anyone should understand, she’d thought it would be her. ‘Because I don’t want that! I never did. I promised myself I’d never fall in love like….’

     ‘Like me?’ Jill removed Fliss’s cup and plate and took hold of her daughter’s hands. ‘Is this because of me, Felicity? Have I made you so afraid of love that you won’t chase after it and grasp it with both hands when you find it? Have I hurt you so much?’

     ‘Not you.’ Fliss shook her head vehemently. ‘You never hurt me.’

     ‘But I did, didn’t I? Every time I fell for a guy and let him become part of your life, I hurt you a little more, because every time I knew he would leave.’

     ‘You knew?’ She looked up at her mother in surprise. Fliss had always assumed that Jill was as shocked and devastated as she had been every time another guy walked out on them.

     Jill sighed. ‘Yes, sweetheart, I knew. No matter how much I hoped it would be different each time. No matter how hard I tried to persuade myself I’d found the one, I always knew.’

     Fliss pulled her hands free and picked up her tea cup again while she thought about this.          Eventually she asked, ‘What about Hugo?’

     Her mother’s face transformed into a wide smile. ‘Everything changed when I met Hugo. I’m only sorry that it was too late for you. For the kind of stability you needed.’

     ‘He’s really the one?’

     Jill laughed. ‘Yes, darling, he really is.’

     ‘You’re not afraid that one morning he’ll suddenly tell you it’s over?’ But Fliss could see the deep contentment in her mother’s eyes and she knew what the answer was going to be.

     ‘No. Is that what you’re afraid of with Luke?’

     Fliss felt hot tears spring to her eyes. ‘I’m afraid he’ll break my heart.’

     ‘Oh, darling.’ Jill moved to sit on the sofa, next to Fliss, and put her arms around her daughter.

     Safe in her mother’s embrace, Fliss let her tears flood out.