by Simone Sinna
Jeremy took a moment to look at himself, then her, and smiled. “It was worth it.”
Samantha wasn’t at all sure what he meant until the lust in his smile moved rapidly south. As she realized his wet clothes were clinging and leaving in no doubt his attraction to her, she looked down at herself. The white top and shorts were completely transparent and underneath all she had on was a very tiny G-string.
Great. A half a mile or more back to the house with nothing to cover herself. Jeremy stood up and, still grinning, peeled his shirt off and offered it to her. Bare chested he was even more delectable, with the bony hardness of someone who jogged to keep fit. She didn’t trust herself to speak, grabbed the shirt, and put it on, walking at a rapid pace toward the house.
“I’m feeling left out,” Mike drawled. He was standing on the porch, beer in hand. “Was there a pool party and my invitation went missing?”
“An accident,” Samantha said between clenched teeth as she stormed past him. Could things get any worse?
Yes, it seemed. Somehow the French door from her room to the balcony was wide open. And there was no sign of Snape.
They looked everywhere. At Samantha’s insistence Mike tied up Fang, whose real name was apparently Leonard. “After Cohen,” Mike explained. “Same mournful expression.” Samantha couldn’t see it herself but then she was rather agitated and was wondering if Leonard had swallowed her dog. Part giant schnauzer—whatever that was—and part rottweiler, it was the latter part that was particularly worrying her. As were the teeth. She’d seen The Omen.
“You deliberately let him out!” she accused Mike.
“No, but the catch on that door is temperamental. I should have warned you.”
“Yes, you should have.” No point saying too late now.
As it got dark Jeremy, still topless, suggested that Snape might return of her own volition and that they retire to the drawing room for a fortifying drink. He poured her a good slug of cognac and she downed it in one gulp, said good-night, and went to bed.
* * * *
“That,” Jeremy mused, “didn’t exactly go according to plan.”
“Including the skinny-dipping?” Mike asked sarcastically.
Jeremy sipped his cognac and regarded his brother. “You know I will seduce her first, one way or another.”
Mike folded his arms. “In which case I’ll have you and Coulton & Co. in court faster than the ink dries on any agreement she signs with you.”
“Which would be a pity,” said Jeremy. “She looks like she’ll be far more fun to have around than her father.”
“What makes you think she’d succumb to either of us? She surely wouldn’t want her father to know she was biased.”
“Which is what I am sure our dear father hoped for. That we would unite against the Coulton rep.”
Or, thought Jeremy, wondering if his old man had planned it this way, that if one of them did seduce the ballbreaker, he might end up with the grandsons he had dreamed of. Surely that was too Machiavellian even for his old man?
Jeremy sat alone, finishing the cognac long after Mike had disappeared. He rather liked the fantasy of seducing Ms. Coulton, but maybe just threatening to tell her father he had would be enough? There was no way Samantha would want to lose face with Sam Snr. His PI might not have been perfect but he did turn up a decent amount of personal information on her. Samantha had apparently been looking after her father for nearly half her life and he was her boss. Jeremy was confident that he could use this, the way he always used information. He needed her to side with him. His top-quality stock was just what the Europeans wanted, and chances were there were a lot of rich people in China that would take it, too. The need for mulesing was unfortunate but it really was only a few minutes of pain for the sheep. He was confident that in the end PETA couldn’t win. Then, as he prospered, he could buy Mike out. He had a good line of credit.
And if it didn’t work? Memories of her next-to-naked, wet body were still freshly etched in his mind. He needed to think more about how he could have her without sending Mike off crying bias and foul play.
Chapter Four
Samantha was woken by a banging on the door. When she opened her eyes Leonard was standing over her, dribbling. She shrieked, rolling over. A chuckle at the door had her grab for the bed clothes as she remembered it had been hot and she was only wearing panties. Mike stood at the door, grinning. “Breakfast in fifteen, Sleeping Beauty.”
The clock on the bedside table said six a.m. What did he mean breakfast? The only six o’clock in her day was the one where pre-dinner drinks were served.
“Oh, by the way,” Mike added as he clicked for Leonard to follow him, “your pet rat is enjoying Leonard’s leftovers in the kitchen.”
“You found him!”
“She found Leonard. They’re now best of buddies. Seems like Leonard likes to be pussy-whipped.”
Though it was ridiculously early, Samantha knew she wouldn’t get back to sleep, so she showered and dressed for what looked like another warm day. If they were doing a farm tour she figured a suit wasn’t going to be ideal, so she went for the smart over-the-knee light blue dress that wouldn’t show the dust.
Mike was eating what looked like half a barnyard of chicken and pig produce, seated in a huge kitchen with an uneven wooden floor and a butcher’s block over which hung every kitchen utensil ever devised. He looked up, pushing aside newspapers so she could sit, and laughed as he did.
“What now?” Samantha asked irritably.
“Sweetheart,” said Mike, “unless you do sidesaddle your shins are going to be mighty sore, though I’ll get a great view of your ass.”
Samantha stared at him. “We’re going on horseback?”
“Only way to see everything,” said Mike, before he resumed eating breakfast. “Lots of gullies here the four-wheel drive couldn’t get close to. Ever seen a horse, have you?”
Samantha narrowed her eyes. Okay, she knew Jeremy’s game plan was to seduce her, now she had Mike’s. He thought he could intimidate her. Well even if the country wasn’t her thing, he clearly didn’t know her at all. Last time a boy tried stand-over techniques she’d been eight and kicked him in the balls. Shit. She’d forgotten that. She really was a ballbreaker.
“Are they the ones with curly tails, or are those on the cowboys that ride them?”
“There’s some jodhpurs in the drawer in your room,” Mike said, ignoring her sarcasm. “Bit dated but my mother was about your height and shape.”
Leaving Snape where she was curled up in a huge dog bed, the bed’s owner relegated to the floor, Samantha muttered “Traitor,” and went to get changed.
The jodhpurs were not as ancient as Samantha expected and they did indeed fit her. Mike found her some boots that were also a reasonable fit. After two cups of coffee, and with Jeremy on his first and looking amused at her attire, she and Mike headed to the stables. “Better have this, too,” said Mike, putting a red Akubra hat on her head. “Otherwise with your coloring you’ll be fried.”
It was true the day was heating up, skies above a bright, brilliant, cloudless blue. She would, thought Samantha, make the best of it. It had been years since she’d ridden so she’d be sore by the time he had finished with her, but at least she was quite confident she could hold her own. Though she might just not let him know that initially.
* * * *
Mike was starting to reconsider. Samantha had altogether too cute an ass, and putting a beginner on a horse that was a bit flighty might not be such a good idea. He didn’t want her to get hurt, just shake her up a bit. He told himself he was only having second thoughts because she was a woman. If it had been her dad, the whole balls on the table thing would have been obvious and Sam Snr would have decided accordingly. Why should he treat her any different because she was a woman? Even if a very hot one? He curbed his lust reluctantly. While he hated to admit it, he knew that compared to Jeremy he was a complete klutz when it came to women. Trying to compete in the sedu
ction stakes he just wouldn’t cut it.
Starbuck had been named ostensibly for his odd coloring that included a sprinkling of white over his rump that had reminded someone of the chocolate sprinkle on a cappuccino. That he did buck on occasion, and when spooked went like he had just had a dozen short blacks, meant the name had stuck. As a racehorse he’d even done moderately well. Right now he was looking suitably mellow, and Samantha was looking at him and the saddle as if she was wondering if there was a hoist.
“Stand here,” said Mike positioning her, “with hand here, and foot in the stirrup, then swing yourself up and over.”
“Er, how was that?”
In the end he had to help her even get close to the horse. The upside of this was a good deal more body contact than was probably necessary, but he wasn’t complaining and nor did she.
He gave some quick instruction as they set off at a casual walk. The real problems were going to start on the open plain, when more likely than not, Starbuck was going to want a good gallop. As long as Mike kept his horse at a walk, Starbuck would behave. And as this woman didn’t seem to have a clue, Mike was thinking increasingly that this would be the safest option. He could still show her that this was a harsh country that needed a man that understood it, not some boardroom dandy, without having to nearly kill her.
“Shall we try a trot?”
“Trot?” asked Samantha, wide-eyed.
But he had already urged his horse forward and yelled over his shoulder, “Just hold onto the pommel of the saddle.” He didn’t catch all of the reply, but it started with “what’s a pommel?”
* * * *
Samantha picked Starbuck immediately as a pure Thoroughbred. Nice lines, and most of this breed had raced. She’d owned one once. The one that had dumped her at the cross-country jump her father and the photographer were at. She patted Starbuck and whispered out of Mike’s hearing, “So just what is your specialty, huh? Because I’m going to be ready.”
She enjoyed playing dumb. She was playing it so heavily she couldn’t believe Mike kept swallowing it. She’d even almost managed to get on the horse in such a way that would have faced her backward. That had taken quite a lot of ingenuity. The big dumb cowboy had been sucked in completely. He obviously thought women were idiots. Still, from her research, his last girlfriend had been far from that. A real piece of work as far as she could tell. Maybe he just was a simple bloke that thought the best of people. Didn’t auger well if he wanted to negotiate with the Chinese.
After looking like a sack of potatoes and nearly falling off at a trot, she allowed herself to be taught to rise and fall in a more comfortable manner and started to look around her and enjoy the scenery. From behind the house they followed the river to a bridge and then went north, up and over several rocky peaks, all signs of civilization apart from fences soon gone. The country stretched for as far as she could see, dusty plains, fences without end, and gullies with clusters of gum trees. Every time they stopped to take it all in, or for Mike to open the gates, flies swarmed around them, sticky and like magnets to both the horses’ and their own eyes and mouths.
“Take note,” said Mike as he observed her wild swings to try to stop them crawling over her, “and remember what I said about fly strike.”
In the end Samantha thought it unlikely she’d ever forget. More than half an hour out they came across a dead sheep that had fallen down a gully. They both dismounted and went to look, at Mike’s insistence. “This one didn’t make it in for the museling,” he said. “Hasn’t been dead long, and it will have been an agonizing death.”
“From breaking its leg?” Samantha said tentatively, trying not to wrinkle her nose in response to the smell.
“No,” said Mike, “from this.”
He turned the sheep over and pointed to an area underneath the sheep. Samantha had no idea what she was looking at.
“Closer,” Mike commanded.
She did as she was told, and holding her breath, bent forward. Mike prodded the area and to her horror it moved, and kept moving. Mike cut it with a knife and she shrieked, jumping back as wriggling white and yellow larva exploded out of the sheep’s dead flesh. Samantha felt breakfast trying to get back up and she swallowed hard.
“That,” said Mike, “is why we can’t have fine merino.”
From the gully with the sheep, Mike took them further north and to the west. He pointed out the water resources, what was good now and those that had survived the drought. The plains extended to the horizon with little that resembled grass but all the sheep had heads to the grounds grabbing whatever was there.
“This lot are hardier than what Jeremy wants to introduce,” said Mike. “They need mulesing and regular sheep dips and foot and mouth disease checks, but while that makes for certain very busy times, it means we can increase numbers and interbreed this lot with breeds that don’t require mulesing. Will only take a few years to have the whole flock hardy. My father never wanted to because he had Jeremy in his ear, but we need to be humane, and can still keep afloat doing so.”
“If you open the Chinese market.”
“Or anywhere else in Asia. Rich Indians and even middle class will want carpets.”
“India is poor.”
“But a burgeoning economy, and we can sell more and at a low price, far lower than the markets that have highly sensitive sheep and, or, expensive practices courtesy of the animal rights activists.”
“I don’t see why they would want you to stop…that…happening to the sheep,” said Samantha with a shudder.
“They do want it stopped,” said Mike, “and happy with mulesing if done surgically. With an anesthetic which our vets endorse.”
“Then why not do that?”
Mike rolled his eyes. ‘We have four thousand head of sheep.”
Mike stopped his horse suddenly, frowning.
“What’s wrong?”
“That gate shouldn’t be open.” He urged his horse forward. “Wait here.”
Samantha had to work hard to keep Starbuck from following but managed to do so without making it look as if she was. Truth be told, Mike’s attention was elsewhere.
“Be back soon,” he yelled as he took off across the fields. Samantha moved to the shade of a tree and waited. Fifteen minutes later he returned.
“Problem?”
“Nearly.” Mike looked worried. “Someone left the gates open. If I’d been any later, I could have lost this whole lot into the next door neighbors. And onto the road.” He shook his head. “Just don’t see how it could have happened.”
They were now heading southwest and Samantha assumed toward home. Starbuck was definitely more edgy, and so, to her amusement, was Mike. Either he was still trying to work out what had happened with the gates or he was having second thoughts about trying to kill her.
“There’s a shortcut home,” he said. “One my great-grandfather and his brother, who were British, embedded into the property design.”
Samantha looked at him curiously, working harder with her legs than he realized, to keep Starbuck from taking off.
“They liked to hunt,” Mike continued. “So he put jumps into the fence lines so the horses could get over without having to open the gates.”
“Sounds like fun,” said Samantha innocently.
“Yes, but not really suitable for beginners.”
“Which way?”
Mike nodded to the area on the far fence she had already picked out.
“So which way do we go?”
Mike started to head off in the opposite direction to the gate. She waited until he was a good distance before turning Starbuck toward home and, letting out a shriek, headed for the jump at a full gallop.
* * * *
Mike decided that Samantha’s reaction to the fly strike was enough to drive the message home. Now he had to get her back in one piece while avoiding the hunt path. It was hot and the horses would be looking forward to a long drink and roll around in the sand after a hose down. His own moun
t was pulling at the bit, keen to get back.
When he heard the shriek from behind he must have been slow to react because Samantha was already halfway to the jump before he turned around. Kicking his horse to respond, he knew he didn’t have a hope in hell of getting there before Samantha and Starbuck did. Visions of mangled limbs, head injuries, helicopters, and ambulances crowded his thoughts. Neither he nor Jeremy had wanted Sam Coulton here, but neither had wanted to dispense either Sam Coulton in quite this manner.
“Hold on!” he yelled, knowing it was useless, but then, much to his surprise, not only did she do that, but she was still holding on after Starbuck landed on the other side and continued toward the next fence. Without guidance, Starbuck had done this more than enough times to go the most direct route. A three-mile, cross-country spectacular that was a favorite with the local hunt club—who followed a preset spray for the hounds rather than a fox—and had jumps worthy of the Olympics. His father had always been disparaging of his great-granduncle but he sure as hell had known how to ride a horse.
The next jump was relatively straightforward and Starbuck cleared it with ease. Barely gaining on them, Mike held his breath, but Samantha did it again. She must be a natural. But the next? Shit, the next was a steep gully down, a wide water jump and then the cliff scramble. At least Starbuck would have to slow down, and if she came off in the water, well, it would be a soft landing.
* * * *
Samantha saw where Starbuck was heading and knew where there was a gully there was a river. She had a flashback to the jump and the picture that she had been ribbed about for months. It wasn’t the fear of falling so much that had stopped her eventing, but rather the humiliation. She so could not let that happen again here. She hadn’t had so much fun in years. Mike’s plaintive “hold on” and “I’ll get you,” made her want to giggle. And he just so was not going to get her.