Christmas with her Boss

CHAPTER TEN

WILLIAM woke to an operatic soprano belting out Silent Night right underneath his attic. Letty was singing along, almost louder than the soprano. A couple of dogs were joining right in.

Five-thirty. He’d been in bed for what-two and a half hours-and he’d lain awake for at least one of them.

He groaned and put his pillow over his head and then Scotty started singing too, and more dogs joined in, full howl.

Christmas. Hooray.

Feeling more like Scrooge every minute, he hauled his jeans on and staggered downstairs. The kitchen table was groaning with food in various states of preparation. Letty was wearing a truly astonishing crimson robe and a Santa hat. Scotty was sitting in his pyjamas, shelling peas. The difference between now and yesterday was astonishing.

‘Happy Christmas,’ Letty said, beaming. ‘Great pecs.’ Then, as he tried to figure whether to blush, she motioned to the sound system in the corner where, mercifully, Silent Night had just come to an end. ‘My favourite carol. You want us to play it again?’

‘She’ll make you sing,’ Scotty warned and William looked at the pair of them and saw exactly why Meg loved them to bits. A blushing adolescent and an old lady with her arm bandaged to her elbow, a lady who had almost died yesterday, who was now stirring something vaguely alcoholic, or possibly more than vaguely.

‘Eggnog,’ Letty said, following his gaze. ‘Just on finished. You want first glass?’

‘At five-thirty in the morning?’

‘Yeah, it’s late,’ Letty said. ‘Meg’s already milking, without her eggnog. You want to take some over to her?’

‘No,’ he said, revolted.

‘What’s wrong with my eggnog?’

‘If I’m going to help her milk, I need to be able to count teats.’

‘He has trouble getting to four, Grandma,’ Scotty said kindly. ‘We’d better let him off eggnog till the girls are milked.’ He hesitated. ‘You will help milk, won’t you? Meg said you helped so much last night that she wouldn’t wake you, but she’ll be ages alone.’

‘I could help,’ Letty said darkly. ‘Only she won’t let me.’

‘With your arm? You’re as dodgy as I am,’ Scott retorted and once again William was hit with the sensation that he was on the outside, looking in. Family?

‘Okay, toast and coffee and no eggnog until afterwards, but there’s home-made raspberry jam,’ Letty told him, moving right on. ‘And real butter. None of that cholesterol-reducing muck this morning.’

‘Grandma…’ Scott said and Letty grimaced and held up her hands in surrender.

‘I know. Back to being good tomorrow. You needn’t worry, young man; I intend to be around to boss you for a long time to come.’

‘So no more Santa rescues.’

‘I’ll be good,’ she said and William saw a flash of remembered terror from yesterday and he thought she wasn’t as tough as she was making out. She was brave, though. And he saw Scott worrying about her and he thought that courage came in all guises.

They were all brave. And Meg… What she’d been trying to do for all of them since her parents’ death…

‘So you know about Millicent’s calf,’ he ventured, feeling really off centre, and they both grinned, happiness returning.

‘Of course we do,’ Scott said. ‘She’s gorgeous. And Meg said you got a backward hoof out. I wish she’d called me. I could’ve have helped.’

‘There’ll be lots of calves for you to help in the future,’ Letty said roundly. ‘We’ll get your leg right first. We’re just lucky William was able to help. We’re very pleased to have you here,’ she said to William. ‘Now, Meg checked the news before she milked and she says the planes are running again. She and Scott checked flights and there are some available. She said to tell you when you woke up. But you don’t want to leave yet, do you?’

‘I…’

Did he want to leave? They were looking at him expectantly. Over in the dairy, Meg was milking, alone.

His world was twisting, as if it was trying to turn him in a direction he hadn’t a clue about.

‘I do need to go,’ he said at last and it was as if the words were dragged out of him. ‘If I help with the milking now, Scott, would you mind making me a list of flights and times?’

‘Today?’ ‘Yes, please.’

‘You really want to leave?’ Scott demanded incredulously, and William thought about last night, thought about holding Meg. Thought about holding Meg again.

If he got any closer…

If Letty had fallen yesterday… If Scotty had been killed in that accident…

If anything happened to Meg…

Do not get close. Do not open yourself to that sort of pain.

‘I don’t want to go,’ he said, striving not to let his voice sound heavy. ‘How could I want to leave Letty’s eggnog? But I do need to get back to Manhattan as soon as possible. So please let me know which flight might be available.’

‘Okay,’ Scotty said and, even if the kid did sound disappointed, William couldn’t let that stand in the way of a decision that must be made.

He headed back upstairs to dress and, as he did, Letty adjusted the sound system. Next on the playlist was Deck the Halls and she turned the sound up even louder.

This place was crazy.

Of course he had to get out of here.

Meg was milking, head down behind a cow. When he reached the yard she didn’t emerge, just kept on doing what she was doing. Killer and the rest of the dog pack greeted him with pleasure but there wasn’t a lot of pleasure emanating from Meg.

That had to be okay by him. Maybe it was even sensible. He ushered the next cow into a bale and started doing what had to be done. He was getting good at this. Where could he use this new skill when he left?

Would he ever milk a cow again?

‘Happy Christmas,’ Meg said at last from behind her cow and he thought she sounded exhausted. Had she slept at all?

He wanted to tell her to go back to bed, that he’d take over. He couldn’t. Yes, he’d learned new skills but he couldn’t milk by himself yet.

If he left today… Would she be milking the cows alone?

‘Happy Christmas,’ he replied at last. Cautiously.

‘The airlines are back. I’m sorry but I didn’t have time to check flights before milking.’

‘Not good enough,’ he growled, trying for a smile, but she stiffened and said nothing.

‘I was joking.’

‘I know.’

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘Bad joke.’

‘I’m sorry too,’ she said, straightening and heading out to fetch another cow in. ‘Last night…it should never have happened. It was like… I’d been so worried. It was reaction; nothing more.’

‘It felt like more.’

‘Well, it wasn’t,’ she snapped. ‘Fortunately, the airlines are operating. We’ll see if we can get you a flight out tonight.’

‘What about milking?’

‘What about milking?’

‘Who’s going to do it?’

‘I will,’ she said. ‘I’ve done it alone plenty of times before. It just takes longer.’

‘You’re exhausted already.’

‘Kerrie’s back tomorrow-she’s coming for lunch today so maybe she can even help tonight-and I can sleep in the middle of the day.’

‘And then you need to job hunt.’

‘I believe I’m still employed by you until my contract expires.’

‘So you are.’

‘So I’ll keep the office operating here as my contract specifies. That’ll give me time to find something else.’

They were being absurdly formal, he thought, but maybe formal was the only thing to be.

‘What sort of job do you want?’ he asked.

‘I’m a qualified accountant.’

‘You’ll do accountancy in a provincial city?’

‘What’s wrong with that?’

‘What a waste.’

She didn’t bother responding. She just kept right on milking.

‘You don’t need to keep the office operating,’ he said at last.

‘You can’t dismiss me without notice.’

‘I’m not dismissing you. I’ll pay you till the end of your contract.’

‘Then I’ll work till the end of my contract. I’ve taken enough from you. I can’t take any more.’

‘I’d like to give more.’

‘Like what?’ she said from behind her cow and he thought about it. What would he like to give her?

Money. Security. The knowledge that she wouldn’t have to get up to milk a cow unless she wanted to.

The ability to drop everything and be with Scott when and if he needed further operations. The ability to care for Letty as she needed to be cared for. Financial freedom to call the vet whenever she needed the vet.

Freedom to have a bit of fun.

But this was nothing he could do. He’d given Scott his old cars. He’d given Meg dresses and he’d given them all the satellite dish. He knew without asking that she’d accept nothing else.

So there was nothing more he could do. There was nothing more he should do. As soon as his flight was confirmed, he could walk away and not look back.

That was what he wanted, wasn’t it? Anything else was way too complicated.

Dogs. Cows.

Family.

‘We’d best get a move on,’ she said across his thoughts. ‘We don’t do Santa until the cows are done and then there’s church and then there’s eggnog.’

‘You don’t do eggnog until after Santa and church?’

‘Not very much,’ she said and managed a smile. ‘Grandma doesn’t tip up the brandy bottle until we’re all safe home.’

Milking finished, William swished the dairy while Meg went to check on Millicent and the brand new Milly. They were standing contentedly in the home paddock, Milly at her mother’s teat, no sign of the trauma associated with her birth.

If she was a hard-headed businesswoman, she’d remove the calf now, Meg thought ruefully as she looked down at the pretty little calf. After the first few hours, when the calf had taken the all important colostrum, efficient dairy practice was to remove the calf and get the cow straight into mass production.

Only neither Letty nor Meg were hard-headed. The calves stayed with their mothers until Letty decreed they were ready to be independent, which lost them milk production but probably made them a healthier herd. Or possibly made them a healthier herd. Or not.

It was a decision of the heart, not of the head.

‘Like me stopping working for William,’ she told Millicent and sat on the edge of the trough while she watched the cow and her new little calf. Killer nosed up beside her and shoved his head against her ribs. She hugged him tight and suddenly she felt like crying.

‘And that’s also dumb,’ she told Killer. ‘Why cry? For that matter, why quit? Working for the McMaster empire’s the best job I’ve ever had. Why can’t I keep on doing it? Why can’t I ignore how I feel about him and get on with it?’

She knew she couldn’t.

He was watching her. He was sluicing the yard but she could feel his gaze. She hugged her dog hard, then straightened her shoulders and rose and tried to look professional, as if she was examining cow and calf as a proper dairy farmer should. In terms of what she could make from them.

Millicent’s eyes were huge and contented and maybe a little bit wondrous. While Meg watched, she started to lick her calf and the little calf kept right on feeding.

Drat, those tears kept right on welling.

‘Happy Christmas, you great sook,’ she told herself angrily and swiped at her cheeks with venom. ‘Get a grip. And stop crying right now.’

She had to stop crying. William was finished in the yard. She should wait for him and walk him back to the house.

He was helping her. It’d be only civil to walk back.

But the feeling of that kiss of the night before was too huge, too raw, too real. It was threatening to overwhelm her.

‘If I head back now I get first shower,’ she told Killer. ‘That’s what a hard-headed, professional dairy farmer should do. And that’s what I am.’

Right.

‘Go fast before he catches up.’

Even more right. Or not.

He’d never seen a Christmas tree like it.

They’d been so busy, William had hardly been in the sitting room until now, but after a second breakfast and a little eggnog-yes, the serious stuff would come after church-Letty bossed them into the sitting room for present opening.

The tree was real but it wasn’t pine. ‘There are no pines here and there’s no way I’m spending money importing one,’ Letty growled, following his gaze. ‘This might not be what you’re used to, but it’s okay with us.’

It was a small gum tree in a vast pot on wheels. ‘We pull it in and pull it out every year,’ Letty said while Meg said nothing. ‘This year’s the last for this tree; she’s getting too big. We’ll plant her out but there’s already a new one coming on to take her place.’

And that made him feel weird as well. The thought of such continuity. A long line of trees, each taking its turn as a Christmas tree before growing to be one of the huge gums that surrounded the farm. Fantastic. And sort of…grounded. Good.

The decorations were great as well, all home-made, some wonderful, some distinctly corny.

‘They date from the time Meg arrived here,’ Letty said proudly. ‘She made paper chains, her mum made the balls and lanterns, then Scotty came along and here’s his kindergarten things…’

‘Grandma…’ Scott said, revolted, and Letty chuckled and tossed him a gift.

It was a sweater. Home knitted. Scott made a truly manful effort to look pleased and the hug he gave his grandma was genuine. He put it on. Red and green stripes. Just the thing…

‘For winter,’ he said, and Letty beamed with pleasure.

Meg said, ‘But take it off before you faint in the heat.’

Scott threw his sister a look of such gratitude that William had trouble not to laugh out loud. As he did with so many of the gifts they were opening, small jokes, trivia, fun.

And then there was a gift in his hands. He stared down at the box-small, flat, red and tied with gold ribbon.

‘You’ve done enough for us,’ Meg said softly. ‘We can’t possibly repay you, but this is the least we can do.’

He opened the box, feeling disoriented, as if he’d been transported to another world. Inside was a certificate, folded neatly.

He read through, trying to make it out.

He’d been given…a part-time dog?

‘Scott and I found it on the Internet,’ Meg said as he looked up, astounded. ‘It’s an animal shelter in Manhattan, and it’s not far from where you live. This gives you visiting rights. More. What you do is adopt a dog whenever you’re in town. If you’re based in New York for three months, then you take a dog for three months. You can take her back to the shelter at night if you want, or you can keep her at home, or you can simply take her out for a run each day. Whatever you want. You give your time and the shelter takes over what you can’t provide. The only stipulation is that she’s still available for permanent adoption. This plan means the shelter can take far more dogs than they could otherwise care for, and they don’t have to put them down. But if someone wants to adopt one permanently, then you need to choose another.’

A part-time dog, he thought. Like Ned and Pip and Elinor. His part-time family. Good. Excellent.

So why did it make him feel empty?

Luckily, Scott was filling his silence. ‘The dog you’ve semi-adopted is Sheeba,’ he told William. ‘Her photograph’s in the bottom of the box. She’s part greyhound, part Dalmatian. I reckon she should be your first.’

‘Because every man needs a dog,’ Letty said solidly.

William glanced out towards the kitchen. The dogs weren’t permitted in the sitting room. There were five dogs squashed in the doorway, each nose managing to claim an inch of sitting room carpet.

Every man should have a dog. A part-time dog.

He watched as Meg opened yet another extraordinary knitted object and hugged Letty and giggled, and then watched as Scott and Letty were both ordered to open their gifts from Meg together, so they did, and they were bazooka-like machine guns loaded with foam balls. Christmas immediately became a running battle between grandmother and grandson. Who’d have thought Letty had been close to death yesterday, and who’d have ever thought of giving a grandmother a foam ball-shooter?

He looked at Meg and Meg was giggling like a kid-and he thought he was never going to see her again.

He started gathering wrapping paper, and then Letty remembered the turkey and Scott remembered flights.

‘Oh, whoops, sorry,’ he said, firing a foam ball at Killer, who caught it neatly in his mouth, bit it in two and then looked expectantly for more. ‘Killer!’

‘Sorry, what?’

‘Your flights.’ He looked to Meg, as if to confirm he was doing the right thing. ‘I checked while you were milking. If you really want to go…’

‘What have you found?’ Meg asked.

‘There’s a flight at nine tonight. You could catch the four o’clock train back to Melbourne and take the skybus to the airport. It all fits. Is that okay, Meg?’

‘He’s used to private cars,’ Meg said, not looking at William. ‘But it sounds okay.’ She rose and headed out to the kitchen after Letty, tossing her words over her shoulder. Still carefully not looking at him. ‘Is that okay with you, William? You can have Christmas dinner and we’ll drive you to the train.’

‘He’ll need extra weight allowance after Grandma’s pudding,’ Scott joked and Letty hooted from the kitchen, but William didn’t laugh.

He couldn’t see Meg any more. She was behind the kitchen door, but he was willing to bet she didn’t laugh either.

‘You don’t need to come to church,’ Meg said, but sitting back at the farmhouse without them seemed unthinkable. So he went and Meg orchestrated things so she sat with Letty and Scott between them. She was wearing another of her new dresses-lilac, simpler than yesterday’s, but just as pretty. Or more pretty. Or maybe it was that he was looking at her more often.

The service was lovely, a tiny community coming together in happiness, belting out beloved Christmas hymns with enthusiasm and as much tunefulness as they could muster. William could only stand for the first two hymns because, some time between the second and the third, Letty leaned against his shoulder and went to sleep. Meg saw why he wasn’t standing and she smiled at him, the smile he’d worked with for three years and hadn’t noticed, and he thought it was worth holding Letty to receive that smile.

Though, if he’d had a choice… He still would hold Letty, he thought, memories of yesterday’s terror flooding back. She was an indomitable old lady and he could see why Meg loved her.

So he sat while the rest of the congregation sang and there were approving looks from many, and curious looks from more, and he thought Meg was going to get the full inquisition after he left.

After he left…

Maybe he could stay a few days more. Make sure Letty was okay. Give Kerrie a few more days off milking.

Get closer to Meg?

She was sharing a song sheet with Scott, and her voice was true and pure. He could hear her through the rest of the congregation-he knew her voice.

He wouldn’t hear it again.

He shouldn’t be here. This wasn’t his place. If he got closer…

He’d hurt her. He didn’t know the first thing about family.

He’d go home to his part-time dog, his part-time Foster-Friends role, his full-time career.

What was he doing? Surely he wasn’t thinking he could stay here and milk cows for ever?

Maybe he could take Meg with him.

She wouldn’t go.

‘Collection,’ Scott hissed, and he looked at him in incomprehension.

‘Money,’ Scott said and grinned and William realised he was being handed the collection plate. Everyone in the pew was looking at him. They must have thought he was as sleepy as Letty.

Before he could react, Meg dropped a note into the plate and handed it back to the server. ‘He’s a bit tight,’ she said, in a make-believe whisper which carried through the church. ‘He hasn’t had any work since before Christmas, you know.’

He stared at her in open-mouthed astonishment and she grinned and then chuckled and Letty stirred against him and opened her eyes.

‘Have we sung O Little Town of Bethlehem yet?’

‘No,’ he said, confounded.

‘Then why don’t we?’ she demanded. ‘Don’t they know our turkey’s waiting?’

Dinner came next. Kerrie arrived with her three children and it was hard to know who whooped louder, the children or Letty. Far too much food was consumed. The pudding flamed magnificently. Crackers were pulled. Silly jokes were read. Meg checked her watch for about the hundredth time and finally said, ‘It’s time to go.’

‘It is,’ William said. ‘You’ll drive me to the station?’

‘I’ll drive you,’ Letty said with alacrity and grinned. ‘Meg can do the washing-up.’

‘Let Meg take him, Grandma,’ Scott said with rare insight. ‘She’ll want to say goodbye.’

‘I want to say goodbye,’ Letty retorted.

Scott said, ‘Grandma,’ in a meaningful voice and Letty gave a theatrical sigh and started clearing the table. But she wasn’t exactly martyred. Kerrie and Scott were helping clear. Kerrie would stay on for milking-they’d organised that at some time over pudding. It’d only take Meg twenty minutes to take William to the station. Ten minutes there, ten minutes back and life would go on without him.

As it should.

He’d already packed his bag. He rose from the still laden table and felt… empty.

‘Thank you,’ he said simply and Letty looked at him as if he was a sandwich short of a picnic.

‘Thank us? After what you’ve done for us?’

‘I’ll send you pictures of my car,’ Scott said shyly. ‘As it takes shape.’

‘I’d like that.’

There was nothing else to say. Meg was already at the door, keys in her hand.

Ready to move on?