The McCabe Girls Complete Collection: Cat, Fen, Pip, Home Truths. Freya North

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      ‘It’s odd,’ Rachel elaborated, handing Cat a clutch of musettes like a bunch of balloons upside-down, ‘in all the time I’ve been involved in pro cycling, I’ve never even had to keep my professional and private lives separate – the one has never infringed on the other. I’ve not really been tempted. To be honest, apart from a wee dalliance last year with a journalist – a Dutch one, in case you’re wondering – I haven’t really had a private life at all and it’s not something I’ve minded. I’m a soigneur – I’m at the beck and call of the team. I don’t resent it.’

      ‘And now there’s a spanner in the works?’ Cat broached.

      ‘Yes,’ Rachel agreed, ‘I don’t know how to deal with it. I can’t really figure out what the fuck happened.’

      ‘Did you see Vasily this morning?’ Cat asked.

      ‘I’m his soigneur,’ Rachel said simply. ‘Of course I saw him, I massaged him.’

      ‘And?’

      ‘I had a job to do, massaging my rider,’ Rachel shrugged. ‘He likes silence.’

      ‘Well,’ said Cat in a businesslike way, ‘have you ascertained what you want?’

      ‘I’m trying not to,’ Rachel said, ‘for fear of it not coinciding with what he may want. As I say, I’m at his beck and call.’

      ‘You can pander to the needs of your riders,’ Cat said emphatically, ‘that’s your job. But your own needs are paramount within the grander scheme of things.’

      Rachel considered this. ‘I don’t know what I want. I was so damned tempted to get in to that salt and vinegar bath yesterday. But I didn’t. Because he didn’t ask.’

      ‘And you would have?’ Cat asked. ‘If he had?’

      Rachel shrugged.

      ‘I can’t think why Vasily wouldn’t,’ Cat said supportively. ‘We just have to figure a way to verify his desire without disrupting his ride.’

      ‘Maybe snogging helps his ride,’ Rachel said wryly.

      ‘Thank God it’s you who’s his soigneur – not your portly, bearded colleague!’ Cat returned.

      ‘Vasily is such a dark horse,’ Rachel continued quietly, ‘you rarely know how he feels let alone what he’s thinking.’ She regarded Cat and winked. ‘But if he kisses like Casanova, even speculating on his bed skills sends me spinning.’

      Cat laughed. And then she thought of Ben.

       How can I miss him?

      ‘But,’ Rachel said with a touch of resignation, ‘it’s probably a terrible, crazy idea.’

      ‘Say he doesn’t think so?’ Cat posed, it suddenly dawning on her that, if she actively missed Ben, it meant she herself had become embroiled. With a lurch, she was at once aware of the merits and dangers therein. ‘What you need,’ Cat continued, keen to concentrate on her friend’s situation instead, ‘is clarification – on how he feels, what he wants and where you stand.’

      ‘You never know with Vasily,’ Rachel mused, ‘you just don’t know what’s in his head or if his heart races for anything other than cycling.’

      ‘Providing a leg rub is one thing,’ Cat said, ‘sexual therapy is something quite else.’

      ‘Well,’ Rachel replied, ‘it’s certainly not on my job spec!’

      Suddenly, the police outriders were visible in the distance. Rachel and Cat took their action stations. Megapac’s Travis Stanton streamed towards them and swished past them in a blink.

      ‘Ready?’ Rachel yelled, not looking at Cat but at a small bunch pelting through the heat haze towards them. With her heart in her mouth, Cat held out her arm, proffering the musettes which were swiped away, whipped from her hand almost instantly. It stopped her heart and then sent it into overdrive. The hiss of wheels, the zip of colour, tension tangible, adrenalin a taste. Then they were away. Gone. Flashed past. And yet their impact lingered. Massimo Lipari. Gianni Fugallo. Speechless, grinning, transfixed, Cat had her gaze pulled after them until they were a blur and then out of sight. Suddenly, her attention was magnetized back to face the second rush, slightly larger, just coming in to view. The noise of the boys, shouting, whistling, swearing. The pace. The energy.

       Luca! Fabian – oh my God – not with Vasily’s group.

      Gone and distant more quickly than they’d approached; heading for the Col de Port, not particularly high but a 1-in-20 climb lasting 12 kilometres. Onwards to the Plateau de Boudin, the final climb and altitude finish; hors catégorie, viciously steep at the outset and almost 1,800 metres high. Best known as a cross-country ski station. Claim it by bike? Racing? After 154 kilometres in which there were four other mountains and two hot-spot sprints? Why? A touch of insanity? Or the pursuit of glory? What?

       I’m going to have to confront her.

      Ben York assessed the gash on Hunter’s elbow and decided three stitches would suffice.

       But if I do, and she backs off, then I risk losing her altogether.

      ‘Cutting off my nose to spite my face, I suppose,’ Ben said out loud.

       Why on earth do I even give a damn?

      Hunter felt his nose. ‘Huh?’

      ‘Nothing,’ said Ben, ‘I was talking to myself. First sign of madness and all that.’

      ‘Well, can you kinda like fix my arm before you flip out?’ Hunter said, quite serious.

      Ben smiled and drew thread through a needle.

       If wanking can make you go blind, a lack of sex can make you go crazy.

      ‘Tell me about Tayla,’ Ben murmured whilst setting to work on Hunter’s elbow.

      ‘She’s my girl,’ Hunter sighed, suddenly missing his fiancée terribly, more so when he realized he hadn’t given her a second thought let alone a first one over the past two days.

      ‘How did you two meet?’ Ben probed.

      Hunter, presuming Ben was trying to distract him from the unpleasant sting of the stitching, reminisced gladly. ‘I stole her from Richie Budd, just after the Motorola team disbanded, the season before I turned pro.’

      ‘Did she come willingly?’ Ben persisted, giving his head a quick shake to dislodge the sound of Cat coming willingly.

      ‘Sure did,’ Hunter nodded, ‘in fact, she made a play for me. But we’d known each other for a while, living in the same town and all.’

      Ben swabbed the wound, dressed it, and sent Hunter on his way. ‘Well ridden,’ Ben said, wondering who had truly initiated whatever it was that was going on between him and Cat.

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