by Miranda Lee
As she drove along the highway on autopilot—her preoccupied mind not taking any notice of her surrounds—Samantha began to wonder if there were businesses in Sydney who ran that kind of course. What she needed, she decided, was a flirting coach, who gave lessons in what to say and how to act.
A few lessons in lovemaking might not be a bad idea, either! But she supposed there weren’t too many of those schools around. Or teachers. What a pity the two guys she’d slept with at uni had been clueless. What she needed to find was an older man who only wanted her for one thing and knew a thing or two about sex.
Anunmarried older man, she reminded herself when Paul’s face jumped into her head.
‘Darn it!’ Samantha exclaimed when she realised she’d driven right past the entrance to the stud.
Braking, she pulled over to the side of the road, and the semi-trailer which had been tailgating her practically took her side window off as it roared past.
‘Cowboy!’ she yelled at him out of the window.
She took her time making a U-turn, her eyes scanning the nearby paddocks as she did so.
‘Mmm. Must have rained while I was away,’ she remarked aloud. There was a touch of green about them. At this time of year the frosts had usually browned the grass right off, and the horses were mainly hand fed.
Not that they needed rain. Unlike other parts of Australia, the Hunter Valley rarely seemed to be affected by drought. The land was rich and fertile, flat along the riverbanks, then gently undulating as the land rose towards the Great Dividing Range. Perfect for growing crops and raising thoroughbreds.
Samantha turned into the wide gravel driveway, stopping in front of the huge black iron gates which were as impressive as every part of the property. The Dubar royal insignia was built into the middle of both gates, outlined in gold to stand out against the black.
Samantha zapped the gates open with the remote control she’d been given when she started work here. As she drove through, she recalled how awed she’d been by this place that first day. The no-expense-spared budget was obvious, from the freshly painted white wooden fences which enclosed each horse paddock to the magnificently modern barns and stables.
But it was the main residence which drew the eye as you drove up the long, wide, grey gravel driveway. A huge white-stuccoed, single-storeyed building, the house stretched across the top of a hill, its position giving it the perfect view of the valley below.
Samantha thought it looked like an abbey from an ancient land, with its many Moroccan style archways and cloistered verandahs. It certainly didn’t look like an Australian farmhouse.
But of course it wasn’t an Australian farmhouse. It was a mansion fit for a prince. An Arab prince, rich beyond most people’s wildest dreams.
A hundred metres or so below and to the left of the house was a smaller hilltop which had been levelled to make way for a helipad, from which Ali would fly to Sydney every weekend. His private and personal helicopter was huge and black. An ex-army aircraft, the interior had been fitted out with every luxury and security device. Or so she’d been told by Cleo.
Samantha had never actually been in it.
The helicopter was sitting on the helipad now, its dark silhouette faintly ominous against the clear blue sky.
Samantha wondered momentarily what it was doing there on a Monday. Usually Ali sent it straight back to Sydney after he returned on a Sunday evening. Despite his wealth, he did not keep the helicopter here all the time: it, and its pilot, stayed in Sydney all week, so they could be available for charter and mercy flights.
No doubt she’d find out the reason for its presence when she spoke to Cleo. That woman knew everything about everyone around here. Samantha would give her a ring once she’d unpacked her things and had a cup of coffee. Which reminded her. She’d better turn her mobile phone back on once she reached the cottage. Her five-day retreat from real life was over.
The driveway forked after a while, the short straight road on the left leading to the stallion quarters and the breeding barn, the winding road on the right heading uphill to the helipad and the house. Samantha took the track in the middle, which followed the river and would eventually take her to the cottage where she lived.
The river flats were given mostly to growing feed for the horses, oats and lucerne. Though not in the winter. It was also the site of the training track where the year-lings were broken in, and where some of the older race-horses were given light work after spelling on the property—the aim being to get some of the fat off them before they were sent back to their city stables.
As Samantha approached the training track, she frowned at a most unusual sight, slowing her speed to a crawl as she drove past. There was a horse on the track—odd for this time of day. The clock on the dash showed just after noon. It was a big grey horse, its bridle being held by a tall, dark-haired man wearing hip-hugging blue jeans and an open-necked white shirt with long, fullish sleeves.
Samantha didn’t recognise the man, but she sure recognised the horse. Smoking Gun was a highly prized stallion, flown over from England to stand here at stud this year at some phenomenal service fee. He had arrived a couple of weeks ago, to rest up after his first season in the Northern Hemisphere. His owner was the playboy Sheikh after whom Ali’s son had been named: Bandar. Ali had warned all the staff before the horse’s arrival that they were to protect the Sheikh’s horse with their lives.
The stallion had not settled all that well, and it required a lot of time in the exercise yard to stop him kicking holes in the walls of his stable. They’d moved him into a specially padded stall to prevent injury, but by the end of last week there’d been talk of sending for a particular groom back in England who was famous for handling difficult stallions. A gypsy, according to Cleo.
Samantha presumed that was who was launching himself into the saddle at the moment. The man certainly looked like a gypsy, with his black collar-length hair and deeply olive skin.
Sam’s stomach tightened when the stallion reared, then danced around in circles, fighting for his head. One part of her brain could see that a long, steady gallop around the track might be more settling than a short romp around an exercise yard. But what if the horse started racing at full speed? What if he broke a bone? The stallion was carrying a lot more weight than during his racing days. What if something unexpected happened, like a dog running onto the track or something? Smoking Gun might stumble, or veer off and run into the fence.
Samantha glanced worriedly around. There was no one else in sight. No one watching. Not a single soul.
That was even more odd.
Alarm bells began ringing in her head. Ali would not have sanctioned this idea, no matter how unsettled Smoking Gun had become. It suddenly became clear that this groom—this gypsy!—had taken it upon himself to do this without permission.
She had to stop him.
Jamming on the brakes, she was out of her vehicle in a flash. But before she could shout a warning, the gypsy gave the stallion his head. The grey took off, its mane and tail streaming back. By the time Samantha leapt up onto the fence the horse and rider were almost at the first corner of the track, the grey’s big hooves sending up clouds of dust.
Sam’s heart remained in her mouth as they thundered down the back straight. Too late to do anything now. If she started waving her arms around, or ran out onto the track in an attempt to stop them, she might cause the kind of accident she feared. She would have to wait till this idiot decided Smoking Gun had had enough exercise.
Thenshe would tell him what she thought of him.
Her blood began to boil when he completed not one, but three circuits of the track. The stallion’s grey flanks were spotted with foam by the time the rider reined him in, not all that far from where Samantha was now gripping the top railing of the fence with white-knuckled fury.
‘What in heaven’s name did you think you were doing?’ she threw at him, her voice literally shaking. ‘Did you ask Prince Ali’s permission to exercise Smo
king Gun in such a reckless fashion?’
The rider trotted the sweating stallion over towards her.
‘And who might you be?’ he shot back at her in an upper-crust English accent. Far too upper-crust for a gypsy groom.
Unfortunately, when Samantha’s temper was on the boil she had a tendency not to be too observant.
It was impossible, however, not to feel the impact of the man’s sex appeal. For a split second she just stared at him. What eyes he had! And what skin! His body wasn’t half bad, either.
Her momentary weakness annoyed her all the more.
‘I’m Samantha Nelson,’ she snapped. ‘One of the resident vets here. I presume you’re the supposedly expert horseman sent out from England? Look, I’m not saying you don’t ride extremely well, but what you did just now was foolhardy. So I repeat: did you have the Prince’s permission?’
‘I did not,’ he replied, his tone and manner so impossibly haughty that it took Samantha’s breath away. ‘I do not need his permission,’ he added, then actually tossed his head at her, as if he was king of the castle and she the dirty rascal.
It finally sank into Samantha’s momentarily addled brain that the man she was trying to tear strips off just might not be a groom, let alone a gypsy.
Her stomach contracted as she realised his looks were not dissimilar from Prince Ali’s, though he wasn’t quite as traditionally handsome as her employer. This man’s face was longer and leaner, his cheekbones harder, his mouth the only soft thing about his face.
Yet she found him far more attractive than Ali. He was as spirited as the horse beneath him—which, even now, wouldn’t stand still.
‘Ali has returned to Dubar for his brother’s coronation,’ the Arab informed her, his right hand tugging sharply at the bridle before reaching up to rake his hair back from where it had fallen across his face. ‘Ali has put me in charge here till his return.’
Samantha found herself floundering under this unexpected turn of events. Or was it this man’s overwhelmingly disturbing presence which was causing her normally sharp brain to lose focus? Finally, she gathered herself enough to absorb the facts behind his news. Ali’s father, the King of Dubar, must have died whilst she’d been away. Samantha also reasoned that this man could not possibly be a close relative—or one of the royal family—or he’d be back in Dubar as well.
He might be an Arab, but underneath his autocratic manner he was just another employee, like herself. A man too big for his boots in more ways than one. Samantha couldn’t seem to help finding him physically attractive, but she didn’t like him. And she wasn’t about to let him ride roughshod over her.
‘Well, perhaps he should have put someone with more sense in charge!’
His black eyes bored into her, his very elegant nostrils flaring in shock. ‘You are a very impertinent woman.’
‘So I have been told on countless occasions,’ she countered, with a defiant head toss of her own newly streaked blonde hair. Samantha supposed he wasn’t used to a woman challenging him, which made her want to challenge him all the more. ‘But I meant what I said. What you did with that horse was reckless in the extreme. Just look at him. He’s exhausted.’ At last Smoking Gun had calmed down, and was standing sedately beneath his irritatingly cool rider.
The Arab cocked a dark brow at her. ‘That was precisely the point. He needed an outlet for his testosterone. He’s become used to servicing several mares a day. He’s young, and has yet to adjust to his life at stud. He wants what he wants when he wants it—like most young male animals. In time, he will learn that all good things come to those who wait.’
‘Maybe so. But you can hardly ride him like that every day till he learns to control his urges. Or till the next season starts. It’s way too risky.’
‘Iwill assess the risk, madam. Not you.’
‘Put him in a larger exercise yard, if you must. Riding him full bore on this track, however, is out of the question. I’m sure Prince Ali would not approve.’
‘Whether or not Prince Ali approves is immaterial to me.’
Samantha fumed some more. The arrogance of this man was unbelievable. ‘I will contact the Prince,’ she threatened, ‘and tell him what you’re doing.’
The Arab actually laughed at her. ‘Do that, madam. Ali won’t tell me to stop. Smoking Gun belongs tome . I own every inch of this horse and I can ride him to death if I want to. I might contact Ali aboutyou , however. I might tell him that his lady vet is as foolish as she is fearless. No, no—do not argue with me any longer. The horse is tired, and so am I. You can argue with me over dinner tonight. Eight o’clock. Do not keep me waiting. My time is precious to me.’
With that, he whirled and trotted the weary horse to the track exit, not giving Samantha a backward glance as he headed back towards the stallion barn.
CHAPTER TWO
FORthe first time in her life, Samantha was left speechless by a man.
It took her a full minute to gather herself enough to make it back to the four-by-four, her normally excellent co-ordination in total tatters as she fumbled with the door handle, then banged her shin on her way up behind the wheel. Pride demanded she not look in the rear vision mirror, but her pride was in tatters too, it seemed. She sat there for simply ages, staring in the mirror, till Smoking Gun and his playboy sheikh owner were mere dots in the distance.
Only then did she pull her fatuous gaze away, telling herself it was surprise and nothing more which had robbed her of her usual composure.
Samantha began to fume once more during the short drive home. Who did this Bandar think he was, ordering her around like that? He might own Smoking Gun, but he didn’t ownher ! He wasn’t even her employer. Her contract was with Prince Ali, not him. She didn’t have to have dinner with him if she didn’t want to.
The trouble was, Samantha realised with considerable chagrin as she pulled up in front of the tiny weatherboard cottage which she currently called home, shedid want to.
The female in her—that part which could not deny he was the sexiest man she’d ever met—wanted to spend more time with him, wanted to look at him some more, wanted to argue with him some more.
Their encounter had left her angry, yes. But excited, too. Excited in a way she’d never experienced before. All her senses seemed heightened. Her skin tingled at the thought of being in his presence again, of having those gorgeous eyes on her once more.
A quiver ran down her spine at the memory of them, and the way they had looked at her.
Had he foundher attractive? Dared she hope he’d invited her to dinner because she interested him as a woman?
A quick glance in the side mirror put paid to that little fantasy. It was a passable face these days. Having her eyebrows plucked had really opened up her eyes. But she wasn’t about to grace the cover of any women’s magazines just yet. Her chin was too square, her mouth too wide and her neck too long. She did have good teeth, though. She’d have passed muster if she’d been a horse.
‘Heavens to Betsy!’ she exclaimed irritatedly as she propelled herself out of the four-wheel drive. ‘No wonder he called me foolish. Iam a fool for ever thinking a man like that would fancy someone like me.’
Slamming the driver’s door, she yanked open the back door and hauled out her bag. Everyone who’d ever read a gossip magazine knew that billionaire Arab sheikhs dated supermodels and socialites. Sometimes they even married them. You only had to look at Ali’s beautiful blonde wife to see the type they went for.
Samantha had her job cut out for her attracting an ordinary guy. The Sheikh was way out of her league in more ways than one.
‘Not that I really care,’ she grumbled as she marched up the steps which led onto the rather rickety front verandah. ‘The man’s obviously a male chauvinist pig of the first order.’
She just wished he hadn’t called her fearless. Wished those incredible eyes of his hadn’t flashed at her as he’d said the word. There’d been admiration in that flash.
Or had it been am
usement?
Samantha’s top lip curled at this last thought. She didn’t like the idea of being invited to dinner to amuse the Sheikh. But why else would he have invited her?
Her perverse mind—or was it her unquashable ego?—catapulted her back to the flattering notion that he just might have fancied her.
The chilly air inside the cottage swiftly brought Samantha back to reality.And the present. Lighting the combustion heater would have to take priority over indulging in more wildly romantic fantasies.
But by the time she’d walked into the front bedroom and dropped her bag by the bed, Samantha found herself wanting to hurry over to open the old wardrobe and take another look at herself—this time in the full-length mirror which hung on the back of the door.
Taking off her leather jacket, she tried to see herself as a man might see her, doing her level best to ignore her own preconceived ideas about herself. Her gaze started at the top, then worked slowly downwards. She turned sidewards, checking herself in profile, and then her bejeaned rear view, before remembering that the Sheikh hadn’t seen her from behind.
