She walked back to the circus, giving the headland and the chopper a wide berth. She walked into the circus enclosure and Matt...Mathew...was waiting for her. Casually dressed. Smiling at her with a smile that could make a girl’s heart do back-flips if a girl’s heart was permitted.
Which it wasn’t.
She loosened the dogs’ leads and the dogs raced to greet him, jumping and yelping as if he was part of the family.
Which he wasn’t. He was Mathew.
‘Back,’ she said to the dogs, but they uncharacteristically ignored her. Maybe because Matt...Mathew...had knelt and was scratching them behind their ears and they were lick-spitting, traitorous hounds and they didn’t know this guy was taking away their lifestyle and they didn’t know this guy was capable of taking away their mistress’s heart...
Only that was a dumb thing to think. She pinned on a smile and moved forward to greet him with what she hoped was dignified courtesy.
‘Good morning.’
‘Good morning yourself,’ he said and straightened and smiled some more and her heart did do that stupid back-flip she’d been telling it not to. ‘It’s a great day for elephant visiting,’ he added.
‘Pardon?’
‘We have a chopper,’ he said. ‘An hour there, an hour back, a couple of hours visiting...You’ll even have time for a wee nap before evening performance.’
‘What...?’
‘You might need a sweater,’ he said. ‘It gets a bit breezy in the chopper. And elephant snacks? What do you take to an elephant you haven’t seen for years?’
‘I...’
‘Just do it,’ he said gently. ‘You know you want to. Your financial adviser says this is a good idea, so who are you to argue?’
* * *
He was serious. The chopper was for elephant visiting. Not only had Matt organised for it to be delivered, it seemed he was flying.
‘I’ve had my licence for years,’ he told her cheerfully. ‘Joe’s spending the day on the beach while I take over his machine. It’s economical,’ he said as she opened her mouth to protest—if she could think of the words she needed, which she couldn’t. ‘Two people instead of three. Lots of fuel saved. And don’t tell me I don’t need to come—Bond’s Bank has been financing these elephants for years, and I have a vested interest in inspecting our investment.’
And here was Bella, walking towards her, carrying her jacket. Bella, who spent every waking moment with Henry.
Had Matt lined this up with her Gran? Obviously yes.
‘Matt says he’ll take Henry and me to see them when Henry’s well,’ Bella told her, beaming. ‘But just knowing you’re visiting them today will do your Grandpa good. Give them our love.’ And she placed a paper bag into Allie’s limp hand. ‘Doughnuts,’ she said. ‘They’re very bad but Maisie and Minnie both love them. Sneak them some when no one’s looking.’
Maisie and Minnie. Mother and daughter, great, lumbering Asian elephants, third and fourth generation circus bred, docile and wonderful. Allie had loved them with all her teenage heart, and that was what this mess was about. She’d fought for them.
If she climbed into the chopper with Matt, she could see them in an hour.
But what if...and she should...and it wasn’t...
She had all sorts of protests and not one would come out.
Bella took the two dogs’ leads. ‘Come on, guys, your mistress is visiting past loves today,’ she said as Matt propelled Allie towards the chopper and Allie let herself be propelled because there didn’t seem any alternative. And Matt was large and commanding and he had everything sorted and she thought, just for a moment, wouldn’t it be great to put this whole mess in Matt’s hands and let him sort it out?
There was a dumb thought. Her mess was nothing to do with him—she’d told him that and she was right.
But right now?
Right now she was going to see some friends she hadn’t seen for years.
Where had her grandfather sent them?
Somewhere good, she pleaded silently. Somewhere to make this sacrifice worthwhile.
‘Let’s go,’ Matt said and he helped her into the cockpit.
She sat passive as he adjusted her harness and her headphones and closed her door.
She sat passive as he slid behind the controls, did what he needed to and lifted the chopper from the ground.
She glanced across at Matt and she saw that he was smiling, that faint devil-behind-the-smile glimmer she was starting to know.
It was a smile that made her feel being passive was her only protection.
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE JOB DESCRIPTION for a circus performer didn’t come with the label big earner, so a one-time commercial flight from Sydney to Melbourne was the sum total of Allie’s air travel. She’d never been in a helicopter.
Now she was in a tiny cockpit beside Matt, the cockpit seemed almost a transparent bubble, and she felt like...
She was flying?
She was flying, she told herself, trying hard not to cling to the edge of her seat and whimper. The chopper rose with a speed that took her breath away. She was in a bubble heading for the clouds.
She forgot to breathe.
Fort Neptune grew smaller and smaller. She was in a bubble in the sky with Matt Bond.
The floor beneath her was transparent. She could see miles of coastline falling away beneath her. She could see the Blue Mountains.
‘It’s safe,’ Matt said through her headphones and she tried really hard to catch her breath and act cool and toss him a look of insouciance.
‘I’m just...’ She saw where he was looking and carefully unfastened her white knuckles from the seat. ‘It’s just I’m always wary of inexperienced drivers.’
‘That would be pilots.’
‘Pilots,’ she snapped.
‘I’m very experienced.’
‘You didn’t hand me your CV as you got in the driver’s seat,’ she managed as the Blue Mountains loomed and the chopper started to rise even further. ‘I like first-hand knowledge of my...chauffeur.’
‘You want to radio for a reference?’ he asked. He grinned and she knew, she just knew, that if she took him up on his offer she’d radio and someone would tell her that this man was competent, no, more than competent, an expert, experienced, calm and safe.
Safe.
See, that was half the problem. He didn’t make her feel safe. Okay, maybe his piloting skills weren’t the issue. Flying above the Blue Mountains in a transparent bubble might make her feel unsafe with anyone, but she was settling, getting used to the machine, starting to be entranced by the landscape beneath—but underlying everything was the way this man made her feel.
Unsafe?
Just unsteady, she told herself and that was reasonable. He’d pulled the rug from under the circus she loved.
No. He hadn’t done that. Her grandfather had done it by taking out such a huge loan. Matt had every right to call it in.
And the unsafe bit wasn’t about the loan, either, she conceded. She sneaked a quick glance across at him. He was focused again on the country ahead. He looked calm, steady, in control, and she thought—that’s what the problem is.
He’s more in control of my world than I am.
Concentrate on the view, she told herself. On the scenery.
And on what was waiting to meet her?
‘Do...do these people know I’m coming?’
‘The park’s owners? Jack and Myra. Yes, they do. They’re good people.’
‘How do you know?’
‘We do thorough research before we foreclose,’ he said gently. ‘We wanted to know where our money was—whether there was any chance of us retrieving it. There’s not. Every cent your grandpa paid has been long spent. Jack and Myra
are in trouble themselves, but not from mismanagement. It’s because they care too much.’
‘I’ll pay them back,’ she said tightly.
‘With a bookkeeper’s salary?’ He sounded amused and she winced. She thought about the amount she was likely to earn and the amount she owed and she could see why he was amused.
And she thought again... He’s more in control of my world than I am.
‘Don’t worry about it today,’ Matt said gently. ‘Today’s not for finance. Today’s for seeing your friends again.’
He focused on the machine again, on the myriad of instruments, on the scene ahead, and she thought—he’s letting me be. Like the picnic on the beach...he’s giving me space.
She felt, suddenly, stupidly, dangerously, close to tears.
This man was in control and she wasn’t. She had to be.
The majestic line of the Blue Mountains was receding now, opening to the vast tracts of grassland that grew inland for hundreds of miles, spreading until they gave way to the true Australian outback.
What a place to keep retired circus animals!
‘They keep all sorts,’ Matt said, and it seemed he was almost following her thoughts. ‘It started forty years ago when a grazier called Jack met a circus performer called Myra. Myra was a trapeze artist like you. Jack asked Myra to marry him but Myra wouldn’t leave the bear the circus had owned for ten years. So Jack married Myra and Jack’s farm has been home to aged circus animals ever since. They’ve fought to keep it going, but finally they’ve lost.’
So any thought of asking—begging—them to keep the elephants on for free was out of the question, Allie thought miserably, but, as she thought it, Matt’s hand closed over hers. Firm, warm and strong.
‘Friends today,’ he repeated softly. ‘Finance tomorrow.’
* * *
Surely only in Australia could such an area be one farm. Jack and Myra’s holding was vast. They circled before they landed. Allie saw a vast undulating landscape with scattered bushland, big dams, a creek running through its centre, beef cattle grazing lazily in the sun—and the odd giraffe and elephant.
It was so incongruous she had to blink to believe she was seeing it.
Jack came forward to greet them as the chopper landed, elderly, lean, weathered, taciturn. He gripped Allie’s hand. ‘Myra’s feeling a bit frail. Sorry, it’ll be only me doing the tour.’
She owed this man so much money. That Jack and Myra hadn’t been paid...
‘I’m so sorry,’ she started but Jack’s hand gripped hers and held.
‘You’re Allie,’ he said. ‘We know why your animals came to us. Myra’s loved you even though she’s never met you. Your animals have had ten years of good living, thanks to you. You tried your best, girl, as did your grandpa, and there’s no grudges. Want to meet them?’ He motioned towards an ancient mud-spattered truck. ‘Let’s go.’
‘Yes, please.’ Friends today, she thought as she glanced at Matt and he smiled and ushered her towards the truck. Problems tomorrow.
And two minutes later, there they were, beside the dusty dam where two elephants soaked up the morning sun.
They were together as they always had been, two elephants lazing by the bank of a vast man-made dam, half a mile from the homestead. Minnie was still smaller than her mother. She declined to rise from reclining on the mud bank, but Maisie started lumbering across to meet them.
Jack climbed out of the truck and called. Maisie reached Jack, touched him with her great trunk—and then her small eyes moved to see who was accompanying him.
Allie was out of the truck. Maisie and Minnie. Friends.
And Maisie reacted. Her trunk came out and touched Allie—just touched—a feather-touch on the face as though exploring, confirming what she’d suspected.
And it was all Allie could do not to burst into tears.
These guys had been her friends. She’d been the only kid in the circus, home schooled, isolated. Her dogs were with her always, but these two...She’d told them her problems and they’d listened; she thought they’d understood. At fifteen, sixteen, seventeen she hadn’t been able to bear the chains around their great stumps of legs. She’d made such a fuss that her grandfather had mortgaged everything.
It didn’t matter now. She leant all her weight against Maisie’s trunk and Maisie supported her and she thought she’d do it again. Whatever the cost. She’d have no choice.
‘The...the lions?’ she managed. ‘And the monkeys?’
‘They’re a bit more closely contained,’ Jack said ruefully. ‘I can’t give them a hundred miles to roam, much as we’d like to. They only have a couple of miles we can fence securely.’
A couple of miles. She thought back to the six foot by ten foot cages and she thought...she thought...
She thought she just might finally burst into tears.
* * *
He stood his distance and watched.
That these elephants knew this woman had never been in doubt. They seemed to be as pleased to see her as she was to see them—that was if he was reading elephant language right which, he had to admit, was a bit of a long call. But Allie surely knew them. She was between the two elephants, hugging as much as she could of them, looking close to tears.
Maisie, the biggest of the two, lifted her left foreleg and trunk. It was a gesture that even Matt could tell was an invitation that had long been used, for Allie accepted almost before the leg was completely raised. She swung herself up on the great raised leg, she held the trunk and the next minute she was on Maisie’s back, leaning forward, hugging as much of Maisie as she could.
‘Well, I never,’ Jack said placidly, almost to himself. Then the old farmer grinned. ‘We have ten of ’em, you know. From the moment they get here we forget they’re circus animals—there’s no balancing on stools here. They’re as wild as we can make ’em. Some we can hardly get near any more—they’re the ones that’ve been mistreated—but these two always like company. We figured they’ve been treated as right as circus animals ever can be, and their reaction confirms it.’
‘We had the best act,’ Allie called down to them, still elephant hugging. ‘I wonder...you want to see?’
‘No stools,’ Jack said, and Allie grinned.
‘Nope.’ She stood up. She was wearing soft, clinging leggings, a baggy jacket and trainers. She tugged off her trainers and tossed them down to Matt, and her jacket followed suit.
She was left in leggings, a close fitting T-shirt and bare feet.
‘Let’s see if we remember,’ she muttered and now she was talking to Maisie—and to Minnie. ‘Oi,’ she called to Minnie. ‘Oi, oi, oi. Top and tail.’
And astonishingly, ponderously, top and tail was just what happened. Minnie had risen to stand by Maisie. Now she shifted to stand close behind her mother, so close they were touching, and she took her mother’s tail in her trunk and held on.
As if on cue, Allie slid over Minnie’s head, onto Minnie’s slightly smaller back. Then she stood, steadied, measured the distance with her eyes—then flipped into a high, tumbling somersault, high over the gap, landing flawlessly, sliding to a sitting position so Maisie didn’t get the jarring shock of two feet landing on her.
And as she slid down, Maisie lifted her trunk and trumpeted, as if in triumph, and turned with the girl still on her back and headed straight into the dam.
Matt made an involuntary step forward but Jack gripped his shoulder and held. He was chuckling out loud.
‘Let ’em be,’ he told her. ‘Maisie loves her waterhole like life itself, and she’s showing off—and you think your girl wants to get off?’
She didn’t. Allie was laughing with incredulous delight as Maisie stomped deep down, neck-deep into the dust-brown waterhole. Minnie lifted her trunk and trumpeted like her mother—and went right in after.
Two elephants, one waterhole, one ecstatic girl. Maisie was lowering her trunk in and out of the water, splashing like a two-year-old in the bath. Allie was under a shower to end all showers.
‘I’ve seen this before,’ Jack said in satisfaction. ‘There’s a bond between elephant and keeper. We’ve had these two for ten years now but this girl’s been an important part of their lives for a long time.’
He couldn’t keep his eyes from her. She was drenched, covered in muddy water, happy as...a pig in mud?
An elephant in mud, he thought, changing the analogy to suit the girl and the time and the place.
It was doing things to him. Standing here, in this almost wilderness, on the edge of nowhere, with the sun on his face, the weathered old farmer beside him, more elephants in the distance, these two elephants in the water before him—and Allie, all cares forgotten, happier than he thought he’d ever seen a woman.
More beautiful than he’d ever seen a woman.
Jack was looking at him sort of quizzically and he had a feeling the man was seeing more than he wanted him to see. Or was that just because of the weird, exposed way he was feeling?
‘She’s beautiful,’ the old man said, and Matt thought—yes, she is.
Allie was standing again, back on Maisie’s back. Maisie was filling her trunk with water and spraying it behind, something they’d obviously done years before and loved. Minnie was beside them, splashing and spraying as well.
But then...
Suddenly the younger elephant tried the same as her mother, filled her trunk with water, lifted it high to spray—but, as she did, she swept her trunk across her mother’s back.
Swiping Allie straight down into the water.
No!
She was in the water. She was under the water, and if Matt couldn’t see her, neither could the elephants beside her.
She sank straight under with the impact of the fall. Maisie shifted around as though searching for her. The water churned...
And Matt was in there. He was hardly conscious of moving, but one moment he was talking to Jack, the next he was diving hard and deep, straight through the murk, straight to the spot where Allie had fallen.
Sparks Fly with the Billionaire Page 12