Part 2: What the Deed Actually Said
I photographed the survey stakes before disturbing anything. Every tag carried the same job number, and the date was unmistakable. Someone had sent a surveyor into our meadow while Luke was still alive.
That evening, I sat at the kitchen table with my laptop and searched the Park County property records. Dale had been correct about one thing: Luke had inherited forty acres from his grandfather. The remaining thirty—the creek meadow and wooded slope—Luke and I had bought together with our savings.
The next record was more important. A year after purchasing the additional property, we had signed a deed placing all seventy acres in both our names as joint tenants with right of survivorship. I remembered sitting at the title office that afternoon. Luke had squeezed my hand while we waited for the documents to be copied and joked that neither of us was allowed to leave the other with all the fence repairs.
I read the recorded deed again. Under its terms, Luke’s interest in the property passed to me after his death. I still wanted an attorney to review everything, but Dale’s assertion that his mother’s trust owned the acreage didn’t match the county record.
