Missing. Jasmine Cresswell
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firm, but I looked them up just to be sure. Fenwick Jaeger. They’re a sixty-year-old law firm, entirely reputable. Twenty active partners, another forty associates and God knows how many paralegals. The covering letter came from somebody called Walter Daniels, senior partner. I decided not to trouble your mother with the details of his communication, at least until after today’s services, but I’d like to give you a heads-up.”
Megan’s stomach lurched in anticipation of disaster. “What were the documents Mr. Daniels sent you?”
“A will.” Cody cleared his throat. “Your father’s will.”
“But we already have his will.” Megan’s forehead wrinkled in puzzlement.
“This is another will, with completely different provisions from the one I drew up for Ron. Mr. Daniels claims it’s the last will and testament written by your dad. By Ron Raven,” Cody added, as if she might have lost track of who her father actually was.
She and Liam had obviously rejoiced way too early about her mother’s financial security, Megan thought bleakly. From the way Cody was shuffling his feet, he clearly didn’t like the provisions of this new will.
“Do the documents look authentic to you?” she asked.
“As far as I can tell, they’re the real thing. Format’s impeccable and it looks like Ron’s signature to me. Of course, we can dispute it—”
“The signature or the will?”
“Either. Both. Don’t know where that might get us. Like I said, Fenwick Jaeger aren’t exactly fly-by-nights. I doubt if we’re going to prove that this is a forgery. They have their reputation on the line in sending this to me. No way they’d knowingly be party to any hanky-panky.”
Hanky-panky? Megan was too worried to find the lawyer’s quaintly old-fashioned turn of phrase amusing. How about total betrayal, if he needed words to describe Ron’s behavior toward his wife of thirty-six years? “What are the provisions of the Chicago will, Cody? Are we going to want to dispute them?”
“Yes,” he said flatly.
Megan’s hand was shaking enough that she had to put down her punch. “Give me the main points.”
Cody actually winced. “From our point of view, there’s only one main point. You, your mother and your brother aren’t even mentioned.”
Her mother wasn’t mentioned? A shiver ran down Megan’s spine. “If Mom isn’t named as a beneficiary, what happens to the ranch?”
Cody stared down at the floor, then up to the ceiling. Apparently he found the help he was seeking in neither place. “It’s not good, Meg. According to the Chicago will, your father’s other daughter gets the ranch. That would be Kate Fairfax Raven. She gets the land, the breeding stock, everything.”
Megan stared at the lawyer, literally incapable of speech.
“We can fight,” Cody said quickly. “We’ll fight those particular provisions tooth and nail, trust me.”
“How could he?” Megan was suddenly ice cold with fury. The rage that she’d been struggling to hold at bay ever since hearing of her father’s bigamy spewed out with volcanic force. “How could he give my mother’s property away like that? He had no right!”
Cody laid his hand on her arm. “We’ll certainly make that argument to the probate judge. Don’t know exactly where it will get us. The fact is, none of the Flying W land ever belonged directly to Ellie—”
“What do you mean?” Megan realized her voice was rising and that they were surrounded by people who didn’t need to hear this latest installment in the humiliation of Ellie Raven. She forced herself back under control. “The whole eastern third of the Flying W ranch has been owned by Mom’s family since 1886!”
“Yes, but that’s the problem. It was owned by her parents and her grandparents, not by your mother herself. Ron bought the land from Ellie’s dad and the money he used for the purchase came from his business interests.” Cody lifted his shoulders, the gesture apologetic. “It’s not a slam dunk to get a probate judge to agree that Ellie has any intrinsic right to that land, Megan, let alone the remaining two-thirds of the property. Remember, the majority of the land that makes up the Flying W ranch was your father’s, long before he married your mother.”
“The ranch isn’t just a business. It’s my mother’s home. It’s her life.”
“I realize how much the Flying W means to Ellie, but the ranch was set up years ago as a business with your mother’s full consent. That makes a difference to the legal situation. I’ll fight for her. I consider her a friend as well as a client and I’ll fight hard. But, bottom line, the judge may well decide that the ranch should be sold and the money divided up among the claimants. I’m being honest with you, Megan. In my best judgment, we’re in for a bruising fight.”
“When is the Chicago will dated?” she asked, surprised she could ask such a coherent question in view of her simmering fury. “Did my father sign it before or after he signed the will in my mother’s possession?”
Cody cleared his throat again. “Well, that’s another of the odd things about the situation. The Chicago will is dated the precise same day as the one I drew up for your dad three years ago.”
“The same day?” Megan stared at him. “How could Dad have signed a will in Chicago at the same time as he’s signing one here in Wyoming? That’s crazy.” She experienced a flash of hope. “The Chicago will must be a forgery.”
“I don’t believe so. Like I said, your father’s signature looked authentic to me, and the will was properly witnessed and notarized. Have to say, too, that Fenwick Jaeger are too experienced a firm to mess up something as important as the date on a legal document.”
“Then how is it possible that both wills were signed the same day? Thatch and Chicago are fourteen hundred miles apart!”
“Well, it sure doesn’t seem like it could be chance,” Cody acknowledged. His expression suggested he’d prefer to be breaking stones on a chain gang rather than having this conversation. He coughed again. Constricted throat muscles seemed to be an inevitable accompaniment to people trying to discuss Ron Raven, Megan reflected bitterly.
“Guess your dad must have deliberately set out to ensure both wills got signed on the same day,” Cody said. “I checked my appointment calendar and your dad didn’t come in to my office until late in the afternoon—he was my last appointment. If Ron signed the Chicago will first thing in the morning he could have flown back to Jackson Hole and arrived here in Thatch just in time to sign another will in my office that same day. There’s a one-hour time difference between here and Chicago, remember.”
Why in the world would her father have done something as bizarre as sign two wills on the same day? Megan wondered. To cast doubts on the legitimacy of both wills so that his estate would have to be divided up among the two branches of his family by the courts? Or merely to ensure that he caused as much trouble and inconvenience as possible? From what she’d learned over the past few days, she was almost willing to believe the latter.
Cody tried to smile. “There’s one positive aspect of this situation. The will I drew up was signed later in the day than the one the Chicago lawyers have just sent me. Must have been. He couldn’t have arrived back in Chicago during business hours. Totally impossible, even by private jet. That means the will I drew up—the one in your mother’s possession—probably represents your father’s last will and testament—”
“And therefore it’s the one that will hold up in court?”’
“We’ll make the argument.” Cody lifted his shoulders in a defeated shrug. “The existence of another will signed on the same day suggests, at the very least, that your father was ambivalent about his wishes. Any probate judge is going to take the existence of the other will into account in deciding how to dispose of your father’s assets. But here is one more fact that’s in