Christmas with her Boss by Marion Lennox Page B

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.
    â€˜Mind if I share your sunset?’ she asked, and Millicent turned her huge bovine eyes on her and seemed to ask a question.
    â€˜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.
    â€˜Yeah, you’d know about men,’ she retorted. ‘Of all the dumb blondes…’
    â€˜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.
    â€˜Dumb blonde?’ he said again.
    â€˜Meet Millicent,’ she said. ‘Dumb adolescent blonde.’
    â€˜That not a kind thing to say about an obviously sweet cow.’
    â€˜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?
    â€˜Really?’ It was William’s turn to sound startled.
    â€˜Really.’
    â€˜So how do you tell if a cow is oversexed?’
    â€˜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.’
    â€˜What’s to worry about?’
    â€˜We don’t know which bull it was.’
    â€˜You don’t know which bull…’
    â€˜It could have been one of three.’
    â€˜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.
    â€˜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.
    â€˜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