mate.” Joey gave Cole the thumbs-up. “You’re the best. I’ll call Crystal and tell her not to pawn her grandmother’s wedding ring.” Joey whipped out his cell phone as he strode toward the exit door.
Cole went back to his office and shut the door. He closed his eyes, took slow deep breaths and willed his blood pressure to drop. He fell into a familiar daydream, visualizing himself walking between rows of grapevines, running a hand over the fluttering leaves, admiring the thick twisting stems and the clusters of ripe grapes. Clods of red dirt crunched beneath his boots.
He’d had his eye on Cockatoo Ridge for years, saving everything he could while he watched helplessly as land prices rose steadily, keeping the farm always just out of reach. Now the property was for sale…
What was he thinking? He still wasn’t ready.
JANE LIFTED a beautiful jade-green vase with a delicate black design made by her aunt off the mantelpiece and put it in a safe spot in the china cabinet. Then she swept knickknacks off the marble surface into an empty cardboard box. It was hard clearing out her aunt’s things but keeping busy helped her cope with her grief. Besides, there was no one else to do it.
Jane, an only child, had lived with her parents in Sydney until they’d both died in a scuba diving accident when she was eight. Esther had raised her after that, first in a tiny terrace house in inner Melbourne, then at Cockatoo Ridge Farm where they’d moved when Jane started high school, so Esther could have her own pottery studio. Since Jane’s abrupt departure from Red Hill thirteen years ago, she’d seen Esther mainly in L.A. where her aunt had connections with gallery owners. In the interim, her aunt had gradually filled the farmhouse with furniture, dishes and ornaments from secondhand stores.
Jane carried the box out to the garage where she was collecting things to be disposed of. Back in the living room, she gazed in dismay at the remaining clutter and groaned.
“What’s the matter, Mom?” Mary Kate came into the room eating a piece of toast smeared with jam. With her beads and bangles, bare midriff and miniskirt, she looked more like fifteen than eleven-going-on-twelve.
“Nothing that a few gallons of petrol and a lit match wouldn’t fix,” Jane muttered.
“I heard you groan,” Mary Kate insisted. “I wouldn’t be surprised if you got sick here. The water tastes funny.”
“It’s bore water,” Jane told her. “Perfectly good. In fact it’s purer than town water. What you’re tasting is an absence of chemicals.”
Mary Kate brushed invisible dirt off the seat of an ancient green brocade armchair and perched on the edge. She held her elbows in close to her sides so they wouldn’t touch the stained fabric and nibbled her toast. “How could Aunt Esther live like this?”
Jane picked up a framed photo of her aunt at her potter’s wheel. Esther’s dark hair was streaked lightly with gray and pulled back in a long ponytail. Her jeans and plaid shirt were spattered, her thin face set in concentration as her long fingers shaped the spinning cylinder of clay. “She focused more on her work than on housekeeping, that’s for sure. But she was an important potter. One of her pieces is in the National Gallery.”
“I just don’t get why she collected so much stuff.”
“Tell me about it,” Jane sighed. “I hardly know where to start.” She glanced at her watch. “Are you almost finished? Your father will arrive any minute.”
“I’m still eating. I just put an egg on to boil.”
“That’s okay. I’m sure he won’t mind.”
Mary Kate bit her lip. “Do I have to see him?”
“I thought you wanted to.” Jane pushed her daughter’s fringe back to peer into Mary Kate’s eyes. “Are you feeling okay?”
“I’m fine.” Mary Kate turned her face away. “But I—”
The cell phone clipped to Jane’s hip pocket chimed, and she reached for it. “Excuse me, honey.
“Otto.” He was a Melbourne journalist she’d contacted to publicize the premiere. Jane went into her aunt’s study and sat at the rolltop desk where she’d temporarily set up her office. “I’m scheduling interviews with the leads of Swept Away—Rafe Baldwyn and Mia MacDonald. Let me find my diary and I’ll tell you what times are available.”
A doorbell sounded.
“Otto, I’ll call you back.” Jane hurried out to open the door and passed through the lounge room in time to see Mary Kate hurrying toward the kitchen. “Hey, where are you going? He’s not going to bite you. Come back here.”
“In a minute.” Mary Kate ducked through the door.
What was wrong with that girl? Jane walked the dark red carpet runner covering the scratched floorboards of the hall. She brushed back her hair, smoothed down her skirt and opened the door. Cole stood on the veranda, a folded clipboard in hand. His dark hair was perfectly styled, his light brown suit immaculate, his expression politely neutral. He appeared so smooth and composed that Jane couldn’t contain the impulse to ruffle his feathers.
“You look like a real estate agent from central casting.” She jammed her hands on her hips and eyed him up and down. “If I was a director, I’d be looking for the flaw that shows you’re human.”
“If I have flaws, I take care to hide them,” Cole said evenly.
“Isn’t that just like a man?” And what a man. Squashing that thought, Jane said, “Come in.”
CHAPTER TWO
COLE FOLLOWED Jane down the hall to the lounge room. He could almost smell his mother’s Sunday roast cooking and hear his dog Toby’s tail thump in greeting.
His family had kept chickens, a few sheep and a couple of horses. His father had worked at the real estate agency; his mother had stayed home and looked after the animals and the vegetable garden. He and Joey had roamed freely for miles around through woods and fields on horseback. With the nostalgia came an acute sense of loss, for those long-ago days and for what he might have done with the farm as an adult.
“You can hardly see the house for the contents, but I’m gradually clearing it out,” Jane said.
On closer inspection Cole observed the dingy paintwork and chipped plaster. On the high ceiling a water stain ran from one corner to the pressed-tin rose in the center. It made him sad and angry to see the house his great-grandfather had built in such poor condition. Keeping his expression impassive, he made a note on his clipboard.
“Esther allowed the house to get rundown.” Jane seemed to know what he was thinking.
“It just needs a little TLC,” Cole said, running a hand along the polished marble mantelpiece covered in patches of dust. “You haven’t changed your mind about selling? You might like Red Hill. It’s more sophisticated than it was in the old days.”
“My work is in the city,” Jane said. “And Mary Kate is looking forward to starting high school there next month and making new friends.”
Cole glanced toward the kitchen where he could smell toast. “Where is Mary
