she said a bit breathlessly, and her breathlessness told him she was as aware of him as he was of her—which was another reason for him to step back. And step back he did.
‘Let’s go show some eyelashes,’ he managed.
‘One set of eyelashes,’ she said and grinned. ‘Coward.’
‘Story of my life,’ he said and turned and headed for the circus.
Despite the chaos of the morning, the circus ran like well oiled clockwork. The ponies and dogs did their stuff without the camels. The act was a bit shorter than usual and not so impressive—but then Mischka moved seamlessly into a performance with just the dogs and he stopped thinking not impressive. He started thinking the opposite. Quite simply, Mischka and her two nondescript dogs left him awed.
One girl in silver sparkles, dancing, turning, tumbling. Two adoring dogs following every move.
They’d do anything for her, he thought, as he watched them from his position ringside. She wasn’t feeding them, bribing them or even talking to them. She moved and they moved, like shadows beside her, in front of her, behind her, depending on her direction. She danced backward, they were up on their hind legs strutting forward. She danced forward, they did the same thing backward. She tumbled, they turned somersaults with her. She spun, they spun.
She stood on her head and they jumped across her spread legs and turned in crazy circles around her head. The crowd went wild.
She stood and bowed and the dogs bowed with her. A camera flashed in the front row and he was momentarily distracted—no cameras were allowed and it was in the list of things he was supposed to watch for as ringmaster—but the guy put the camera away fast as soon as he saw Matt watching him, and Matt thought—why wouldn’t you want to take a picture of this girl and these dogs?
‘Why doesn’t she put this act on all the time?’ he asked Fizz as Allie and her dogs disappeared behind the curtains. Fluffy was out in the centre of the ring, setting up the next joke. Fizz and Mathew had a fraction of time to speak.
‘It takes too much out of her,’ Fizz said. ‘That’s an amazing acrobatic performance and she still has to do the trapeze act. She’s so good we could just about run the circus around her only she’d fall in a heap.’ He frowned then and glowered at Matt and Matt knew he wasn’t Matt in this guy’s eyes. He was the guy who was pulling the rug from under all of them. ‘She’s falling in a heap anyway. She’s not eating. She’s not sleeping. Her van light was on all last night, and when we bullied her to eat breakfast this morning she looked like she was going to throw up. But there’s nothing we can do about it. Nothing any of us can do.’
He didn’t wait for a response—maybe because he knew Matt didn’t have an answer to give.
Instead he pinned on his clown grin, he bounced out to join Fluffy and the circus went on.
They took their bows as usual, they started clearing, ready for the evening performance in four hours, and at some stage Allie realised their ringmaster was no longer among them.
Fair enough, she thought as she worked on. He had his own life. He’d agreed to play ringmaster. That didn’t mean he had to be hands-on, a true member of the circus troupe.
So why did she feel … empty?
No reason at all, she told herself. She had enough to worry about without Mathew … Matt Bond’s continual presence. He sort of … unnerved her.
He’d kissed her.
She’d been kissed before. No big deal.
Yes, but Mathew Bond was a big deal.
‘He’s Matt,’ she told herself and she said it out loud as if the words could somehow make him ordinary.
He wasn’t ordinary.
He’d saved her camel.
He was killing her circus.
No. It wasn’t him, she told herself fairly. She couldn’t hold it against him. Her grandfather had killed the circus the moment he’d taken out that loan, and he’d taken out the loan because of her.
The guilt was killing her.
Everything was killing her. There were so many emotions—and overriding them all was the image of one sexy banker.
But it wasn’t just that he was sexy, she thought. Yes, there was an element—or more than an element—of reaction to the fact that he was drop dead gorgeous and he had a killer smile and when he touched her, her body burned—but there was also the way he swept into the ring as if he owned it. There was the way he’d caught the children’s interest today and turned kids and trainee teachers from antagonistic to gunning for Cleo all the way. There was the way he’d paid the vet’s bills, which would be huge. She knew it was a small amount for him but he hadn’t had to do it, and he’d smiled at her and looked worried about Cleo, and he’d stopped the cop shooting her—and then, when she’d asked about his name and he’d said Matt, he’d looked as if she’d pierced something that hurt. A lot.
There were complexities within the man and she was intrigued as well as attracted, but she’d better not be either she told herself, because being attracted to the banker was just plain dumb. Letting him kiss her had been dumb. It was the way to get her life into an even deeper mess than it already was.
‘Just do what comes next,’ she told herself, so she did. She finished clearing up. She had three hours before the evening performance. She checked her camels again, and then changed into respectable and went to the hospital to see Henry and Bella.
It didn’t help. Her grandmother looked worse than her grandpa. It was as if everything was being taken away from her, and the only thing she had to cling to was Henry.
So what was there for Allie to cling to? she thought bleakly as she left them.
Her grey mood was threatening to overwhelm her. She had to get herself together, she told herself harshly. There was another show to put on tonight.
She was so tired all she wanted to do was crawl under a log somewhere and sleep.
She walked out of the main entrance to the hospital—and a gorgeous British Racing Green Rover was sitting in the car park. And Mathew/Matt/Maestro, or whoever this man was, was leaning against the driver’s door as if he had all the time in the world to wait, and with one look she knew he was waiting for her.
With her dogs?
Tinkerbelle and Fairy were in the car, their little heads hanging out of the window, their tails wagging almost enough to vibrate the car. What on earth were they doing here? They should be ready for the show. She should be ready for the show.
She glanced at her watch. No, she still had two and a half hours. She was so tired she was losing sense of time.
‘Hi,’ he said as she walked—very slowly—down the steps towards him. Her legs didn’t seem like they wanted to carry her.
‘H … hi,’ she ventured back.
‘Fizz tells me you’re not eating,’ he said gently as she reached him. ‘He said you didn’t eat breakfast and you hardly touched lunch. He checked the fridge
