The Tuscan Tycoon’s Wife

by Lucy Gordon

  ‘I’m Italian,’ he said evasively. ‘We’re supposed to believe in “that stuff”.’

  ‘No kidding! I’ll bet you think moon rhymes with June, and love is for ever and a day. Oh, boy, you’re priceless. Well, it’s a better line than Paulie’s.’

  He didn’t answer, and after a moment she was alerted by a new quality in the silence. Looking up, she saw Leo’s eyes dark with anger. He met her puzzled gaze with one of fire.

  ‘What did I say?’ she asked.

  ‘If you don’t know the answer I can’t tell you. But I’ll try. You reckon I’m no better than Paulie, that I’m handing you a line prior to pawing you about in the stable. Thanks!’

  ‘I didn’t mean-’

  ‘I think you did. Every man is the same in your eyes because you won’t take the trouble to look up.’

  He jumped to his feet and strode away from the stream to where the land rose sharply. At the top of the steep incline was a rock, and he scrabbled up there until he could sit on the top, staring angrily into space.

  Selena glared at him in her dismay, furious with him, herself, the world. It hadn’t occurred to her that she could hurt him. Her rough and tumble life had taught her directness but not subtlety. If you wanted something, you went for it, because nobody was going to give it to you. She had the tough skills of survival but not the gentle ones of beguilement, and for the first time it occurred to her that there was something missing in her armoury.

  She scrambled up the incline until she was just below him, and was relieved to see that the anger had faded from his face. She didn’t fear his anger, but it was his gentleness that was beginning to weave spells about her heart.

  He reached down a hand to haul her up, so that she could sit down beside him.

  ‘You’re not really mad at me, are you?’

  ‘Grrr!’ he said, like a bear.

  She chuckled, wrapping both arms around one of his and leaning her head against his shoulder.

  ‘I’m sorry, Leo. I’m always like this. I open my big mouth first and think later.’

  ‘You? Think?’

  ‘I manage it sometimes.’

  ‘You must send me a ticket. I’ll bet it’s quite an event.’

  She freed a hand long enough to thump him, then put it back, and they sat contentedly together for a while.

  He turned his head so that he could see as much of her face as was visible, and placed one of his big hands over her narrow one.

  ‘I really didn’t mean to lump you with Paulie,’ she said. ‘I should have known you’re not like him, groping around, trying to sneak a kiss.’

  Leo spoke quietly. ‘I did not say I didn’t want to kiss you.’

  ‘What was that?’ she asked quickly.

  ‘Nothing.’ This conversation was getting dangerous. He was too close to admitting what he really wanted, and shattering the delicate web of trust that was building up between them. And when he thought of what he would probably discover when they returned home he knew that web had to be protected at all costs.

  ‘Perhaps it’s time we went back,’ he said.

  They took the journey home easily as the sun slid down the sky. As they cantered back into the yard Leo exchanged a silent glance with Barton, and knew that their worst fears had been realised.

  ‘She said it herself,’ Barton told him, when Selena was out of earshot in the stable. ‘They took one look at her van and roared with laughter. Oh, they’ll pay for the damage, but only as a write-off. It won’t buy her any replacements.’

  ‘That settles it,’ Leo said. ‘It has to be Plan B.’

  ‘I didn’t know we even had a Plan A,’ Barton said, startled.

  ‘Plan A is the one that’s just collapsed. Now, this is Plan B…’

  He took Barton’s arm and drew him well out of the way, so that all Selena heard from inside the stable, was Barton’s roar of, ‘Are you out of your mind?’

  CHAPTER FIVE

  L EO not only meant to attend the rodeo in Stephenville, he was going to be a part of it. With what Barton called ‘more nerve than common sense’ he was determined to ride a bull.

  ‘Just one bull,’ he argued with Barton. ‘What harm can it do?’

  ‘Break your neck. That enough?’

  They were at breakfast with the family, and since they were at opposite ends of the table the others began looking back and forth like spectators at a tennis match. Jack, who studied even at the table, took his nose out of his book long enough to begin scoring them.

  ‘Barton I know what I’m doing,’ Leo insisted.

  ‘Fifteen love,’ Jack intoned. ‘Leo serving.’

  ‘In a pig’s ear you know what you’re doing,’ Barton retorted.

  ‘Fifteen all.’

  ‘It just takes practise.’

  ‘Been doing that in Italy have you? First I knew they had bucking bulls out there. Does it say Mama Mia! as it throws you off?’ Barton roared at his own joke.

  ‘Fifteen thirty!’

  ‘I just need to practise with your bucking machine.’

  ‘And make it my fault? No way!’

  ‘OK,’ Leo sighed. ‘I’ll just have to enter without getting any practise, so when I break my neck, it will be your fault.’

  ‘That’s hitting below the belt,’ Barton roared.

  ‘Let him do it, Dad,’ Carrie begged.

  ‘You want him to get hurt? Thought you’d taken a shine to him.’

  ‘Dad!’ she hissed in an agony of embarrassment.

  Selena had been enjoying the scene until then, but she pitied the girl, having her teenage crush exposed, and her misery compounded by a deep blush. Leo, she was sure, would pretend nothing had happened.

  To her astonishment he did just the opposite.

  ‘You see, I have a supporter,’ he announced, pointing at Carrie. ‘Carrie, you think I can do it, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said defiantly.

  ‘And you don’t think I’ll break my neck?’

  ‘I think you’ll be great.’

  ‘There you are, Barton. Listen to my friend over there. She knows what she’s talking about.’

  It was beautifully done, Selena had to admit that, watching Carrie’s blush fade and her smile return. In a few seconds Leo had ‘repackaged’ her crush on him into a friendship he openly valued. It was clever, and it was kind.

  Warmth and happiness pervaded her. She didn’t know why Leo’s kindness to someone else should give her that feeling. Yet it was like receiving a personal gift. The nicer he was than other men, the happier it made her.

  Grumbling, Barton gave in, and after breakfast they all went out to his mechanical bull, an electrically driven machine, designed to be ridden, that bucked and tossed to give the rider some practise in hanging on for dear life. It had a range of speeds, starting with ‘gentle’ for beginners, and Barton, to Leo’s disgust, insisted on setting it as low as possible.

  With the whole family and Selena watching avidly Leo sailed through the first test. Encouraged, he raised the stakes, and still managed to hang on.

  ‘Isn’t he wonderful?’ Carrie whispered to Selena. ‘You’d never know he hadn’t done it before.’

  ‘Yes, you would,’ Selena said with a grin.

  ‘Well, you know what I mean.’

  ‘Yes, I know,’ Selena murmured so quietly that Carrie didn’t hear her.

  Jack had joined them, another book in his hand.

  ‘Wanna know Leo’s chance of getting killed the first time he-?’

  ‘No!’ they both said firmly.

  A scream from Billie made them turn their heads sharply in time to see Leo flying through the air, to land with a crash, and lie still.

  Carrie buried her face in her hands. ‘I can’t look. Is he all right?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Selena said in a voice that didn’t sound like her own. ‘He isn’t moving.’

  She had the horrible feeling that time had stopped as she began to run to where Leo lay. As she reached him
he let out a hideous whooping sound. Again and again he made the dreadful noise and she felt time begin again as she recognised the symptoms of a man who’d had the breath knocked out of his body.

  She dropped down beside him just as he managed to half raise himself. Still unable to speak, he clutched hold of her while the hoots and gasps came from him without end. Selena held onto him, knowing there was nothing to do until he’d struggled back to some sort of normality.

  When the fit had passed he seemed exhausted, leaning against her and heaving. But then he looked up at the others who’d crowded around him, and gave his irrepressible grin.

  ‘I told you I could do it,’ he said.

  From then on they were in countdown to the rodeo. The town was filling up, Barton entertained a constant stream of buyers who looked over his excellent horses, nodded and reached for their wallets. Delia, a great entertainer, was in her element, giving parties and overseeing the stock of cowboy clothes and memorabilia for the stall she would set up.

  There was a strict dress code. Riders must wear a western hat, long-sleeved shirt and cowboy boots. Leo, who had none of these things, went to town among Delia’s stock, kitting himself out both for now and for Grosseto when he returned home.

  ‘They’re going to think you’re so fine,’ Carrie said, regarding him admiringly in his new stetson and decorated boots.

  ‘Nothing like a new hat to make an impression,’ Leo said cheerfully. ‘Let’s see one on you.’

  He settled a stetson on Carrie’s head, then one on Billie’s and finally on Selena’s, nodded with satisfaction and took out his credit card.

  ‘Delia, I’ll have those three as well.’

  In this way he contrived to buy Selena a present without offending her. He’d spent a lot of time working out how to do that.

  Sometimes they practised together. If he did nothing else in his life he was determined to ride that bull.

  On the face of it, it was simple. To stay eight seconds on the back of a heaving, thrashing mountain of furious bull. And live. That was the target.

  ‘Think you’ll do it?’ she asked him one evening as they limped stiffly home.

  ‘Do you think I will?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Me neither. I don’t care. I’m just doing it for fun. I’m no threat to anyone trying to earn a living.’

  She grinned. ‘That’s true.’

  ‘OK, OK, no need to rub it in.’

  Leo had graduated from the bucking machine to Old Jim, a real live bull. The problem was that Jim had mellowed with age. He liked people, and he took an immediate shine to Leo, which was pleasant in its way but made him useless for practical purposes. Leo could manage eight seconds on Old Jim’s back, but so could Selena. So, for that matter, could Delia, Billie and Carrie. And Jack.

  Selena practised fiercely, racing around the barrels on Jeepers, aiming to keep their time down to fourteen seconds, or even under.

  ‘Is that the “gold standard”?’ Leo asked her.

  ‘It is for here,’ she said, indicating the barrels that Barton had set up. ‘They’re not the same in every rodeo. Sometimes they’re further apart and that can be a seventeen-second circuit. But barrels at this distance should be fourteen seconds. Jeepers can do it. We’re just not quite used to each other yet. I still make mistakes on him.’

  As if to prove it she tried to take a corner too tightly and landed in the dust.

  Leo, watching from a fence rail, started to race towards her, but she was up at once, leaping back into the saddle to try again, more carefully this time. Leo retreated.

  ‘I thought you might have hurt yourself,’ he said when she dismounted.

  ‘Me?’ she asked hilariously. ‘With that little fall? I’ve had worse. I’ve probably got worse to come in the future. It’s no big deal.’

  He sighed. ‘Couldn’t you be frail and vulnerable sometimes, like other women?’

  She hooted with laughter. ‘Leo, what planet have you been living on? Women aren’t frail and vulnerable these days.’ She slapped him on the shoulder and every bone in his bruised body seemed to clang.

  What could you do with a woman like this? he wondered. You couldn’t say consoling things like ‘Let me make it better,’ because she’d think you were nuts and probably step on your toe, by way of bringing you to your senses.

  You could only wait and hope, certain that the sweet kernel was in there, however well hidden by the prickly skin, knowing that what happened would be in her own good time, or not at all.

  ‘Let’s go and rub ourselves down with liniment,’ she said.

  ‘I’ll do you if you’ll do me,’ he said hopefully.

  She chuckled and thumped him again.

  Barton was in his study that evening, watching for their return, and at his signal Leo halted Selena with the words, ‘Come back outside, there’s something I want you to see.’

  In the yard stood a Mini Motor Home, functional rather than luxurious, but a palace compared to what Selena had originally driven. Attached to it was a horse trailer, plain but of good design.

  ‘They’re yours,’ Barton said. ‘To replace the ones you lost.’

  ‘The insurers came through?’ she breathed.

  ‘The fact is,’ Barton said with a hint of awkwardness, ‘I don’t really want to go to my insurers about this. I haven’t had a claim in years, and if I make one now-well it would be cheaper if I just replace what I wrecked.’

  ‘But-I don’t get that,’ Selena said. ‘The damage to your car-it can’t be cheaper than-’

  ‘You just leave that to me,’ Barton interrupted. ‘It’s cheaper because-that’s how it works out.’

  ‘But Barton-’

  ‘Women don’t understand these things,’ Barton said desperately.

  ‘I understand-’

  ‘No, you don’t, you don’t understand anything. I’ve gone into it and-I don’t want any more argument. You take Jeepers, you take the vehicles, and we call it quits.’

  ‘You’re-giving me these?’ Selena asked, dazed. ‘But I can’t accept. My things weren’t nearly as good-’

  ‘But they got you from place to place OK,’ Barton said. ‘Well, this will get you from place to place as well.’

  ‘I-’

  ‘It’s no more than your right,’ Barton finished with a hunted look. He was running out of inspiration.

  ‘But Jeepers-’

  ‘He likes you. He works well for you. And the trailer will take two horses, so when Elliot’s recovered you can take them both.’

  ‘That won’t be long now,’ Selena said firmly.

  ‘Sure it won’t. But until then, Jeepers will keep you going.’

  Leo watched them in silence. One thing they all knew, although she wasn’t ready to admit it. Elliot’s rodeo days were over.

  He left Selena looking over her new home, and pounced on Barton halfway to the house.

  ‘I thought you were going to blow everything,’ he muttered.

  ‘Not my fault. She was bound to be suspicious. I had to improvise.’

  “‘Women don’t understand these things,”’ Leo scoffed. ‘No man dares say that these days, not if he wants to live.’

  Barton turned on him.

  ‘All right, you do better. Try telling her the truth. Tell her you’re paying for everything, and see how she takes it.’

  ‘Sssshh!’ Leo said frantically. ‘She mustn’t know that. She’d skin me alive.’

  ‘Great! Then we know where we are. Now are you gonna stand here yakking all night, or are you coming in the house for a whisky?’

  ‘I’m coming in the house for a whisky.’

  Everyone was up early on the first day of the rodeo. Delia and her daughters loaded piles of new stock into the truck. Barton checked off a list of contacts he was planning to do business with in a convivial atmosphere. Jeepers was groomed until he shone, and led out into the horse trailer.

  Instinct sent Leo into the stables in search of Selena. He found her, as h
e’d expected, in Elliot’s stall, caressing the horse’s nose, murmuring tenderly.

  ‘This isn’t for good, you’ve got to understand that. Jeepers is a fine horse, but he’s not you. It’ll never be with him like it was with you and me. We’re going to be together again. That’s a promise.’

  She rested her cheek against his nose. ‘I love you, you ramshackle old brute. More than anyone in the world. Do you hear that?’

  Leo tried to back out quietly, but he didn’t quite manage it, and Selena looked up.

  ‘Now who’s being sentimental?’ he asked kindly.

  ‘I am not. I’m just thinking of his feelings. Have you thought what it must be like for him to see another horse being groomed and led out for me to ride, in his place? Do you think he doesn’t know?’

  ‘I guess he knows everything you’re thinking.’

  ‘And I know everything he’s thinking.’

  ‘Well, what are you going to tell him if you win?’

  She whirled on him, an almost painful intensity in her face. ‘Leo, do you think I might win?’

  ‘Does it really mean that much?’ he asked, studying her face as though hoping to find something there.

  ‘It means everything. I have to make some money to keep going onto the next rodeo, and the next. It’s my whole life, everything.’

  ‘Well, if you don’t I could always-’ he stopped because her fingertips were over his mouth.

  ‘Don’t say it. I don’t take charity and I won’t take money from you.’

  He maintained a diplomatic silence. This was no time to tell her how much he’d already given her.

  ‘After all, why should you take financial risks for me?’ she went on. ‘Suppose I couldn’t pay it back? Where would you be?’

  ‘Selena, I’m not at my last gasp, like you. What’s wrong with letting a friend help you? There’s no law that says you have to be independent all the time.’

  ‘Yes there is. I passed one. It’s my law, the one I live by, and I can’t change. I do it myself or no deal.’

  ‘Selena, it’s not weakness to accept help.’

  ‘No, but it’s weakness to rely on it. You become weak by believing that someone’ll always be there for you. Because sooner or later, they won’t.’