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.
Somehow he reached her. It was instinct, luck, something, but somehow he had her and hauled her back, away from the animals moving nervously forward. The water was deep and murky and the elephants were shifting in alarm but he had her tight and he wasn’t letting go. He hauled her to the surface just as Minnie surged forward.
The elephants could see them now, and they meant no harm. Maisie lurched as if to block off her daughter, and somehow Matt hauled Allie sideways and back towards the bank. Finally he found his feet in the mud and hauled Allie out of the water and out of danger.
What had just happened? A moment’s inattention...
He felt his knees sag as he realised how close...how close...
The elephants were now stock still in the water. Jack had surged forward almost as fast as Matt—he was knee-deep in the mud—but he, too, stopped.
Then Maisie took one, two ponderous steps forward and lifted her great trunk and touched Allie’s face. She checked her out with her trunk as Matt had seen mother elephants check their babies in wildlife documentaries.
Documentaries. Not real life.
In reality, Allie had fallen and if one of these huge creatures had moved sideways before he’d got there...
He was holding Allie hard against him and he felt her shudder. She didn’t flinch from Maisie’s touch, though. She stood within the circle of Matt’s hold and she touched Maisie’s trunk in turn.
‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered. ‘I gave you a fright. I forgot to watch Minnie.’ She was talking to Maisie?
‘It’s the way accidents happen,’ Jack growled in a voice that said he was as shaken, or more, as they were. ‘You forget the power of these guys. They know you, girl, and they’re friendly but they’re elephants, not toys.’
‘Which is why they’re here and not in the circus,’ Allie managed, but she wasn’t moving from Matt’s hold. ‘I should never... That was so dumb. But it was great.’
‘Thanks to your man, here,’ Jack said.
‘He’s not my man.’ Her knees were giving in on her, Matt thought. He was holding her up and she needed it. It was okay by him; for now, for this moment, he was her man, whether she willed it or not.
She stood still, taking her time to recover, and Matt was happy to hold her for as long as she needed. Jack stood back and waited as well, and the elephants stood and silently watched, as if they, too, were coming to terms with what had happened. But that was crazy. Anthropomorphism, Matt thought—attributing human traits to animals. It was sentimental nonsense.
But as Matt watched Maisie watch Allie, as he felt Allie’s shudders fade, as he stood still while Maisie’s trunk explored him in turn, it was impossible not to feel that way.
Maisie’s trunk felt like a blessing. Look after my girl.
Thanks to your man, here...
That was how he felt right now. Her man.
Because she felt like his woman.
Nonsense. This was emotion, with no basis in reality.
Except the girl he was holding in his arms felt every inch real, felt every inch a woman, felt every inch a part of him.
His woman.
One dangerous moment had shifted his foundations. He needed to get on firm ground—which involved getting out of this dam.
Before Allie could object, he swung her into his arms and strode out of the muddy water, setting her gently on the bank. He held her for a moment, held her shoulders, then reluctantly let her go.
She didn’t move far. She still looked white-faced and shocked.
Emotion be damned, he moved back in again. He put his arm around her shoulders and tugged her against him. Just until she’d recovered, he told himself as they both turned to face Jack.
‘You’re really okay?’ Jack demanded and he was white-faced, too, or as white-faced as a weathered farmer could possibly look.
‘I...I’m fine,’ Allie said. ‘Just paying the price for being dumb. I’m sorry I scared you.’ She glanced back towards the elephants, who’d obviously decided things were okay, they could go back to water play. ‘What...what happens now?’
‘With these guys?’ Jack’s face turned even more grim. He stared at the great elephants and then he turned and looked into the distance. There were beef cattle grazing peacefully close by, but they could see another three elephants behind them. And two giraffes. ‘I’m starting to face it,’ he said. ‘Myra and I run this place on the smell of an oily rag, but we don’t make ends meet. The problem is, these guys live for ever. I started this place when I was wealthy, but I’m not any more. People felt sorry for individual animals—circuses and the like. No one wants to be the one to put them down so they’ve paid to have them sent here. Five years’ keep. Ten years’ keep if we’re lucky. But Myra and I are getting old. We’re running out of steam and we’ve run out of money. That’s why I decided I had to pull in what’s owing, only people like you are coming back to me saying sorry, there’s no more funding. Myra and I need to retire. My son and his wife would take this on in a heartbeat if it was a business proposition but it’s not. We have to walk away.’
He looked across at Maisie and Minnie, still cavorting in the water like two kids instead of a forty-year-old and her eighteen-year-old daughter. ‘I’m sorry, lass,’ he said. ‘But I’ve made so many enquiries. No one wants them. No one has the room or the facilities to keep them right, and I suspect you’ll be with me when I say I’d rather put them down than have them go back to the lifestyle we saved them from.’
‘All the animals?’ Allie whispered and it was as if all the breath had been sucked out of her.
‘All,’ he said.
‘How many?’
‘Ten elephants, two giraffes, four lions, three tigers, four panthers, forty-six monkeys, one gorilla, two bears and seven meerkats.’ He managed a smile. ‘We might manage to keep the meerkats. Building them an enclosure and keeping them happy might keep me happy in my old age, though I’m not sure how they’ll go in a retirement village.’
‘They’ll be awesome in a retirement village,’ Allie said stoutly but she was watching Maisie and Minnie, and Matt could see the iron will needed to keep her face under control. He was holding her and her body was rigid. ‘Oh, Jack...there’s nothing I can do,’ she whispered.
‘I know,’ the farmer said gently. ‘You did what you could as a teenager. They’ve had ten great years because of you. If it finishes now...’ He didn’t continue. He didn’t have to. ‘Do you two want towels? Showers?’
We’re fine,’ Allie said, starting to recover. ‘It’s hot. We’ll dry. Can you show us the lions?’
So Jack walked them across to the lion enclosure and Matt kept holding her because it seemed the right thing to do. She needed him.
After a scare like that, she’d need anyone with steady legs.
That didn’t seem important. What was important was that now she needed him.
Allie had fallen silent. Had it been a mistake to bring her here? Matt wondered. Would it break her heart? But even if these animals had to be put down, she’d want to have seen them.
Better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all...
Where had that saying come from? He didn’t know, but suddenly instead of Allie and her elephants—or maybe as well as Allie and her elephants—he was thinking of Margot and her soldier fiancé.
Better to have loved and lost...
Why did it feel as if there was armour there and something was attacking it? It was as if armour was being picked off, piece by piece. There was a big part of him that wanted—needed—to retreat, to regroup, to stop holding Allie, to stop looking at Allie. He was thinking...thinking...
He saw Jack glance at him and then at Allie and he wondered how much the old man saw. Jack could read animals. Could he read him?
That’d be hard. He could hardly read himself.
The lions were difficult to see. Their enclosure was magnificently built, double fenced, the fence embedded deep into the ground so nothing could dig through. It must have cost a fortune, Matt thought, as he saw it stretch away beyond their sight. The ground beyond was undulating, with trees and rocky outcrops, natural shelter, another waterhole. It was as close as Jack could make, Matt thought, to the wilds these creatures belonged in.
Jack handed Allie field glasses and pointed to a group far to the left. ‘Yours’ll be the old man,’ he told her. ‘Prince is still magnificent and Hilda’s loyal to him. Zelda died of natural causes last year. The other three in that pride are all lionesses from a guy’s private zoo. He made money in the IT boom, set up a private zoo, but his firm went bust so now...’ He shrugged. ‘Ah, well. I’ve done the best I can for as long as I can, but it’s over.’
Enough.
All the time he’d been talking, walking, watching, no matter that his emotions were in unaccustomed overdrive, Matt’s banker brain had been working. Yeah, he’d been distracted by Allie—who wouldn’t be distracted by Allie?—but somehow he now reverted. Focus, he told himself, and he did.
‘You say your son would take over here?’ he asked Jack. ‘If it was a viable business?’
‘Yes, but it’s not,’ Jack said shortly.
‘Do you and Myra want to go live in a retirement home—with or without meerkats?’
‘There’s no choice. The house is falling down. All we have goes into these animals. Myra has arthritis. She needs...’
‘Help,’ Matt said softly. ‘Major help. Would you mind if I looked at your books?’
‘There’s nothing to see,’ Jack said bleakly. ‘Outgoings equals incomings multiplied by three.’
‘But I can’t see a scrap of waste,’ Matt said. ‘I can’t see a hint of mismanagement. You know, Bond’s Bank has a vast international reputation. As part of our business model we take on projects that do our corporate image good. Usually they’re big and visible and attached to major charities, but this...’ He stood and gazed around him, at the vast outback landholding, at the elephants in the distance, at the lions in the foreground. ‘There’d be more animals than these needing homes,’ he said, and it wasn’t a question.
‘Every week I get requests,’ Jack said heavily. ‘I can’t take them, and I know they get put down.’
‘Allie, your camels could come here. They’d like it here.’
‘Camels,’ Jack said, and brightened. ‘That’d give me stuff to learn about.’ But the brightness faded. ‘You’re talking fairy tales, son,’ he said. ‘Do you have any idea how much this place is losing?’
‘I suspect I do,’ Matt said absently. ‘And I have a board I’d need to bulldoze. Would you have any objection to the Bond logo going on your website?’
‘What website?’
‘The website Bonds Public Relations team would build for you.’
‘But...’
‘We don’t do things in halves,’ Matt went on, working on his theme. Still not looking at Allie. This was business, he told himself. This was nothing to do with a soaking, bedraggled woman who was looking at him with the beginnings of hope in her eyes. ‘If we decide to put our fingers in this pie...’ He hesitated. ‘It wouldn’t be a finger. It’d be a whole fist. Or an arm right up to the chest.’
He glanced across at the decrepit homestead. An elderly lady was standing on the veranda, watching them, shielding her face from the sun. With a flash of intuition, he thought—that’s Mrya and she doesn’t want to be here because she thinks we’re talking about putting these animals down.
‘We’d build two houses,’ Matt said. ‘One for your son and one for you. No, make that three. Let’s put in a manager’s residence as well so your son can take a break when he needs to. You run beef cattle, to make a living, right? My proposition is that you keep doing that if you wish, but you no longer need to. We’ll take on the entire costs of maintaining the sanctuary, including generous wages for all of you. We’ll examine how much land you have here, thinking about expanding if we need. If you’re knocking animals back...Bond’s wouldn’t want them knocked back or put down. You’ll need more staff and we can organise that. Other banks sponsor sports clubs or car races. I’m thinking Bond’s will be in the business of saving animals instead.’
‘But...’ Allie said, and she’d lost her bluster. Her voice was scarcely a whisper. ‘But what we owe...What everyone owes...’
‘It’ll be retrospective,’ Matt said. ‘We’re taking on these animals as of now but we’ll take on the debts as well. Bond’s has the resources to pull in debts from those who can afford it but the animals’ survival won’t depend on repayment. For those who’ve paid for years, that’ll be deemed enough. If you wanted to make this place better for your animals, Jack, where would you start?’
The man looked dazed, as well he might. ‘I don’t...I don’t know,’ he managed. ‘My son has all sorts of dreams. Myra has all sorts of dreams.’
‘I’ll have my people contact your people then,’ Matt said and grinned and shook his hand. ‘This can work for both of us. As a PR exercise it’ll be magnificent. By the way, you need a name. Does the farm have one?’
‘No,’ Jack said faintly. ‘We’ve stayed under the radar. Kept it quiet, like.’
‘Then maybe we need to change that. It’ll mean more animals come to you; you’ll need more resources to handle them, but we can cope with that. We’re talking long-term funding.’
The commercial part of him was kicking in now, seeing possibilities. He’d hardly touched the structure of the bank since his grandfather had died. It was a staid institution, insular and secure.
Maybe it was time to break out.
‘We need an angle,’ he said. ‘A name...’
‘What about Bond’s Unleashed?’ Allie said. She’d pulled away from him to use the field glasses but suddenly she was right in front of him, staring up at him with shining eyes. ‘Bond’s Unleashed, for all of you.’
‘Bond’s Unleashed...’ The words drifted, the possibilities opening. Like the girl before him. Possibilities...
‘Letting go,’ Jack muttered. He stared around at the animals and he stared back at Matt. ‘This’d be me letting go of the responsibility—with your blessed bank taking over.’
‘Bonds unleashed all over the place,’ Allie said and Matt thought...Matt thought...
Bond’s Unleashed. He knew it’d work. He could see it.
But mostly all he could see was Allie.
‘You need a great snarly lion on your banking logo,’ Allie said and he thought incredulously—this is a businesswoman. She has business smarts.
She’s beautiful.
‘You could use Prince,’ Jack said doubtfully. ‘But he’s more smug than snarling.’
‘If Photoshop can get rid of cellulite it can turn smug to snarly.’ Allie’s eyes were glimmering with unshed tears and she reached out and took Matt’s hands in hers. ‘Matt, are you sure?’
‘I’m sure.’ The way he was feeling, it was all he could do to get his voice to work.
‘And your bank can afford it?’
‘Yes, it can. A thousandfold if need be.’
‘And I can send the camels here?’
‘Yes,’ he said and he saw a weight slide from her shoulders. Her face lightened and she looked...younger?
The feel of her hands in his...
Bonds unleashed. The way he was feeling...
‘We should check on the rest of your animals,’ he said quickly before his thoughts could take him one inch further into territory he was struggling to understand. ‘The monkeys.’
She nodded. ‘I...yes, please. We should.’
‘And you need to meet our meerkats,’ Jack said. ‘They’re not nearly as risky as elephants.’ He grinned at Matt, a great, wide grin that made him seem twenty years younger. ‘They’re playful. You want to play?’
‘I’m a banker,’ he said. ‘I finance this operation; I don’t play.’
‘You could be unleashed as well,’ Allie said softly, and suddenly things seemed right out of control.
‘No.’
‘No?’
‘No,’ he repeated and, whether he meant it or not, the words came out explosively. ‘Jack, I’ll need a rough idea of what you need to keep this place running until we can get long-term organisation in place. Can I talk you through it while Allie greets her monkeys?’
‘Sure,’ Jack said easily. ‘Myra has the books. She might also have a cup of tea.’ He grinned. ‘Maybe a whisky as well?’
‘No whisky,’ Allie decreed, casting a mischievous glance at Matt. ‘One, he’s my helicopter pilot and two, he’s my ringmaster and he’s performing tonight. For now, Matt Bond, that leash stays very firmly on.’ Then she tucked her hand in his and chuckled. ‘But now I’ve seen you dive into muddy waters and save me from elephants. Now I know that leash can come off at need.’
* * *
Allie checked out her monkeys, who didn’t recognise her but they looked gloriously content. Matt checked the books and tried to turn into a banker again.
As he went through the financial figures he understood why Jack was in such financial trouble. He should have folded this place years ago but instead he hadn’t compromised one bit. He and Myra were living in poverty but the animals were living in luxury.
Jack and Henry...two old men, following their dreams.
Allie following after.
At least he could save Jack’s farm, Matt thought, trying very hard to stay in banker mode as he guided their chopper back to Fort Neptune with a seemingly subdued Allie beside him. The Board might even think it was a good idea—Allie’s name was pure brilliance.
But he still couldn’t save the circus. No amount of money could make ageing performers young again.
‘But it’s just us now,’ Allie said, almost to herself, but she had headphones and mouthpiece on so he could hear every whisper.
‘Just us?’
‘With pensions and what I can earn, we can afford a place. It was the thought of paying off that debt that was killing me. And the camels...what was I supposed to do with the camels?’ She smiled across at him, a glorious, open smile of sheer gratitude. ‘I thought you’d destroyed us, Matt Bond. Instead, you’ve saved us.’
‘We’ve still foreclosed on the circus.’
‘Yes, but that was coming anyway,’ she said fairly. ‘And it hurts, but it would have hurt whenever it happened.’
‘Do you want help finding a place to live?’
‘You’ve done enough for us,’ she said gently. ‘Matt, back there when I heard you make the offer to Jack, I thought I should refuse. It’s charity, but then I realised it’s not me you’re offering the money to. I talked to Myra while you were going over the books. Do you know how close they were to getting all those animals euthanased? I think you’re wonderful, Matt Bond, you and your darling bank.’
‘Darling bank...’ In all the years he’d worked for Bond’s, he’d never once heard his bank described as darling.
‘Thank you,’ she said, and sniffed and then turned and looked at the scenery below and he thought—she doesn’t know what else to say.
Thank you.
He didn’t want this woman feeling grateful to him, he thought.
Why?
‘We’ll get as much out of this as we put in,’ he growled, but she didn’t turn back to him. He heard her sniff again.
‘I’m sure you will,’ she managed. ‘I’m sure you’re a banker through and through, and this is a very sound business decision. But you’re a lovely man, Matt Bond, and you make an awesome ringmaster and I don’t even mind if you foreclose on our circus—you are one special person.’ And with that she sniffed and subsided.
He focused on the controls for a while.
He was one special person?
He glanced at Allie’s averted head and he thought of her cavorting in the muddy waterhole with her elephants and he thought of what she was facing now, her life ahead with a bunch of geriatric circus performers and he thought...he thought...
He thought he wasn’t that special person. And he thought more chinks in his carefully built armour were being knocked out every minute.