for two weeks he’d be ringmaster, and that was that. He hoped that it’d make a difference to Margot but if it didn’t there was only so much a man could do.
He’d do it, and then he’d get back to his world.
To banking.
To a world he understood.
AFTER LEAVING MARGOT, Allie headed back to the hospital. She reassured herself Henry was okay, she told her grandparents about the two weeks, she brought an exhausted and emotional Bella back to her caravan and settled her and told her the world wasn’t about to end, and finally she retreated to the sanctuary of her own little van, her own little world.
Her dogs greeted her with joy. Tinkerbelle and Fairy were her own true loves. The two Jack Russell terriers were packed with loyalty and intelligence and fun.
There’d never been a time when Allie hadn’t had dogs. These two were part of her act, the circus crowd went wild with their funny, clever tricks, and she adored them as much as they adored her.
She greeted them in turn. She made herself soup and toast and then she tried to watch something on the television.
It normally worked. Cuddling dogs. Mindless television.
There was no way it was settling her now. There was too much happening in her head. The loan. Grandpa. Margot.
Mathew.
And it was Mathew himself who was unsettling her most.
She had so many complications in her life right now, she did not need another one, she told herself. What was she doing? She did not need to think of Mathew Bond … like she was thinking of Mathew Bond.
‘It’s Margot,’ she told her dogs. ‘An old, dying woman playing matchmaker. She’s put all sorts of nonsensical ideas into my head, and I need to get rid of them right now.’
But the ideas wouldn’t go. Mathew was there, big and beautiful, front and centre.
‘Maybe it’s hormones,’ she said and she thought maybe it was. As a circus performer, hormones didn’t have much of a chance to do their stuff.
Hormones … Romance … It wasn’t for the likes of Allie. She moved from town to town, never settling and, as Henry and Bella had become older, Allie’s duties had become more and more onerous.
It wasn’t that she wasn’t interested in a love life. It was that she simply couldn’t fit it in. She’d had all of three boyfriends in her life and none had lasted more than six months. Trailing after a circus performer was no one’s idea of hot romance, and within the circus … Well, no one there exactly cut it in the sexy and available stakes.
‘So now I’m thinking about Mathew and it’s nothing but fancy, but oh, if I could …’ she whispered, and for a moment, for just a fraction of a lonely evening after a hard and frightening day, she gave herself permission to fantasise.
Mathew holding her. Mathew smiling at her with that gentle, laughing smile she’d barely glimpsed but she knew was there.
Mathew taking her into his arms. Mathew …
No! If she went there, she might not be able to pull back. She had to work with the man for the next two weeks.
‘This is nonsense,’ she told the dogs. ‘Crazy stuff. We’ll concentrate on the telly like we do every night. Half an hour to settle, then bed, and we’ll leave the hormones where they belong—outside with my boots.’
It was sensible advice. It was what a girl had to do—and then someone knocked on the door of the van.
Mathew. She sensed it was him before she opened the door.
He was standing in front of her, looking slightly ruffled.
He was wearing that fabulous coat again.
Mathew.
What was he doing, standing in the grounds of the circus at nine at night, holding a contract in one hand, knocking on the door of a woman in pink sequins with the other?
This was business, he told himself fiercely—and she wouldn’t be in pink sequins.
She wasn’t. She was still in her jeans. Her windcheater was sky-blue, soft, warm and vaguely fuzzy.
She looked scrubbed clean and fresh, a little bit tousled—and very confused to see him.
The dogs were going nuts at her feet, which was just as well. It gave him an excuse to stoop to greet them and get his face in order, telling himself again—fiercely—that he was here on business.
She stooped to hush the dogs and their noses were suddenly inches apart. She looked … she looked …
Like he couldn’t be interested in her looking. He stood up fast and stepped back.
‘Good evening,’ he said, absurdly formal, and he saw a twinkle appear at the back of her eyes. She could see his discomfort? She was laughing?
‘Good evening,’ she said back, rising and becoming just as formal. ‘How can I help you?’
He held up his contract and she looked at it as she might look at a death adder. The twinkle died.
‘What is it?’
‘It’s an agreement by you that these two weeks are not in any way a concession or notice by the bank that we’ve waived our legal rights. Our control over the circus starts now; you’re here for the next two weeks on our terms.’
‘I can’t sign that,’ she whispered. ‘Grandpa …’
‘You can sign it. You agreed before the show that you wouldn’t interfere with foreclosure. Your grandfather has named you on the loan documents as having power of attorney but, even so, we don’t actually need you to have legal rights. We don’t need to disturb Henry. As the person nominally in charge right now, all we’re saying is that your presence here for the next two weeks doesn’t interfere with legal processes already in place.’
She pushed her fingers through her hair, brushing it back from her face. Wearily. ‘Isn’t that assumed?’ she asked. ‘That the next two weeks doesn’t stop you from turning into a vulture at the end of it?’
He didn’t reply, just stood and looked at her. She looked exhausted, he thought. She looked beat.
She looked a slip of a girl, too young to bear the brunt of responsibility her grandfather had placed on her.
‘Have you told everyone?’ he asked and she nodded.
‘I asked Grandpa whether I should tell the crew, and he said yes. He’s known this was coming. He should have told us and he’s feeling bad. He asked me to give everyone as much notice as possible.’
So she’d had to
