A Heart This Big

by Cheyenne Blue

  Leigh rose, went out to Grizz’s corner, and perched on the edge of the desk.

  Grizz swivelled around. “Glad you’re here. Can you sign these cheque requests?”

  Leigh found a pen and signed her neat signature on each document. “Do I have a free morning next week?”

  Grizz arched an eyebrow. “Wednesday.”

  “Keep that clear if you can. I’ll go back to Banksia Farm and take another look. I may have been too hasty in my decision.”

  “No worries. Want me to call Nina and set it up?”

  “No.” Leigh picked up Grizz’s Superwoman action figure and bent the toy into a fighting stance. “Nina suggested I just turn up. I’ll do that.” She set the figure down on a pile of court documents.

  “According to their website, the farm always needs volunteers.” Grizz moved Superwoman into a crouch and set her on the stapler. “Go and help out for a morning. You might gain a better insight on how the farm runs, whether it’s something you want to take on pro bono. If you’re working there, you’ll see the real farm, not just what Nina wants you to see.”

  Volunteer. The last time Leigh had volunteered for anything had been the Law Society dinner planning committee. She had no idea what she’d be doing if she volunteered at Banksia Farm, but she’d bet the next end-of-the-month muffins it would be more exciting than the Law Society dinner. A picture flashed in her mind of Nina showing her the photos of the adults who gave their time willingly to help the farm. They’d looked as if they were enjoying themselves. Something tugged in her chest as she thought of the photos on Nina’s board. She picked up Superwoman and made her leap off the stapler onto the desk. One small step for womankind.

  Leigh nodded thoughtfully. “I just might take your suggestion.”

  Grizz handed up the bag containing Nina’s gumboots. “Then you can save me the effort of mailing these.”

  “She’s back.” Phoe stomped into the kitchen in her gumboots. They left dusty prints on the freshly mopped tiles.

  Nina pushed her hair from her eyes. “Phoe, are you totally blind? Can’t you see the floor’s wet? And who’s back?”

  “Sorry.” Phoe retreated to the door. “The lawyer woman. Leigh.”

  “What does she want?” Nina frowned. It was a long drive to deliver a letter refusing the case. Maybe she wanted to give them a bill for the clothes. Nina didn’t like to think too hard about that one. She was sure she could clothe herself and Phoe for a year based on the cost of that suit and designer pumps.

  Phoe stood on one leg and wiggled the other. “I didn’t ask her. I saw her car drive up, and I came and got you.”

  “There won’t be anyone there to greet her. It’s only after seven.”

  “I don’t want to talk to her. I don’t think she likes me.” Phoe shucked her gumboots on the porch and walked on tiptoes over the wet floor. “I have to get ready for school.”

  Nina left the mop in the bucket and found a pair of shoes. She looked down at herself. Her shorts had a rip in the thigh, and her singlet was dirty, but that was nothing new. She hadn’t had a chance to tie her hair back, so it hung below her shoulders. It needed a wash. She sighed to herself. She looked like shit, but what did it matter? Leigh was probably only there to deliver something, and Nina didn’t need second sight to know it wouldn’t be good.

  She went down the steps from the house and along the path that led to the farmyard.

  Leigh was talking to Jellybean. Jelly had her head down, and Leigh was rubbing her between the ears, Jelly’s favourite place.

  That was something Nina hadn’t expected to see, not after the last disastrous visit.

  Leigh turned at Nina’s approach. “Hello. How are you?”

  “Fine, thanks.” Nina pushed her hair behind her ears and studied Leigh.

  Or the person who superficially looked like Leigh. Gone were the tailored black suit and cream-coloured blouse. Gone were the sheer tights and designer pumps. This version of Leigh wore a grey T-shirt and a pair of shorts. Tailored shorts to be sure, not the baggy drawstring sort that Nina wore, and they were an impractical beige colour. Her legs were bare, and she had a pair of canvas shoes on her feet. If you didn’t look at the perfectly pressed clothes and unsuitable colour choices, she looked like any of her farm volunteers. Even her blonde hair wasn’t in its formal office pleat but was caught up in a ponytail at the nape of her neck.

  “Can I help you?” She checked Leigh’s hands for papers. Nothing. They must be in the car.

  “I’ve come to volunteer for the morning. Well, until eleven anyway. I need to be changed and at my desk by one.”

  Why? Nina nearly blurted the word. Her mind whirled. She must be missing something. Leigh wasn’t the sort of person to simply volunteer.

  “I’ve been thinking about you. About the farm,” Leigh amended. A slight flush coloured her cheeks. “I thought I’d come here one more time.” She gestured to a bag at her feet. “And return your gumboots.”

  “You’re very welcome,” Nina said, even as her mind spun through the reasons behind Leigh’s decision. Did this mean Leigh was considering taking her on? Nina’s breath hitched, enough that she instinctively felt her pocket for her inhaler. Keep calm. Don’t react. Treat her like any other person. “We love new volunteers. There’s a bit of paperwork I need you to sign before I can put you to work, though.”

  A real smile, not a professional one, curved Leigh’s lips. With a start, Nina realised Leigh wasn’t wearing make-up. She looked younger, more natural.

  “Of course. I expected that.”

  Nina led her to the corner of the barn that housed the sign-up sheets. She pulled one out of the file and handed it to Leigh. “Take your time to read, then if you are happy, please sign and date.”

  Leigh glanced at the document. Her lips twitched a couple of times as she read. “Did a lawyer write this?”

  Nina fiddled with the pens in the jam jar, found the best one, and handed it to Leigh. “Do you think a lawyer wrote it?”

  “To be honest, no.”

  Nina sighed. “You’re right. I cobbled it together from similar documents I’ve signed over the years.”

  Leigh signed with a flourish. “I have no problem signing this, as it doesn’t hold water. You should ask a lawyer to rewrite it.”

  Like that was going to happen. It was far from her most important priority. She took Leigh’s form and placed it in the folder.

  “What do you want me to do?” Leigh quirked an eyebrow.

  The sight hit Nina like a punch in the gut. This was far from the cool, rather distant lawyer who’d been here the other day. This was almost like any other volunteer who came in the gate and asked what they could do. Most of them stayed an hour, did a minimal amount of work, and never returned. Some did. But they were people with time on their hands who wanted to do something different. They weren’t the Leighs of this world.

  And this Leigh was staring at her, waiting for her reply. Nina’s tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth, and she couldn’t find words. Leigh in her shorts and canvas shoes, stripped of her professional veneer, was suddenly a woman, not an automaton. An attractive woman. A woman who even now, as she stared at Nina, head to one side, assessing her nonresponse probably, was the first woman who had stirred Nina’s interest in at least a couple of years, ever since Nina had split with Jenn.

  Nina swallowed.

  Leigh still stared at her, although now her gaze was slightly puzzled. She was doubtless wondering why Nina hadn’t answered.

  “My chores today are to sweep the yard, collect eggs, clean out the chook shed, milk Charli-the-goat, and if I have any time left over, pull hemlock in the paddock.”

  “Okay, then. I’ll tag along. What’s first?”

  “The chooks,” Nina said. “They’ll be out foraging already, and so it’s a good time to get the eggs. Grab that basket ove
r there and follow along.” If there was still a tiny chance Leigh would help them, giving her a pleasurable task would do the most good.

  Her voice was back to normal—at least she hoped it was. Leigh was just a volunteer, albeit an unusual one. She waited while Leigh collected the basket and then led the way to the chook house.

  Nina gestured to the laying boxes. “Lift up the lid. If there’re eggs, pick them out. If there’s a hen in the box, put the lid back down. Look before you stick your hand in. Occasionally, there’s a snake.”

  “Really?” Leigh seemed more fascinated than alarmed, which was a good sign for a prospective volunteer. A few had refused to go any further once they heard that. But then Nina saw the shudder go through Leigh’s body, swiftly controlled. So she wasn’t as cool and calm as she made out, then.

  “Yes. Not often, but occasionally there’s a little diamond python or a red-bellied black. They’re after the eggs.”

  “Got it.” Leigh crouched and lifted the first lid. She peered in, then stuck her hand in and brought out a brown egg. “Do brown hens lay brown eggs?”

  “Pretty much. That light-brown egg would have come from one of the Australorps.” She gestured to a large, dark-sheened chicken scratching around the edge of the paddock.

  “How can you tell?” Leigh opened the next hatch, looked inside, and removed a darker egg.

  “Because the darker ones, like that one, come from the ISA browns—the smaller, brown hen. Both sorts of eggs are equally delicious.”

  Leigh shuffled further along the line until she’d found nearly four dozen eggs and two affronted nesting hens. “What do you do with the eggs?”

  “Phoebe and I eat a lot of them. We sell the rest in the farm shop. Six bucks a dozen.”

  Leigh’s shorts had ridden up her thighs as she crouched. Her skin was milky white, unblemished, and it looked as soft as butter. Nina tried not to stare. Leigh’s skin was everything hers was not. Her own legs were tanned, toughened by the sun, covered with small scars and scratches.

  “Any chance I can buy a dozen of these today? I know someone who’ll love them.”

  “Sure. I’m not sure you’ll love them after the next chore. Collecting eggs is the fun part that all the kids love. They see who can find the biggest or smallest eggs, the most eggs, and so on. But now we have to clean the nesting boxes. Let’s take the eggs back to the barn, and I’ll show you.”

  Cleaning the boxes was not a glamourous job, but it was a worthwhile one. Nina had long ago learnt to give new volunteers a soft, easy job first so they had fun before she gave them a dirty one to show it wasn’t all about skipping around the paddocks, collecting eggs, and bottle-feeding baby goats. And finally, a job that needed knowledge or skill to give them something to aspire to. Although whether a lawyer would find milking a goat to be a life challenge remained to be seen.

  “This is easy but not fun,” Nina said. “Put the gloves on, remove the dirty straw and chicken shit from the nesting boxes, brush out with the hand broom, and then replace with clean straw. If one is particularly foul, you’ll need to hose it out and let it dry before you replace the straw.” She glanced across at Leigh. “Still up for it?”

  Leigh’s lips compressed, and her nose wrinkled. Damn. Leigh was not just another volunteer. Nina should have found her something more pleasurable to do.

  “Of course, if you’d rather not, that’s fine.” She hated how her voice sounded so conciliatory. “There’s always work to do in the farm shop.”

  “Would you ask any other volunteer to clean the nesting boxes?”

  Leigh’s superior tone grated on Nina’s ears. So Madam Lawyer thought she was above this, did she? She swallowed her instinctive retort. “Unless there’s a reason why they can’t, then, yes. It’s a regular volunteer task. But you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.”

  Leigh looked as if she was going to refuse the task, but then her shoulders squared, and she shot Nina a cool glance. “I’m capable of doing this.” She took the gloves and trundled the wheelbarrow back over to the boxes.

  Nina watched as she set to work. Her movements were neat and economical. It was a messy task: chicken shit, feathers, soggy straw, and sometimes bits of eggshell or insects littered the nesting boxes.

  Why was Leigh here? She hadn’t said why she’d returned; she’d just appeared. She still hadn’t said whether she was going to take Nina’s case, and that omission alone had Nina as jumpy as a kangaroo in a stock pen. A couple of days ago, when Leigh had driven away in her elegant car, its sides coated with dust, Nina thought she wouldn’t see her again. She had resigned herself to doing the best she could, maybe write a letter to Billy’s lawyers and offer a small sum of money to settle the claim. But here was Leigh again.

  Maybe hope was not lost. Nina absently followed Leigh with her gaze, focussing on the nape of her neck revealed by the ponytail. It was as soft and white and unblemished as her legs.

  Leigh worked methodically. Once it was obvious she was fine, Nina said, “I’ll be over in the veggie patch. Come and find me when you’re done here.”

  Leigh stood and stretched her back. “What should I do with the dirty straw?”

  “Add it to the manure heap. Thank you.” She left before she could say something stupid, such as “What are you really doing here?”

  She collected her pitchfork and went down to the veggie patch. The soil needed to be turned over before she planted more summer crops: lettuce, tomatoes, and capsicum. She worked steadily, breaking up the hard soil with the fork to aerate it, working in some of the stable manure for nutrients as she went.

  Leigh appeared as she reached one end. “I’m not used to this physical work.”

  “Don’t overdo it, or you’ll be sore later.” Nina stretched her arms over her head to loosen her shoulders and eyed her newest recruit.

  Leigh absently massaged a shoulder, her expression still aloof, but Nina caught where Leigh’s gaze was directed: at Nina as she stretched. At Nina’s breasts.

  Heat stole into her cheeks, and swiftly, she relaxed her arms again. She hadn’t expected Leigh to be interested in her in that way. There was no point complicating this more than she had to. She wanted Leigh for her legal skills, not for anything else.

  And right now, she was still at a loss to know why Leigh was really here. Why drive an hour to volunteer at something you had no knowledge or skill at? There were volunteer opportunities closer to the centre of Sydney. The homeless, food banks, meals on wheels. Nothing that involved chicken shit and sore backs. Leigh’s assistance was welcome—heaven knows, she always needed more volunteers—but right now, there were more pressing things she needed to know.

  Like would Leigh take her on pro bono?

  She stuck the pitchfork in the ground. “You’ve done enough for your first time.” Would there be a second time? Right now, Leigh’s coolness implied there wouldn’t be, in which case Nina needed to find out as much as she could now. She forced a smile. “Why don’t you come up to the house, and we’ll have a cup of coffee?”

  Leigh gave a slight smile. “Sure. Coffee would be very welcome. Thank you.”

  They walked side by side to the farmhouse. Nina pushed open the unlocked door and led the way into the kitchen.

  Leigh’s gaze flicked around the kitchen, as if mentally cataloguing the mismatched crockery and the battered wooden table.

  Nina looked around, seeing it through Leigh’s eyes. Shabby, untidy. A few dishes in the sink that Phoebe must have left as she hurried off to school. A dish on the ground with stale cat food in it, attracting a few flies. Binks, Phoebe’s new kitten, couldn’t have come home last night. Nina gave a mental shrug. Leigh would have to see her home as it was. No doubt it was a far cry from where Leigh lived. Nina imagined her in a sleek glass-and-stainless-steel apartment with a huge balcony and a view of the harbour. In some trendy suburb with a price tag in
the multiple millions.

  “It’s only instant, I’m afraid.” She flicked the switch on the kettle and found two mugs that seemed reasonably clean.

  “That’s fine.”

  Nina waited until Leigh was seated at the kitchen table, hands wrapped around her mug, before she asked, “Why are you really here this morning? Not that I don’t appreciate the assistance, but I can’t help thinking you won’t be one of my long-term volunteers.”

  Leigh blew on her coffee. “Two reasons. The first, as you’ve probably guessed, is that I didn’t give you a fair chance when I came out last time. Things didn’t go so well, and that wasn’t your fault. I thought volunteering would give me a chance to see the farm again and from a different perspective. I hoped it would help me decide whether or not to take it on.” She sipped her coffee, winced, and set the mug down.

  “And the other reason?”

  That slight smile again, one corner of her lips twitching, as if something was privately amusing. “Grizz talked me into it. I’m still not quite sure why I agreed.”

  Oh. No doubt Leigh wouldn’t be back again. Not as a volunteer anyway. Then Nina’s mind leapt on the first part of what she’d said. Leigh was still considering them. There was still a chance. Maybe, just maybe, it would be okay. Hope surged in her chest. Please make her say yes.

  Leigh stared at her, one eyebrow raised.

  Self-consciously, Nina looked down at her own mug, clenched in her hand. “I hope you enjoyed the morning and you’ll come again.”

  “I’ll have to see if I have time available.” Leigh set her full mug down on the table and drew her feet together as if to rise.

  Of course, she wouldn’t commit. Especially if she didn’t take them on. It was now or never. Nina had to know. “And have you decided whether you can help with the claim against us?” Her chest was tight, and she wished for her puffer. What if after all of this Leigh said no? What then?