Page 51 of Wrapped Up at the Vintage Dress Shop (Vintage Dress Shop Romance #3)

‘But nothing, Phoebe!’ Sophy added just as fiercely. ‘Coco spends half the day hanging out with Cress so it’s not like she’ll be with strangers.’

Phoebe’s paramedic was already lifting Coco up to place her in Cress’s outstretched arms. It felt like Phoebe’s heart was being removed from her chest. Maybe that was a slight exaggeration but Coco needed her and she really, really needed Coco.

Coco cuddled into Cress’s chest. ‘She’ll be fine, Pheebs, I promise,’ Cress said, trying not to wrinkle her nose as her nasal passages met the stench of wet dog and fetid canal water. ‘But can I give her a bath?’

‘You have to test the water with your elbow and she likes to be dried by a hair dryer on the lowest setting and there’s an emergency vet open all night in Belsize Park and . . .’

‘We’ll call you to let you know how she is,’ Sophy said very firmly, as Phoebe’s paramedic climbed out of the ambulance. ‘But she will be fine.’

‘She’d prob . . .’

The doors shut so Phoebe couldn’t explain that when Coco was feeling poorly, she was very partial to some chicken noodle soup.

‘Let’s get you both strapped in,’ said Freddy’s paramedic. ‘We’ll have you at A&E in no time at all.’

It was a quick ride to the Royal Free, Phoebe and Freddy clammy hand in clammy hand. Though every time they went over a speed bump, Phoebe moaned as it jolted her ribs and Freddy groaned like he was going to throw up again.

As soon as they reached the hospital, Freddy was led out of the ambulance then Phoebe was wheeled out on the stretcher and whisked straight into triage, then resus and a curtained-off cubicle.

There she was poked and prodded, ultra-sounded and got told off every time she tried to explain what had happened or asked where Freddy was because ‘you need to rest your throat’.

Phoebe was diagnosed with three broken ribs, which would take time and rest to heal.

The cuts on her stomach and her feet were cleaned and dressed.

The cuts on her hand and wrist were stitched up.

Then to counteract the effects of the smoke inhalation, she was put on oxygen administered via a nasal tube.

It was there that Freddy found her. Phoebe had been instructed to sit propped up but she tried to get off the bed when he poked his head around the curtain.

‘No! Stay where you are,’ he said in a hoarse voice. ‘I’m fine. I’ll grab a chair.’

He returned with a plastic chair and sat close enough to Phoebe that she could take his hand and entwine her fingers through his.

‘You’re not fine,’ she said, though by now her voice was nothing but a hoarse whisper. ‘You don’t look fine.’

It was true. Freddy was still grey, but a very pale grey. ‘I feel much better than I did. But my new suit’s a write-off,’ he said tugging at his trousers, which were still shiny from his dip in the canal.

‘You were so brave,’ Phoebe croaked. ‘You didn’t even take your jacket off. You just dived straight in to save Coco.’

Freddy raised Phoebe’s ice-cold hand to his mouth so he could press a kiss to her knuckles. ‘Got to look after my girls,’ he murmured against her skin.

‘Am I still one of your girls?’ Phoebe asked, her words a pained little whisper because she was meant to be resting her voice on a night when she had so many important things to say.

‘Of course you are,’ Freddy replied just as hoarsely. ‘Not just one of them. My best girl. My favourite girl. Except, I know you’re not a girl. You’re a woman.’

It was something, yet another thing, that she used to chide Freddy for whenever he called her a girl. ‘Not a girl, Freddy,’ she’d say. ‘A woman. A fully grown up, adult woman, thank you very much.’

But now Phoebe just squeezed his hand. ‘Your woman, I hope.’

‘I hope so too,’ Freddy said gravely. His eyes in his pale grey face were soft and tender. ‘But should you even be talking at all?’

Phoebe shrugged, then winced as her ribs protested. ‘Probably not, but I have a lot on my mind.’

‘I’m sorry about your dresses. Sorry about the dress you were wearing tonight.’

Phoebe was currently sporting a fetching hospital robe. ‘They had to cut it off me,’ she whispered.

Freddy pressed another kiss on the back of her hand. ‘Sorry, Pheebs. I know it was your favourite.’

Phoebe was still waiting for her heart to shatter over that dress, all of her dresses, her stuff .

But her heart had already shattered once tonight when she’d seen Freddy and Coco lying motionless on the ground after being pulled out of the depths of the Regent’s Canal.

And now that Freddy was safe and she’d been sent a picture of Coco wrapped up in Cress’s mum’s favourite pashmina and sleeping in Cress’s bed, her heart was healed and, all things considered, beating out quite a steady rhythm.

‘I know that you think I care too much about the dresses. I probably do but I always think that the dresses need me to stand up for them. It’s so easy to throw something away just because it’s a little old-fashioned or a button’s come loose and the hem has dropped but it still has worth, it still has value,’ Phoebe said, her voice scratchy, her hand movements not as extravagant as they usually would be.

‘Like you wouldn’t throw away a person because they were a bit broken, would you? ’

‘I see what you mean,’ Freddy mused as Phoebe’s pulse began to thunder and she could actually see her blood pressure increase on the monitor she was hooked up to.

It was easy to say these things to a load of faceless people on the internet.

There was less at stake. It was much harder to say them to someone you’d grown to really care about but who might throw you away once they realised how damaged you were.

‘But I think the best people are a little bit broken, a little rough around the edges. Life might have been a bit hard on them but they’ve come through it and it’s made them stronger. ’

‘I’m not strong, Freddy,’ Phoebe said so faintly, that he had to lean closer to catch every word that she managed to force out.

Not just because it hurt physically but because emotionally, each letter, each syllable was wrenched out of her soul.

‘I’ve always been broken and I’m terrified that people are going to find out. ’

‘Why do you think you’re broken?’ Freddy asked.

Phoebe shut her eyes, took a deep breath, which made her poor swollen throat throb, and then she started to tell her story. To tell Freddy the story that she’d never told anyone, though there were people, Mildred, Johnno, who had filled in some of the blanks themselves.

She told Freddy about the three-day-old baby who’d been taken into foster care.

She told Freddy about Annabel, the mother who didn’t want her, and all the other families that she’d lived with who hadn’t wanted her either.

The group homes and the caseworkers and a care system that didn’t seem to care very much about her at all, until she’d landed on Mildred’s doorstep.

And she told Freddy about how Mildred had rescued her as much as she’d rescued Coco. That she’d raised Phoebe to rely only on herself. That she’d spent all these years following Mildred’s edict that she shouldn’t let people into her heart because they’d only take advantage and stamp all over it.

‘What kind of person am I when I can’t even admit that I love Coco?

’ she asked. By now, her voice was barely there and Freddy was on the bed with her, pressed up close so he could hear her confession.

A nurse had come in at one point, but had obviously decided that trying to separate them was far beyond her pay grade and had left them to it.

‘Phoebe, everyone knows that you love Coco. Everyone except you,’ Freddy said gently. Phoebe’s head was tucked neatly under his chin so she couldn’t see his face, but she could hear his smile.

‘But does everyone know that I love you?’ Phoebe lifted her head so she could watch the emotions, surprise, hope, then joy, play over Freddy’s face because he never hid what he felt.

‘You love me?’ he clarified.

It was too hard to say it again. To make it a statement of fact instead of a question so Phoebe just nodded.

‘Well, good, because I love you,’ Freddy said as if it was as simple as that.

‘Even though I’m a very prickly person?’

‘Even prickly Phoebe.’ The twinkle was back in Freddy’s eyes. ‘You can’t have a rose without a few thorns, can you?’

‘You can’t,’ Phoebe agreed and then she really couldn’t talk anymore.

Except, he had one last question. ‘So, is it Freddy before the frocks then? If, God forbid, my flat was on fire, would you save me first?’

‘You can save yourself. I’d have to pick Coco first,’ Phoebe said apologetically. ‘But then you and then, and I can’t quite believe I’m saying this, way, way down the list, would be the frocks.’

‘Only second?’ Freddy smiled as Phoebe stretched out her hand so he could see the underside of her wrist where her ill-advised tattoo, an F and a C entwined within the outline of a heart, was now clearly visible. ‘I can live with being second. In fact, being second sounds pretty good to me. ’