The Rancher and the Rich Girl

by Heather MacAllister

  They had taken off their shirts and had rinsed them, but the scent of gasoline hung in the air.

  “Hi, Mom!” Sam made as if to squirt her, but a laughing Matt stopped him. “We got grease all over us.”

  “So I see.”

  What she saw was the narrow-shouldered, little-boy body of her son and Matt, naked from the waist up.

  All she could do was hug her basket of wet underwear and stare.

  Here, revealed, were the strong arms that had held her and the shoulders she’d thought were good for a boy’s piggyback ride. And there was the wide, solidly muscled chest she’d buried her head against.

  She wouldn’t mind burying her head against it right now.

  Sam squirted Matt just then. He laughed and shook the water out of his hair. It dripped down his neck and ran in glistening rivulets that highlighted muscles built from work, not working out.

  Jessica would probably still be standing there gaping at him if Matt hadn’t spoken.

  “Could you bring us a couple of towels?” he asked. “We don’t want to drip all over Lita’s floor.”

  She managed to nod. Abandoning the basket, she got two clean towels and brought them outside.

  Sam and Matt were waiting.

  “Here.” Ungraciously Jessica stepped just within reach and thrust a towel at Matt.

  She could feel him look at her as he took it. She didn’t dare meet his eyes. Instead she wrapped the towel around Sam and started rubbing.

  “Mom!” He pulled away from her. “I can do it myself.”

  She backed off and involuntarily glanced at Matt.

  He was watching her as he toweled off, the strokes strong and no-nonsense without a hint of coyness.

  The white towel contrasted with his lightly bronzed skin and dark chest hair. All in all, he looked like a calendar shot for cowboy hunk-of-the-month.

  If he’d posed like that for the auction brochure, Liz never would have dropped out of the bidding.

  He finished and draped the towel around his neck, then raked his fingers through his hair. A smile teased the corners of his mouth.

  A small sound escaped Jessica before she could stop it. “You’re probably hungry for lunch,” she said to cover it up. “Lita mentioned something about sandwiches.” She turned and prepared to flee inside.

  “We can wait until you’ve hung up your washing, can’t we, Sam?”

  Sam looked like he wanted to disagree, but went along with his idol.

  “Oh, this can wait.” Jessica tried to kick the basket out of the way, but it was too heavy, and all she did was hurt her toe.

  “Tell you what. Sam and I’ll help you.” Matt bent and picked up the basket.

  A half-naked man was offering to handle her underwear. Under other circumstances...

  “Hang up laundry?” Sam made a face.

  “Really, I can do it.” Jessica tugged at the basket. “Won’t take a minute.”

  Matt silently released his hold on the basket and she carried it over to the clothesline. She dug around in the basket and hung up all her T-shirts first. Go inside.

  Honestly, this was only underwear. Why was she suddenly so prissy about it?

  Defiantly she reached into the basket and withdrew pieces of silk and lace and started pinning them up.

  * * *

  SAM TUGGED ON HIS ARM. “Let’s go inside, Matt.”

  “In a minute. First we’ve got to get the mud off your shoes.”

  “I’ll just take them off.”

  “And what about your socks?”

  “I’ll take them off, too.”

  “Then you’ll get mud on your feet.” Matt was stalling, but the fact was, he was enjoying the view of Sam’s mother hanging up laundry.

  Each time she bent down, her top fell away from her neck, though at this distance, he was only fueling his imagination. And where Jessica was concerned, he had a great imagination.

  But when she stood and stretched her arms up, he didn’t have to imagine the way her top pulled away from her shorts and left a slice of her middle bare.

  “How’s this, Matt?” Sam held out his leg so Matt could see the shoe.

  “You’ve got a little mud left on the heel.”

  He was lower than low, and if he didn’t watch it, Sam was going to ask questions Matt didn’t want to answer.

  Yeah, she was out of his league, he reluctantly reminded himself.

  Then Jessica reached into the basket and started hanging up the little bits of stuff that she wore for underwear, and Matt decided he’d had enough fuel for his imagination.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  THE BUILDING MATERIALS she’d ordered arrived right after lunch.

  Jessica was relieved. She could hardly look at Matt without seeing the image of his wet torso as he stood by the water spigot. Not that this wasn’t a wonderful image, but thinking about Matt’s chest made it difficult to maintain normal lunchtime chatter with Sam. Matt, too.

  When the flatbed truck arrived in the ranch yard and honked, Jessica nearly leaped from the table. “I’ve got to check the packing list before I sign off on the delivery.”

  “How long will that take?” Sam asked.

  “A while,” Jessica admitted.

  “Man.” He frowned. “I wanted to go visit Frank’s house. He said he has a friend who can stick pins in his arm and it doesn’t hurt or nothing.”

  “Or anything,” Jessica corrected.

  “How about we ride over to the village?” Matt suggested. “Your mom can follow in her car when she finishes what she’s got to do here.”

  “Is it very far?” Sam looked more apprehensive than excited.

  “It’s a fair piece.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “It means it’s farther than you’ve ridden on Black Star before.”

  Sam thought it over and gave a tight nod. Matt and Jessica exchanged looks.

  Her son wanted to like riding more than he actually did. “Do you think...?” He’s ready? she wanted to ask.

  Matt understood. “He can do it. We’re not going to gallop—”

  “I can gallop!” Sam interrupted indignantly.

  “Ground’s too rough and cracked,” Matt told him. “You don’t want the horses to catch their hooves and hurt themselves, do you?”

  Sam shook his head.

  Clever man, Jessica thought. Matt had managed to appease them both. “How do I get to the village?”

  “When you drove in on the ranch road, do you remember seeing a metal signpost?”

  Jessica nodded.

  “Turn right there and follow the path and you’ll end up at the community center. It’s the largest building around.”

  “Okay. I’ll meet you guys over there.”

  * * *

  IT TOOK LONGER THAN she thought to check all the pallets and pieces she’d ordered, but everything was there, and she had it unloaded in two areas—by the barn and in front of the shed. Frank grumbled about the work, especially when he saw the new metal siding for the shed. She left him covering the bags of concrete for the fence posts with plastic tarp. Jessica figured the leaky shed wouldn’t keep the mix dry if they had rain.

  After she was finished and the truck had driven away, she realized she’d have to change clothes for the visit. She hadn’t brought any really dressy clothes but had packed a couple of casual summer dresses, and she picked one of those to wear.

  She also brought her laptop, a copy of the catalog and some of Fremont Construction’s promotional materials. She was eager to sign this Tom Andersen before someone else discovered him.

  It was about an hour after Sam and Matt had left when Jessica found herself turning off the ranch road and following the rutted path. She wa
s glad she had a four-wheel-drive vehicle.

  The closer Jessica got to the circus village, the more evidence of Tom’s work she saw. The road arch and the signpost both had strange symbols on them, which she now saw nailed to trees. Were they a warning or a welcome?

  She smelled curry and wood smoke long before she found the main settlement. As she drove along, she saw trailers, RV’s and brightly painted wagons, as well as smallish houses deep in the woods. She remembered what Matt had said about the circus people wintering here. It looked as if one spring, some of them had just decided to stay wherever they were.

  She found the community center with no problem and parked.

  “Hello, Matt’s lady!” Krinkov hailed her.

  Sighing inwardly, she returned Krinkov’s greeting. He and three other men were playing cards on a battered table outside the center.

  “Have you seen Matt and Sam?” she asked after Krinkov had introduced her to the others.

  “Yes.” Everyone nodded in unison.

  Jessica waited, but he added nothing else. There was no sign of the horses.

  “Where are they?” she asked at last.

  Holding a hand of cards, Krinkov gestured down the road with his eyes.

  Jessica didn’t see anything and was considering whether to get back into her car and keep driving when she heard faint shouting followed by her son’s laughter.

  Seconds later, Sam rode into view.

  On an elephant.

  “Muhl, muhl!” he shouted, or at least that’s the way it sounded to Jessica.

  Behind him rode Matt, thank goodness, though if the elephant decided to lumber off cross-country, Jessica didn’t see how they’d stop it.

  A wizened man in baggy white clothes jogged alongside them. Jessica didn’t think he was capable of stopping an elephant, either.

  “Mom, look!” Sam shrieked.

  She waved. “Not so loud, Sam,” she muttered between her teeth-clenched smile. “You don’t want to scare the elephant.”

  As the elephant lumbered ever closer, Jessica kept glancing at the men to see if it was time to panic. They ignored the elephant, so Jessica figured everything was under control.

  “Dok!” Sam leaned back against Matt. “Dok! That means ‘stop’ in elephant talk.”

  And darned if the elephant didn’t stop right in front of the community center. Jessica raised a shaky hand to shield her eyes from the sun and looked up at them.

  Sam and Matt wore identical grins, which tugged at her heart. “So who have you got there?”

  “This is Scheherazade,” Sam said.

  “Is it? I don’t believe we’ve formally met. How do you do, Scheherazade?”

  “Mom!” Sam laughed.

  Matt smiled down at her—a wonderfully warm, intimate smile. “Want a ride?”

  The sensible thing would be to say no.

  Jessica didn’t feel like being sensible just then.

  Come to think of it, she hadn’t felt sensible since the auction.

  “Okay.” She smiled back up at Matt.

  Behind her, chairs scraped back. “You are going to ride the elephant with Matthew?” Krinkov asked.

  “Yes, if it’s all right.” Jessica didn’t understand why the man looked at her so intently. Surely it was safe if Sam had been riding.

  “It is more than all right. It is past time.” He went to the door of the community center. “Katya!” he bellowed. “Come, woman. Matthew’s lady is going to ride the elephant with him.”

  Jessica heard excited feminine babble, and within seconds, Katya and several other women appeared.

  What was going on? Maybe women didn’t ride elephants. But Jessica had seen them do so in the circus parades.

  Or maybe only a certain type of female rode elephants.

  She looked up at Matt for some hint, but he was reassuring Sam that he could have another ride on Scheherazade later.

  “Okay, then. Tell her to kneel,” Matt instructed him.

  “Bite! Bite!” Sam bounced up and down on the elephant’s neck. “Did you hear that, Mom? It means down.”

  Scheherazade laboriously bent her knees. Even so, her neck was a long way off the ground. Too bad Jessica hadn’t asked exactly how she was going to get up there.

  “What is this? What is this?” Carmen stuck her head out of a huge mobile home.

  “She’s riding the elephant with Matthew!” Katya called.

  Carmen muttered and came outside. “And where is my Frank that I should have to hear such from the likes of you?”

  Jessica was having definite second thoughts about this whole elephant thing. With lots of effort, Scheherazade had finally managed to get to her knees. Jessica hated to make her go through that again. Matt held onto Sam’s arms as he slid down far enough to stand on the elephant’s trunk and then jump to the ground.

  “Mom, it’s so totally cool up there. You don’t need to be scared, ’cause Matt will hold on to you, won’t you, Matt?”

  His dark eyes met hers. “You bet.”

  Some nice side benefits were associated with elephant riding.

  There was a murmuring from the crowd that continued to gather. When Jessica looked at their faces, they didn’t seem to be disapproving—quite the contrary.

  “You’ve got to take off your shoes,” Sam told her. “Then you put your feet behind her ears. That’s how you steer her ’cause she doesn’t have reins.”

  “I have to take off my shoes?”

  Matt nodded, so Jessica slipped off her sandals.

  As she did so, she heard Katya remark, “Was an elephant too big to see in the tea leaves?”

  Carmen snorted. “You did not see an elephant in her palm, you old fraud.”

  “Did I not see a decision?”

  “Put your foot here, Mom.” Sam patted the curve in Scheherazade’s trunk.

  Okay. This was it. “Wait for me right here, Sam.”

  “I will look after the boy,” Carmen announced.

  “And maybe he doesn’t want to go with you.” Katya smiled widely at Sam, but since she wasn’t wearing her good dentures, it didn’t have quite the reassuring effect she must have wanted.

  Sam looked doubtfully at the women.

  “The boy is thirsty,” Carmen insisted. “He’ll want tea.”

  “Tea is no drink for a boy. Give me your hand, young Sam.”

  “He is a boy! What can his hand tell you?”

  “More than your silly leaves.”

  “Ladies.” Krinkov interrupted them. “We are keeping Matt’s woman from riding the elephant with him. Young Sam, how would you like to learn the secrets of moving cards with your mind?” Krinkov split the card deck he held, showed Sam the ace of diamonds, put the deck back together and tapped the top. “Turn the card over.”

  It was the ace of diamonds. “Wow!” Sam said. “And I can do that?”

  “Only if you concentrate very, very hard.” Krinkov tapped his temple and led the way back to the table.

  Once, in another life, Jessica had studied deportment. Elephant mounting hadn’t been covered.

  “Did you see how Sam climbed down?” Matt asked.

  “Yes, but I didn’t see how he got up.”

  Chuckling, Matt leaned forward so far Jessica thought he might fall off. “Put your foot on her trunk. Now, grab my hand.”

  Jessica shut her eyes, as well, though she probably wasn’t supposed to. She felt Matt’s strong hand close over hers and then she blindly grabbed a handful of elephant ear. Half walking, half pulled by Matt, she ungracefully landed stomach down on Scheherazade’s back. With Matt’s hands on her waist, she managed to hoist her hips in front of him in the small boxlike seat.

  “Swing your legs over and you’re all set.”r />
  “Easy for you to say.” Jessica looked down at the waiting crowd. “How about I just ride sidesaddle?”

  “You’ll need to steer with your feet. Put them right behind her ears.” His hands steadied her.

  Or unsteadied her, depending which way she thought about it. Jessica bunched her full skirt above her knees and dragged her right leg over Scheherazade’s head, feeling the sparse, coarse hair.

  Matt encircled her waist and settled her firmly between his thighs. “Hang on.”

  He shouted something—Jessica wasn’t paying attention to exactly what—that must have been a signal for the elephant to get up.

  All her conscious thought was occupied by the fact that she was being cradled firmly between the strong thighs of a man whose attractiveness registered off the hunk scale.

  She felt...primitive, with her bare feet and nothing much except some flimsy material between her, the elephant and Matt.

  They swayed from side to side as Scheherazade got to her feet.

  “Take her for a long ride, Matthew!” Krinkov shouted, and the crowd laughed.

  “Bye, Sam!” Jessica called.

  Sam looked up, briefly waved, then returned to the important business of learning card tricks.

  “Why are they so interested in me riding the elephant with you?” Jessica asked.

  “I don’t know.” Matt still held her tightly.

  Jessica didn’t mind a bit.

  He leaned down. “Press your toes just behind her ear and say ‘muhl.’”

  She could feel his breath warm the skin of her neck and shoulder. “Muhl?” Her voice cracked.

  “Say it louder and with authority. Show her you’re in charge.”

  “Am I in charge?”

  “On this ride you are.”

  “Muhl!” Jessica pressed her toes into leathery elephant skin. “Muhl!”

  Scheherazade shuffled forward.

  “It worked!” she exclaimed.

  Matt laughed and his chest rumbled against her back. He briefly tightened his arms around her middle, holding her securely until they were well under way.

  Smiling, the people followed them for a bit, then stopped, even the little man in the white clothes Jessica had assumed was Scheherazade’s trainer.