She hadn’t accepted it, though. She’d fight it every inch of the way. But that meant staying employed so she could pay the bills. It also meant being nice to her boss over Christmas, or as nice as she could. Which meant throwing stones at a neighbour’s window three days before Christmas.
‘Bruce?’ Mickey called again and she hauled her attention back to here and now. ‘It’s Meg,’ she called to the kid at the window.
‘Meg?’ Mickey sounded pleased, and she liked that. She liked coming home. She liked it that every person in the tiny shopping town of Tandaroit East knew her, and she could go into every house in the district and find people she knew.
‘The phones are out and I have a guest here who needs to contact New York,’ she said. ‘Scotty…Scott said you have Skype.’
‘Hey, I do,’ Mickey said, sounding inordinately pleased. ‘I’ve never used it for New York, though. I don’t know anyone there.’
‘Would it be all right if Mr McMaster used it?’
‘William,’ said William.
‘Hi, Will.’ Mickey was clearly delighted to have company.
‘Are your parents asleep?’ Meg asked.
‘Dad is. He’s gotta milk at five. But Mum’s making mince pies. You want me to tell her you’re here?’
‘Yes, please,’ Meg said thankfully. ‘I don’t want to be caught creeping round the place at night without your parents knowing.’
‘Yeah,’ Mickey said in a laughing voice that said such an action had indeed been indulged in on more than one occasion before now.
And Meg thought sadly of how much of a normal kid’s life Scotty was missing.
So her boss used Skype while Meg helped Mickey’s mum scoop mincemeat into pastry shells. Jenny wasn’t much older than Meg, but while Meg had gone to university and then to a career, Jenny had married her childhood sweetheart at seventeen and had Mickey nine months later.
She could have done the same, Meg thought, feeling nostalgic and a bit jealous as she took in the cosy farm kitchen, the muddle of Christmas baking, the detritus of a farming family, with twin girls of nine as well as Mickey.
‘This place looks gorgeous,’ Meg said, sitting on an ancient kitchen chair and scooping mincemeat.
‘Nope,’ Jenny said and grinned. ‘Gorgeous is what’s up in Mickey’s room right now.’ Jenny had been introduced before Mickey had taken William off to link him with the other side of the world, and Meg could see her friend adding two and two and making seventeen.
‘You mean my boss.’
‘I mean the man you’ve brought home for Christmas. Yum. I’ve seen him in the gossip rags and he’s even more gorgeous in the flesh. He’s a squillionaire. He’s your boss. And you’ve got him for Christmas.’
‘You can have him if you want him,’ Meg said morosely. ‘He might be happier here. You have a computer.’
‘Yeah, and I have twins and Ian’s extended family arriving tomorrow to stay for a week. There’ll be eight kids in the house. Heaven help us.’ But she was smiling as she said it and Meg thought, even though she had never understood Jenny’s decision to marry and make a home so early, maybe… just maybe it made sense.
‘You’re not getting clucky,’ Jenny demanded, following her gaze, and Meg realised she was staring at a pile of paper chains at the far end of the table. She remembered making them as a kid.
‘I have spare paper,’ Jenny said happily. ‘You can help your boss make paper chains. Very bonding.’
‘Very funny.’
‘No, I think it’s lovely,’ Jenny said, getting serious. ‘To have him here for Christmas… Oooh, Meg. But does he have a girlfriend?’
‘I have no idea.’
‘No idea?’
‘Well, I’m his PA and I haven’t been told to send flowers to anyone lately. But he was desperate to use the phone.’
‘So who’s he ringing?’
‘I have no idea.’
‘I’ll ask Mickey.’
But Mickey, who wandered into the kitchen two minutes later, was no help at all.
‘Yeah, he’s talking but I put my headset on and left him to it. Nah, I didn’t hear who to. Mum, you reckon it’s too late to put another CD on my Christmas list? I’ve just found this sick new band…’
‘Forget it,’ his mother said. ‘Santa asked for a list a month ago and you couldn’t think of anything except a farm bike, which you know we can’t afford. So what are you giving William for Christmas, Meg, love?’
Uh-oh. Here was yet another problem she hadn’t thought through.
On Christmas morning she sat under the Christmas tree and opened presents. Lots of presents.
Meg’s mother had always believed in…excess. She’d loved Christmas with a passion and Meg had still been getting a Santa stocking at twenty-five.
The next year, with her parents dead, Meg had over-compensated, and so had Letty and, to their delight, so did Scott. He’d plundered his piggy bank and asked the nurses to help him.
They’d had a silly, over-the-top Christmas in Scotty’s hospital ward, and the tradition had thus continued.
So Meg’s last minute Christmas spree had filled her baggage with gifts but there wasn’t a lot she could recycle for William.
‘He has everything,’ she said, feeling hopeless.
‘He hasn’t got Skype,’ Mickey said.
‘He will next week when he goes back to New York.’
‘So buy him a satellite dish for the weekend,’ Mickey said cheerfully. ‘Then Scotty can use it after he leaves.’
Right. With what?
‘That’s just a bit more money than I had in mind to spend,’ she retorted and Mickey screwed up his nose and sloped off to watch television in the other room. Grown-up problems. Not his.
‘So how’s the debt reduction going?’ Jenny asked. Jenny had been one of the many who’d come to Meg’s aid after the crash. She knew of Meg’s debt. Scott’s medical expenses were colossal, and on top of that they’d had to keep the farm going when there was no one to run it.
‘It’s okay,’ she told her friend. As long as I’m not sacked, she added under her breath. But I’m probably sacked, so let’s not go there.
‘So it’s just a present for Mr Sexy-Eyes. Can you knit?’
‘No!’
‘So that’s home-made socks out of the question. Leaves only aftershave,’ Jenny said. ‘Ian gets some every year from his Aunty Merle, only Merle hasn’t noticed that Ian’s had a full beard for twenty years now. I’m happy to donate a gallon or six.’
‘I suspect he uses his own.’
‘I guess he would,’ Jenny said, sliding one batch of mince pies out of the oven and another in. ‘So there’s nothing in the world he needs.’
‘Except a plane out of here.’
‘Out of your control, love,’ Jenny said. ‘It’ll have to be aftershave.’ She glanced up at the ceiling. ‘I’d so love to be a fly on the wall, wouldn’t you? I wonder who he’s talking to?’
‘It’s not my business,’ Meg said, a bit too primly, and Jenny laughed.
‘You mean the walls are too thick and there’s no way we can find out. Let’s face it, you’re interested, and why not? He’s the most eligible man on the planet, as well as the most gorgeous. As well as that, he’s your house guest for three days. You have him trapped. Meg darling, if you don’t try and get him interested-seriously interested-you have rocks in your head.’
‘Finished,’ William’s voice growled from the door and they both jumped and Meg did her blushing thing again. That was twice now. All I want for Christmas is my dignity, she thought desperately, as Jenny stifled laughter.
‘Did…did you get onto who you wanted?’ she managed, wondering how pink her face was.
