Ella’s mobile phone vibrated, and when she snatched it up Jake’s name lit the screen. She swiped to accept the call.
‘That was quick,’ she said.
‘I’m sorry if my message worried you,’ Jake’s deep voice answered.
Ella blinked. ‘What message? Sorry, I called you about your nanna’s house.’
‘What’s happened to Irma’s house? I called you about Sam.’
The missed calls. Ella was on her feet in a beat, adrenalin surging through her stomach in a sickening swing. ‘What’s happened to Sam?’
‘He’s here with me. Didn’t you get my message?’
Ella swallowed past the lump that was doing its best to block her throat. ‘Is Sam okay?’
‘Sam is fine, Ella. I didn’t mean to frighten you. Now what’s this about the house? It hasn’t burned down or been burgled or anything?’
Burned down? Burgled? ‘The house is fine, Jake. What’s going on?’
‘Right. Let’s start again then, now we know everyone is fine and my house hasn’t burned down. I rang to let you know I have Sam here and I’ll tell you all about that in two seconds. First, what’s this about the house?’
Ella’s spleen, lungs and kidneys all settled in their rightful places, and she was able to speak again. ‘I’ve got an offer for you.’
‘On the house?’
‘Of course on the house. What other sort of offer did you think I was making?’ Why wouldn’t any of this conversation make sense?
Ella walked the width of the room towards the wall where there was a big blown-up picture of Harvey in the Chalk Hill & Districts Courier, taken on the anniversary of his twentieth year with Begg & Robertson Real Estate, shaking hands with the Shire President.
‘Someone made an offer on the house?’ Jake repeated, doubt threading through his voice.
‘Yes. Henry Graham. We saw him at the Home Open on Friday. If you’re not busy this afternoon, I’d like to come out and present it to you.’
‘Henry Graham made an offer on Irma’s house?’ His voice hardened.
‘Yes.’
‘Will I like it?’
‘I couldn’t say, Jake,’ Ella said.
‘Okay. Come on out. We’re here. Do you know where I live?’
Everyone knew the Honeychurch farm. ‘On Quarry Road, about eight kilometres past the pit.’
‘Yep. See you soon.’
Ella hesitated. ‘Jake? About Sam?’
‘Sam is fine, Ella, I promise.’
‘He’s not in trouble? He didn’t break anything?’
‘Let’s talk when you get here. Drive carefully. Nothing’s happened to Sam that setting a land-speed record on your way out here will fix. The grader was out this week and the gravel’s a bit slippery. I’m not sure you’re used to driving on gravel.’
‘I’ll be careful. I’m on my way. You promise me Sam is okay?’
‘He’s fine. He’s up in my top paddock, picking up sticks.’
‘Then you have an imposter. That doesn’t sound like my boy.’
‘Do him good to do some real work.’ A chuckle behind the words.
For the first time, Ella relaxed. Sam was really okay. Jake wouldn’t laugh if he wasn’t.
She turned off the lights and locked the office, and she was in her car and a hundred metres down the road before she realised she’d left the paperwork and the manila listing file on the boardroom table. Cursing softly, she turned the car around, parked outside the office and retraced her steps. She was very glad Bob Begg wasn’t there to see her. He would have laughed his head off if he knew she’d left her first ever Offer and Acceptance form decorating the company’s boardroom table.
CHAPTER
12
Quarry Road was slippery as Ella negotiated the newly graded surface in her Mazda. Her handbag had already wedged itself in the gap between the passenger seat and passenger door, and the precious listing folder and offer papers had hit the floor shortly after Ella rounded the first corner.
At least the grader had knocked out some of the corrugations, but the Mazda still felt every rock and pebble. Not like the four-wheel-drives that flashed past her going the other way, not a care in the world.
What with concentrating on driving, planning what she’d say to Jake and worrying about Sam, Ella’s fingers ached on the steering wheel by the time she neared the green post with 3701 painted in white on the marker: the famous Honeychurch family farm.
It wasn’t just relief that she’d got this far that made her relax as she turned into the driveway. How could you visit a property like this and not relax? Driving into Jake’s place felt like pulling on your favourite pair of jeans.
Ella slowed to a crawl, then to a stop. She’d been to quite a few properties now with Harvey and Bob, and some of those were worth a million dollars or more. They were stunning. Jake’s place stepped stunning up a notch.
Winding from the high point of the road, facing north-west, the farm occupied pretty much all the undulating paddocks Ella could see. Shelter-belt trees ran through the paddocks in scattered grey-green ribbons, and to the north, state forestry took up the horizon and turned it a misted purple-blue.
It must be amazing in the winter when everything is green.
Even now the muted shades of golden brown grass and stubble in the paddocks had its own kind of dry-blown beauty.
There was one startlingly clear huge blue dam near the base of a creek line, and several smaller dams dotted across hills that were divided by a train track of post and wire fencing into large and smaller paddocks. The sheep grazing near the driveway were the largest darn sheep Ella had ever seen. Huge rolls of fleece turned them into grey Velcro blankets as head after head bobbed up, staring at her as if the Mazda was a rover vehicle and she’d just launched it onto their moon.
Halfway up the first of the rolling hills, bordered by limestone retaining walls and gardens, Jake’s
