The Nearly-Weds (23 page)

He looks to the side.

Sweat pricks my forehead. My fists are clenched so tightly that if I had half-decent nails I’d need hospitalizing.

But he doesn’t turn.

I have no idea whether or not he heard me – all I know is that he continues on his way, shutting his bedroom door behind him.

I close my eyes and breathe a heavy sigh of relief. Finally I pull myself together enough to scuttle back into my room, shut the door, jump into bed and pull the covers up to my chin.

I try to read my book. But something odd keeps happening. Every time I get to the bottom of a page, I realize I haven’t taken in a word of it.

Chapter 52

It’s a week before I’ve stopped thinking about Ryan’s backside.

‘It’s not even like I fancy him, for God’s sake,’ I tell Trudie on the phone one night.

‘Yeah, yeah, yeah,’ she says. ‘So you keep telling me.’

‘It’s true!’ I squeal.

I don’t know why I’m trying to convince myself of this. Perhaps it’s because what started as amorous flickering whenever I caught sight of Ryan’s upper arms has developed into a disarming obsession involving images of his posterior. And how the hell can I be lusting after Ryan when I’m still plagued by pangs of pure, wholesome love for Jason? Defence mechanism or not, it’s bothering me.

‘Are you sure you don’t fancy him?’ she asks.

‘Of course I am,’ I tell her. ‘How can I possibly fancy him when it’s only relatively recently that I wanted to kill him?’

‘You must’ve seen the light.’ She sniggers. Teasing me about this is now clearly a sport for her.

‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

‘Okay – you’ve seen his arse.’ She giggles. ‘That was obviously enough.’

I can’t help smiling – but that doesn’t stop me leaping at the opportunity to change the subject. Besides, there are far more important things to talk about than Ryan’s body.

‘How are things with Ritchie?’ I ask, tentatively.

‘Oh, you know,’ she says, noncommittal. ‘Okay, I suppose.’

Oh dear. Until the other week, if I’d asked for Trudie’s assessment of her relationship with Ritchie, she’d have said they made Romeo and Juliet look like Jack and Vera Duckworth.

‘It’s not the same since he asked me to marry him,’ she confesses. ‘He’s changed. I mean, on the surface we’re both pretending nothing’s different – but we know it is.’

‘Well, in what way has it changed?’

‘Oh . . . nothing you could put your finger on. But it’s like, before, he was clear in his head that we loved each other equally. Now I think he feels the balance has changed. Like because I didn’t leap at marrying him, he’s got to pull back. To stop being so affectionate and loving and . . . Well, now I’m overcompensating so much I’m like a Labrador on heat. It’s pathetic.’

‘It’s probably just a pride thing,’ I offer.

‘I
hope
it’s a pride thing.’

‘But you didn’t say no, did you? When he asked you to marry him, I mean.’

‘No . . . no, I didn’t,’ she admits. ‘But look at it from his point of view. When you’re down on one knee in the middle of a restaurant, a lukewarm “Oh, er . . . okay, we’ll talk about it,” isn’t quite the response you’d want.’

‘There must be a way round this,’ I tell her. ‘He must understand where you’re coming from. Talk me through his reaction when you told him you couldn’t have kids.’

There’s a pause and I wonder if something’s wrong with my phone. ‘Trudie?’

‘You’ve got to be joking, love.’ She says it as though I’ve lost my marbles so comprehensively they’re probably stuck on the easternmost ridge of Everest. ‘I haven’t told him
that.
’

‘Why not?’

‘I’ve told you why not,’ she continues. ‘Because he adores kids. Because he’s desperate for a family. He’d drop me like a stone the second he found out.’

‘But what if it’s not as big a deal to him as you think?’

‘It
is,
’ she says.

‘But what if it’s not?’

‘It
is,
’ she repeats.

‘Look, he loves you, doesn’t he, and—’

‘Yes, but— Barbara’s on her way in. I’ll have to dash. Take care – and thanks for sharing all the juicy details about Ryan’s bum. I’ll have some bloody good dreams tonight.’

Chapter 53

Ryan has done lots of things recently that have surprised the kids. Not to mention things that have surprised me. But none more so than this.

It’s an average Friday in October, which means I was expecting not to see him until at least tomorrow morning after he’d been up at dawn to go for his daily run. He’d have had only three hours’ sleep after a
different
sort of marathon session with an Elle MacPherson lookalike doused in Dior Addict.

But in the middle of the afternoon my mobile rings and his number appears on the screen.

‘Hi, Ryan. Everything okay?’

‘Sure. Where are you?’

‘At the grocery store, before we pick up Ruby from school. Samuel couldn’t get through the afternoon without Oreos. He’s been really good today so I decided to treat him.’

‘Well, can you get back here after you’ve got Ruby?’

‘Here?’ I ask, wondering where he could be referring to.

‘The house.’

‘You’re at the house?’

‘I
do
live here,’ he points out, not unreasonably.

‘Well, I know,’ I concede. ‘But you haven’t been home at two-thirty on a Friday since I met you. I’d have suspected you were phoning from the Outer Hebrides before I’d thought of your own living room.’

‘Okay, okay. Point taken. But that’s exactly why I’m here now. I’ve got a surprise. For the kids.’

When we get home, Ryan is in the hallway with two large holdalls at his feet. ‘Okay, you guys.’ He’s trying, and failing, to stop himself smiling. ‘Come here a second.’ He lifts Ruby up in one arm and Samuel in the other. ‘How would you like to go on a little vacation?’

Ruby’s eyes almost pop out. ‘Really?’

‘Vacation! Vacation! I love a vacation!’ sings Samuel.

Ryan looks at me and smiles. ‘It’s not Bermuda,’ he says hesitantly, ‘but I’d love you to come too, Zoe.’

It emerges that Gerald Raven, Ryan’s boss and my one-time dance partner (the less said about that the better) has let us borrow his vacation home in New Hampshire. Apparently, this is something he’s been offering Ryan for the last three years but, until now, he’s never taken him up on it.

When we arrive there later that evening, I can’t help thinking this is a mistake on Ryan’s part. Big-time. I had pictured my aunt Linda’s static caravan in Cleveleys, complete with nursing-home-chic net curtains, mattresses so lumpy they could host a mountain-bike rally and an ‘unparalleled view’ backing on to the site rubbish bins.

Gerald’s holiday home has to be seen to be believed. It’s surrounded by scenery so stunning – aspens, sugar maples and cedars of the most incredible, fiery colours – that if you saw it in a brochure, you’d think the photograph had been touched up. Then there’s the house itself: a huge, luxurious wooden affair, with a veranda at the back wide enough to accommodate a gala dinner.

‘This place is gorgeous,’ I say, as Ruby and Samuel skip round the main room excitedly. ‘I can’t believe you’ve never bothered coming here before. You must be mad.’

‘Questioning my sanity again.’ Ryan tuts. ‘Maybe you’ve got a point this time, though.’

‘Daddy, Daddy,’ squeals Ruby, ‘when are we going on the horses?’

‘Whoever mentioned anything about horses?’ he teases her.

In fact, horses were the sole topic of conversation during the entire drive here. We’ve probably talked more about horses in the last few hours than the chief executive of William Hill does in a month.

‘I didn’t hear anything about horses. Did you, Zoe?’ asks Ryan.

I shake my head. ‘Nope. Not me. I can’t stand them.’

‘Oooh,’ squeals Ruby. ‘You said we could go on them. Dadd-eee! Zo-eee! Please!’

‘Okay, okay,’ says Ryan, kissing her head. ‘Horses tomorrow morning – first thing. Promise.’

Appeased, Ruby plays happily with Samuel on the veranda while Ryan cooks steaks for us all, then serves them with a salad so big and elaborate it makes any effort of mine look like something at which a hamster would turn up its nose.

After dinner, with a watery sun on the horizon and chilled beers in our hands, Ryan and I play cards with the children. At stake is a bumper pack of M&Ms evenly distributed at the start of the game – but after less than forty-five minutes Ruby and Samuel are wiping the floor with us. How much that’s down to their card-playing skills and how much to the fact that they keep sneakily swiping the chocolate from across the table, whether they win or not, I couldn’t comment. But by the end of the night they have so much on their faces they might have spent the day in the quality-control department of Willy Wonka’s factory.

‘Isn’t gambling illegal at your age?’ I say, putting my arm round a gleeful Samuel.

‘It’s certainly immoral,’ Ryan interjects. ‘So you two should go to bed before someone arrests Zoe and me for not looking after you.’

By the time I’ve got both children into their pyjamas, milky drinks drunk and teeth brushed, I start to wonder how easy it’ll be to get them to bed. Ruby is so excited at the prospect of waking up to go horse-riding you’d think she was gearing up for the Grand National.

‘How long do you reckon before Ruby’s up again?’ I whisper, as Ryan closes their bedroom door.

‘Hmm . . . thirty seconds?’

But thirty seconds pass. Then five minutes. And ten minutes later when we peep through the door, we hear something neither of us was expecting. Silence. Ruby and Samuel – without coaxing, persuasion or bribery – are sound asleep.

Chapter 54

I’m not what you’d call a horsy type. I grew up in the middle of a city, for God’s sake. The only horses I came into contact with were outside football grounds with police officers sitting on them.

Okay, so that’s not the entire story. I did have five months’ worth of lessons every Saturday when I was ten. Our neighbour Susan Hamilton’s daughter Sally had just reached grade two on the piano, so I was packed off to the stables in Harthill Road every weekend to be moulded into a Jilly Cooper character. I wasn’t awful, exactly, but I breathed a sigh of relief when the Hamiltons moved to West Kirby and I was allowed to stay at home and watch Trevor and Simon on
Going Live!
instead. While the lessons lasted, I got by. But there’s one crucial difference between then and now: fear. As in, I had no fear then. Now I’m so terrified I can feel my teeth chattering like one of those plastic sets you wind up.

As we saddle up with the help of our instructors, the creature I’ve been lumbered with – ironically named Tiny – is so big I can’t quite believe that getting on top of him is humanly possible. I’ve seen daintier dinosaurs.

‘Tiny’s great with beginners,’ says my instructor, a redhead called Cindy with thighs that could crack walnuts. ‘Even those who aren’t naturally . . . athletic.’

She’s spent the last half-hour throwing snide comments like this in my direction and flirting with Ryan. It’s starting to get to me.

‘I’m not a beginner,’ I inform her again. ‘I
have
had lessons.’

‘Oh, sorry.’ She sniggers. ‘It was just that when you put your hat on back to front I assumed . . .’

I sniff defensively. ‘That’s the way we wear them in England.’

‘Whatever.’

‘But, hey,’ I continue, ignoring her, ‘when in Rome, as they say . . .’

I pull my hat on the right way this time and, out of the corner of my eye, catch Ryan smiling at me.

I watch as he proceeds
confidently
to check the saddle on his horse, then
confidently
leap on top of it, before
confidently
parading him round the stableyard. It’s evident that Ryan couldn’t be more expert at equestrian matters if his mother was Princess Anne.

I’m torn about what to think. On the one hand his rural credentials are showing me up big-time. On the other he’s as sexy as hell on that horse.

I’ve never been one for cowboy films, but the sight of Ryan today has made me realize where their appeal might lie. With his powerful thighs resting against the horse’s sides and his shirt-sleeves rolled up so that his arms are on show, he’s a vision of rough-and-ready athleticism. Which isn’t helping my concentration one bit.

‘You all set?’ He smiles enthusiastically.

‘Um . . . nearly!’ I smile shakily. ‘Did you do a lot of riding when you were younger?’

‘Sure.’ He shrugs. ‘But, hey, Zoe, don’t worry. Your instructor’s going to be right with you. I’m told they look after beginners real well.’

‘I am
not
a beginner,’ I insist, putting my foot into one of the stirrups and attempting to swing my leg over Tiny’s back. ‘I’m just a bit rusty, that’s all.’ After five goes, I realize I look like an arthritic Jack Russell trying to wee against a fencepost. Worse, Ryan leaps off his horse and tries to help by putting his hands on my backside and shoving my entire weight on top of Tiny. It’s the most ungainly movement that Cindy has ever seen, judging by her expression.

‘I wonder if I wouldn’t be better on something more like that one,’ I suggest, pointing at Ruby’s mount.

‘Let me get this straight,’ asks Cindy. ‘You want the pony the six-year-old is on?’

‘It doesn’t have to be that one in particular.’ I bristle.

‘You’ll be fine,’ she purrs, as she pats Tiny, prompting him to shudder and me to grip the front of the saddle so tightly my knuckles are white. ‘Tiny’s a gentle giant.’

We set off on our trek across the countryside, Ryan leading the way. Samuel and Ruby are next, their instructors – a lovely bloke called Robbie and a shy seventeen-year-old called Lauren – walking next to them and holding the reins. Then there’s me and Cindy – who very publicly tells me off for not stopping Tiny eating the foliage.

‘Oh, it won’t do him any harm,’ I tell her, as if I’m allowing him to do it because I’m a benign animal-lover and not because Tiny refuses point-blank to go in any direction I want him to.