One Night With The Billionaire

And not with a woman who wore her heart on her pink spangled sleeve.

It was Margot causing this confusion, he decided. His distress for his great-aunt had clouded his otherwise cool judgement. Well, that distress could be put aside. For the time being Margot had decided to live.

Because of Allie?

Because she had renewed interest, he told himself. So … He simply had to find her more interests that weren’t related to the circus.

The circus meant Allie.

No. The circus was a group of assets on a balance sheet and those assets were about to be dispersed. Allie was right. Carvers, a huge national circus group with Ron Carver at its head, was circling. The bank had put out feelers already and Carvers could well buy the circus outright.

Keeping Allie on?

This was not his business. Allie was nothing to do with him, he told himself savagely. The way she’d felt in his arms, the way she’d melted into him, had been an aberration, a moment of weakness on both their parts.

He didn’t want any woman complicating his life.

He didn’t want … Allie?

He jogged on. Soon he needed to head back to Margot’s, get himself together and go to the circus.

Actually he was already at the circus. He’d been jogging and thinking and suddenly the circus was just over the grassy verge separating fairground from sea.

And he could see Allie.

Allie was standing by the circus gates, talking vehemently to a policeman.

The policeman had a gun.

Yeah, okay, policemen with guns didn’t normally spell trouble, though they usually kept them well holstered. Maybe this was a cop organising tickets for his kids to see a show. Or not.

The gun, the body language and the look on Allie’s face had Matt’s strides lengthening without him being conscious of it, and by the time he reached them he figured this was trouble.

The cop looked young, almost too young to be operating alone, but then, Fort Neptune wasn’t known for trouble. The towns further along the coast would be teeming with holidaymakers. The bigger towns had nightclubs. The police force would be stretched to the limit, so maybe it made sense to leave one junior cop on duty in this backwater.

What was wrong? He was surveying the circus as he jogged towards them.

The big top looked okay but something was different. He took a second to figure what it was, then realised a section of the cyclone fencing forming the camels’ enclosure was flattened. The truck’s doors were wide open but the truck was empty.

No camels.

He reached them and Allie gripped his arm as if she feared drowning.

‘The camels …’ she gasped. ‘Matt, you need to stop him.’ She sounded as if she’d been running. Instinctively his arm went round her and held, drawing her into him.

‘Stop what? What’s happened to the camels?’ he asked, holding her tight.

‘They’re at large,’ the cop snapped. ‘Wild animals. You’re holding me up, miss. I need to be out looking.’

‘The crew’s out looking,’ she said, distressed. ‘And they’re not wild.’

‘The report I received said three wild animals.’

‘Tell me what’s happening,’ Matt said in the tone he used when meetings were threatening to get out of control. ‘Now.’

There was a moment’s silence. The cop looked as if he was barely contained. He was little more than a kid, Matt thought, and a dangerous one at that. Any minute now he’d be off, sirens blazing, on a camel hunt. Wanted, dead or alive …

‘Someone broke into the enclosure,’ Allie managed. ‘They used bolt cutters to drop the cyclone fencing. But I don’t understand why they’ve run, why they didn’t just back into the truck. They’re tame,’ she said again to the cop. ‘They’re pussy cats. Who told you they’re wild?’

‘No matter,’ the cop said brusquely. ‘I’ll find them.’ He moved towards his car, but suddenly Matt was squarely between cop and car.

‘I’m not sure what’s going on,’ Matt said mildly, but he motioned to the gun. ‘But if you plan to shoot anything—anything—without a life or death reason—then I’ll have your superiors down on you like a ton of bricks.’ He’d started soft but his words grew firmer and slower with each syllable. This was Mathew Bond, Chairman of Bond’s Bank, oozing authority at each word. ‘That’s a promise. Allie, is everyone out looking?’

‘Yes. I just came back … Constable Taylor said …’

Enough. He didn’t want to know what this spotty kid had said. He didn’t need to—he could tell by Allie’s body language. ‘Does everyone have a phone?’ he demanded. ‘Does the crew have them? Will they phone you, Allie, as soon as the camels are located?’

‘Y … yes.’

‘And if a member of the public phones, they’ll contact you, Constable Taylor?’

‘A message will be relayed to me,’ the cop said ponderously.

‘Excellent,’ Matt said and hauled open the passenger door to the front of the patrol car. ‘Allie, you ride up front and watch. Constable, you drive, and I’ll ride lookout in the back.’

‘Lookout?’ Allie said faintly and he managed a reassuring grin.

‘I’ll be riding sidekick to a cop,’ he said. ‘I’ve been waiting for a chance to do this all my life. Let’s go.’

Riding sidekick? Had he just said that? What did he think this was, the Wild West? But there was no way he was letting this gun-happy cop off on a camel quest with no supervision.

‘What gives you the right?’ the cop demanded, looking stunned.

‘Because I’m the circus master,’ he snapped. ‘Miss Miski will confirm it. These are my animals and my responsibility, and if you hurt them you’ll answer to me.’

The camels had scattered. The cop drove up and down the side streets, with Allie growing more and more anxious, until they received their first call.

Caesar was out on the highway. He’d obviously reacted in panic when he’d first seen the traffic and he was almost two miles out of town. Fizz—Frank—and Fluffy—Harold—had found him. Harold was staying with him, he reported to Allie, while Frank headed back for the trailer to fetch him.

One camel safe.

‘One down,’ Matt said gently. ‘Two more coming up.’

He was sitting in the back seat while they searched, scanning like Allie and the cop were doing, but Allie thought he was doing more than than scanning. He’d calmed things down.

The cop was still looking grim but he was also looking contained, no longer like a boy on a vigilante hunt.

Another call. Jenny and Greg had found Pharoah in a community garden. Pharoah seemed frightened, he had a minor wound on his back, but there was enough enticement in the garden to make a camel think twice about escape. Jenny and Greg took up sentry duty. The trailer would pick him up second, Allie decreed, and turned and found Matthew smiling at her.

‘Two safe,’ he said. ‘One more and we’re home free.’

She relaxed a little more, but she was still on edge. The cop’s gun was in his holster right by her side. She had an almost irresistible urge to grab it and toss it out of the window.

Mathew’s hand touched her shoulder, a feather touch of reassurance.

‘Camels are pretty hard to hide,’ he said. ‘And we’re right beside the only gun in town.’

She closed her eyes for a millisecond, infinitely grateful that he was here, that he was right. Australia’s rigid gun laws meant no one was going to shoot, and all they had to do was find Cleo.

And finally, blessedly, her phone rang again. It was Bernie—Bernardo the Breathtaking. Allie had the phone on speaker and she sensed his distress the moment she answered.

Cleo was in the yard of the local primary school. Bleeding from a graze on her flank. Edgy. Surrounded by excited kids.

‘Isn’t the school closed for holidays?’ Mathew demanded of the cop as the car did a U-turn and the cop switched on the siren.

‘It’s used for a school holiday programme,’ the cop snapped. ‘For kids whose parents work. There’ll be twenty kids there, from twelve years old down. A couple of student teachers run it. They’re kids themselves. They’ll have no hope of keeping the children safe.’

And the threat was back.

Fort Neptune was a sleepy holiday resort where the town’s only cop must spend most of his time fighting boredom. Now Mathew could practically see the adrenalin surge. He had his foot down hard, his lights were flashing, his siren blazing, and Mathew thought this was a great way to approach a scared animal. Not.

‘There’s no panic,’ Mathew told him. ‘It’s just a camel.’

‘It’s wild and wounded,’ the cop said with conviction—and relish? ‘I need to keep the kids safe at all cost.’

Then they were at the school, pulling up in a screech of tyres. The cop was out of the car with his gun drawn, but Matt was right there beside him.

It wasn’t pretty.

Mathew had watched Cleo yesterday. She’d been a teddy bear of a camel, with ponies and dogs jumping over and under her, but now she did indeed look wild. The school yard was rimmed with high wire fencing. There was one open gate. How unlucky was it that she’d found it? There was no way a frightened Cleo could find it now to get back out.

And she was surrounded. Kids were shouting and pressing close and then running away, daring each other to go closer, closer. A couple of teenage girls were flapping ineffectually amongst them.

Bernie was trying to approach Cleo, trying to shoo the kids back, putting himself between the camel and the kids, but Cleo seemed terrified beyond description.

Any minute now she could rush at the kids to try and find a way to escape. Any minute now they could indeed have a tragedy.

The cop was raising his arm—with gun attached.

‘You shoot in a schoolyard, you risk a ricochet that’ll kill a kid. Put it down!’ Mathew snapped, with all the authority he could muster, and the cop let the gun drop a little and looked doubtful instead of intent.

So far, so good.

But action was required. ‘Officer, do something,’ one of the older girls yelled. ‘If any of these kids get hurt …’

They well could if they kept panicking Cleo, Mathew thought.

Allie was flying across the schoolyard, calling Cleo to her, but Cleo was past responding. She was backing, rearing against the fence, lurching sideways and back again. Everything was a threat.

If the kids would only stop yelling …

Maybe it was time for a man—without a gun—to take a stand.

Once upon a time, as a kid with no home life to speak of, Mathew had joined his school’s army cadet programme. He hadn’t stayed long—drills and marching weren’t for him—but there’d been an ex-sergeant major who’d drilled them. The sergeant major could make raw recruits jump and quiver, and Mathew took a deep breath and conjured him now.

‘Attention!’

He yelled with all the force he could muster. Every single kid there seemed to jump and quiver. Even Cleo jumped and quivered. He’d had no choice, but it killed him that he’d frightened her more. She backed hard against the fence and her eyes rolled back in her head.

There was blood on her flank. What sort of wound?

But there was no time for focusing on Cleo. He needed to get these kids in order before anyone could get near her.

‘Everyone behind me,’ he ordered, still in his sergeant major voice. ‘And you …’ He pointed to a pudgy boy with a stone in his hand and his arm raised. ‘You throw that and I’ll hurl you straight into the police car and lock the door. That’s a promise. Put it down and get behind me. Every single one of you. Now!’

And, amazingly, they did. Twenty or so kids—plus the two teenage helpers—backed silently, shocked to silence.

Which left Cleo still hard against the fence, with Allie and Bernie to deal with her. But Bernie was obviously not an animal trainer. He was looking at the camel’s rolling eyes and he was backing, too.

Maybe he was right, Matt conceded. The camel was huge, lanky, way higher than Allie. Allie looked almost insignificant.

But Allie could deal, Matt thought. She must. Matt’s job was to keep his troops under control.

He should order them to return to their classroom, he thought, and they’d probably go—but there was one complicating factor. He could see from a glance at the teenage attendants what he was dealing with. They looked almost hysterical. Left like this, he knew the story that’d fly around town. He could see the headlines tomorrow—wild animal loose in schoolyard, threatening the safety of our children.

He needed to defuse it, now.

Besides, the cop was still waving his gun. Get rid of the kids and the way would be safe for a single bullet …

He glanced back at Allie. She knew what the stakes were. She knew what was likely to happen, but all her attention was on Cleo. She was whispering to the camel, standing still, blocking everything else out, simply talking to a creature she must know so well …

Okay, Allie on camel duty, Mathew on the rest. Defusing hysterics and rendering one gun harmless.

It was time to turn from sergeant major to schoolteacher.

‘Girls and boys, we need your assistance,’ Mathew said. ‘Can you help? Put up your hand if you will.’

A few hands went up. More kids looked nervously towards Cleo.

‘This camel is called Cleopatra,’ Mathew continued, ignoring everyone but the kids. ‘She’s a lovely, gentle girl camel who works in the circus you’ve all seen down by the beach. Today she’s been injured so she’s terrified. Look at her side. She’s bleeding. We need to get her to the vet. Mischka is trying to calm her down. Have any of you been to the circus yet? Mischka wears pink sequins and rides on Cleo’s back. She looks a bit different now, doesn’t she? Do you recognise her?’

A few more hands were raised. Wounds, vet, circus—he had their attention.

‘Mischka looks worried,’ Mathew said, almost conversationally. ‘That’s because she’s been out searching for Cleo for hours. Did you know Cleopatra has a special place in Mischka’s heart? Cleo’s mother was killed by a road train—do you know that a road train is? It’s a huge truck with three enormous trays on the back. The truck driver wanted to kill Cleo to sell her for dog meat, but the circus crew was travelling the same road, moving from town to town. Mischka saw her and saved her. Now she’s a circus camel. Cleo’s favourite food is popcorn and her favourite pastime is doing tricks to make kids laugh. But now she’s hurt and she’s frightened, so we need to keep really still, really silent, while Mischka settles her down.’

‘You can’t …’ the cop snapped, but Mathew had been deliberately lowering his voice, lower and lower, until at the end the kids were straining to hear. The cop’s voice was like a staccato blast into the peace.

‘Shush!’ a pigtailed poppet close to Mathew scolded, and the cop looked from poppet to camel to Mathew—and, amazingly, he shushed.

His gun stayed unholstered, though.

Allie was inching towards Cleo. She was talking to her, softly whispering, growing closer, closer. Bernie was watching the cop, seeing the threat. Matt had a sudden vision of Bernie launching himself through the air at the gun, and he flinched and went right back to talking this down.

‘While we wait for Mischka to calm Cleo down, maybe I should tell you about camels,’ he told the kids ‘Cleo’s a dromedary. That means she only has one hump. Her hump’s used to store energy and water, meaning she can go for days without drinking. Two-hump camels are called Bactrian camels. They still roam wild in the deserts and mountains of Mongolia. You could ask your teachers …’ he smiled at the two young women, imbuing them with more authority than they seemed to have ‘… to show you Mongolia on the map. Camels were brought to Australia in the olden days to help the early settlers cart goods into the outback. There are lots of stories about the pioneer camels on the Internet.’

And, just like that, he had the two trainee teachers on side. They stopped being hysterical teenagers and turned into the professionals they’d one day become.

Allie had managed to reach Cleo. She was a slip of a girl holding Cleo’s halter and starting to soothe her. The cop’s gun was drooping, and Mathew kept right on talking, inexorably turning a Wild Animal into Educational Opportunity.

‘Camels were used extensively to open up this country,’ he said. ‘Cleo’s mother was a wild camel, but she’s descended from those first camels brought here all that time ago. When people started using trucks and trains, they let the camels loose to do what they wanted. But imagine all that time ago, girls and boys. These camels came from Pakistan. Imagine putting animals like Cleo onto boats not much bigger than the fishing schooners in our bay and bringing them all the way to Australia.’

‘They would have been as scared as Cleo,’ the poppet said.

‘Indeed they would.’ The older of the two trainee teachers finally had herself in hand, a professional in training, and, in the face of Matt’s calm, she was ready to take over again. ‘We’ll find pictures of them on the Internet this very day, and we might start a project.’ And then she looked at the cop—who still had his hand on the gun.

‘Can you please put that away,’ she snapped. ‘The children have had enough of a fright for one day. Will the camel be okay, Miss … Miss … Mischka?’

‘I think she’s been shot,’ Allie said and they all, without a single exception, turned to stare at the cop.

‘Hey, it wasn’t me …’ he started but Allie shook her head.

‘No,’ she said soothingly. ‘This is from air pellets. Someone’s shot her with an air rifle.’

‘And they’ve hurt her?’ another of the kids demanded and Allie bit her lip and nodded and turned back to Cleo.

‘Well,’ the older of the trainees said, ‘there’s wickedness everywhere, isn’t there, boys and girls, and yes, I saw that stone as well, Adam Winkler, and we’ll be discussing it as soon as we’re all inside. Which is where we’re heading now. We’ll leave these people to care for Cleo. Please let us know how she gets on, Miss Mischka. Thank you, Officer, for bringing us help so promptly. All right, children, right turn, quick march, back to class single file and we’ll leave Cleo in peace. Let’s go learn about camels.’

The girl would be a good teacher, Matt thought appreciatively. He would have watched her usher her charges and her fellow trainee back into the school, but he was too busy watching Allie.

The cop decided to guard the gate. He wasn’t leaving until the school yard was cleared of camel, but he didn’t want any part of persuading same camel into a trailer.

Bernie elected to watch the cop.

This was an act of sabotage and deliberate cruelty, Matt thought, as Allie settled Cleo some more. He had a clear idea now of what must have happened. The camel enclosure had been destroyed and the camels shot with air pellets to drive them crazy with pain. That there hadn’t been at least one tragedy was a miracle.

‘Have you had vandalism before?’ he asked Allie.

‘Not like this.’ She was picking daisies and feeding them to Cleo. Matt made a mental note to send a gardener in to make reparation before anyone noticed. ‘We have kids around the circus all the time, trying to get in to see free shows, checking out the animals, even trying to pinch things from our stalls. But this …’ She looked at Cleo’s flank and winced. ‘Someone’s come in during breakfast, which is when we have our performance meeting—it’s about the only fifteen minutes in the entire twenty-four when there’s no one watching. Everything’s securely locked but they used bolt cutters to knock down the enclosure. Then they must have deliberately shot them to make them crazy.’

‘But never before? Nothing like this?’

‘No.’

She was rubbing behind the big camel’s ears but the hand she used was shaking.

She was pale and growing paler.

‘It didn’t happen,’ he said, a little too sharply, enough to make Cleo edge away a little—but Cleo had daisies now, and her own personal person and she wasn’t about to tear away in fright. ‘Nothing dire happened,’ he said more gently. ‘Pharaoh and Caesar are safe, no one’s hurt and this wound on Cleo’s side seems like superficial grazing. Air pellets sting, but unless they hit an eye they don’t do lasting damage. I’ll call the vet now.’

‘The cop would have shot Cleo if you hadn’t been here,’ she said, just as dully. ‘I should say thank you.’ Then she seemed to haul herself together. She leaned into Cleo’s long, soft neck and sighed. ‘I do thank you. I’m so grateful.’

‘It’s all been a bit much to take in over twenty-four hours,’ he said softly. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Me, too, for all sorts of reasons.’ She closed her eyes for a moment, leaned against the camel and let the warmth of the morning sun rest on her face. It was as if she was gathering strength, he thought, for when she opened her eyes again she looked different.

Moving on.

‘How did you know how I found Cleo?’ she demanded. ‘And how did you know her mother was killed?’

He’d known because Jenny had told him while they were waiting in the wings last night, but he wasn’t about to tell her that. He needed to make her smile.

‘Spies,’ he told her and she glanced sharply at him and saw he was trying to tease. She even managed a lopsided smile in return.

‘You have spies? Bugs on the dogs?’

‘On Tinkerbelle,’ he said promptly. ‘The tiny spot under her left ear isn’t a spot at all. If you ever use flea powder we’re doomed. It muffles reception no end.’

She grinned. ‘Whoa, what a traitor.’

But then her smile died. It was a weird time. They were standing in the schoolyard waiting for the trailer. The sun was warm on their faces, the camel was settling, the cop was on cop duty at the gate, making sure no wild animals got out or came in, and Bernie was making sure the cop’s gun stayed exactly where it belonged.

In a moment the trailer would arrive, there’d be the vet to arrange, and the circus was due to start in an hour.

In an hour this woman would be back in pink spangles, in charge of her world, but for now … she seemed bereft and alone, and once again he felt that urge to reach out and touch her.

Protect her from all-comers?

Whoa, that was a primeval urge if ever he’d felt one. This woman didn’t want a knight on a white charger even if he wanted to be one.

But …

What if he saved her whole circus?

The thought was suddenly out there, front and centre. He was wealthy by anyone’s standards. He could pay off debts, fund those dratted animal retirees, keep Sparkles going into perpetuity.

‘Don’t even think it,’ she said into the stillness.

‘Think what?’

‘What you’re thinking.’

‘What am I thinking?’

‘The same as I was thinking all night,’ she told him. ‘I’m looking at you right now and I’m seeing sympathy. I read about you on the web last night. You’re not a minion in Bond’s Bank—you are Bond’s Bank. You could fund us a thousand times over. Last night I read about you and I thought this morning I’d head back to Margot’s and throw myself on her neck, then get her to bully you into extending the loan.’

‘She might do it, too.’ He was unsure where to go with this. This wasn’t your normal business discussion. This was intensely personal—and he didn’t do personal. Or did he?

‘I know she might,’ Allie agreed. ‘So I lay in bed all night and thought about it and decided I have an ageing circus with an ancient ringmaster with a heart condition. I have Bella who’ll break her heart when she has to move away from the circus but she already struggles to get up and down the caravan steps and the caravans are ancient themselves. I have geriatric clowns. They’re my great-uncles but I can see past that. I can see they need to retire. We have a couple of great acts but most of the circus is failing. Your news is appalling, but how much more appalling if I drag this out longer? If I plead for an extension, then it’s on my head, and I can’t wear it. I … can’t.’

For a moment he thought she might cry, but she didn’t. Instead she bit her lip, then tilted her chin and met his gaze straight on.