And William glanced over at Meg, caught her urgent, unspoken message and knew it was true.
‘So you’re milking morning and night all over Christmas.’
‘I like it,’ Kerrie said.
‘So if I said I’d do it for you…’
Both women drew in their breath. Meg’s face went still. She obviously hadn’t expected this.
‘If it’s okay with Meg, that is,’ he said and swooshed a mess of stuff from the ramp. Swooshing felt excellent.
Meg smiled. He liked it when she smiled. How come he hadn’t noticed that smile way before now?
‘It’s fine by me,’ Meg said, ‘but…’
‘But I can’t afford it,’ Kerrie said, suddenly breathless. ‘I mean…it’s a lovely offer but…’
‘But nothing,’ Meg said, suddenly rock solid, smiling at William as if he was Santa in person. ‘William’s offering to do it for free. I’m sure of it. I’ve budgeted for your pay so this is his gift to you. Let the man be magnanimous.’
‘Magnanimous?’ Kerrie ventured.
‘Manly,’ Meg said, grinning. ‘This is a very manly gesture.’
‘If you’re sure,’ Kerrie whispered, sounding awed.
‘Of course he’s sure,’ Meg said, smiling and smiling. ‘There’s so much women’s work to be done over Christmas, and what do the men do? They buy a bottle of perfume at the last minute, if we’re lucky. Even Scotty. He’s left his Christmas shopping to the last minute and I have to take him to Curalo this morning. I’ll stand outside the shop while he buys me the perfume I’ve told him I like and then I’ll drive him home and that’s his manly duty done. So here’s one offering to be truly useful…’
‘Wow,’ Kerrie said.
‘Yep, get and go before I change my mind,’ William said. ‘Or before I turn my hose on your boss. Happy Christmas, Kerrie.’ He moved his hose so the water arced in a wide semi-circle. How long since he’d done something this hands-on? There was a pile of dried dung beside the fence. He aimed his hose and the dung flew eighteen inches in the air before heading for the drain. Deeply satisfying.
‘Oh, wow,’ Kerrie breathed again, and she abandoned the kids and hugged Meg. Then she eyed William-with caution-anyone would regard him with caution right now-but finally emotion got the better of sense and she darted over the yard and hugged him as well. Then she flew back to her kids and bustled them into the car and away before anyone had a chance to change their mind.
‘Hey, that felt good,’ Meg said, heading back into the vat room and replacing the dipstick sort of thing she was holding into the slot at the side of the vat. ‘Did it feel good to you?’
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…’
