Hidden Pleasures - Brenda Jackson [7]
“I understand. Where will the auction take place tomorrow and what time?”
“I’ll have my secretary provide you with all the information you need. Now if you will excuse me, I’ll get that letter.”
Brittany pulled in a deep breath at the same time she felt her heart soften. She’d known from the last letter that Gloria McIntyre wasn’t one to say a lot, but what she did say had a profound impact. This letter was no different.
To my daughter, Brittany Thrasher, I leave my home and all my worldly goods and possessions. They aren’t much, but they are mine to pass on to you with the love of a mother who always wanted the best for you.
Gloria McIntyre
“Are you all right, Ms. Thrasher?”
Brittany glanced up and met Mr. Banyon’s concerned gaze. “Yes, I’m fine. Do you know how much the back taxes amount to?”
“Yes, we’re looking at almost five years’ worth,” he said, browsing through a stack of papers. “Here we are. It comes to close to seventy thousand dollars.”
Brittany blinked. “Seventy thousand dollars!”
Mr. Banyon nodded. “Yes. Although the house itself isn’t all that large, it sits on a whole lot of land and it has its own private road.”
Brittany swallowed deeply. Seventy thousand dollars was more than she’d expected to part with. But it really didn’t matter. She’d manage it. The business had had a good year. Paying the back taxes to gain possession of her mother’s house was something she had to do. Something she wanted to do.
Her mother.
The thought made her quiver inside. Her only regret was that they’d never met. She could only fantasize about the type of relationship they would have shared if there had been more time. Just the thought that the reason the taxes had gotten delinquent in the first place was because her mother had placed locating her as her top priority was almost overwhelming.
“Is there a way I can get inside the house?” she asked Mr. Banyon.
He shook his head. “Unfortunately, there is not. It’s locked and the keys have become the property of the city of Phoenix. They will be given to whoever becomes the new owner tomorrow. Ms. McIntyre’s home is a rather nice one, but I can’t and won’t try to speculate as to who else might be interested.”
Nodding, she stood. “WelI, I intend to do everything in my power to make sure I become the new owner tomorrow.”
“I know that’s what Ms. McIntyre would have wanted and I wish you the best.”
A few moments later after leaving Mr. Banyon’s office, Brittany punched Gloria McIntyre’s address into the car’s GPS system. The directions took her a few miles from the Phoenix city limits, to a beautiful area of sprawling valleys.
She turned off the main highway and entered a two-lane road lined by desert plants. When the GPS directed her down a long private road, she slowed her speed to take in the beauty of the area covered in sand and tumbleweeds. Although this was the first week of December, the sun was shining bright in the sky. When the private road rounded a curve at the end of the drive, she saw the house with a wrought-iron fence around its ten acres of land. With all the cacti and a backdrop of a valley almost in the backyard, the scene looked like a home on the range.
She stopped the car and a feeling of both joy and pain tightened her chest. This was the house her mother had lived in for over twenty years and was the house she had left to her.
Mr. Banyon was right. It was modestly sized but it sat on a lot of land. The windows were boarded up; otherwise, she would have been tempted to take a peek inside. Several large trees in the front yard provided shade.
Something about the house called out to her, mainly because she knew it was a gift from a woman whom she’d never met but with whom she had a connection nonetheless. A biological connection.
As she put her car in gear to drive away, she knew