Christmas with her Boss (6 page)

He sent another cowpat into the air. ‘Absolutely.'

‘If you knew how much that means to Kerrie…' Then she hesitated. ‘Um… Sir… What are you doing with that hose?'

Sir? She'd called him sir. Of course, that was what he was. Wasn't it? But she was looking bemused so he turned his attention back to the hose. It had made a left turn and was now aimed straight into the drain behind the cow's drinking trough, forcing the contents of the drain up and in.

Uh-oh.

‘I guess the drinking trough now needs to be cleaned,' Meg said. ‘We'll need to empty it, scrub it, rinse it three times and then fill it up again. We don't want contamination, do we?'

‘Um…no,' he said and thought maybe there were a few skills he needed to concentrate on.

The milk tanker arrived just as he finished. The driver climbed from the cab and greeted Meg with delight.

‘Hey, Meggie.'

‘Meggie?' William said softly.

‘Just try it…Willie,' she said with a glower that made him grin, and went to meet the driver. William listened in while they caught up. Their talk was all about milk yields and fat content and bacterial levels. Meg sounded as he was accustomed to hearing her, smoothly competent, in charge of her world. But it was such a different world.

They gossiped on while he cleaned the trough and cleaned the yard surely cleaner than it had ever been cleaned before. Then the driver started emptying the vats and Meg strode over and turned his hose off. He felt bereft.

‘I was just getting good,' he said sadly.

‘You can do it again tonight,' she said and he started winding the hose around the reel by hand. She leaned over and grabbed the wheel and started turning. She was showing him up here.

But there was something else happening. The angel…

Her little Christmas angel was still hanging around her neck, and it was sliding down her breasts. He noticed.

She was wearing grungy old overalls, sort of mud-brown. She was wearing…what had she called them? Gumboots. Her hair was pulled back with an elastic band and she had mud smeared down the side of her face.

The top three buttons of her overalls were undone. Her angel was nestling on the soft swell of her breasts.

Lucky angel.

Why had it taken him until now to realise how beautiful she was?

‘Earth to William,' she said and he blinked and grabbed the wheel and started turning it himself, so fast the hose slipped off and he had to stop and start again.

Maybe this wasn't a good idea. Maybe he had to get away.

A thought…

‘You need perfume?' he asked.

‘No,' she said, bemused.

He didn't think so. Perfume would hardly fit with what she was doing right now. But…

‘But Scott wants to buy you perfume.'

‘He wants to go Christmas shopping. I promised I'd take him to Curalo. That's our closest major shopping centre—twenty miles from here.'

‘But you have things to do here, right?'

‘Right,' she said cautiously.

‘So could I take him?'

‘You,' she said, stunned, and he thought about whether he should take personal affront at the thought that she obviously thought him—and the rest of the male species—useless, and then he caught another glimpse of that angel and thought maybe not.

‘Would he mind if I took him?' he asked. ‘I could find an Internet place in town and do my contacting—kill two birds with one stone.'

‘That'd be fantastic,' she breathed. ‘Craig here says we should have signed the contract for our milk quota before Christmas. The manager's still at work, so Craig says I can get a lift back in with him. He can bring me back when he does the next farm. But then I promised Letty I'd help do the pudding. I need to check on Millicent. I need to see to the water troughs. I'm having trouble making everything fit.'

‘So it's a good idea?'

‘It's a fabulous idea,' she said admiringly. Her eyes were twinkling… Maybe she was manipulating him and it was such an odd experience…

People didn't manipulate him. Had she just manipulated him?

Who knew? This was one clever woman.

‘Would you be confident driving Letty's car?' she said. ‘I know you can drive on our side of the road.' More admiration?

‘Yes, but…'

‘Scotty would love to go with you. Christmas shopping with his sister, or go Christmas shopping with a guy, someone who won't make him wait outside lingerie shops? What a choice.'

‘You don't!'

‘He's always scared I might.' She hesitated, and the laughter died. ‘I… he's had a tough time. He'd enjoy going shopping with you rather than with me.'

‘His leg…'

She glanced across at Craig but Craig was bending down to pat Killer and was obviously not in too great a rush. She turned back to William and he realised he was being assessed. She held his gaze for a long moment and then gave a decisive little nod. Whatever test there'd been, it seemed he'd passed. Manipulation was past. It was time for honesty.

‘Scott's been through hell and back,' she said bluntly. ‘His leg was so badly smashed they had to put in a rod instead of bone. It healed but then they had to insert another rod because he grew. That got infected.' She swallowed. ‘He almost died. Again. The leg still hasn't completely healed but it will and he's okay to get around. He's really good on crutches. If you could…just do what he wants. And if you can think of anything he'd like, I'd appreciate that too. I've bought him so many computer games he surely must be over them but I'm hopeless at thinking of what a teenage boy wants. He's so restricted—but he needs a manly present.'

Her frankness was working as manipulation never could. But he could do this. He even puffed his chest a little. ‘So
you'd like me to take your kid brother Christmas shopping for manly presents? I can do that.'

‘Ooh, you're not my boss, you're my hero,' she said and before, he could begin to guess what she intended, she stood on tiptoe and kissed him. It was a feather kiss, almost a mockery, but not quite. It was a kiss of laughter and of sudden friendship, and why it had the capacity to make him feel…

How did it make him feel?

He didn't know and it was too late to find out. Craig was replacing his hoses and yelling, ‘Are you coming or not?'

‘I'm coming,' she called. ‘I'll just go lose my overalls and check with Scott. But this is a great idea. My milking's sorted, my brother will be happy and I have a superhero in the dairy. What more could a girl want?'

 

It took Meg an hour to get to the factory and back, by which time William and Scott had been gone for an hour as well. Which left Meg back at home, with no way of knowing when they'd get back.

She was worrying about her brother. She was also worrying about why she'd kissed her boss. It had been an impulsive gesture, the sort she'd make to anyone who'd done her a big favour, but somehow…it seemed more.

She couldn't think of kissing her boss. That made her feel weird. She went back to worrying about Scott.

‘You're worrying he's taken him back to New York?' Letty demanded as she caught Meg looking out of the window for maybe the twentieth time.

‘He can't. There are no planes.'

‘You've worked for the man for three years. Don't you trust him?'

‘Of course I do.'

‘Then why worry? Two hours is hardly time to Christmas shop.' But then she hesitated. ‘Oh, but wait. These are guys.
Half an hour there, half an hour back, five minutes at the perfume counter—yep, they should be back by now.' She grinned. ‘But maybe they're doing some bonding. He misses his father, does Scotty. Pass the raisins.'

‘You want me to mix the ingredients?'

‘I handed you the bowl five minutes ago—so you could look at it?'

Whoops. ‘Sorry.' She applied herself to her creaming. ‘Why didn't you do this before?' she asked. ‘Aren't puddings supposed to have been made a month ago?'

‘You didn't get any time off and I was milking. I'm not getting any younger. But, back to your young man…'

‘My
boss.
'

‘He doesn't seem to mind hard work.'

‘You say that like it's a compliment. He's addicted to work.'

‘Plus he's really cute,' Letty said and eyed Meg sideways.

‘He's my boss. I hadn't noticed.'

‘Right,' Letty said dryly.

Right?

So, okay she had noticed. What normal warm-blooded woman wouldn't notice W S McMaster?

But what use was there in noticing? For the three years she'd worked for him their relationship had been totally businesslike. Her boss worked far too hard for it to be anything else. He never noticed
her
, she thought. She was just one of his four PAs.

But sometimes… Sometimes when they'd been on a trip together, when they'd been working late, when she'd suddenly been a little too close, maybe even a little too familiar as tiredness crept in at the edges, she'd thought he made a conscious decision not to notice her, as if there were some barrier he couldn't cross.

As, of course, there was. He was her employer.

He was a billionaire.

She mixed the ingredients with her hands, letting the warmth of her hands meld the mixture. She was still staring out of the kitchen window, but she was no longer looking for the absent Scott and William. She was thinking of William as he'd been this morning. Mucking round with his hose. Enjoying himself.

She'd kissed him.

It had been nothing but a silly gesture, she told herself. It meant nothing.

Only that wasn't quite true. Meg Jardine had kissed William McMaster. The lines between boss and secretary had blurred.

Leading where?

‘You think that might be creamed enough?' Letty demanded and she looked down into the bowl and thought yep, it was getting so warm it was starting to melt.

There was an analogy somewhere here. Melting…

‘You want me to chop some nuts?' she managed and Letty grinned some more and handed them over.

‘Go right ahead. A girl's gotta vent her spleen on something. You're wondering how much perfume those boys are intending to buy, or are you wondering something else entirely?'

T
HEY
didn't appear for lunch and an hour later Meg was really starting to worry. ‘I'll take the tractor over to Jenny's and phone him from there,' she muttered. ‘They should be back.'

‘You'll do no such thing,' Letty told her. ‘They'll have found a football game or gone to the movies or chanced on something really interesting that only boys can understand. You didn't tell them a get-home-by time, for which I'm grateful because it's time we stopped mollycoddling our Scotty. Our Scott.' Then she spoiled it by glancing at the clock. ‘But I hope Will's fed him. And he didn't take any painkillers. If his leg's hurting…'

‘See,' Meg retorted and they both smiled, shamefaced.

‘Shortbread next,' Letty declared, so they made a batch, and then another, and they were almost desperate enough to start a third when finally the car turned into the drive. Meg just happened to be looking out of the window when it did.

‘What on earth have they got on behind?' she demanded, heading for the door.

The dogs were flying down from the veranda. Meg managed to stroll out with what she hoped was a little more dignity.

‘Don't say we were worried,' Letty hissed beside her and she agreed entirely. They hadn't been worried at all.

What did they have behind the car?

A trailer. A really large trailer. And on the trailer…

‘They've bought a car,' she muttered in amazement. Or…two cars?

‘So much for perfume,' Letty muttered. ‘This is never going to fit into a stocking.'

‘Come and see, come and see.' Scott was out of the car, shouting his excitement, and the dogs were barking hysterically in response. William emerged from the driver's side, leaned back on the car door and crossed his arms—a genie who'd produced magic and was now expecting appreciation. He was wearing jeans and a short-sleeved open-topped shirt. He looked…great. He must have stopped at a clothes shop, Meg thought, and then she thought
I kissed him
—and then Scott's excitement tugged her attention back to what was on the trailer

At the front of the trailer was a Mini Minor, the kind that had been almost the coolest car on the planet back in the seventies. Though maybe it hadn't been quite as cool as the Volkswagen Combi.

Um…what was she thinking? She hadn't even been born in the seventies. This Mini, however, looked as if it had been. It was truly derelict. The little red and rust-red car had no wheels, no glass in its front windscreen and its hood was missing. What looked like grass was sprouting from where the engine should be.

And tied on behind was part of another Mini, in even worse repair. Instead of suffering from neglect, this one looked as if it had been smashed from behind. The back had been squashed almost to the front.

There was also a pile of assorted bits tied on top, meaning the trailer looked like a mini wrecker's yard.

‘It's William's Christmas present to us all,' Scott shouted and her boss beamed and she thought again—he looks great.
Denim made him look
so-o-o-o
sexy—but somehow she managed to give her hormones a mental slap and ventured off the veranda to see.

William's Christmas present to us all…

‘We saw a sign just out of town.' Despite his bad leg, Scott was practically jigging his excitement. ‘It was in a paddock and it said For Sale. And parts as well. The guy restores Minis but his wife's put her foot down. He has three finished Minis in his garage and two more to restore and his wife says the rest have to go. So he sold us this. Two cars'll make one. He says there's enough here to make a complete one. He reckons if I start now, by the time I get my licence I'll have it on the road. If I get it going before then, I can practice in the paddocks. I can phone him any time I want, and if I'm really stuck he's even offered to come out here to help.'

‘He really will,' William said, still smiling. ‘This won't be any work for either of you. I promise.' His lovely, lazy smile lit his face and Meg thought frantically she'd have to give those hormones another slap.

‘I have faith,' he went on. ‘This'll mean eventually the farm has two cars. By the way, we also went to the motor place in Curalo and bought bits for your wagon, Letty. Your exhaust pipe has to be replaced and the silencer and so does the carburettor. If it's okay with you, I might make a start this afternoon.'

‘You…' Meg said, dazed.

‘I can fix cars,' he said neutrally. ‘And Scott would like to learn.'

‘You want to fix my car?' Letty said, while Meg simply stood with her mouth open.

‘If it's okay with you.'

‘Marry me,' Letty said, and Scott and William laughed—only, for some reason, Meg had trouble laughing. The sight of her boss in jeans was disconcerting enough, but she was
looking at Scott's flushed face and his shining happiness and she thought, why hadn't she thought of this?

Scott was practically stranded here on the farm. His bad leg left him isolated. There were so many days when he simply gazed at his computer, in misery and in loneliness.

He now had a car to make. And it was an original Mini…

Mickey would come, she thought, and more. This project would be a magnet. Scott's mates would come, as they had before the accident.

She was blinking back tears.

‘What's wrong?' William demanded, watching her face and clearly confounded.

She sniffed and tried desperately to think of something to say. Something to do rather than kiss him again, which seemed an entirely logical thing to do, but some germ of common sense was holding her back.

‘I…I wanted perfume,' she managed, and her little brother stared at her as if she was out of her mind.

‘Perfume…when you could have these!'

‘They're not very…girlie,' she said and somehow she managed to sound doleful and Scott realised she was joking and grinned and hugged her. Which was amazing all by itself. How long since her seriously self-conscious brother had hugged?

‘I'll let you drive my car,' he offered, magnanimity at its finest. ‘Second drive after me, the minute I get it going.'

‘What an offer,' she said and sniffed again and hugged him back and then smiled across at William through unshed tears.

‘Thank you, Santa,' she said.

‘Think nothing of it,' he said in a voice she didn't recognise and then she thought, no, she did know what she was hearing.

Her normally businesslike boss was just a wee bit emotional himself.

 

It was time for milking. Letty and Meg milked because, ‘I'm not interfering with this, even if I have to milk the whole herd,' Letty declared in wonder. Meg could only agree, for kids were arriving from everywhere. It seemed William had detoured past Mickey's with their load—‘just to show him,' Scott had told them, and Mickey had sent out word, and before they knew it a team of adolescents was unloading the heap of Mini jumble into the unused shed behind the dairy.

When milking was done Meg checked on Millicent—the little heifer was thankfully showing no signs of calving—then went to investigate. The teenagers were surrounded by Mini parts. William was under Letty's car.

‘Sorry. I know I said I'd milk, but Letty assured me she could and someone had to supervise…'

Some supervision. All she could see of William was his legs. He was in his borrowed overalls again and his gumboots.

On the other side of the shed teenagers were happily dismantling the wreck, labelling pieces with Letty's preserving stickers. She had a bunch of gloriously happy teenagers, and the guy who'd caused it all to happen was apologising. Meg stared down at her boss's legs and thought she could totally understand where Letty's proposal had come from.

And she'd never realised until now how sexy a pair of grease-covered legs could be.

‘So… So where did you learn mechanics?' she managed.

‘I told you. Powering up my father's golf cart.' His voice was muffled, but she was aware of an undercurrent of contentment.

‘And the rest?'

‘My parents were away a lot. They had enough cars to warrant hiring a mechanic. He taught me.'

‘Nice guy,' Meg said, deflected from thinking about legs—or almost. She thought instead of gossip she'd read about this man, about how appalling his parents sounded, how lonely
his childhood must have been. ‘Did this mechanic have a name?'

‘Mr Himmel.'

‘Mr Himmel.' She grimaced at the formality. ‘He called you Mr McMaster?'

‘Of course. Can you pass me under the tension wrench?'

‘Tension wrench?'

‘On the left with the blue handle.'

‘That's a tension wrench?'

‘And you a dairy farmer and all.'

‘Dairy farmers aren't necessarily mechanics. Plus I'm a commerce graduate. And a PA.'

‘Right, I forgot,' he said, but absently, and she knew his attention was on whatever he needed the tension wrench for.

She watched his legs for a little. His attention was totally on the car.

She watched the boys for a little. Their attention was totally on the car.

Guys doing guy stuff.

Befuddled, she headed back to the dairy, where Letty was sluicing. They cleaned almost in silence but she was aware that Letty kept glancing at her.

‘What?' Meg said at last, exasperated.

‘He's lovely.'

‘So why are you looking at me?' She sighed. ‘Anyway, he's not lovely. He's covered in grease.'

‘You know what I mean.'

‘Okay, I do,' she admitted. ‘But you know who he is, so you can stop looking at me like you think I should do something about it. He's William McMaster, one of the wealthiest men on the planet. He's my boss and I have one of the best jobs in the world. If you think I'm messing with it by thinking he's lovely…'

‘I suppose it would mess with it,' Letty said. ‘Falling for the boss…'

‘It'd be a disaster.'

‘I don't know how you haven't before.'

‘Because I've never seen him in overalls before.'

‘They do make a man look sexy,' Letty said thoughtfully. ‘That and carrying a grease gun. My Jack was always attached to a grease gun. Mind, once I had to get the grease off his clothes the novelty pretty soon wore off.' She sighed but then she brightened. ‘But times have changed. Domestic equality and all that. He could get his own grease off.'

‘You're seriously suggesting William McMaster could do his own laundry?' Meg even managed a chuckle. The idea merited a chuckle.

As was thinking of those legs, sticking out from under Letty's car. As was thinking that William McMaster was sexy.

Legs or not, even if the man carries a grease gun, he's still my boss, she told herself. A good servant knows her place. Just plaster that message across your box of hormones and leave it there.

 

They ate dinner on the run. The boys were in no hurry to go home. At dusk they took off, pack-like, whooping away on their bicycles, and Meg knew they'd be back first thing in the morning.

This was priceless.

Scott was almost asleep on his feet, but lit up almost as much as the Christmas tree in the sitting room. He fell into bed happier than she'd seen him for years.

Letty commandeered William to take him over to the shed to show her what he was doing with her car. Meg headed out behind the hay shed. Millicent was still doing little of interest,
the small fawn and white cow chewing her cud and gazing placidly out at the fading sunset.

‘Mind if I share your sunset?' she asked, and Millicent turned her huge bovine eyes on her and seemed to ask a question.

‘He's only here until Monday. Then it's back to normal,' Meg said, as if Millicent really was asking the question. Only what was the question? And what was normal?

She hitched herself up on the fence and started sunset-gazing. But she wasn't seeing sunset. ‘This is just a hiccup in our lives,' she said out loud. ‘But it's a great hiccup.'

She was under no illusion as to how big a deal this was. Ever since the accident Scotty's mates had been drifting away. They were nice kids. They included him when they could, but increasingly he was off their radar.

Today they'd returned and they'd hated leaving. Here was a project designed to keep kids happy for months, if not years. A project with a working car at the end of it… A Mini. They'd be back and back and back.

And it was all down to William. William of the sexy legs. William of the sexy…everything.

And suddenly, inexplicably, she was tearing up. She sniffed and Millicent pushed her great wet nose under her arm as if in sympathy.

‘Yeah, you'd know about men,' she retorted. ‘Of all the dumb blondes…'

‘Who's a dumb blonde?'

She hadn't heard him approach. He moved like a panther, she thought, startled. He was long and lithe and silent as the night. He leaned against her fence, and she had to hitch along a bit so he could climb up and sit beside her.

‘Dumb blonde?' he said again.

‘Meet Millicent,' she said. ‘Dumb adolescent blonde.'

‘That not a kind thing to say about an obviously sweet cow.'

‘She's oversexed,' Meg said darkly, struggling not to react to the way his body brushed against hers. There was plenty of room. Why did he need to sit so close?

‘Really?' It was William's turn to sound startled.

‘Really.'

‘So how do you tell if a cow is oversexed?'

‘She got out of her paddock,' she explained. ‘Not only did she get out, she got in again. We finally found her in our next door neighbour's bull paddock. Now she's pregnant and she's too young to have babies but that's what she's having, any day now. Letty's worried sick.'

‘What's to worry about?'

‘We don't know which bull it was.'