Landlocked

by Marilyn Baron

  And speaking of weapons, she fingered the loaded Smith & Wesson Chief’s Special .40 in her handbag. You couldn’t be too careful with all the psychos out there kidnapping and killing realtors. Her company had started arming its agents for their own protection. Along with her real estate license, she now had a license to carry. Confrontation struck Amelia as just the type of lawless place where she’d need a gun. She probably should have learned how to handle the firearm before she struck out for no-man’s land. But too late now. She was here. And the sooner she concluded her business, the better. She was going to make this sale or die trying.

  The office door opened and suddenly her image of a small-town, redneck lawyer flew out the window. This couldn’t possibly be Billy Bob. He was too freaking gorgeous, with his chiseled movie-star face and a buff body to match. He extended his hand, and she stood up to shake it. But for a moment, he’d rendered her incoherent.

  “Welcome to our little part of—”

  “I’ve already had the ‘little part of heaven,’ speech from your receptionist,” Amelia said when she rediscovered her voice.

  Alec skewered her with a piercing look from his fathomless blue eyes.

  “You think I’m a hillbilly.” His deadpan delivery indicated it was more of a statement than a question.

  “You must be a mind reader.”

  “Don’t have to be. It’s written all over your face.”

  “Okay, I have to ask. What’s a Duke grad doing in a backwater town like Confrontation? And I use the term town loosely.”

  “Practicing law,” Alec answered dryly.

  “I’ve already contacted a local broker/realtor named Barry Brady, and he referred me to you. He said he’d looked at the papers I faxed over and that we couldn’t proceed with the sale. That’s when he recommended I see you. Your secretary’s named Brady, too. Is everyone in this town related?”

  Alec’s face flashed a barely disguised smile. Must be an inside joke.

  “Pretty much, ma’am.”

  “I’m glad I could amuse you. Do you all intermarry up here in Confrontation?”

  “I’m not married.”

  “No cousins available?”

  “Is that a serious question?”

  “You know you’re allowed to marry your first cousin in North Carolina.”

  “I’ll bet you think that’s funny.”

  Amelia suppressed a smile. Then she plastered on her serious getting-down-to-business face. “Let’s get down to business.” Dorky. She’d never used that expression before. But Billy Bob was making her nervous. She couldn’t look away from him. Hopefully, he didn’t notice.

  “Ma’am, I’ve looked over the documents my cousin faxed me yesterday. I’ve done some preliminary research. You said over the phone you wanted to sell the property. My cousin is right. There’s a slight problem.”

  “What kind of problem is that? And why are you calling me ‘ma’am’? I’m not your mother.”

  The light went out in the man’s eyes at the mention of his mother. “It’s a sign of respect around these parts.” He didn’t just say around these parts, did he?

  The lawyer continued, “In researching the property, I discovered that the county mapping system plat is not accurate and this property is landlocked. Any buyer you do get will back out. You don’t have an easement from any of the surrounding landowners. You can’t sell without an easement. You can’t even step foot on the property yourself without an easement. Therefore, that land has no value to you. And I’d advise any client coming to me about purchasing this land to walk away—no, to run away—from a deal like that. It’s not worth tangling with all the disputes that will likely arise.”

  “Is this some kind of a bad joke?”

  “It’s the law, Miss Rushing. You don’t have access. Your property is landlocked.”

  “What exactly does that mean?”

  “It means you have no access or egress to a public road and your property cannot be reached except by crossing another person’s property.”

  Amelia tapped her finger on the Property Plat impatiently. “Look right here. It appears there is access to the property on Soil Road, and here’s another road that gives us access in the northeast corner of the property. That’s a road around my property.”

  Alec placed his finger beside hers on the plat and triggered an electric jolt when they came into contact. “You are correct about the Soil Road reference. And it does look like the property has multiple points of access, but there are no roads into or out of your tract. The problem is that Sparks Road is south of the property and you would have to go through the Brady property in order to get to Soil Road. I don’t see any reference of that easement mentioned in the deed. The only road up the mountain and down is owned by my family, and legally you can’t access it. Soil Road is a misnomer. It’s simply a description of a dirt clearing “road” that can barely be seen in the aerial view. If someone wants your tract, they would have to build a road right through one of the other owners’ property. But there is no true adjacent road that could be used to egress from the property. The best proposal I can think of is to try to sell your tracts to the owners of the adjacent land who are already on a county road.”

  “Those owners being your family. And I assume you’ll advise me to sell at a substantial loss?”

  “For whatever you can get. My cousin’s assessment was that both of your tracts are on very steep mountainside with limited flat areas for building.”

  “But the properties have great mountain views.”

  Alec shook his head. “Every piece of property around here has great mountain views. We’re in the mountains. You’re being unrealistic, Miss Rushing.”

  “Are you trying to outslick me, Slick? With your ma’ams and Miss Rushings?”

  “Maybe I’m trying to disarm you.”

  “What you’re doing is jerking me around. I don’t have access to my own property? Then why has my grandmother been paying taxes all these years—at an exorbitant rate, I might add? I did the research. The surrounding properties are taxed at half the rate she pays. Do Florida people pay a different rate of tax than the natives?”

  “It’s not supposed to work like that.”

  “Why don’t you tell me how it’s supposed to work in Bradyville?”

  “The town’s called Confrontation.”

  “Then I’ll call the police.”

  “Don’t expect any support from the police, the town, or the county in a right-of-way dispute.”

  “What if I sue?”

  “My family will gate the path so you can’t drive a car onto the property.”

  “What happened to the concept of being a good neighbor?”

  “We don’t recognize that concept with outsiders.”

  “I’m hardly an outsider. My family has owned this land for forty years, and I need to get on that property. My grandmother wants me to take some pictures of the cabin and the land for sentimental reasons. I came here to sell the property, and I’m not leaving until I do.”

  “Uh, that might not be possible.”

  “How so?”

  “I’m living in the cabin.”

  “You’re living in my cabin?”

  “Temporarily.”

  “How long have you been living there?”

  Alec cleared his throat. “Three years.”

  “Three years? You call that temporary? And why would you want to live in a dilapidated cabin, anyway?”

  “First of all, it’s not dilapidated. I’ve fixed it up over the years. It’s pretty livable, with the improvements I’ve made.”

  “Can’t you afford a place of your own?”

  “My mother is…” Alec hesitated. “Was sick. She was dying. Um, she’s gone now. I was offered a job at a big law firm in New York when I graduated, but I decided to come home and take care of my mother. She needed me. I like being near family. My family depends on me.”

  “That’s admirable,” Amelia admitted. “So you both lived in the ca
bin?”

  “It was convenient. Right next door to her two sisters. Before that, my cousin lived there, but she let my mother have it.”

  “Your cousin let your mother have my cabin? Let me guess. Your cousin’s last name is Brady.”

  “Well, yes.”

  Amelia’s eyes widened. “This is unbelievable. I feel like I’m in an episode of The Beverly Hillbillies. That’s my grandmother’s cabin, and no one has paid her rent for thirty years.”

  Alec’s face reddened. “Are you always this condescending?”

  “I might be considered condescending if what I said weren’t true. Your cousin was squatting. Your mother was squatting, and you are squatting.”

  “We just figured that—”

  “You just figured that you’d take advantage of an elderly woman you knew could not make it up here, and your cousin and your mother thought they’d live there rent-free.”

  “Haven’t you ever heard of squatter’s rights? It’s called adverse possession in North Carolina. We have legal title to the property because my family has continuously occupied the land for thirty years.”

  “You’re making this up.”

  “I am not. It’s a legal term. Are you a lawyer, Miss Rushing?”

  Amelia frowned, opened her laptop and starting typing. Minutes later, her eyes brightened. “What about the concept of an easement implied by necessity?”

  “Those don’t just magically appear. There are a number of factors to be considered. First, there must be continued and uninterrupted use for twenty years, and your family hasn’t stepped foot on this property all this time. Nor have they helped maintain the road. So if I were you, I wouldn’t go around practicing law without a license. It’s complicated.”

  “You mean too complicated for my little old feminine brain to decipher?”

  “I didn’t say that.” Alec smothered a smile.

  Amelia shot daggers at Alec. “But we paid taxes and liability insurance.”

  “And I made improvements on the cabin which we visibly occupied.”

  “Why don’t you just offer to buy the land from me? You’re a lawyer. I’m sure you have enough money for the transaction, and your relatives would grant you an easement.” Judging from his office, she wasn’t sure Billy Bob had two dimes to rub together. If he gave away his services to family members, which he probably did, there would be no real clients left to pay his fees.

  “The law is the law. Why should I buy the land from you when I’m already living on it? I have no plans to move.”

  “I don’t care what the law says. You owe me, Mr. Brady. I want you to take me on a tour of my grandmother’s property. I want to walk every square inch of it, and then I want to sell it. So whatever you have to do to make that happen, work it out. Use that fancy Duke-educated legal mind of yours to come up with a solution. Do you know who the surrounding property owners are? We’re going to need an easement.”

  “That might be difficult. I know those people. They won’t grant an easement to an outsider.”

  “As I told you, my grandparents have owned that property for forty years. They’re hardly outsiders.”

  “My grandfather was born in New York, but after he married my grandmother, he spent the rest of his life in Confrontation and they still considered him an outsider.”

  “Maybe the owners that sold this property to my grandfather in the first place would grant us an easement. He had to pay eleven heirs to get this property. Maybe the easement was part of the sale.”

  “I couldn’t find a record of that, unless you have one.”

  Amelia expelled a breath and shook her head. Her grandmother’s condo housed a mountain of papers, papers that would need a front-end loader to penetrate.

  “My aunt might be interested in granting you an easement that would provide access to your property via a road she owns, if you would grant her one. Back in 2008, she says she wrote to your grandparents about getting a right-of-way, and it was never answered.” Alec handed her a letter.

  Dear Will and Katherine,

  I hope this finds you both well. We are doing O.K. here. I hope you understand what I was trying to explain on the phone. There’s only a short piece of your property I’d need a right away over and it’s at the edge next to Jimmy Dickens. I love and appreciate you so much for helping me out. Thanks for being our friend for so many years. Take good care,

  Love,

  Brenna & Bill

  “She left her telephone number and asked them to call, but she never heard from them.”

  Amelia handed the letter back to Alec.

  “Isn’t that the same aunt whose sister has been living in the cabin rent-free all these years? My grandfather was a very trusting person, but I think he was afraid to sign over a right-of-way. I don’t think he understood the legal consequences. Land was very sacred to him. Anyway, that’s only one property owner. If she turns me down, I’ll need to contact the other surrounding property owners. Could you write them a letter explaining our wish to sell the property and seek an easement that would facilitate the sale?”

  “My Aunt Barbara owns the adjacent lot.”

  “Would she be willing to entertain a reasonable offer regarding the price of such an easement that would permit access to our property through a public road via her property? Or would one of them be interesting in buying either of the tracts of land? That would allow them to add on to their property. I would be willing to consider a significantly discounted offer from the tax-appraised value.”

  “I spoke to the gentleman whose property is adjacent to the north end of your property, and he’ll offer eight thousand dollars.”

  “Eight thousand dollars? That property was appraised at $90,000.”

  “He might be willing to accept five thousand dollars. He just got married and he says he has to talk to God about it first and then his wife.”

  Alec held a copy of the email in his hand. Amelia grabbed it. “Let me see that. ‘My neighbor informed me that land has no right of way. I growed up here and have never known of any access to that property. I am making an offer of $8,000.00.’ ”

  Amelia rolled her eyes. “Who do you have to sleep with to get an easement around here?”

  Alec’s eyes widened, and he stared at her hungrily. “What are you offering?”

  “That’s just an expression, Mountain Man.” Yikes. The sooner she got out of Dodge or Confrontation or whatever this one-horse town was called, the better off she’d be. She doubted Confrontation had even one horse.

  She looked out the window. Not a cloud in the sky. So why was she shaking? She was spitting mad, that’s why. Suddenly, a passing cloud obscured the sun.

  “Do you see that big storm cloud out there?” Amelia’s hands started to tremble.

  Alec glanced up at the sky through the window.

  “Seems like the only cloud around here is inside this office,” Alec observed.

  Amelia bristled and forgot about the weather momentarily.

  “Five thousand dollars? That’s ridiculous. That’s not a serious offer.”

  “My uncle enjoys the peace and quiet of the mountains. He doesn’t want a lot of noise and construction. The man above him wants to build cottages on the property, and all the construction vehicles would have to go through my uncle’s property to get to their land. Uncle Bundy is as stubborn as a mule.”

  “Why doesn’t Uncle Bundy want to sell or grant an easement? What’s he hiding up here?”

  “Nothing,” Alec pointed out quickly. “He’s just set in his ways. He’s been offered a lot of money over the years, but he won’t sell and he won’t grant an easement. He feels that being at the end of the road gives his property significant value. He believes the real value of his property is its seclusion, which would be disturbed by the easement. He probably overvalues his property. I’m afraid the dollar signs dancing in his head are large enough that he doesn’t want to risk the big payout by giving an easement.

  “As far as your second piece
of property, there’s a widow who owns the property on the mountaintop. Her husband had always wanted to own the property you have. She’s willing to offer $15,000.”

  “Mr. Brady, that land is worth more than a hundred thousand dollars.”

  “What are you going to do with it? You don’t want to live here.”

  “Never in a million years,” Amelia admitted. “My grandfather had a working spring on his property that supplied a continuous flow of water for this whole town for forty years. Don’t you think it would be fair if they granted him an easement? Otherwise, I may just have to shut off the town’s water supply.”

  “How are you going to do that if you can’t access the property? And besides, according to the records, your grandfather granted my family water rights in perpetuity. That means their grantees, their heirs, and/or successors and assigns forever.”

  “I know what in perpetuity means.” Amelia scowled. “What about the third landowner with property adjacent to ours?”

  “His father just died, and he expects to have the property on the market by the end of April, but he would prefer that the buyer of his property make the decision about whether or not to grant the easement. And he said he’d have problems accessing the lower portion of the property due to the terrain of the land.”

  “I can’t wait that long. But that makes no difference.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because you are going to help me.”

  “I don’t see that happening.”

  “There’s something you don’t know about me, Mr. Brady. I don’t give up easily. You don’t want to mess with me or underestimate me.” Amelia bristled.

  “Or what?” Alec said, smirking.

  “I have a gun.” Amelia patted her purse.

  Alec glanced at her handbag and smiled. “And I have a rifle. What difference does that make unless you’re planning to shoot me?”

  Amelia crossed her arms. Jethro was growing more infuriating by the second. How could she ever have found him attractive? He might be a lawyer, but he had no idea who he was dealing with. She was not going to give up until she sold this property.