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.’
