Christmas with her Boss

CHAPTER FIVE

THEY didn’t appear for lunch and an hour later Meg was really starting to worry. ‘I’ll take the tractor over to Jenny’s and phone him from there,’ she muttered. ‘They should be back.’

‘You’ll do no such thing,’ Letty told her. ‘They’ll have found a football game or gone to the movies or chanced on something really interesting that only boys can understand. You didn’t tell them a get-home-by time, for which I’m grateful because it’s time we stopped mollycoddling our Scotty. Our Scott.’ Then she spoiled it by glancing at the clock. ‘But I hope Will’s fed him. And he didn’t take any painkillers. If his leg’s hurting…’

‘See,’ Meg retorted and they both smiled, shamefaced.

‘Shortbread next,’ Letty declared, so they made a batch, and then another, and they were almost desperate enough to start a third when finally the car turned into the drive. Meg just happened to be looking out of the window when it did.

‘What on earth have they got on behind?’ she demanded, heading for the door.

The dogs were flying down from the veranda. Meg managed to stroll out with what she hoped was a little more dignity.

‘Don’t say we were worried,’ Letty hissed beside her and she agreed entirely. They hadn’t been worried at all.

What did they have behind the car?

A trailer. A really large trailer. And on the trailer…

‘They’ve bought a car,’ she muttered in amazement. Or…two cars?

‘So much for perfume,’ Letty muttered. ‘This is never going to fit into a stocking.’

‘Come and see, come and see.’ Scott was out of the car, shouting his excitement, and the dogs were barking hysterically in response. William emerged from the driver’s side, leaned back on the car door and crossed his arms-a genie who’d produced magic and was now expecting appreciation. He was wearing jeans and a short-sleeved open-topped shirt. He looked…great. He must have stopped at a clothes shop, Meg thought, and then she thought I kissed him-and then Scott’s excitement tugged her attention back to what was on the trailer

At the front of the trailer was a Mini Minor, the kind that had been almost the coolest car on the planet back in the seventies. Though maybe it hadn’t been quite as cool as the Volkswagen Combi.

Um…what was she thinking? She hadn’t even been born in the seventies. This Mini, however, looked as if it had been. It was truly derelict. The little red and rust-red car had no wheels, no glass in its front windscreen and its hood was missing. What looked like grass was sprouting from where the engine should be.

And tied on behind was part of another Mini, in even worse repair. Instead of suffering from neglect, this one looked as if it had been smashed from behind. The back had been squashed almost to the front.

There was also a pile of assorted bits tied on top, meaning the trailer looked like a mini wrecker’s yard.

‘It’s William’s Christmas present to us all,’ Scott shouted and her boss beamed and she thought again-he looks great. Denim made him look so-o-o-o sexy-but somehow she managed to give her hormones a mental slap and ventured off the veranda to see.

William’s Christmas present to us all…

‘We saw a sign just out of town.’ Despite his bad leg, Scott was practically jigging his excitement. ‘It was in a paddock and it said For Sale. And parts as well. The guy restores Minis but his wife’s put her foot down. He has three finished Minis in his garage and two more to restore and his wife says the rest have to go. So he sold us this. Two cars’ll make one. He says there’s enough here to make a complete one. He reckons if I start now, by the time I get my licence I’ll have it on the road. If I get it going before then, I can practice in the paddocks. I can phone him any time I want, and if I’m really stuck he’s even offered to come out here to help.’

‘He really will,’ William said, still smiling. ‘This won’t be any work for either of you. I promise.’ His lovely, lazy smile lit his face and Meg thought frantically she’d have to give those hormones another slap.

‘I have faith,’ he went on. ‘This’ll mean eventually the farm has two cars. By the way, we also went to the motor place in Curalo and bought bits for your wagon, Letty. Your exhaust pipe has to be replaced and the silencer and so does the carburettor. If it’s okay with you, I might make a start this afternoon.’

‘You…’ Meg said, dazed.

‘I can fix cars,’ he said neutrally. ‘And Scott would like to learn.’

‘You want to fix my car?’ Letty said, while Meg simply stood with her mouth open.

‘If it’s okay with you.’

‘Marry me,’ Letty said, and Scott and William laughed-only, for some reason, Meg had trouble laughing. The sight of her boss in jeans was disconcerting enough, but she was looking at Scott’s flushed face and his shining happiness and she thought, why hadn’t she thought of this?

Scott was practically stranded here on the farm. His bad leg left him isolated. There were so many days when he simply gazed at his computer, in misery and in loneliness.

He now had a car to make. And it was an original Mini…

Mickey would come, she thought, and more. This project would be a magnet. Scott’s mates would come, as they had before the accident.

She was blinking back tears.

‘What’s wrong?’ William demanded, watching her face and clearly confounded.

She sniffed and tried desperately to think of something to say. Something to do rather than kiss him again, which seemed an entirely logical thing to do, but some germ of common sense was holding her back.

‘I…I wanted perfume,’ she managed, and her little brother stared at her as if she was out of her mind.

‘Perfume…when you could have these!’

‘They’re not very…girlie,’ she said and somehow she managed to sound doleful and Scott realised she was joking and grinned and hugged her. Which was amazing all by itself. How long since her seriously self-conscious brother had hugged?

‘I’ll let you drive my car,’ he offered, magnanimity at its finest. ‘Second drive after me, the minute I get it going.’

‘What an offer,’ she said and sniffed again and hugged him back and then smiled across at William through unshed tears.

‘Thank you, Santa,’ she said.

‘Think nothing of it,’ he said in a voice she didn’t recognise and then she thought, no, she did know what she was hearing.

Her normally businesslike boss was just a wee bit emotional himself.

It was time for milking. Letty and Meg milked because, ‘I’m not interfering with this, even if I have to milk the whole herd,’ Letty declared in wonder. Meg could only agree, for kids were arriving from everywhere. It seemed William had detoured past Mickey’s with their load-‘just to show him,’ Scott had told them, and Mickey had sent out word, and before they knew it a team of adolescents was unloading the heap of Mini jumble into the unused shed behind the dairy.

When milking was done Meg checked on Millicent-the little heifer was thankfully showing no signs of calving-then went to investigate. The teenagers were surrounded by Mini parts. William was under Letty’s car.

‘Sorry. I know I said I’d milk, but Letty assured me she could and someone had to supervise…’

Some supervision. All she could see of William was his legs. He was in his borrowed overalls again and his gumboots.

On the other side of the shed teenagers were happily dismantling the wreck, labelling pieces with Letty’s preserving stickers. She had a bunch of gloriously happy teenagers, and the guy who’d caused it all to happen was apologising. Meg stared down at her boss’s legs and thought she could totally understand where Letty’s proposal had come from.

And she’d never realised until now how sexy a pair of grease-covered legs could be.

‘So… So where did you learn mechanics?’ she managed.

‘I told you. Powering up my father’s golf cart.’ His voice was muffled, but she was aware of an undercurrent of contentment.

‘And the rest?’

‘My parents were away a lot. They had enough cars to warrant hiring a mechanic. He taught me.’

‘Nice guy,’ Meg said, deflected from thinking about legs-or almost. She thought instead of gossip she’d read about this man, about how appalling his parents sounded, how lonely his childhood must have been. ‘Did this mechanic have a name?’

‘Mr Himmel.’

‘Mr Himmel.’ She grimaced at the formality. ‘He called you Mr McMaster?’

‘Of course. Can you pass me under the tension wrench?’

‘Tension wrench?’

‘On the left with the blue handle.’

‘That’s a tension wrench?’

‘And you a dairy farmer and all.’

‘Dairy farmers aren’t necessarily mechanics. Plus I’m a commerce graduate. And a PA.’

‘Right, I forgot,’ he said, but absently, and she knew his attention was on whatever he needed the tension wrench for.

She watched his legs for a little. His attention was totally on the car.

She watched the boys for a little. Their attention was totally on the car.

Guys doing guy stuff.

Befuddled, she headed back to the dairy, where Letty was sluicing. They cleaned almost in silence but she was aware that Letty kept glancing at her.

‘What?’ Meg said at last, exasperated.

‘He’s lovely.’

‘So why are you looking at me?’ She sighed. ‘Anyway, he’s not lovely. He’s covered in grease.’

‘You know what I mean.’

‘Okay, I do,’ she admitted. ‘But you know who he is, so you can stop looking at me like you think I should do something about it. He’s William McMaster, one of the wealthiest men on the planet. He’s my boss and I have one of the best jobs in the world. If you think I’m messing with it by thinking he’s lovely…’

‘I suppose it would mess with it,’ Letty said. ‘Falling for the boss…’

‘It’d be a disaster.’

‘I don’t know how you haven’t before.’

‘Because I’ve never seen him in overalls before.’

‘They do make a man look sexy,’ Letty said thoughtfully. ‘That and carrying a grease gun. My Jack was always attached to a grease gun. Mind, once I had to get the grease off his clothes the novelty pretty soon wore off.’ She sighed but then she brightened. ‘But times have changed. Domestic equality and all that. He could get his own grease off.’

‘You’re seriously suggesting William McMaster could do his own laundry?’ Meg even managed a chuckle. The idea merited a chuckle.

As was thinking of those legs, sticking out from under Letty’s car. As was thinking that William McMaster was sexy.

Legs or not, even if the man carries a grease gun, he’s still my boss, she told herself. A good servant knows her place. Just plaster that message across your box of hormones and leave it there.

They ate dinner on the run. The boys were in no hurry to go home. At dusk they took off, pack-like, whooping away on their bicycles, and Meg knew they’d be back first thing in the morning.

This was priceless.

Scott was almost asleep on his feet, but lit up almost as much as the Christmas tree in the sitting room. He fell into bed happier than she’d seen him for years.

Letty commandeered William to take him over to the shed to show her what he was doing with her car. Meg headed out behind the hay shed. Millicent was still doing little of interest, the small fawn and white cow chewing her cud and gazing placidly out at the fading sunset.

‘Mind if I share your sunset?’ she asked, and Millicent turned her huge bovine eyes on her and seemed to ask a question.

‘He’s only here until Monday. Then it’s back to normal,’ Meg said, as if Millicent really was asking the question. Only what was the question? And what was normal?

She hitched herself up on the fence and started sunset-gazing. But she wasn’t seeing sunset. ‘This is just a hiccup in our lives,’ she said out loud. ‘But it’s a great hiccup.’

She was under no illusion as to how big a deal this was. Ever since the accident Scotty’s mates had been drifting away. They were nice kids. They included him when they could, but increasingly he was off their radar.

Today they’d returned and they’d hated leaving. Here was a project designed to keep kids happy for months, if not years. A project with a working car at the end of it… A Mini. They’d be back and back and back.

And it was all down to William. William of the sexy legs. William of the sexy…everything.

And suddenly, inexplicably, she was tearing up. She sniffed and Millicent pushed her great wet nose under her arm as if in sympathy.

‘Yeah, you’d know about men,’ she retorted. ‘Of all the dumb blondes…’

‘Who’s a dumb blonde?’

She hadn’t heard him approach. He moved like a panther, she thought, startled. He was long and lithe and silent as the night. He leaned against her fence, and she had to hitch along a bit so he could climb up and sit beside her.

‘Dumb blonde?’ he said again.

‘Meet Millicent,’ she said. ‘Dumb adolescent blonde.’

‘That not a kind thing to say about an obviously sweet cow.’

‘She’s oversexed,’ Meg said darkly, struggling not to react to the way his body brushed against hers. There was plenty of room. Why did he need to sit so close?

‘Really?’ It was William’s turn to sound startled.

‘Really.’

‘So how do you tell if a cow is oversexed?’

‘She got out of her paddock,’ she explained. ‘Not only did she get out, she got in again. We finally found her in our next door neighbour’s bull paddock. Now she’s pregnant and she’s too young to have babies but that’s what she’s having, any day now. Letty’s worried sick.’

‘What’s to worry about?’

‘We don’t know which bull it was.’

‘You don’t know which bull…’

‘It could have been one of three.’

‘You’re telling me she’s…loose?’ he demanded, and she giggled and swayed on her perch and he put a hand out to steady her. He shifted closer and held on around the waist, making sure she was secure. She waited for him to let her go-but he didn’t.

‘So tell me all,’ he demanded, and she thought, do you know what the feel of your arm around my waist is doing to me? Obviously not or it’d be gone in a flash.

Maybe she should tell him.

Or not.

She had to do something. She was getting close to melting here. ‘I think you’d better let me go-Mr McMaster,’ she managed, and he did. He shifted away a little, without comment, as if it meant nothing. As if holding her hadn’t caused him any sort of reaction. Nothing like the sizzle that had just jolted through her.

‘So are we waiting for the baby to be born so we can take DNA samples and enforce a paternity suit?’ he asked, and they were talking about Millicent. Of course they were.

‘Maybe not.’ She was totally discombobulated. It wasn’t just the feel of his arm. It was so much more. ‘I… one of the bulls is a Murray Grey.’

‘That’s bad?’

‘If you’re a Friesian crossed with a Jersey, it’s very bad. Have you ever met a Murray Grey?’

‘I can’t say I have.’

‘They’re about half Millicent’s size again. She’s still underdeveloped. If we’d found her straight away we could have done something, but she got out and we lost her and didn’t find her for ages. What must have happened was that she got out onto the road, wandered along happily, we suspect, looking for bulls because she’s that sort of girl. Whoever found her must have shooed her through the nearest gate to get her off the road-which, of course, happened to be Rod Palmer’s bull paddock. There was plenty of feed in the paddock. It’s hilly and mostly out of sight of the road and Rod lets his bulls be until he needs them. So Millicent might have been enjoying herself for quite a while. She certainly seemed content when Rod finally found her and called us.’

‘Uh-oh,’ he said. ‘So now?’

‘So now she’s in the house paddock while we wait for the birth. Signs are any day now. I hope to heaven she doesn’t drop over Christmas because there’s no way we’ll get a vet.’ Then a thought occurred and she eyed him with hope. ‘As well as cars… You didn’t have a houseful of pets you practised on when you were a kid as well?’ she enquired. ‘Maybe a cow or two, and a resident vet?’

‘Nary a goldfish.’

‘Not even a dog?’ she demanded, startled.

‘My family don’t do pets.’

‘But you like them.’

‘Just because I patted Killer…’

‘No, but you do. When we’re out on site… Every time we meet a dog you talk to it. You should have one.’

‘And leave him in my Manhattan apartment alone, for months at a time?’

‘You have staff. Is Mr Himmel still around?’

‘Long gone.’ That was said bleakly and she thought-don’t go there. She was pushing past anywhere that was her business. Move on.

But move on where? Move onto where she wanted to go?

Why not?

‘So…so do you need to go over to Jenny’s again later?’ she managed.

‘Jenny’s?’

‘Mickey’s. To make more phone calls.’

‘I rang Elinor while I was in Curalo.’

Elinor. First name. The word hung between them, loaded with unknowns.

Leave it, she thought, but then she thought if she was Letty she’d ask. She swung her legs against the fence rails and tried to look nonchalant. As if this was a lightweight question.

‘So the gossip rags haven’t caught up with Elinor?’

‘I hope they never do.’ It was said with such vehemence that she blinked.

‘Um…it’s serious then?’

He seemed disconcerted but then he shrugged. ‘You could say that.’

‘I’m sorry you’ll miss Christmas with her, then.’

‘I’m sorry, too.’ He swung himself down from the fence and she knew the question had messed with whatever calm he’d been feeling. ‘I believe I need to get that carburettor back in. Without it, we’re dependent on the tractor as emergency transport so I’m not going to bed before it’s in working order. It’s okay. Twenty minutes work, tops. I’m not being a martyr.’ He glanced down at his overalls and he smiled, with unmistakable all-boy satisfaction. ‘I haven’t looked this greasy since I was Scott’s age. It feels great.’

‘You are great,’ she said as he reached up and took her by the waist and lifted her down to join him. He should let her go. He didn’t.

‘So are you.’

Uh-oh.

Keep it light, she told herself. Keep it light. ‘If our office staff could see us now they’d have kittens,’ she managed.

‘Or a cameraman.’

The paparazzi. That was an appalling thought. She could see the headlines now: McMaster Trapped with Secretary in Rural Hideway… What would the unknown Elinor say if she saw such a headline?

‘Does Elinor know you’re stuck with me?’ He was still holding her. She should step away-but she didn’t.

‘Yes,’ he said.

‘She doesn’t mind?’

‘She’s upset for me. She knows I want to be home.’

For some reason that hurt, but she made herself respond. ‘That’s generous of Elinor.’

‘She’s a generous woman.’

What to say to that? And he was still holding her.

‘I…I need to go to bed,’ she managed and she tugged a little but still he didn’t release her.

‘Bed?’

‘In case you hadn’t noticed, it’s nine, which is the witching hour when milking starts at five.’

‘So you don’t look forward to your morning milk?’ he teased.

He was so close… She was having trouble making her voice work but she had to try. ‘Getting up at five… Ugh,’ she said. ‘But while I’m here it’s normal. For lots of people it’s normal. You get up at five to check on your trade indices all the time. You don’t mind.’

‘So what do you want to do at five?’

‘Sleep!’

He smiled, then put his head on one side, considering. ‘So why stay on here? You’re putting your life on hold for your little brother.’

‘I haven’t noticed much life-holding.’

‘Where’s the social life? When you work with me I demand twenty-four seven commitment. Then you come here and it seems the same. Milking from five to nine and milking from three to seven. Where’s time for Meg in that?’

He sounded concerned, and that disconcerted her. He’d never sounded concerned. Their relationship was businesslike.

It had to stay that way.

‘I have wild lunches,’ she told him.

‘Right.’ He was watching her in a way that disturbed her. As if he was trying to figure her out.

‘So…boyfriend?’ he asked and she winced. Ouch. That’d do as far as personal questions went. He set his boundaries. She’d set hers.

‘That’s not your territory, Mr McMaster.’ She tugged back and this time he did let her go. She made to turn away but his next question stopped her.

‘Do you like working for me?’

That was an easy one. ‘I love it.’

‘Why?’

She hesitated. He was watching her in the fading light, and she knew her answer meant something to him.

‘It’s smart work,’ she said slowly. ‘I never know what my day’s going to hold. I need to use my brain, and I love it that you treat me like I can.’

‘Like you can what?’

‘Rise to any challenge.’ She managed a smile at that. ‘Except get you home for Christmas.’

He didn’t smile back. Silence. The sun had sunk well over the horizon and the light was disappearing fast. The night was warm and still. Millicent was right beside them by the fence, oozing the contentment of a soon-to-be mum who had everything she wanted in life.

Except she didn’t have her bull, Meg thought, and then thought what was she thinking? Her bull?

‘Bed,’ she said.

‘Sounds good,’ he said and she blushed and stepped away so fast she tripped on her own feet. He put out a hand to catch her but she staggered and grabbed the fence and maintained her distance.

‘Is there anything else you need?’ she asked, stammering.

‘I don’t believe so.’ He was laughing, she thought-not obviously, but there was laughter behind his eyes. ‘So do we have a date with a hundred cows at five in the morning?’

‘I can’t believe you offered to milk.’

‘It will be my pleasure.’

‘In lieu of the world’s trade indices.’

‘In lieu of trade indices.’ He hesitated. ‘I really don’t mind getting up early,’ he told her. ‘If you need to sleep… I wish I could milk them for you.’

He was serious.

‘Yeah, well, I do have some affection for the cows,’ she managed. ‘Though it’s a wonderful offer…’ She took a deep breath. ‘As was buying Scott the car. I’d like to pay.’

‘Get off your high horse, Jardine.’

‘It’s not my high horse, it’s my dignity,’ she said with as much dignity as she could muster. ‘By which I take it that you won’t let me. In which case I’m very, very grateful. So thank you, Mr McMaster, and goodnight.’

‘William,’ he said, and it was a snap.

‘William, then,’ she said and met his gaze for as long as she dared-which wasn’t very long at all.

‘Sleep well,’ he said and, before she knew what he was about, he reached out and touched her face. It was a feather touch, a fleeting brush of his finger against her cheek, but he might as well have kissed her. She raised her hand to her cheek as if he’d applied heat. Maybe he had.

‘Sleep…sleep well yourself,’ she whispered.

‘I’ll see what I can do,’ he said. ‘And Meg?’

‘Yes?’

‘Thank you for rising to my challenges. I appreciate it.’

He was still so close. She desperately wanted him to touch her again. She stood and stared up at him, but there was nothing to say.

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.’

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.’