Promises

by Cathryn Hein

‘Aaron.’

  ‘Sophie.’ He nudged her, loving having her back to normal. Loving her teasing, loving the look she was giving him, loving her with every pathetic, agonised bit of his heart.

  She nudged him back. ‘Say yes.’

  ‘Okay. Yes.’

  Her grin told him he’d just been trapped.

  ‘If Costa Motza wins, will you kiss me?’

  Fifteen

  Running through the back straight toward the eight fifty and we have Palliser three lengths to Bouncdly, followed by Turning Turtle, Urban Delight, and Finlanda …

  Aaron wished he had his binoculars, but he’d handed them over to Sophie. Costa Motza was where he expected him to be – running last – but not as far behind as he’d anticipated. The pace was moderate, and only five lengths separated first from last. Costa Motza was still in the hunt.

  Sophie had ordered him away when she’d given her apprentice jockey his instructions. He didn’t know how she’d directed him to ride, but from her calm demeanour, the jockey was riding to orders. He bent down to whisper in her ear. He saw Ben’s set face, but didn’t care. Ben Moore could take a running jump.

  ‘I don’t know what you promised that apprentice but it must have been good.’

  She said nothing, responding only with a complacent smile.

  Coming up to the five hundred and it’s still tight with Boundily and Palliser neck and neck, a length to Turning Turtle, Finlanda a half length from Costa Motza and Urban Delight on the outside …

  Aaron stared at the field, his ear on the call.

  Inside the three hundred and Palliser to Boundly, a length to Turning Turtle, Costa Motza and Urban Delight…

  ‘Holy shit,’ said Aaron.

  Sophie dropped the binoculars and leaned across the rail.

  It’s Palliser and Boundly fighting it out, but Costa Motza’s coming hard…

  ‘Go, Costa!’ Sophie punched the air in front of her. ‘Go, boy, go!’

  It’s a three-horse race between Palliser, Boundly, and the surprise contender Costa Motza …

  Aaron couldn’t believe it. Beside him, Sophie jumped up and down, screaming in excitement, her grey eyes wide with hope.

  Palliser, Boundly, Costa Motza … and Boundly puts its nose in front… Bounidly and a photo between Palliser and Costa Motza – who would have paid a motza if it got up – a length to Turning Turtle and the favourite Urban Delight…

  ‘Damn, damn, damn,’ said Sophie, banging her race book against the rail.

  He grabbed her by the shoulders. ‘Tell me that’s not the same horse.’

  She grinned. ‘That’s Costa Motza all right, and don’t worry, I didn’t slip him anything.’

  He narrowed his eyes. Are you sure? ’

  ‘Of course I’m sure. I hate horse dopers. As far as I’m concerned they should be all taken out and shot.’

  He let her go and stared at the returning horses with eyes that felt too big for their sockets. Why did he have to bring that up? It brought everything crashing back. Any joy he’d felt had evaporated with those words. And it served him right.

  As if there weren’t already enough reasons for Sophie to hate him, now she’d have another. Not that she knew. No one did except for that conniving little bastard, Danny, and, of course, his mother. She was the one who’d manipulated Aaron into doping his father’s horses in the first place.

  Costa Motza could win a thousand races, and he still wouldn’t touch her. He’d contaminated her life enough.

  Sophie fingered his arm. ’I’m sorry. Your dad. I didn’t think.’

  ‘I told you, my father didn’t nobble anything.’

  ‘Wasnt he banned or something?’ asked Ben.

  Aaron glared at him and then pushed off the rail, walking away before he gave into impulse and rammed his fist into Ben’s face.

  ‘What’s his problem?’ he heard Ben say to Sophie. He didn’t catch Sophie’s reply and was grateful. He didn’t know if he’d like what he heard.

  Everything. That was his problem. He was under threat of losing an owner he couldn’t afford to see walk, was in love with the one person he couldn’t have, and was so racked with jealousy and anger his head felt about to burst. A walking, talking, steaming, human pressure cooker. Knowing his luck, he’d probably have a stroke.

  ‘Hey, boss.’

  He looked up to find Danny Carlyle standing in front of him, cigarette dangling from the fingers of his right hand, beer in his left.

  Aaron shook his head and pointed to the cigarette. ’I don’t think your doctor would be too thrilled to see you with that.’ Not that he cared. If his stable jockey dropped dead tomorrow he’d probably cheer at the news.

  Danny grinned, exposing yellow-stained teeth. ‘What he don’t know won’t hurt him.’ He nodded to the incoming horses. ‘You give him a speedball or something?’

  ‘Bloody looks like it, doesn’t it?’

  Danny took a drag on his cigarette. ‘Stewards might want a chat.’

  ‘Yeah, but in this case, they’d be better off grilling his new owner.’ He tipped his head toward Sophie and Ben. ‘She’s calling the shots with the horse.’

  Danny squinted. ‘Sophie Dixon? Who let her own a racehorse?’ He looked back at Aaron. ‘Doc reckons I’ll be riding again shortly.’

  Aaron nodded, thinking about the implications of Danny’s return to the yard. At least Ian Dixon would be happy. ‘Whatever he says.’

  ‘I’d be back tomorrow if he’d give me the okay. I’m bored rigid at home.’

  ‘Count yourself lucky. If I weren’t enjoying the peace and quiet so much I’d have you back shovelling shit in heartbeat.’ Ignoring Danny’s black look he started toward the mounting ring.

  The race caller announced the placegetters over the tannoy. Costa Motza had come second and paid an enormous dividend on the tote. Sophie had probably made a killing.

  ‘You might’ve won if you’d used your whip,’ he said to the diminutive apprentice.

  The apprentice regarded him with scared eyes, yet to learn the prevarication of jockey-speak when it came to defending his riding. ‘Miss Dixon said I wasn’t to use it, boss. She said it only frightened the horse. I should have used the stick, shouldn’t I? It won’t happen again, boss. I promise.’

  Aaron suppressed a smile. ‘Miss Dixon spoils her horses rotten, but you were right not to use the whip. Those were your instructions and you stuck with them. Well done.’

  The jockey grinned his relief.

  ‘You’re turning my horses into big sooks,’ he said to Sophie as she stood at Costa Motza’s head planting kisses all over his white blaze. ‘What’s this about not using the whip?’

  ‘He’s frightened of it.’

  ‘Says who?’

  ‘Says me.’

  ‘God help me, I’ve a horse whisperer for an owner.’ But he knew Sophie was right. Costa Motza’s performance had proved it. ‘Are you staying for the rest of the races?’

  She shook her head. ‘No. I’ll follow you back and help with the horses.’

  ‘Your new boyfriend won’t like that.’

  Sophie chucked him under the chin, her grey eyes sparkling. ‘Careful, Aaron. A girl might start thinking you’re jealous.’

  The horses were unloaded and in their yards by the time Sophie arrived at Hakea Lodge. Aaron was determined to keep his mouth shut, even though he was sure Ben was responsible for her delayed appearance.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said, leaning on the rail of Costa Motza’s yard as Aaron adjusted the horse’s rug. ‘I was held up.’

  Costa Motza wandered over to snuffle his nose through Sophie’s new hairdo. She batted him away but not before the horse had made a mess of her streaked blond bob. Aaron felt ridiculously pleased. The perfection of the style had been irritating him all afternoon.

  He lounged against a post, surreptitiously studying her as he pretended to inspect a stain on the cuff of his race-day suit. Since she arrived, she’d worn the same excited expression, as though her
insides were bubbling like newly popped champagne. He had a fair idea where it came from.

  She gave Costa Motza a last kiss and pushed him away before sliding along the rail and stopping near him. She rested her cheek on her arms, looking at him sideways.

  ‘Ben asked me out.’

  He shrugged. ‘Good for him.’

  ‘Don’t you want to know what I said?’

  ‘Not particularly.’

  She smiled and slid closer. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘You can go out with whoever you like.’ He stared at Costa Motza’s white legs, almost luminous in the half-light of the fading day. He knew what she was doing, but it wouldn’t work. Not today. Not ever.

  ‘I said I’d think about it.’

  ‘Ben’s a good bloke. You should have said yes.’

  ‘I might yet. He’s coming to Vanaheim on Thursday afternoon to look at the new lucerne stand. I might tell him yes then.’

  Aaron shook his head and looked at the sky. He needed to walk away, do the feeds, anything to escape her test of his resolve.

  ‘Do you wish Costa Motza had won?’

  ‘Of course. I could have used my cut of the winnings.’

  ‘What about our wager?’

  He swallowed. He had to stop thinking about that. ’I don’t remember saying yes to any bet.’

  ‘But you didn’t say no.’

  ‘I didn’t think I needed to. Costa Motza had no chance.’

  ‘Ahh, but he did.’

  ‘So I discovered.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘I need to do the feeds and you need to go home.’

  ‘I thought I might stay. Take you up on that steak and red wine dinner you promised.’

  ‘I don’t think I’ve got any steaks.’

  Sophie grinned, her teeth bright in the approaching sunset. ‘But I have. You didn’t think I was late because I was hooking up with Ben, did you?’

  The yard was hushed and the horses sleeping when Aaron finally walked Sophie to her car. To his combined relief and disappointment, the evening had passed without Sophie trying anything. Not that she needed to. Everything she did made him churn with longing.

  If she smiled, he wanted to kiss her. If she raised an eyebrow or rolled her eyes or laughed or turned serious, he wanted to kiss her. As the night progressed, his obsession with her mouth had spread to every part of her, until he hadn’t known where he wanted to look the most.

  And when she’d turned from the stove after checking his cooking, pink-cheeked and with tiny drops of moisture speckling her brow like glitter, the urge to take her hand and drag her to his bedroom had been almost primitive in its ferocity.

  He opened the car door for her but she didn’t step in. Instead, she leaned against the rear passenger door looking up the stars, her neck pearly in the moonlight. He stared at it, overcome with the need to run his tongue up and down her delicate skin and feel her shiver with pleasure.

  She smiled and looked at him, grey eyes shiny with amusement. ‘I can almost hear what you’re thinking.’

  He smiled back. ‘I hope not.’

  She poked a finger at his chest. ‘You have a very dirty mind.’

  ‘I wasn’t thinking dirty things.’

  ‘You weren’t? What were you thinking then?’

  ‘I was thinking it’s about time you went home and put your horses to bed.’

  She shook her head. ‘You know what, Aaron? You’re a terrible liar.’

  They were silent for a moment, the quiet interrupted only by the snort of a restless horse and the cry of a night bird. She looked at him expectantly but he made no move toward her. With a sigh and a crooked smile, she climbed into the car and wound down the window. ‘Thanks for dinner.’

  ‘You’re welcome.’

  The Range Rover was halfway across the yard when he realised he wanted to tell her something. Something important. He ran after it and banged on her window.

  She wound it down, smiling. ‘What?’

  His mouth went dry.

  ‘Aaron?’ Her moonlit expression shone open and hopeful.

  ‘I just wanted to say I thought you looked beautiful today.’

  As she registered his words, her face transformed, glowing with unrestrained delight and sending his heart into orbit. She looked as luminous as the moonlight that bathed her, and far more lovely than his inadequate words could ever express.

  But then her smile faded and her eyes clouded, and he saw the vulnerability she kept so well hidden. The twelve-year-old girl that haunted Sophie, and who Aaron could never banish from his memory.

  ‘Yes,’ she said sadly, turning from him as her eyes filled. ’But apparently not beautiful enough.’

  Sixteen

  The brilliant sunshine of the weekend gave over to several days of heavy rain that never seemed to ease. To prevent damage to the soils and pastures of Vanaheim’s lower paddocks, Sophie moved the cows and calves to the lighter ground on the western side, choosing the larger paddocks with the best windbreaks so the cattle could spread out but still have protection from the cold. She did the same for Chuck and Buck, changing their day paddock from the front of the house to the paddock between the stockyards and Tess’s cottage. With pasture growth once more slowed, all the animals needed extra feed to keep warm, especially the horses, who were still growing back their winter coats.

  Though she tried to maintain a sunny outlook, the long days looking after Vanaheim, dealing with a severely rattled Tess, battling an increasingly recalcitrant Buck, who she’d yet again decided to give a second chance, and helping out at Hakea Lodge left Sophie even more tired than usual. Worst of all was the disappointment that her effort on Saturday to grab Aaron’s attention with a makeover had failed.

  By Thursday, fatigue had shortened her temper, but it was nothing compared to Aaron’s.

  He’d been sullen all that morning, barking at the horses and grumping at Sophie during trackwork when neither Costa Motza nor Rowdy galloped good times. The track was a quagmire. No horse was running well, but Aaron didn’t want to hear that.

  Back at Hakea Lodge, he barely spoke as they worked the other horses. She asked him several times what the matter was, but he’d only growled back that he was fine and she should concentrate on riding. At first, she’d been hurt to the point of tears. By the end of the morning, her hurt had turned to anger and they were snapping at one another and bickering over nothing.

  ‘I’m going to give Costa another scoop,’ she said as she pulled the lid off a plastic bucket of mineral supplement.

  ‘He only needs one.’

  ‘Two won’t hurt him.’

  ‘I said he only needs one.’

  ‘Well, I’m giving him two.’

  Aaron pulled the bucket out of her hands. ‘I’m the bloody trainer. If I say he only needs one, then that’s all he’s getting.’

  She tried to wrench the bucket back, but he was too strong. ‘Yeah, and I’m his owner, and if I say he gets two scoops then that’s what he’ll be given.’

  Aaron let the bucket go. The sudden release sent her sprawling backwards onto a sack of oats. The crystalline mineral supplement puffed up and spilled down her jumper, covering her in glittery sparkles.

  ‘If you think you know it all,’ he said, taking the bucket from her and hauling her to her feet, ‘then why don’t you apply for a licence and train the frigging horse yourself?’

  She glared at him as she swiped the front of her jumper. ‘I just might. It’d be a hell of a lot better than hanging around with you!’

  She walked out, fuming. She flung open the door of the Range Rover, stepped in and slammed it shut, scowling through the windscreen as he stood in the doorway of the feed room. His arms were spread, his hands bracing the jamb as though he needed to keep the doorway from collapsing. With a last filthy glance, she started the engine, spun the wheel hard and sped out of the yard, showering gravel behind her.

  Back at Vanaheim, Sophie picked up a brightly painted timber showjumping pole and slotted one end i
nto the metal cup she’d hooked onto the jump wing. She walked to the other wing, counted holes and readjusted the height of the other cup, before lifting up the other end of the pole and dropping it into place.

  She counted out three strides, and made a mark with her boot into the soft soil. She didn’t know why she was bothering. She wasn’t in the right humour for any of Buck’s shenanigans and he’d probably only make her angrier by refusing to jump anyway. With the local eventing program in hiatus until the spring, he wasn’t even supposed to be in work. He should be lazing about with Chuck, getting fat and woolly, but after studying the program for the Showjumping Club’s winter series, she’d kept him in, hoping the extra work might improve his behaviour. It hadn’t.

  The thought that she’d failed with him wrestled with her once-unshakable belief in her riding ability, sapping her confidence and making her worry whether Rowdy would be any different. The beautiful, dark thoroughbred was fine in the yard and on the exercise track, but how would he behave away from Hakea Lodge? Would he turn into another Buck? The thought made her shoulders sag.

  ‘Don’t tell me you forgot?’

  Sophie spun around to see who had spoken. Leaning over the gate and grinning, almost irresistibly handsome in his moleskin jeans, blue and white checked shirt and navy wool jumper with the sleeves pushed up, stood Ben Moore. He pulled off his hat.

  ‘Remember me? Ben Moore. Local agronomist. Man of your dreams.’

  Suddenly she understood. She might have forgotten all about Ben’s appointment, but Aaron hadn’t. She closed her eyes, cursing herself for her idiocy.

  ‘Ben,’ she said, walking toward him. ‘I’m sorry. I did forget.’

  ‘Nice to know I made such a big impression.’ He undid the latch and opened the gate for her. ‘Are you still right to look at the lucerne? I can always come back another time.’

  ‘Now’s no problem. I was just setting up a few jumps for later.’

  They walked slowly toward Ben’s ute, his limp pronounced on the uneven ground of the paddock.

  ‘It must be hard going with your injury,’ she said.

  ‘It’s okay.’ He smiled at her. ‘But there won’t be any dancing on Saturday night, I’m afraid. Just dinner. Assuming I can convince you to come.’