“That’s wonderful news,” Cole said, smiling for the first time. “I’ll be able to get to know Mary Kate properly. Stephanie will be excited.”
“How is Stephanie?” Jane asked politely. “Does she live with you?”
“She’s great. She stays with me on the weekends and during the summer holidays and with Leslie during the week when school’s in.” He angled a framed photo on his desk so Jane could see the picture of a young girl with Cole’s open grin and Leslie’s straight blond hair. “She’s turning twelve next month. Loves horses.”
“Mary Kate, too,” Jane said, softening.
“Yeah?” Cole’s face lit.
Something like warmth flashed between them, a shared moment over their daughter. Then Cole leaned back in his chair, his face carefully neutral.
“Leslie’s married to Fergus Palmer now,” Cole went on. “They have two little boys from his first marriage.”
“So I heard.” Cole’s divorce from Leslie had gone through before his trip to L.A. At first Jane had wondered if he’d been hoping to get back together with her, but his interest had proved to be solely in Mary Kate.
Cole glanced at her bare left hand. “What about you? Are you still seeing that producer you introduced me to in L.A.?”
“That was a long time ago. Anyway, I don’t have time for a relationship,” Jane said. “Mary Kate and I are a self-contained unit. We don’t need anyone else.”
Cole came upright with a thump of his chair legs on the mat. “You can’t decide that for Mary Kate. She has family here. Me, Stephanie, her grandmother and her uncle Joey—”
Jane held up a hand, shifting back to the edge of her seat. Any hint of warmth had vanished and the time for polite chitchat was definitely over. “She’ll see you all, don’t worry.”
They glared at each other, unmoving.
Then Cole let out a breath and flexed his shoulders. Unexpectedly, he gave her the grin that used to twist her heart into knots. “Doesn’t take much to set us off, does it?”
Jane smiled stiffly, keeping a tight grip on herself, refusing to respond to that grin. So much for bright and breezy.
Cole cleared his throat and changed the subject. “Have you come home to live at Cockatoo Ridge?”
“No,” Jane said. “That’s why I’m here. Esther’s will has gone through probate and her estate has been settled. I want you to sell Cockatoo Ridge for me.”
“You’re selling the farm?”
She supposed she could hardly blame him if his surprise was mingled with a touch of resentment—if not outrage. She could hardly blame him if it was. Cockatoo Ridge had been built by his great-grandfather and had belonged to his family for generations until Cole’s father had been forced to sell it to pay gambling debts. No doubt Cole would love to have it back, but she couldn’t afford to be sentimental. Cole was unlikely to be able to meet the high price the property would rightfully command.
“I have no use for the land,” she explained. “The house is old and needs work. I’ve got my eye on a high-rise apartment in the city. It’s right on the waterfront, a corner apartment with fabulous views of the bay. There are theaters and restaurants nearby and it’s close to work.”
“Sounds expensive.”
“It costs a bomb. That’s why I need to sell the farm straightaway. For the highest possible price.”
“Those are mutually exclusive criteria,” Cole informed her, suddenly businesslike. “You can sell quickly for a lower price or wait for a decent offer. Midsummer isn’t the best time to sell. Why not enjoy the warm months in Red Hill and put the property on the market in autumn?”
And give her horse-crazy daughter a chance to settle into a country home and not want to leave? No way. “If I wait, I could lose the apartment.”
Cole tapped his pen on the blotter, frowning at her in silence. Then, with a sigh, he pulled out his appointment book and turned the pages. “I’ll come out and value the farm and we can settle on an asking price.”
“It hasn’t changed since your family lived there—a rambling Victorian house and barn on ten acres with a creek running through it. Do you really need to see it?” The less she saw of him, the better.
“It’s been years since I was at Cockatoo Ridge,” Cole said. “I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t inspect the property in person.”
Jane nodded, resigning herself. “How about tomorrow? I’m heading back to Melbourne on Sunday night.”
“You always were in a desperate hurry to leave town.”
She eyed him steadily. “I still am.”
“I wish I could get you to reconsider,” he said, his gaze hardening. “This is an opportunity for me to get to know Mary Kate. I’ve had precious little contact with her over the years.”
Jane took a deep breath and counted to ten. Mary Kate talked to Cole on the phone on birthdays and at Christmas. She replied to his e-mails. Was it Jane’s fault the time difference made communication difficult? Or that an almost-twelve-year-old had little interest in a faraway father she’d never known and rarely saw?
“It’s not easy finding the time and money to make overseas trips,” she said. “I came back when she was five. You’ve been over a couple of times.”
“The last time I was only in L.A. for a week before you whisked her off to Canada on a trip you’d neglected to mention before I flew all the way over there.”
Jane jiggled a sandal-clad foot impatiently. “It was a last-minute thing. She’d been invited to the Calgary Stampede by a classmate and begged me to let her go.”
“There were other times I asked to visit, but there was always some reason it wasn’t convenient.”
“And there were times when I suggested you come and you had other plans,” Jane reminded him. “It’s not that I don’t want you to see her—” She broke off abruptly, unable to speak her real fears aloud—that Cole would try to take Mary Kate away from her.
“I hope not. She’s my daughter, too.” Cole’s voice took on an edge, sounding to Jane almost like a threat.
Her chin rose. “I bore her, I gave birth to her, I raised her. She’s mine. You have Stephanie. Isn’t that enough?”
“If I had ten children, I would still want Mary Kate,” Cole insisted. “Kids aren’t stuffed toys. When you’ve got enough you don’t mind giving one away. I wish you’d never left Red Hill with my child.”
“Did you really imagine Mary Kate and I could have lived in this small town and played second fiddle to Leslie and Stephanie?” Jane demanded. She’d known he’d been going out with Leslie but the couple had broken up before Leslie had gone on holiday with her parents. Then Leslie had come home pregnant. Cole’s future had been stitched up within a week, long before Jane had had any inkling that she was also pregnant.
Cole was silent, his jaw tightening. Throwing her an unreadable glance, he pulled out an appointment card and began to write on it.
Jane tilted her head, studying him. Who wore ties nowadays or combed their hair with a part? He was like Clark Kent, the handsome nerd who doesn’t make the most of his sex appeal. “You haven’t changed.”
“You’re wrong,” he said flatly. “As you frequently are, but there’s no telling you that.”
He rose and came around the desk. Jane got to her feet, trapped