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
