Her Cattleman Boss

CHAPTER TWO

NOAH shifted uncomfortably on the hard wooden chair in the solicitor’s office, and watched a lonely ceiling fan struggle to bring relief to the over-dressed group in the crowded room. Neck ties were a rarity in the summer heat, but he and Alan Davidson had worn them today out of respect for their good friend, Angus.

James Calloway, Liane’s city lawyer, had gone one better and was wearing a spiffy business suit and a striped bow-tie that looked suspiciously like those worn by the old boys’ clubs of Sydney’s private schools. James was, Noah noted, very red in the face.

Old Angus would be chuckling if he could see this mob, suffering on his behalf.

But Noah had little to laugh about. He’d been through one hell of a week—the shock of Angus’s sudden death, the heart-rending task of spreading the sad news, the struggle to focus on arrangements for the funeral and a fitting farewell. And then, everything had been soured by his ex-wife’s unexpected appearance in Jindabilla with her fancy lawyer in tow.

The nerve of Liane—showing up out of the blue and coming to the funeral, as if she didn’t know that old Angus had, in the end, despised her and blamed her for bringing unhappiness to the people he loved.

She was still causing trouble. Noah couldn’t forgive her for neglecting to pass on Kate Brodie’s message. It was beyond embarrassing that Angus’s niece had travelled all the way from England and had missed everything. The minister could easily have held the funeral off for another day or two.

But it was just as sickening to discover that Liane was here now for the reading of the will. What the hell did she think she was up to? She’d cleaned him out during the divorce. What more could she want? The question made Noah’s jaw clench so tightly his teeth threatened to crack.

Alan Davidson shuffled the papers on his desk and looked tentatively around at the gathering. He gave a quiet nod to Noah, and a poor attempt at a friendly smile to Kate, who was sitting stiffly to one side near the window, as if she wanted to separate herself from the rest of them. And who, thought Noah, could blame her?

He let his gaze rest on her—an extremely pleasant distraction. She was dressed simply in a cream blouse and a brown linen skirt. Sunlight, streaming through the wooden slats of the blinds, shot fiery lights into her whisky-coloured hair and added a pink glow to her delicate English complexion. Her eyes were the softest shade of green.

Back at the homestead, she’d looked washed out, a pale shadow of the lively, flirtatious girl who’d come here for a holiday. But, given her long journey and jet lag, that wasn’t surprising.

Now, sitting in the golden beams of afternoon light, with her autumn hair and her brown skirt, she looked tranquil and undeniably eye-catching. Like a sexy version of a Rembrandt painting.

Alan Davidson opened the folder in front of him, snapping Noah roughly back to the business at hand. Noah’s fingers reached for the knot of his tie, and he longed to loosen it to relieve the sudden strangling sensation that clawed at his throat.

He had no reason to be nervous, and yet he couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong.

Watching Noah’s restlessness, Kate wished she was anywhere but here. It wasn’t just jet lag making her so ill at ease. She could have cut the tension in the room with a knife. In spite of his suntan, Noah looked pale, and he kept shifting in his chair. Now he was sitting ramrod straight, with his jaw clenched and his hands fisted on his knees, his knuckles white.

Her heart went out to him. She knew he’d loved her uncle as deeply as any son could, and he was still grappling with his grief. But at least he would walk out of this office today as the new owner of Radnor cattle station. Uncle Angus had told her mother years ago not to expect anything from him because it would all go to Noah. So why did Noah look so worried now?

Did he sense, as she did, that something wasn’t right? Alan Davidson, the balding, middle-aged solicitor, shouldn’t have been worried, but he looked almost as uneasy as Noah. He kept adjusting his glasses and opening his document folder, then closing it again.

The cocky man in the city suit—who’d been introduced as James Calloway, Liane’s lawyer from Sydney—was on edge in a different way. He had an air of contained expectation, and he kept sending Liane sneaky sideways winks, almost as if he knew something the others didn’t. Kate disliked his smugness and the way he kept inspecting his super-clean fingernails.

The only person in the room who looked relaxed was Noah’s former wife. Liane had speedily found the most comfortable chair in the room, and she sat now with an easy elegance that displayed her long legs and expensive dress to their best advantage.

She was exceptionally pretty—very fair and very slim with bright-blue eyes fringed by long, dark lashes. Model-perfect looks, Kate decided, with that particular air of feminine awareness that brought men to their knees. Poor Noah. He must have loved her desperately. Maybe he still did?

As Kate watched, Liane leaned towards her lawyer and rested her perfectly manicured hand on his knee. Was James Calloway her lover now, or did Liane like to tease?

At last, the solicitor made a throat-clearing sound to break the silence.

‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ he said quietly, ‘Thank you for coming here today.’ He placed his square hands on the folder in front of him. ‘I have in my possession two wills for Angus Harrington. One that was made many years ago, and another that was drawn up three months ago.’

He looked at them over the top of his glasses. No one spoke or moved, but Kate felt a new ripple of disquiet spread through the room, as if a stone had been dropped into a pond, disrupting its smooth surface.

‘I’ll cut to the chase and provide a summary.’ Alan Davidson lifted a sheet from the papers in front of him. ‘The property of Radnor, its buildings, stock, vehicles and equipment, were Angus Harrington’s only assets.’

As he spoke, the solicitor let his gaze shift from person to person in the room. ‘There were some cash reserves, but those funds have been depleted by the long drought. There won’t be much left in the bank by the time the final debts and mortgages are settled.’

He paused, looked down at the papers, then directed his attention to Noah. ‘Noah, Angus left you a half-share of Radnor, its assets and its debts.’

A half-share?

Kate saw the flare of shock in Noah’s eyes.

She was shocked too. And confused. What did this mean?

The solicitor turned quickly to Kate. ‘Ms Brodie.’

Her hand flew to her throat and her heart began to thump mercilessly.

‘It was your uncle’s wish that you should inherit the other half of his estate.’

‘No,’ she whispered.

Alan Davidson frowned.

‘No.’ Kate shook her head. ‘There must be a mistake.’

‘Of course it’s a mistake!’ cried Liane. ‘That can’t possibly be right.’

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.

To her dismay, her cheeks grew hot. Irrationally, she found herself remembering how very, very different Noah’s smile had been all those years ago, when she was seventeen… Just before he kissed her.

But it was feeble to remember that now.

Angry at her weakness, she spoke too loudly. ‘I’m sorry, but I know nothing about cattle, or running Outback properties in Australia. I’m quite prepared to say that I’m not entitled to a half-share in Radnor. It’s your home, Noah. Not mine.’

‘That’s not how it works,’ he said quietly.

She cast a frantic glance over the pile of papers on Alan Davidson’s desk, at his bookcases filled with expensively bound legal tomes. Surely lawyers knew clever ways to get round this kind of problem?

She was grateful that her boyfriend was safely tucked away on the other side of the world. As a man of finance, he would be horrified if he knew what she planned to say next. ‘I can hand my half back, can’t I? Give my share to Noah? I’m sure you know a way to devise some sensible arrangement.’

‘That is not going to happen.’ Noah spoke with such vehemence that Kate flinched. He scowled at her. ‘You don’t know what you’re saying, Kate.’

‘I know exactly what I’m saying.’

His face was dark, his mouth tight and hard, frighteningly hard. ‘No one hands over half an inheritance like Radnor.’

‘I can if I wish.’

Cursing beneath his breath, Noah leaned forward, eyes blazing. ‘Don’t be a fool. Radnor might have been blighted by drought for the better part of five years, but the property’s still valuable. All it takes is one good wet season. It’s over half a million acres.’

She gasped. That much? The scope of it was beyond imagining.

‘Even if that means nothing to you, Kate, I intend to respect Angus’s wishes. He obviously wanted you to have a half-share.’