Christmas with her Boss (8 page)

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.'

I
T 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 breakfast. 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.

‘Letty, hold on,' William ordered her, in a voice that brooked no argument. ‘Fingernails if you must, but do not let go. I'm coming.'

‘H…hurry.'

He was already climbing. ‘Keep still.'

How could you defy that voice? Why would you?

Nobody moved. Meg and Scott held to the ladder as if their lives depended on it.

Their lives didn't. Letty's did, and so did William's.

The roof was high pitched, curved, dangerous, and the ladder only reached part way to the top ridge. William clambered over the main eaves as if they weren't there. It was impossible to climb further, Meg thought numbly from underneath. The second gable was far too steep—but somehow William was doing it.

‘You'll fall,' she faltered.

‘Not me,' he said, finding footholds she knew couldn't exist. ‘Mountaineering 101—Basic skills for your modern businessman. Watch and wonder.'

She watched, and yes, she wondered, but it wasn't admiration she was feeling. It was blind terror. Please. Please.

And then somehow, unbelievably, William was on the upper ridge, edging himself toward Letty. Santa's sleigh was between
them. He shoved; it tumbled back behind the house and no one noticed its going.

He edged closer…closer…while below him Meg and Scott forgot to breathe.

He'd reached her. He was steadying, stabilising himself over the ridge, grasping Letty's wrists and holding.

He had her.

‘Don't move. Just lie limp and let me pull you up.'

Scotty choked on a sob. Meg gripped his hand and held, taking comfort as well as giving it. Letty wasn't safe yet. William was still balanced on a ridge with an already broken capping.

The ladder only reached to the eaves of the main roof, so what now? William might be able to climb up like a cat burglar. It was impossible that he climb down holding Letty.

‘Meg?'

‘Y…yes?'

‘I can't get us down,' he told her. ‘Not the way I came up. If I overbalance we'll both go.'

She knew it. They needed the fire brigade, she thought. They needed help.

They had no phone. The nearest neighbour was a mile away, but William already knew that.

‘I'm buying you a satellite phone for Christmas,' he muttered. ‘If it costs a million bucks you're still having one.' He had Letty solidly under the arms now and was hauling her upward like a limp doll. ‘So Letty, are you going to argue?'

‘N…No.'

‘Good woman.' One last heave and he had her on the ridge, into his arms.

She was safe, Meg thought. Or…safeish. With the capping gone the whole attic roof looked unstable but at least Letty was no longer dangling.

But… Her wrist looked hurt. She could see a crimson stain from here. She was losing blood?

William was inching backward along the ridge, heading for the chimney. He could lean on the bricks. Safeish was turning to safe.

Sort of. Until he came to get her down.

‘This cut's not looking good,' he said, almost conversationally, and Meg thought he was trying not to scare Letty. But she knew this voice. It meant he wanted action, fast. He tugged Letty hard against him, leaned back against the chimney to make them both stable, then ripped the sleeve from his overalls, as if it was gauze instead of industrial-strength cotton. He wound the fabric round her arm and held her close.

‘So how did you get up here?' he asked.

Letty didn't answer. Not a good sign.

He stared downward, seemingly as mystified as Meg. That Letty could have scrambled up the way he had seemed incredible.

‘There…there's another ladder,' Scott ventured. He was shaking, and Meg's hand firmed over his. ‘Another ladder?'

‘When I put the sleigh up I used two.'

‘You used two…'

‘It fell,' Letty muttered, her voice barely above a whisper. ‘As I reached the top. I grabbed, but it went and then I grabbed the capping.'

Meg was no longer listening. She was searching the under-growth, and here it was. Another ladder, buried behind the banksias.

Scott and Letty had both climbed up on this ancient roof using two ladders. Alone.

Were they out of their minds?

She shouldn't have left them. She should've been here. She should…

Just get a grip, she told herself. Blame needed to wait.

‘I'll get the ladder back up,' she called to William. ‘Hold on.'

There was no time for hesitation. She moved the main ladder along the wall so it was wedged against the yard gate, so Scott could hold it steady by himself. Then she headed up, tugging the smaller ladder with her.

‘Meg…' William sounded appalled. ‘What do you think you're doing?'

‘Scott's done it. Letty's done it. If all of my stupid family is intent on self destruction I might as well join them. There's no alternative.'

There wasn't. He knew there wasn't.

‘You fall and you're fired,' he snapped.

‘That's right. Resort to threats under pressure. You fall and I quit,' she snapped back, and caught the flash of a rueful smile.

But… How had Letty and Scotty done this, she thought, as she struggled upward. They'd climbed the first ladder dragging the next, each doing it alone?

She'd looked at Santa's legs last night and she'd thought the same as Letty obviously had—that she'd have a go at fixing him. But Letty was in her seventies, and that Scott could have tried with his leg in a brace…

She shuddered and she paused, half way up the ladder.

‘You can do it,' William said strongly and she looked up and met his gaze and took a deep breath.

During the years she'd worked for William she'd been given the most extraordinary orders. She'd done the most extraordinary things.

You can do it.

She loved working for William.

You fall and you're fired.

What did he think she was? A wuss? She climbed on.

She reached the first eave. She balanced herself, took a deep breath and swung the second ladder up to the next eave.

‘No,' William said.

‘No?'

‘It won't hold.' He sounded calm now, back in control. He'd obviously been using the time while she struggled to think the scenario through. ‘I can see where it fell. The guttering's broken and there's no guarantee it won't break again. You'll need to lie a plank along its length so the ladder's weight's on half a dozen fastenings instead of one.'

‘I'll get a plank,' Scott said.

‘Scott!' William's voice would have stopped an army.

‘What?'

‘Let that ladder go before your sister's down and you're fired, too. Meg, leave the ladder where it is and go find the plank with Scott. You do this together. My way or not at all.'

Meg looked at her boss. He looked straight back.

‘Let's do what the man says,' she told her little brother. ‘He's the boss.'

They found a beam, ten foot long. Scott heaved from below and she tugged. She laid it along the length of guttering. She shifted the second ladder so it was balanced on the midpoint and it was as safe as they could make it. Done.