Wait, was I expecting Henry to offer me a kiss sometime?
I was. I totally was. He’d dangled it tantalizingly in front of me for nearly half an hour last night, and I hadn’t taken it—for a lot of reasons, none of which seemed valid in the light of day.
I wanted that kiss. Somehow, I’d get it. Someday.
“Are you sure he’s into you?” Dreena couldn’t hide a jealous edge to her tone. As I’d earlier learned, Dreena hadn’t found a replacement beau for her current husband yet, and it bothered her to no end that her much fatter friend had. “I mean, sure, he spends all day every day with you, eating your food, riding in your car, playing tennis at your club, but if there’s been no affection, I’d be cautious.”
“Cautious! If I don’t have this guy’s ring on my finger by Christmas morning, I’ll buy you a new set of Coach luggage. I’m that confident.”
“But what about your own feelings, Mo?”
“You want me to be honest about my feelings? I feel like I want someone hotter than Bainbridge. Henry Lyon is supernova hot. Did you see him without his shirt? I did, and there was a lot more to be feeling after that sight.”
Dreena must have been unmoved because Mo-No hardly paused.
“Oh, you want more feelings than that? I feel like I have a lot of beauty and fashion sense that I could share with the world, and as it stands currently, I don’t get to be on the arm of someone who will make me look good. I feel like I’d rather have arm candy and be arm candy, at the same time, rather than just be somebody else’s arm candy. Two pieces of candy is better than one.”
I couldn’t fault her for that reasoning. I liked candy. A lot. Especially when it came in the same shape and size as Henry Lyon. Who invited me to go horseback riding with him. Swoon with a capital s.
“But there’s more. I feel like I want someone who can take me to the next level in the social circles of Hollywood. Henry’s been all over the tabloids for a movie premiere he attended before coming to San Nouveau. Did you know a director is considering casting him for a remake of The Man from Snowy River? They don’t even know if he’s done any acting.”
Oh, he’d done acting. Extremely good acting. All week.
Meanwhile, I couldn’t fault her shallow reasoning. Candy-wise, I could use a sugar hit now, considering that I could feel my IQ dropping as I listened to them.
Suddenly, she was shooting more orders at me, a holler from the other room.
“Eliza, bring me the light purple nail polish from my bathroom.” She made kissy noises at Chachi. “Chachi needs a few lilacs painted on this toenail. Mommy loves lilacs.”
From the cupboard under her master bathroom sink, I pulled the bottle of polish she’d requested. But while I was crouched there, Mo-No’s words sank in about her not having developed any actual feelings of deep emotion for Henry. All she wanted was a temporary trade-up, someone who could be her stepping stone into Hollywood society.
Stepping stones? They got stepped on.
She planned on using Henry, just like she’d used MacDowell Bainbridge. After which, she’d just keep stepping and stepping until everyone she’d met was trampled. Including me, including Sylvie.
Monique-Noelle was nothing but a Thing—a thing that trounced everyone in her path.
Our efforts would never have the desired effect. It hit me hard, as I crouched in that bathroom, that nothing we’d been doing would ever change her. She would never stop looking for the next new thing.
I’d judged her by my own view on life, assuming she wanted what every other woman with a heart on this planet wanted: love.
Mo-No wasn’t looking for love.
With the possible exception of Chachi, Mo-No didn’t care about any other living creature except herself.
No matter what I did from this point on, Sylvie’s future was doomed.
A decision solidified in me, like acrylic nails hardening under a heat lamp. I was going to just go find Henry and tell him to forget it, that we’d drop this whole charade this instant. I would get him his phone this afternoon, and he could call his geneticist and go back to his kingdom.
This whole thing had been for naught.
***
The stables where we were gearing up for the hunt smelled like home. Like heaven. Like everything good and fresh. Straw, horse flesh, steaming breath from their nostrils. I rubbed my hand across the velvet nose of Trafalgar, the horse belonging to Mr. Bainbridge and which he’d named after himself.
Rich people were odd.
Henry stood there, adjusting Trafalgar’s saddle like he’d done it a million times. I watched in confusion, not sure what exactly this man was. He could golf, play tennis, sail a yacht, saddle a horse, and claimed to own not just a bus station with a view but also a plane and a helicopter.
Sure, I’d been around him pretty much daily for the last week, but I didn’t know him at all. Could any of his wild tales of his life in the Alps be real? He’d mentioned a brother. He’d mentioned the name of his station, which I’d intended to look up, but I’d been interrupted by barked orders from Mo-No.
Who was Henry Lyon, exactly?
I needed to find out.
But I also needed to cut him loose.
Oh, but letting him go now felt like surgery. Did I have to tell him this instant that I’d given up on Mo-No as a lost cause? Couldn’t it just wait until after we’d gone on a nice horseback ride all over San Nouveau together? I ached for the feel of a horse beneath me, the wind in my hair, the strength of a horse’s gallop, the smell of a good lather from its skin. It’d been a long time, too long. Couldn’t it be postponed until after I’d done my letter best to prevent that fox from being hurt?
Yeah, this conversation teetering on the tip of my tongue could wait, just another couple of hours.
“They tell me you’ll like Trafalgar.” He tightened the cinch around Trafalgar’s girth, and then the flank cinch, and then the front one again, checking to see whether the saddle was secure. It reminded me of watching my dad put a saddle on his horse Richter when I was a little girl.
“He’s tall, but I don’t mind.”
“You’re sure that stirrup length is right for you?” Henry double checked to see everything else with my saddle was correct, and then about whether I had the right horse for my height and my rider’s personality, and then about whether I needed anything to drink. It felt so nice to be looked after like this.
Henry Lyon charmed me. Just like he’d charmed everyone else.
“It’s all great, Henry. I’m excited to go.” That was true. I hated myself for it just a little bit, but the prospect of going out there with Henry, with nothing but the sky and the island and the horses and each other made giddy eddies swirl in my stomach.
“Come on. You’re ready.” Henry led me, Trafalgar, and his horse Chantilly, to stand among the San Nouveau fox-hunting elite in the stable yard where the festivities were to be explained. City officials swarmed around Henry, cracking jokes, talking about the merit of different breeds of horses, making speculations about the markets in Asia. After just a week, he’d joined in their conversation, not just served as a satellite for it like when we were at the golfing match. He really could fit in anywhere, it seemed.
Which made me wonder whether any of it was real. Had he just insinuated himself into my life, into my heart, like he had the rest of these people? I couldn’t help doubting how much was sincere, when it came to his expressed feelings for me. Wasn’t he doing the same number on Mo-No?
I hated thinking of that. I refused to think of that. I was going to ride a horse beside a handsome man, and then I was going to say goodbye to him. This day, I would savor the good.
And save an innocent fox.
“How do you know what to say back to them when they talk about securities and stocks and all that financial mumbo jumbo?” I asked when no one else could hear.
“There’s a copy of the Wall Street Journal delivered every morning to the Bainbridge house. I glance it over.” He s
hrugged.
Brilliant move, especially when I considered that my own efforts at reading it had always ended with a clunk after page one.
This guy continued to exceed every expectation—by miles.
While he went to get our final instructions from the hunt boss, I shot Polly a text.
Thanks for packing up my laptop. Can you send over the phone I ordered for Henry in the shipment? It’s there, right?
She got right back to me.
So, does this mean Operation Better Person is accomplished? Sure. Heading to the express courier after lunch.
That would be in an hour. Which meant by late afternoon, all of this would be over. One, we had to get the clothes back to Burt before they were noticed missing. Christmas seemed like a time when a studio would do inventory on costumes as no other work would be going on. Every day’s delay was putting Polly’s friend at risk.
Two, it wasn’t fair to keep Henry here any longer, not without coming through on my promise of the phone, now that I’d decided to drop the prank on Mo-No. Once he had his precious phone, which he’d graciously refrained from asking me for and which he’d more than earned over the past week, I didn’t really know what would happen. Would he take off immediately? Would he linger, hang out with me for a day on the mainland so I could tell him about the feelings budding inside me like spring swells on a cherry branch?
I adjusted my grip on Trafalgar’s reins. The ending rumbled at me in the distance, like an encroaching thunderstorm.
All good things had to come to an end.
But before they did, I really wanted to get to the bottom of who this guy had been before his life took its tragic turn and left him stranded and hungry and alone.
Because there was a lot more to Henry Lyon than I’d originally assumed when we picked him up in the bus station. The clues he kept dropping for me, like the Alps and the name of the bus station he owned, Cherrington Downs, they meant something. If Henry really was from Australia, though, and if he really had come to California for a top-secret business opportunity involving a geneticist and marbling and mutants, I’d be eating crow for months and years to come. Especially if he also had that plane and helicopter he was talking about.
If I could have looked it all up, I probably would have been able to piece it all together. I cursed San Nouveau again for their insane internet cloistering.
But it all felt too far-fetched, and whenever I’d tried to unravel all the knots, they’d just gotten more tangled.
“Here’s the course.” Henry rode up beside me and held out a map of the island. “We’re assigned to this sector.” Because it wasn’t large, the pairs of riders could be assigned to various areas and cover the whole island of San Nouveau.
“Oh, I’m glad we didn’t get the city sector. That sounds dangerous.” Shooting a poor little fox in the first place was wrong, obviously, but within city limits? That would be ludicrous.
“Yeah, we’re up here.” He pointed to an area on the map I recognized instantly: the cliffs near where the helicopter transport landed when they came in. I’d taken Henry there the first morning of our time together on the island, and it was where I’d had my meltdown when I’d looked over the edge at the breakers.
It was also where I’d felt Henry’s arms encircle me, calm me, and heal me from my terror. I stole a glance at those arms again now, a thrill of memory running down my chest. An ache of need followed quick on its heels, and I hated myself for it. He was leaving. He was leaving me, most likely today.
We lined up with the other riders at the stable yard, side by side. By my estimate, Trafalgar and Chantilly, the horse Henry rode, joined fifty more horses ready to chase one poor little dog-like creature.
“Do you think the fox will be caught?” I said, but my words were drowned out by a bugle playing that ‘tally-ho’ tune, and every horse and rider scattered. Henry and Chantilly took off at a trot, and I pressed my heels into the flanks of Trafalgar.
We were off.
It was weird because I’d pictured everyone riding together in a pack, all charging at top speed after some bloodhound. At least that was the image I’d seen in those British dramas about the fox hunt. Instead, we’d paired off and been dispersed like the Ten Tribes of Israel.
And, hey. Where were our hounds? Nothing resembling a hound had been hanging out at the stables. Sure, there had been a Mo-No-type trophy wife and her Maltipoo, but not a single hunting dog of any breed had yapped around.
Henry set the moderate pace with Chantilly, his big, buff-colored mare. I matched it astride Trafalgar, the strength of the black-coated horse’s muscles pounding beneath my saddle. Ripples of impact coursed up through my own muscles with Trafalgar’s every footfall.
“How is it to be on horseback again?” Henry tugged Chantilly’s reins to the right, and we followed a beaten path in the rocks.
“It’s paradise.” The steed’s strength, its grace, the way Trafalgar practically floated as he leapt obstacles, I couldn’t help but say, “I’m in heaven.”
“You look like it.”
“Like what?”
“Like paradise. Like a woman in love.”
Little did he know.
“Er, with a horse, I mean.”
I blushed at his hedging of his statement, wondering if he did know, after all. How obvious were my rising tides of interest and affection for this guy?
We rode onward, up some inclines and around the scrubby vegetation toward the cliffs.
“Does anyone else have our same acreage to cover for the hunt?”
“It’s all ours. Just you and me, Elizer. All alone.” Henry sent me a grin that flashed those white teeth of his, shooting straight to my already happy core. He rode extremely well. Believe me, I noticed. “We need to look out for more of a silver coat, less than a red one like I’d normally expect to see. They say this fox is native to the channel islands of California, which makes this their natural habitat. Some are in zoos, but this is the only place in the wild.”
“And we’re hunting them? We can’t. I won’t let us. This is the wrongest thing I’ve ever done.” I blurted this, showing all my cards, and following up with a barrage of ranting. “I won’t let anyone shoot those animals. Full disclosure, I only came on this trip with the idea of creating a distraction and trying to prevent the cruelty. If I’d known they were endangered, I probably would have called in the U.S. Army to stop today’s events—er, probably the U.S. Navy. Admiral Pickering has pull, and he’s Polly’s dad. He could get attack boats and sailors here in minutes to stop this insanity, and—”
I paused because Henry looked at me, pulling his horse up to a halt. I tugged on my reins too, ready to launch another lecture-missile.
“What?” I caught my breath after the big tirade. “You’re looking at me like you don’t believe me. But look, friend. I have my phone. Polly is on speed dial. Her dad would never allow this to—”
Henry burst into laughter. It was a gut laugh, a full-on guffaw, like the one he’d exploded with at Frogs in the Sand at the inappropriate moment. It made his eyes dance and his face turn red and his head fling backward.
“What’s so funny? That I think I can stop this? Because I might just be a nanny who can’t get her Ph.D. research project approved, but I know somebody who does have power, and he has a heart and a concern for the animals God created and gave us on earth. Now, I’m not some kind of bleeding-heart animal protection fanatic. I’m a farm girl. We ate all the meats—from animals we raised. However, I know the difference between a pet and a source of income. I’ve shot a lot of rattlesnakes in my life, and a few other pests. Once I nearly shot a bear that was coming after a sheep and her lamb. Guns aren’t the problem. However, I’m not going to stand by and let a bunch of people kill an endangered fox for sport. Nope. No way.”
Henry’s laughing sustained itself all through my outburst, but it subsided now as we stood still on a patch of short, yellowed grass with the salt air of the ocean and heavy pine scent floating all
around us.
“Is that what you think was going on today? If so, I don’t know how you said yes.” He ran his fingers through his hair that was already windswept. “Didn’t you know the hunt is just to locate the foxes and get as close as possible to an accurate count on them all in one day? It’s a service. It’s done so that the Channel Islands Conservation Authority can tag them and track their repopulation.” Henry reached over and took my hand, sending a shock up my arm. “Nobody is killing the foxes. They’re saving them.”
These facts peppered me like shot, dropping me in my tracks, like I would have the bear eating my dad’s lamb at the Circle G—if I’d had better aim.
“Oh.” Come to think of it, besides not seeing any hunting hounds, I also hadn’t seen any guns this morning. Not one. “Are you sure?”
“Mm-hmm.” His eyes were still dancing.
A flush of relief and embarrassment washed me from head to toe, with an after-tingle at the fact that Henry still had his rough and callused hand in mine.
“Oh,” was all I could say again.
He released my hand and clicked his tongue to get Chantilly started off again. With my ego and self-righteousness parked safely at the bottom of the nearby ocean, I followed after him, soon catching up.
“You’ve shot a bear?” he asked when Trafalgar and I came up alongside him. “Seriously? I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, Elizer. You are absolutely legend.”
Legend? I felt like The Legend of the Girl Who Cried Fox. If there were a stronger word for conclusion-jumping fool, I deserved it.
“I said I’d shot at a bear, not shot a bear.” It was better to clarify. “I missed. But my aim did the job. He dropped the lamb and trundled off.”
We were moving into our sector of the island now, and the breakers became audible. I tried not to notice them or to have any flashbacks of how they looked below the cliffs. We had fox-saving work to do, and we didn’t need me to require a straitjacket.
“What I want to know is why didn’t anyone tell me a fox hunt wasn’t a fox hunt?”
“Well, you’re the one who’s been living here, not me. I assumed you knew.” He laughed. “I’m just chuffed you wanted to spend time with me enough to come along anyway, despite the fact you thought we were out to kill, how did you put it? God’s innocent creatures?”
My Fair Aussie: A Standalone Clean Romance (Millionaire Makeover Romance Book 3) Page 16