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Grim faced, the solicitor held out the sheet of paper, pointing with his finger to the appropriate words, but they swam before Kate’s eyes. She felt vague and confused, as if this was happening to someone else.
‘Ms Brodie,’ Alan said. ‘In the revised will, your uncle’s intention was quite clear. In fact, his insistence that you be included as a beneficiary is the reason the will was changed.’
Stunned, Kate looked from the solicitor to Noah’s stony face. This didn’t make sense. She couldn’t possibly own half of an Australian cattle property. Why on earth would her uncle do that?
Why would he do it to Noah?
Before she could find the words to frame a question, Noah’s ex-wife leapt to her feet.
‘James, you told me you could get me half of everything Noah inherited. How can this little biddy from England sneak though the back door and take my share?’
Hands on hips, Liane darted fiery sneers at them all. ‘I’m entitled to a half-share of that property. I wasted the best years of my life in that ghastly place, living under the same roof as that awful old man.’
Calloway reached for her hand and tried to pull her back down into her chair, but she shook him away.
‘Noah owes me, and he knows it. They can’t do this to me. It’s ridiculous. I want my money.’
Noah, darkly furious, refused to respond.
Kate watched from her seat, mortified. She felt responsible for this fiasco. But utterly helpless. She hadn’t asked for an inheritance. What had Uncle Angus been thinking?
As she sat, wondering what on earth she should say or do, the door from the outer office began to open. Just a crack at first, and then wider, and one half of a small face appeared.
The door inched open wider and Kate saw a little girl aged about seven or eight. She was fair-skinned and petite, with freckles across her nose and wavy, light brown hair that almost reached her shoulders. Her eyes were the exact shade of grey as Noah’s eyes, but right now they were round with worry and fixed on Liane.
Kate wondered if she was Olivia, Noah and Liane’s daughter. Perhaps she’d been told to wait outside. Had she been upset by the high-pitched agitation in her mother’s voice?
Liane hadn’t noticed the child and she continued to rant. ‘On your feet, James! You’ll have to start calling your people in Sydney. I want this matter settled right now.’
With that, Calloway was hauled unceremoniously out of his chair.
Kate rose, too, but in a more dignified manner. She swallowed nervously. ‘I don’t understand my uncle’s decision. I’m as shocked as anyone else. But it might be easier for you to discuss this complication if I wait outside.’
Liane glared at her suspiciously.
Noah looked as if he might have spoken, but Kate gestured to the small figure in the doorway. ‘The little girl.’
Noah’s head whipped round and, when he saw her, his face morphed into a mix of delight and despair.
Liane snapped at the child. ‘I told you to wait outside!’
The girl’s eyes grew huge. Her mouth trembled, and she looked very much as if she was about to burst into tears.
‘I could wait with her,’ Kate volunteered.
Noah sent her a look of immense gratitude, while Liane gave a little annoyed huff and shrugged her shoulders impatiently. ‘Whatever.’
Relieved to escape, Kate shut the office door behind her and drew a deep breath. She wished, rather recklessly given the circumstances, that the ownership of Radnor could be settled by the time this door opened again.
She smiled at the little girl. ‘Hello,’ she said warmly as she held out her hand. ‘We haven’t met, but I’ve heard about you, Olivia. I’m Kate. I’m a friend of your—of your father’s.’
‘Hello.’ Olivia did not offer her hand and she didn’t return Kate’s smile. She looked again at the closed door separating her from her parents.
The voices on the other side were mostly muffled, except for Liane’s high-pitched, angry demands.
‘Why are they fighting?’ Olivia asked. ‘What’s happening in there?’
‘It’s a business discussion. And I’m afraid business can get rather complicated at times.’
Kate nodded towards a long, pew-like seat against the opposite wall. ‘Shall we wait there?’
Olivia shook her head. ‘I’m tired of sitting. I’ve been sitting for ages ’n’ ages.’
A quick flick through the reading material on the coffee table showed Kate that none of it was suitable for children. She wondered if she should try to tell the little girl a story, but story telling wasn’t really her forte.
Olivia pointed to the open door leading out to the sunlit street. ‘Can we go outside?’
‘Well…’ Aware of the heated discussion on the other side of the door, Kate made a snap decision. ‘Why not? I don’t suppose anyone will mind.’ After all, Jindabilla was a very tiny country town, hardly more than one wide, dusty main street. No chance of getting lost.
The little girl was already skipping towards the door. ‘There’s a beautiful pig out there.’ Her eyes were shining suddenly.
‘A pig?’ Good grief. What a quantum leap, to come from discussing wills and inheritances to pigs.
On the footpath, Kate shaded her gaze against the sun’s glare. ‘Where is this pig?’
‘In the back of that blue ute outside the pub.’
Even if Olivia hadn’t described the utility truck so accurately, Kate could hardly miss the stream of snuffling oinks and squeals.
Her head was whirling. She was still stunned by her uncle’s will, still feeling Noah’s shock. She glanced back to the solicitor’s office. What was going on in there? What had they decided?
‘Can’t you hear him?’ Olivia cried, giving Kate’s hand a tug.
‘Of course I can.’ Kate smiled. ‘And I can see him.’ A distinctly piggy snout and a dirty pink trotter appeared over the ute’s tray back.
‘He’s so cute! Lift me up! I want to see him properly.’
The little girl’s reticence was a thing of the past, and she held her arms up to Kate as if they’d been best friends for ever.
Kate couldn’t help suspecting that Liane would object to her daughter being lifted up to admire a pig, but she was charmed by the child’s eagerness—so different from the worry in her eyes a few moments earlier. She hoisted Olivia onto her hip and together they peered at the small pink pig that looked up at them with pale, expectant eyes.
‘Isn’t he gorgeous?’
‘He is rather cute,’ Kate admitted.
Olivia’s face was a picture of enraptured adoration. With one skinny arm around Kate’s neck, she reached out with the other to pat the top of the little pig’s head. ‘Daddy says that pigs are terribly clever. They’re much cleverer than cows, and they’re even cleverer than dogs.’
‘I didn’t know that. But I’ve heard they make great pets.’
Olivia beamed at her joyously. ‘This one’s so handsome; I want to call him Baby Prince Charming.’
Kate laughed. ‘Why not? I couldn’t imagine a better name for him.’
The pig squealed and snuffled, and Olivia made oinking noises back at him. But eventually she grew heavy, and Kate set her back on the footpath.
She half-expected the child to protest, but Olivia took her hand in a gesture of such innocent trust that Kate felt a lump in her throat. ‘Are— are pigs your favourite animal?’ she asked.
‘Probably.’ A wistful expression came over her little face. ‘When I lived with Daddy, we had lots and lots of animals—piglets and chickens and ducklings and calves.’
‘And puppies?’
‘Lots of puppies.’ Her bottom lip drooped. ‘I can’t have pets any more.’
‘Because you live in the city?’
She nodded. ‘Mummy said we’re not allowed to have any pets in our apartment. Not even a goldfish.’
Kate understood Olivia’s disappointment. Her own mother had never been fond of animals, and she felt a rush of sympathy for the child. After the rustic casualness of life in an Outback homestead, where sticky fingers posed no threat and a puppy on the couch were the norm, it would be very hard to get used to a slick and shiny city apartment.
‘But you must have all kinds of exciting things to do in the city,’ she suggested diplomatically.
‘Not really. Sydney’s boring.’
Before Kate could respond, Liane’s voice sounded shrilly behind them. She turned to see the child’s mother and James Calloway charging down the footpath.
Completely ignoring Kate, Liane thrust her hand towards her daughter. ‘Come along now,’ she ordered with an imperious tilt of her chin.
A fleeting expression that might have been fear flickered over the little girl’s face, but it was gone so quickly Kate decided that she must have imagined it.
‘We’ve found a pig,’ Olivia told her mother.
‘Good God.’ Liane’s lips curled in an expression of distaste. She gave another impatient shake of her outstretched hand. ‘Now, come on, Olivia. We’ve got to get back to the motel. We have a lot of important phone calls to make.’
The little girl hesitated and chewed her lip. ‘Can I stay tonight with Daddy?’
‘No, of course you can’t.’ Her mother rolled her eyes. ‘First thing in the morning we’re getting out of this dump and back home to Sydney.’ She grabbed the little girl’s hand. ‘Come on, now. No nonsense.’
Rising quickly onto tiptoes, Olivia whispered to Kate, ‘Can you say goodbye to Baby Prince Charming for me?’
‘Of course,’ Kate whispered back. ‘I promise.’
Her smile faltered as she watched the trio—mother, daughter and sharp Sydney lawyer—hurry away down the dusty footpath. As they rounded a corner, Olivia looked back, just once, over her shoulder, and lifted her hand to send Kate a quick wave. ‘Say goodbye to Daddy too,’ she called.
Kate was surprised by how flat she felt as she went back inside. The door to Alan Davidson’s office was open, and she could see both men in there, still busy talking and looking extremely solemn.
When she knocked, Noah turned, and her heart seemed to slip a little; he looked incredibly handsome in spite of the bleakness of his expression.
‘Am I intruding?’ she asked.
‘No, of course not. You have a stake in this. Come on in.’ Noah stood, and with a gentlemanly gesture she couldn’t ever remember her boyfriend using he drew out a chair for her.
‘Thank you.’
‘How’s Olivia?’ Noah’s eyes gleamed with a bright warmth that sent a tremor through Kate as she sat.
‘She’s fine. She was very excited because there’s a pig in the street outside. In the back of a ute.’
‘A pig?’ Noah’s smile lit up his face.
‘A baby pig. Very cute.’
He laughed briefly. ‘She’d love that.’
Kate watched the way his eyes sparkled, then almost immediately turned misty. Clearly, joy and pain were part and parcel of his relationship with his daughter. She wondered how often he saw Olivia, how much time they had together. Somehow, she couldn’t imagine Liane going out of her way to make access easy.
Rubbing a hand over his face, as if to clear his thoughts, Noah sobered and returned to business. ‘I was just telling Alan I had no idea this inheritance could be so complicated,’ he said. ‘I’m afraid I’m still trying to get my head around it.’
‘So nothing’s settled?’
Alan Davidson took his spectacles off and offered Kate a teeth-gritted version of a smile. ‘I’ve explained to Noah that, with a firm like Calloway and Brandon behind her, Liane has a very good chance of pushing her claim for a half-share through the courts.’
‘But I thought—?’ Kate wasn’t quite sure how to put her question. ‘I assumed everything about the divorce had been finalised.’
Alan nodded. ‘That’s right. But Liane has twelve months after the decree absolute to file for property settlement. She can mount a case about her involvement at Radnor during her marriage, citing her contribution during the five-and-a-half years that she lived there, and her input into the running of the place.’
Kate could see why the courts would allow this. She knew nothing about the reasons for Noah and Liane’s divorce, but it made sense that a woman might need protection in certain circumstances.
She frowned. ‘But if Liane claims her half of Noah’s share, or half of his half-share, does that mean that Noah will end up with only a quarter of the estate?’
The solicitor nodded grimly. ‘A quarter of a drought-stricken estate at that.’
What a shock for Noah! Kate knew he’d expected to inherit Radnor intact, and now even his half-share would be whittled away. After he’d worked so hard on Radnor all his life, it seemed terribly unfair.
‘I don’t understand,’ she said, unable to keep a lid on her thoughts. ‘Why on earth has Uncle Angus given half of Radnor to me? It just doesn’t make any kind of sense.’
The men seemed unwilling or unable to answer her and, in the silence, the ceiling fan creaked as it circled slowly.
At last, Alan said, ‘Perhaps your uncle was being canny. It’s no secret that he never got on with Liane, and he may have anticipated that she could put in her claim for a half-share. He might have done this to frustrate her.’
Kate gave a helpless shake of her head. ‘You mean Angus didn’t want Liane to inherit half his property? But couldn’t Noah have bought her out?’
The two men exchanged a silent glance.
Noah said, ‘Given the drought, the banks aren’t very generous with their loans. I might have been forced to sell up the lot to meet Liane’s claims.’
‘Oh.’
He shrugged. ‘Now, with this new will, whatever happens half of Radnor stays in the family.’ His cool, faintly amused glance flickered over Kate.
