Imperfect Magic (Dancing Moon Ranch Book 11)

by Patricia Watters

  "Guaranteed." Dimitri put his hand on the base of Maddy's neck and gave it a little squeeze, and said, while guiding her toward the stable, "And now you'll teach me the physics of staying on a horse." He kept his hand where it was as they entered the stable where, to Maddy's alarm, she found her father standing just inside, looking directly at them. She had no idea when he'd entered the stable, but the dark look on his face said it all.

  Dimitri immediately removed his hand from Maddy's neck, and said, "I hope you're not making anything of the way I was touching Maddy when we walked in."

  Jack eyed him sharply. "Maddy's a grown woman who was raised with six big brothers, so she knows how to hold her own against a man's advances, if she wants to. She also knows how her mother and I feel about her working in a cocktail lounge. This isn't the way she was brought up and we don't want her to get some harebrained notion that there's a future waiting for her in a city run by the mob."

  "Stop right there, Dad," Maddy said. "I have no intention of ever setting foot in Las Vegas again, so you can scrub that from your laundry list of worries about me. Now, if you're through, Dimitri's paying me to teach him how to ride a horse and that's what we're here to do."

  Jack looked at her with misgiving. "Ride where?"

  "I don't know!" Maddy said, exasperated. "You never ask the boys where they're riding, but just because I'm a girl you're singling me out. Like you said, I'm capable of holding my own against a man's advances so at least give me credit for that. As for where we'll be riding, I'm taking Dimitri on the trail to the cabin so he can see the view up there. If you want, you can send Adam, Marc and Tyler along to protect me."

  "Don't get smart with me," Jack said. "Go on your ride, but be aware that your mother and I will be going to the Coyote to see the show Saturday night, and we'll take things from there." He turned and walked out of the stable.

  Maddy planted her hands on her hips. "At least I don't have Ryan, Josh and Jeremy breathing down my back right now, but maybe, just for Saturday's show, I'll dress western. I have some new jeans and a yellow silk shirt I could wear, and I'll braid my hair and wear a Stetson so I'll look like an upscale hayseed. Do you have a problem with that?"

  Dimitri shrugged. "I already suggested you go western. You're the one who wants to wear the black gown, but if you're set on wearing it, maybe you could wear a wimple and go as a nun."

  "Very funny," Maddy replied. "I'll go western. Maybe it'll convince my parents that I'm not on the road to perdition, but it won't solve all their concerns. Is there a chance you could wear a boxer swimsuit instead of what you wear for the water cell illusion? I can tell you right off that when you shed your robe, my parents will put you in the same category with the Chippendales."

  Dimitri laughed. "The problem with boxers is when I'm hanging upside down in a tank of water, they float away from what they're supposed to hide, drawing attention to what else is floating around, and that would spoil the impact of a near drowning. Besides, when I'm trying to get free of chains and locks I can't be worrying about getting tangled up in clothes, which is why I wear a Speedo. Even Houdini stripped to the bare essential when doing the stunt."

  "It's a very small Speedo," Maddy pointed out.

  "Did you see anything you shouldn't have?" Dimitri asked.

  Maddy found herself staring at Dimitri's crotch, and hadn't realized her gaze had drifted downward. Shifting up to focus on his face, she said, "I was more concerned about having to smash the glass, so all I noticed was a tiny patch of black, and I'll go get Tut." She knew she did not want to continue on the track they were on. It was raising hell with her libido.

  ***

  After Maddy taught Dimitri how to saddle a horse, she had him mounting and dismounting, then turning Tut around in circles and backing him, and reining him in a zigzag pattern, and even going into a trot as they headed toward the trail to the cabin, which made Dimitri glad he was wearing tight jeans instead of slacks because in slacks he'd feel like there was a juggling act going on inside his briefs. He also understood why cowboys wore tight jeans. It kept everything contained. If tight jeans gave Maddy a buzz as well, then so much the better.

  He realized his thoughts were drifting into dangerous territory again, like they had with the kind of sexual banter he and Maddy engaged in over the swimsuit before saddling up, and he was determined to keep things platonic. He didn't need another involvement with an assistant, though Maddy was making it hard for him to hold to that resolve.

  There was a naturalness about her that was uncommon in women today, at least uncommon in women in Vegas. It wasn't called Sin City for nothing. The first thing Karla did when she started working as his assistant was to whittle down her gowns. True, Karla had a body worth flaunting, and it definitely got him breathing heavy when she came out on stage in something akin to a bikini with strips of fabric she called a skirt, but it always bothered him that she didn't mind flaunting it for every man in the lounge.

  Maddy, on the other hand, didn't flaunt anything, yet she had a body he could imagine exploring in a leisurely way, kind of like petting a cat to get it purring, and scratching the places that would have it raising its chin, and stroking its fur until it was rolling over to expose its belly. Maddy's belly would be firm, and his hand would move across some hip bones because she was slender, and lower down she'd have a nice little mound of fur, dark he imagined, and above her flat belly would be a sleek rib cage that would lead his hand to a pair of breasts he was visually familiar with, but only for an instant, and what he saw made his hands restless, the way they got when he was ready to stun the audience with some mind-blowing sleight of hand.

  Okay. Time to reel in those thoughts. He was a magician, an illusionist, trained to make things vanish, and he was good at it, so he'd apply what he'd learned from years of hard work and practice to making thoughts about all the things he wanted to do with Maddy vanish.

  For the next half hour his horse sauntered along behind Maddy's horse, following a pulverized trail that roamed through woods and wandered across a hillside and even cut its way along the side of the mountain where there was a fairly steep drop-off on one side. He sat in a saddle that wasn't half bad in the way it curved in front and behind him, all the while he got to watch Maddy's slender back, small waist, and firm butt, as she swayed with the motion of her horse, a sight that was distracting him with other thoughts again.

  Focusing on his reason for staying at the ranch, he called ahead, "Is this all there is to it? I sit on Tut and he takes me where I want to go?"

  Maddy twisted in the saddle and glanced back. "Not quite. You can be heading in one direction, but if something startles Tut, he might decide to go in another direction to get away from whatever it is, and you'll find yourself sitting on your butt on the ground if you're lucky, or rolling down an embankment to the bottom of a ravine if you're not."

  "What kind of something could startle him?" Dimitri asked, feeling uncertain. A body cast sounded a little intimidating.

  "Lots of things," Maddy replied. "Snakes, a coyote, a rock rolling across the trail, a mountain lion."

  "We're talking worse-case scenarios here, aren't we?" Dimitri asked, thinking Maddy was pulling his leg the way he did hers.

  "No," Maddy replied. "Worse-case scenarios would be getting cut off from the main trail by a rockslide at sundown and having to hole up in a den with the mountain lion."

  "Okay, I'm not buying this," Dimitri said. "Maybe we could go a little faster though. I'm feeling pretty confident."

  "That's fine with me, but I'd better ride along with you." Maddy turned her horse around and positioned him beside Tut, and said, "Gather your reins, lean forward, click your tongue, give Tut a little nudge with your heels, and hang on."

  "You want to run through that again," Dimitri asked, having been momentarily distracted when he saw the top two snaps of Maddy's shirt undone, giving him a hint of cleavage, not the deep cleavage Karla had, but enough to stir things up.

  "Okay, do this w
ith me," Maddy said. "First, gather your reins so you have control, then lean forward like this, which lets Tut know you're about to do something, then click your tongue, which is Tut's cue to go, and give him a kick, which is like stepping on the accelerator, or in your case, like telling Chris to get going."

  Dimitri was distracted again when Maddy leaned forward and her shirt stretched tight across the front, reminding him how easily the snaps could come apart, but he managed to follow the rest, and before he knew it, the horses took off and were going along in a way that sent adrenaline pumping through him. He also realized whatever gait the horse was doing was a far sight better than trotting, except he didn't like the look of the big, flat-topped saddle horn and its proximity to the family jewels, but now he knew why cowboys were bowlegged.

  "You're doing fine," Maddy called to him. "Just keep your heels down and stay square in the saddle. Grab the saddle horn if you need to, but it's best to avoid doing that if possible."

  "You have any saddles without horns?" Dimitri called back.

  "Not on this ranch," Maddy replied. "You need a horn to tie your rope to when you lasso a cow. It also gives you something to grab if your horse bucks."

  "Yeah, but if my horse bucks, it also gives me something to come down on," Dimitri replied.

  "Then you can look at it this way. If you come down on the saddle horn you'll no longer look like a Chippendale when you're ready to get in the tank, so that could be a plus."

  Dimitri realized they were slipping into dangerous verbal territory again and he wondered if it was because Maddy grew up around brothers who, like all guys, had fixations on their jewels, or if she was flirting, which didn't seem logical. He was certain she'd meant every word of it when she told her father she had no intention of returning to Las Vegas, and she was definitely not the kind of girl who'd engage in a month-long fling with a guy who worked in nightclubs, so he wasn't sure what to make of it. But he was sure they needed to keep a lid on things.

  "You want to try a gallop now?" Maddy called over to him.

  "I thought that's what we're doing," Dimitri called back.

  "No, this is a lope. There's a nice stretch ahead that will give you an idea of what it's like to do a short run full out."

  "I'm game."

  "Okay, then gather your reins and get ready. Here goes." With that, Maddy leaned forward, gave a hoop, and her horse took off.

  In an instant, Tut was running alongside Blackjack, and as the horses ran neck-in-neck, Dimitri was excited in a way he'd never expected, with the wind whipping against his face, and the sound of hoofbeats below while kicking up a cloud of dust, and the feel of a whole lot of horsepower beneath him. In his peripheral vision he caught sight of low brush, and tall mountain grass, and patches of rocks and stones zipping by. He was also aware that both horses seemed to be running in unison, like their strides were choreographed. Even their heads moved back and forth together as they ran. "This is great!" he yelled. "You'll have to teach me how to throw a rope so I can chase cows."

  "It's great until you stop paying attention," Maddy called back, "so stop talking and concentrate on what you're doing."

  "Fine. You're the boss."

  The horses continued running in unison until Maddy reined back into a trot, which sent Dimitri bouncing in the saddle, a reminder that the horn was still waiting to flatten him, and when they finally slowed to a walk, he was relieved. "You can skip the trot next time," he said.

  "It's not so bad if you take the jarring in your middle and let your abs act as shock absorbers," Maddy replied.

  "I'm not worried about jarring; it's the dang saddle horn that's out to get me."

  Maddy laughed. "Okay, tomorrow we'll ride bareback."

  "Are you serious?"

  "You have a problem with that?"

  "Not if Tut doesn't decide to go in a different direction from where I want to go."

  "You can ride him in the corral until you feel comfortable," Maddy said. "Meanwhile, over the crest of the hill will be a view you won't soon forget, so gather your reins and we'll lope the horses there." Maddy clicked her tongue and her horse took off in a kind of horse jog. Tut again fell into stride with Maddy's horse, and before Dimitri knew it, the horses were cresting the hill.

  Across a high-mountain meadow, Maddy pulled her horse to a halt, and Dimitri reined in beside her. When he looked at Maddy, with her face flushed, her eyes bright with enthusiasm, and the hair that escaped her braid like a cloud around her head, he couldn't remember ever seeing a more beautiful woman. No makeup, nothing artificial, just a natural kind of beauty that had his heart speeding up. And again his hands felt restless.

  "Have you ever seen anything this beautiful?" Maddy asked, while looking into the distance.

  "No," Dimitri replied, his eyes still on Maddy, but she hadn't noticed. Shifting his focus to the view, he looked at a panorama that seemed to go on forever. "The mountains are pretty awesome too. What range are they?"

  "The Coast Range," Maddy said. "You can see the peaks of five mountains from here, Spirit Mountain, Pumpkinseed Mountain, Fort Hill, Cherry Mountain and Big Mountain. Spirit Mountain's the closest, and the ranch backs up to the foothills. I never get tired of this view."

  As Dimitri took in the scene, he had an uncommon urge to keep riding to find out what was over the next rise, and across the next mountain, and it came to him that maybe that was what early explorers felt, a passion to know what was beyond their view, even with a view that seemed to have no end. Especially with that view.

  "Come on," Maddy said. "I'll show you the cabin."

  Dimitri glanced around. Spotting a log cabin backed up to some woods, he said, "Who stays there?"

  "No one in particular," Maddy replied. "It's just a place to get away from things. Guests can stay if they want, but there's no indoor plumbing. You can tie Tut to the hitching rail."

  Once inside, Maddy gave Dimitri a brief tour of the one-bedroom cabin, then turned to him, and said, with the hint of challenge in her eyes, "Okay, you're away from all your props, so show me some magic. Convince me you're not just an ordinary man."

  "Fine," Dimitri said.

  Maddy folded her arms and smiled in a way that said she got him, which pumped Dimitri up because already he'd spotted the makings of a magic trick that would knock her socks off. Walking over to a cabinet above the kitchen sink, he removed three matching plastic cups without handles and set them on the table, and said, "I need some balls."

  "What kind of balls?"

  "Small ones."

  Maddy unfolded her arms, and after scanning the room, went to a cabinet that contained stacks of games and puzzles, and said, "The only ball here is the one that comes with jacks."

  "Jacks will do," Dimitri said. "I'm going to make the jacks pass through the solid bottoms of these cups, so watch carefully."

  Maddy handed him the bag of jacks and he dumped them on the table, scooped up a few, and moving his hands quickly, nested the cups together while saying, "I have three empty cups, which I'm setting in a line, upside down on the table, like this."

  After he'd set the three cups in a row, open end down, he said, "Next, I'll place a jack on top of this center cup, stack the other two cups on top of it, and when I snap my fingers, the jack will go through the cup on the bottom and land on the table."

  Having said that, Dimitri stacked the other two cups on top of the center cup with the jack on it, snapped his fingers and lifted the stacked cups to reveal a jack under the center cup. "There you have it," he said. "The jack passed through the bottom cup." He repeated the trick to reveal two jacks under the center cup, then again to reveal three jacks, all appearing to have penetrated the solid bottoms of the cups.

  "Wait a minute!" Maddy said. "I want to see you do that again."

  Dimitri smiled. "Fine, it's just basic teleportation." He set the trick up again and proceeded to demonstrate, while saying to Maddy, "During Newton's time it was assumed that particles colliding and changing trajectories co
ntinued to collide and interact whether someone observed them or not, and then quantum physics came along in the early 20th century to prove that, if an observer is looking at an experiment it affects the way the particles move, and the wave-function of an object's momentum collapses when an observer looks at it."

  On finishing his spiel, which coincided with him 'passing' three jacks through the solid bottoms of three cups, he lifted the center cup, revealing the jacks.

  Maddy stared at the jacks, then looked at him in bafflement and said, "You can't pass jacks through the bottoms of cups. It's impossible."

  Dimitri bent down and kissed her parted lips. "No," he replied, "it's magic." He returned the cups to the shelf near the sink, then scooped up the jacks, dumped them into the bag and offered it to Maddy, who seemed a little dazed, maybe from his short kiss.

  After taking the bag, she looked at him, and said, "Will you show me how you do this?"

  Dimitri peered into the biggest, most beseeching eyes he'd ever seen, and replied, "You know the rules. I'll give you the secret to Metamorphosis, but the rest of the secrets come with a big price tag."

  "I know," Maddy said. "Twenty-thousand dollars."

  "Bigger than that," Dimitri replied. "To get all my secrets you'd have to be my assistant, and my wife, and I don't think your family would go along with that." Though the idea of Maddy as both his assistant, and his wife, was not as farfetched as it initially seemed.

  She's the kind of woman who can take a man away from his dreams…

  On the other hand, maybe he'd better stick with his original plan, and when his run at the Coyote is over, leave Maddy Hansen on the ranch where she belonged.

  CHAPTER 6

  The following afternoon, Maddy was stunned when she saw Dimitri launch himself onto Tut's bare back and gather up the reins, like he'd been doing it for years. After settling back, he placed his hand on Tut's withers and said, "I hope this bone doesn't shift back when we get going."