A Father's Stake. Mary Anne Wilson

taller than her own five-feet-two-inches and was sitting in the rocking chair. Grace had immediately noticed the assortment of papers spread on the low coffee table.

      The stranger stood when he saw her, smoothing the front of his elegant dove-gray suit.

      “I am Ethan Vaughn, with the Seals, Silkirk and Vaughn Law Firm.” Grace barely had the time to acknowledge her mother’s strained expression before he took her hand and said, “I am representing your father in a legal matter that concerns you.”

      She’d just stared at him. Her father? She looked around, then let go of his hand and sank onto the couch by her mother. Reclaiming his seat in the rocker, he’d leaned forward, picked up a couple of papers and handed them to her.

      The first one she read was a deed for a three hundred acre property in New Mexico, outside a small town called Wolf Lake. “What is this?” she asked, then stopped as she saw her name on the deed. She stared at it, certain she was hallucinating.

      “A property deed and....” He motioned for her to look at the next sheet of paper.

      The hallucination expanded. In her hands was a cashier’s check for fifty thousand dollars attached to a verification letter that had her name on it. She’d shaken her head, then turned to her mother. Gabriella Michaels touched her daughter’s knees. “It’s yours,” she said in a shaky voice. “It’s all yours.”

      Mr. Vaughn had spoken then. “Your father wanted me to bring these to you.”

      Charles Luther Michaels had disappeared from Grace’s life when she was about three years old. The man had been there one day, and gone the next. No goodbyes, no arguments, no warning.

      “He’s restless,” her mother had explained more than once. “He needs to be on the move, and he’s not equipped to be a husband or a father.” The words had meant little to a tiny girl who didn’t have a daddy anymore, and though the tears had long since dried up, she had never quite lost that deep longing for a family.

      When her own marriage had failed, she wondered if she’d deliberately picked a man like her father to try and prove to herself that she could make it work. But she’d been wrong. So very wrong. Her daughter Lilly, now six, hadn’t even been born when Jerry Evans said he couldn’t do the whole family thing. Her mother’s mistake had become her own, and the only good thing out of the mess was her daughter. Grace had listened as Mr. Vaughn explained that the deed and money were hers if she wanted them. If not, they could go to charity. She’d almost laughed at that, although she’d recognized that the laughter would have bordered on hysteria. She was close to being her own charity with a child to support.

      As she drove now into the afternoon sun, the New Mexico countryside passing by unnoticed, her mind refused to settle. By the time Mr. Vaughn had left the apartment that day, she’d known that no matter what the reason behind this sudden windfall, it was hers, and she could make the life she’d always dreamed of for her little family.

      Maybe Lilly could go to a school that didn’t require security guards at the doors, even for kindergarten. The air had to be cleaner out here, the streets safer. As the miles flew by, she was getting closer and closer to the end of her own personal rainbow. New Mexico. She’d never thought much about it before, except for the city of Taos far to the south, an artists’ mecca. But that had been in her teens, when she’d had dreams of being an artist after she graduated from high school. Instead she’d ended up as waitress at The Table, a down-on-its-heels diner.

      She exhaled. The owners were talking about making the diner into a bikini bar, giving the area yet another dive. Now she wouldn’t have to figure out how to get another job in the city or worry about how she could make her boyish figure fill out a bikini. She shook her head at that thought. She’d been getting a bit desperate before Mr. Vaughn suddenly appeared in her apartment.

      She glanced at her bag on the passenger seat and smiled. If this worked out, she wouldn’t ever be desperate again. She had images of rolling pastures and maybe a horse or two, some cows and chickens, definitely a dog and a cat. Everything she’d never had and never would have in her Los Angeles neighborhood. Clean air, clear skies, safe surroundings. It all sounded like a fairy tale to her.

      She just didn’t know why the euphoria she’d had while planning this trip had deflated a bit since she got on the plane. She felt a tinge of fear now that all this might just be her own fantasy. After all, her father had never owned anything, he’d never wanted to. No money, no land, nothing like that.

      That afternoon in her apartment, she’d looked from Mr. Vaughn to her mother and voiced her confusion. “I don’t understand any of this. Is he dead?”

      Mr. Vaughn had shaken his head immediately. “No, he’s not.”

      “Then why did he send you?”

      “Honestly, I believe he didn’t want any direct contact, just to make sure you got the land and the money.”

      That had brought anger and pain in equal measure. She hadn’t missed the soft gasp from her mother. No contact. A slap in the face. But Grace hadn’t been stupid enough to let the attorney take the deed and check back.

      There was a note her father had sent with Mr. Vaughn for her. “It might explain things a bit,” the attorney had said.

      The words were burned into her mind, and she could almost see the single sheet of paper with the strong writing on it. “Never did nothing for you, Gracie, never could. Thing is, I’m no father, never meant to be and it scared me. I knew, as much as you would hate me for it, the best thing I could do for you and your mother was to leave and keep away. I loved you both, as much as I was able to love anyone, but I never could be tied to much of anything. I had some good luck recently, and I have no use for what came with it, so I want to offer it to you. Maybe it can make up in some way for what I never could do for you.” The note wasn’t even signed.

      Pain still came with the memory, but she realized it was as close to an explanation for all of this as she’d ever get. Mr. Vaughn had tried to clarify things. “Why he did this is the one thing I can’t explain to you, but I can assure you that all of this is yours, and it’s up to you what you decide to do with it.”

      Her call. A fortune in land and money, and it was her call. Why her father had done it shouldn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was that it could change her life, her daughter’s life and her mother’s life.

      She drove past Santa Fe, barely glancing at the city. Her only thoughts were on getting to Wolf Lake, then driving on to her property. The deed included buildings and water rights. Mr. Vaughn had explained it was near an Indian reservation, but the three hundred acres was totally private, unencumbered by liens or mortgages, and it had been empty for a few years, maybe three or four.

      The person her father had received it from was a man named Herbert Carson. The land where the ranch was situated had been part of a land grant in the eighteen hundreds to the Wolfs, then deeded to the Carsons after Jackson Wolf had died.

      When she’d looked at her mother, silently questioning what she should do, Gabriella had simply nodded. “Let him do it for you. He owes you that much.”

      After that, there had been a blur of signings on the dotted lines, making arrangements to have the check deposited in her account, then figuring out how she could go and look at everything to check it out. Now she was close, so close, and nervousness was building in her. Mr. Vaughn had said there was a house on the property, but he had no idea what condition it was in. Even a search on Google Earth had shown lots of land, roads cutting through it, dark stands of trees, outbuildings, maybe a barn. Details were lost in the aerial photo.

      She rode in silence as portions of her father’s note came to her. “...the best thing I could do was leave and keep away. I had some luck...make up in some way for what I never could do for you.” Good luck was all the deed and the money were to him.

      She’d been so worried about Lilly’s school, worried about saving to move to a better location, worried about her job disappearing. Now she had a place to go, and fifty thousand dollars