Christmas with her Boss

by Marion Lennox

  ‘William,’ he said, and it was a snap.

  ‘William, then,’ she said and met his gaze for as long as she dared-which wasn’t very long at all.

  ‘Sleep well,’ he said and, before she knew what he was about, he reached out and touched her face. It was a feather touch, a fleeting brush of his finger against her cheek, but he might as well have kissed her. She raised her hand to her cheek as if he’d applied heat. Maybe he had.

  ‘Sleep…sleep well yourself,’ she whispered.

  ‘I’ll see what I can do,’ he said. ‘And Meg?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Thank you for rising to my challenges. I appreciate it.’

  He was still so close. She desperately wanted him to touch her again. She stood and stared up at him, but there was nothing to say.

  She desperately wanted him to kiss her.

  And where would businesslike be after that?

  ‘Good…goodnight,’ she managed, and then she turned and left him standing in the darkness leaning against a pregnant cow.

  She knew that he watched her all the way back to the house.

  He should move. He still had to get the carburettor in and he did have to get up at the same time as she did. Instead, he watched Meg’s retreating figure and when she disappeared he stood and stared at the darkened house, lit only by its ridiculous decorations. Santa’s legs were lurching at an even more alarming rate.

  That was the morning’s job, he decided. He’d do it after milking. Then he’d replace Letty’s exhaust pipe. Then he’d help Scott with the Mini. He was looking forward to each of them.

  So much for feeling trapped.

  This was a weird sensation. The McMaster family business, a vast mining conglomerate, had been founded by his grandfather. William’s father hadn’t wanted to go near the business. His grandfather, however, had found his retiring grandson to be intelligent and biddable, and he’d thrown William in at the deep end.

  That had been okay by William. He enjoyed the cut and thrust of the business world and in a way it made up for the lack of affection in his family. His grandfather had approved of him when he was doing well for the company, and on his grandfather’s death he’d simply kept on with what he was good at. That was what the world expected. It was what he expected of himself.

  But here… He’d forgotten how much he loved pulling a car apart. He’d loved his time with Scott.

  As he’d love returning to Manhattan, he reminded himself.

  When he finally arrived at Elinor’s apartment, his reception would be just as crazy as Meg’s had been. Or maybe not quite, he conceded. Ned was six years old and his little sister was four. They could bounce but they didn’t quite equate to a five-dog pack, a grandma and a brother. And Elinor… Her smile would be as warm as it was possible for a smile to be, but Elinor was a sixty-two-year-old foster mother and she welcomed the world.

  Like Letty.

  Like Meg, too.

  No. Don’t think about Meg, he told himself. It’s making you crazy. Meg was his PA. He was leaving in two days and he did not want to mess with their employer/employee relationship.

  The problem was, though, that he was no longer able to think of her purely as his employee.

  He’d called her Meg.

  Don’t think about her, he told himself again sharply as he headed for the shed. Think about people he could justifiably be attached to.

  Like Elinor. Elinor expected nothing, which was just the way he liked it.

  He’d been introduced to Elinor two years back, at the launch of New York’s Foster-Friends programme. The programme was designed to give support to those who put their lives on hold for kids in need. He’d been approached to be a sponsor, he’d met Elinor at the launch and he’d been sucked right in by her commitment. Elinor was everything he wasn’t-warm, devoted and passionate about Pip and Ned, the two kids in her care.

  Tentatively, he’d suggested helping a little himself. Part-time commitment. Walking away when he needed to. It sounded…feasible. ‘I’m not often available’ he’d said and Elinor had beamed as if he were promising the world.

  ‘Anything’s better than what these two have been getting up to now,’ she’d said simply. ‘It breaks my heart their Mama won’t put them up for adoption and they so need a Papa. You come when you can and you leave the rest to me.’

  The thought of letting them down at Christmas had made him feel ill, but Elinor’s big-hearted wisdom had come straight back at him.

  ‘I have a turkey. We have candy and paper lanterns and a tree. We’re going out today to see the fancy shop windows and then the kids are visiting Santa. You get home when you can and we’ll love to see you, but don’t you worry about us, Mr McMaster. We’ll do fine.’

  The relationship suited him fine. Elinor didn’t depend on him. She gave her heart to the kids.

  As Meg had given her heart to her half brother, and to a woman who wasn’t really her grandmother.

  Meg was a giver. His cool, clinical PA was just like Elinor, and for some reason the thought had the capacity to scare him.

  Why?

  He didn’t want to think about why. He reached the shed but he paused before flicking on the lights and going inside. He glanced back at the house-where Meg was.

  Don’t think about Meg.

  Those Santa legs were getting on his nerves. Maybe he should try and fix them now.

  And fall off the roof in the dark. They’d find him tomorrow, tangled in flashing Christmas lights, a cloud of self-pity hanging round his head.

  ‘So maybe you’d better go to bed and stop thinking about fixing things,’ he told himself.

  Things? Plural?

  What else needed to be fixed?

  ‘Letty’s car, the Mini and Santa’s legs,’ he said out loud. ‘What else is there? Why would I want anything in my world to change?’

  What indeed?

  The Santa legs were seriously disconcerting. He turned his gaze upward where a million stars hung in the sky, brighter than he’d ever seen them.

  ‘There are too many stars out here,’ he told himself. ‘They make a man disoriented. The world’s the wrong way up. I’ve had enough.’

  He flicked on the lights and went inside, but outside he knew the stars stayed hanging. Still the wrong way up.

  They’d be the wrong way up until he could get out of here. Which should be soon.

  Which had to be soon, because he was having trouble remembering what the right way up looked like.

  She lay in her bed and she thought-I am in so much trouble.

  Her boss wore jeans. He looked great with greasy hands. He smiled at her…

  Do not fall in love with your boss.

  How not to?

  It’s simply a crush, she told herself desperately. He’s been touted as one of the most eligible bachelors in the world. When he finally smiles at you like you’re a woman-like you’re a friend-of course you’re going to fall for him.

  Any woman would.

  So any woman must not make a fool of herself. Any woman had to remember that he moved in a different world to hers, that he was in Australia for three months of the year at the most and the rest he was with…

  A woman called Elinor in Manhattan?

  She so badly wanted the Internet. She wanted to check out any rumours. W S McMaster and a woman called Elinor.

  You have it bad, she told the ceiling and when the door wobbled a little bit on its hinges and slowly opened she almost stopped breathing. Was it…?

  Killer. Her dog had obviously decided his duty was with her rather than as one of Scotty’s pack. He nosed her hand and then climbed laboriously up onto her bed, making hard work out of what was, for Killer, hardly a step.

  ‘Your mistress is in trouble,’ she told him and he whumped down on top of her and she had to shove him away a bit so she could breathe. He promptly turned and tried to lick her.

  ‘Okay, you’re the only man in my life. And if I was to think about admitting another one…�
��

  Another lick, this time longer

  ‘Yeah, no room, you’re right. Forget it. We have to go to sleep. There’s milking in the morning and tomorrow it’s Christmas Eve.’

  She hadn’t written her Santa list. The thought came from nowhere. As a little girl, that was the major job before Christmas. In truth, as a child she’d usually started her Santa list in November.

  ‘Well, it’s no use asking for what I want now,’ she told Killer and then she heard what she’d said and she winced.

  But it was true. She did want it.

  ‘Me and every single woman in the known universe,’ she muttered. ‘Especially someone called Elinor. Killer, get off me and let me go to sleep.’

  She thought Elinor was his woman.

  He lay and stared up at the attic ceiling and thought through the events of the day-and that was the fact that stood out.

  He hadn’t lied to her. But he had let her think…

  ‘Defence,’ he told the darkness and thought-how conceited was that? As if she was going to jump him…

  He’d had women trying to jump him before. He knew how to defend himself.

  He wasn’t the least worried about Meg overstepping the line.

  The line.

  Meg.

  See, there was the problem, he told himself. He’d let himself call her Meg. He’d let himself think about her as Meg. She was his employee, his wonderful, efficient PA. All he had to do was go back to thinking of her as Miss Jardine and all would be well.

  But she’d felt…

  And there was another problem. He could give his head all the orders he liked, but his body was another matter entirely. When he’d tugged her down from the fence she’d fallen against him. Her body had felt soft, pliable, curving into him, even if only for a fraction of a second before she’d tugged away. And she smelled of something he couldn’t identify. Not perfume, he thought, and he knew most, but something else. Citrusy, clean…

  She’d spent most of the day surrounded by cows. How could she smell clean?

  She did, and this wasn’t getting him anywhere. He needed to sleep. He had a big day tomorrow, milking cows, fixing things… Trying not to think about Meg.

  Miss Jardine.

  Why not think of her? It was a tiny voice, insidious, starting from nowhere.

  Because you don’t.

  The thought of Hannah was suddenly with him, Hannah, holding him, loving him, and suddenly…not there. The pain had been unbelievable.

  His world was hard. He had no illusions as to what wealth could do to people, marriages, relationships. Wealth had destroyed his parents, turned them into something ugly, surrounded by sycophants in their old age. It took enormous self-control to stop himself from being sucked down the same path.

  And he had no idea how to cope with an emotional connection.

  It didn’t matter. His work was satisfying. His life was satisfying, and if there were spaces…Elinor and the kids were enough.

  They took what he had to give.

  Maybe Meg…

  ’Don’t even go there,’ he said savagely into the night. ‘You’re not as selfish as that. She deserves so much more.’

  CHAPTER SIX

  IT TOOK Meg a while to wake up on milking mornings. She liked working in silence for the first half hour or so, and that suited the cows. They usually seemed to be half asleep too, ridding themselves of their load of milk before getting on with their daily task of grazing, snoozing and making more.

  But, eventually, Meg woke up. Whether she was working with Letty or Kerrie, by the time milking ended she usually had the radio on, she was chatting to whoever was around, singing along with the radio; even the cows seemed more cheerful.

  But not this morning. Her boss seemed to have left his bed on the wrong side. He worked methodically, swabbing, attaching cups, releasing cows from the bales, but answering any ventured conversation with monosyllables. Yes, no, and nothing more was forthcoming.

  It was probably for the best, Meg decided as they worked on. Yesterday had threatened to get out of hand. She wasn’t quite sure what it was that was getting out of hand, but whatever it was scared her. She knew enough to retreat now into her own world and let W S McMaster get on with his.

  It was disconcerting, though. With milking finished, William handled the hose with none of yesterday’s enjoyment. She found herself getting irritated, and when Craig arrived to pick up the milk and gestured towards William and said, ‘So who’s the boyfriend?’ she was able to shake her head without even raising colour. Who’d want someone like this for a boyfriend?

  ‘He’s someone I work with. He’s stuck here because of the airline strike.’

  ‘And he bought the kid the Minis?’ It seemed the whole district knew about the Minis. Craig’s son had been under the car pile last night and would be back here this morning.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Good move,’ he said approvingly. He glanced across at William, obviously aching to talk cars, but William was concentrating on getting the yard hosed and nothing was distracting him. ‘Seemed happier yesterday,’ he noted.

  ‘He’s homesick.’

  ‘Wife? Kids?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then what’s he whinging about?’ Craig demanded. He yelled over to William, ‘Hey, Will. Merry Christmas. There’s no dairy pick-up tomorrow, so have a good one.’

  William raised a hand in a slight salute and went on hosing. Craig departed and Meg surveyed her boss carefully.

  ‘We’ve offended you?’

  He shrugged.

  Oh, enough. ‘It’s Christmas Eve,’ she said. ‘Lighten up.’

  ‘I’ll finish here. You go do something else. Don’t you have to stuff a turkey or something?’

  ‘Right,’ she said and stalked out of the yard, really irritated now. She was hungry. She’d intended to wait for William before she ate breakfast, but he could eat his toast alone.

  She detoured via Millicent, and that made her pause. Millicent was standing in the middle of the home paddock, her back arched a little and her tail held high. Uh-oh. When Meg slipped through the rails and crossed to check, the cow relaxed and let Meg rub her nose, but Meg thought the calf would be here soon, today or tomorrow.

  Here was another factor to complicate her Christmas. Letty would worry all day.

  Every now and then a cow came along you got fond of. Millicent was one of those. Born after a difficult labour, she’d been a weakling calf. A hard-headed dairy farmer would have sold her straight away. Letty, however, had argued the pros and cons with herself for a week while tending to her like a human baby, and after a week she’d decided she had potential.

  She’d named her before she’d decided to name the rest of the herd, and she’d been gutted when she’d been lost. Finding her had been a joy.

  ‘So let’s do this right for Letty,’ Meg told her and went and fetched her a bucket of chaff and shooed her closer to the trough. ‘No complications for Christmas.’

  There was nothing more she could do now, though. Labour in cows didn’t require a support person, at least in the early stages.

  Breakfast. Hunger. And don’t think about William, she told herself; he was yet another complication she didn’t need.

  And then a scream split the morning, a scream so high and terrified Meg’s heart seemed to stop. She forgot all about William, forgot about Millicent’s complications, and she started to run.

  The concrete was as clean as he could make it. No speck of dirt was escaping his eagle eye this morning and he finally turned off the tap with regret. Move on to the next thing fast, he thought. He had today and tomorrow to get through while keeping things businesslike.

  Meg would be in the kitchen, having breakfast. Yesterday he’d watched her eat toast. Before yesterday he’d never watched her eat toast. Yes, he travelled with her often, but when he did he ordered breakfast in his room. He wasted less time that way.

  But yesterday he’d decided he liked watching her eat brea
kfast. Dumb or not, it wasn’t a bad way to waste time.

  A man could waste a lot of time watching Meg.

  And that was exactly what he was trying not to think. He wound the hose back onto the reel with more force than was necessary and thought he’d see if Scott was in the shed yet. It was after eight. He could talk to Scott for a while and then maybe Meg would be finished in the kitchen.

  What sort of coward was he? What was to be afraid of, watching Meg eat toast?

  Meg. Miss Jardine.

  Meg.

  He sighed and ran his hand through his hair. Two days…

  He could do this. He turned towards the house, irritated with himself. All this needed was a bit of discipline. Containment.

  And then…a scream.

  Forget containment. He ran.

  It was Letty. Where? Where?

  As Meg neared the house Letty screamed again.

  Dear God…

  She was high up on the roof, right by the Santa chimney. Had she been trying to fix him? But now wasn’t the time for questions. Letty was dangling from the ridge, tiny and frail and in deadly peril.

  The roof had two inclines, the main one steep enough, but the attic gable rising even more steeply. The roof was old, the iron was rusting, and the capping on the high ridge had given way. Or was giving way. It hadn’t given completely.

  It was all that was holding Letty up.

  Scotty burst out of the house as Meg arrived. ‘Grandma!’

  ‘She’s on the roof.’

  The capping tore again, just a little, iron scraping on iron. Letty lurched downward but somehow still held.

  ‘Grandma,’ Scott screamed, his voice breaking in terror. ‘Hang on!’

  Meg was too busy to scream. How had she climbed? The ladder… Where? By the gate.

  But then William was beside her, reaching the ladder before she did. ‘Hold it,’ he snapped. ‘Scott, hold the other side.’

  The capping tore more, and Letty lurched again.