She touched her baby’s gravestone one last time, aching with regret and loss. And then she paused, looking upward as the stillness of the hot April morning was shattered.

A helicopter was arrowing in fast from the east. It was big and powerful, a much larger machine than those owned by the larger local landowners. All black, almost menacing, it swept in low across the bare paddocks, heading straight for the homestead.

Holly winced. There’d been a trickle of potential buyers looking at the place since it had gone on the market. No one had been interested. Munwannay needed a massive injection of cash and enthusiasm to build it up to the magnificent property it had once been. If these were more potential buyers sent by the rural land agents, they’d react the same as the others. They’d walk through the faded splendour of the old homestead; they’d look at the weathered outbuildings and the dilapidated infrastructure and they’d walk away. If these buyers were coming in such a helicopter they’d have more money than most, but then they could afford to buy a more prestigious place.

And she didn’t want them here now. Not on her last day.

But they were landing. She watched them as the chopper settled in a cloud of dust; as the doors opened. Four men in dark jeans and black T-shirts jumped out. Big men. Powerfully built, all of them.

Odd. Up until now potential buyers had been local farmers wanting to extend their own landholdings, distinctive by age and by weathering-or men in suits from the city.

No matter. She needed to be gracious. If this place sold it would give her a hope of settling the crippling debts left by her father’s refusal to believe his circumstances in the world had changed. She pinned a smile on her face and hurried forward, not wanting them to come here-to see the tiny gravestone she loved so much.

They were young to be buyers, she thought as they approached. And foreign? They were olive skinned, as Andreas had been. They looked serious, purposeful, striding across the paddock towards her with an intent at odds with a potential buyer’s initial appraisal.