Native Silver by Helen Conrad

of days gone by to face the reali ties of the here-and-now.  
    All the while, one part of her mind seethed with anger at David. She hated to think of him here, bothering her grandfather while there was no one around to protect him. What had he said to Granpa Jim? Had he tried to bully him? She would probably never know.
    And that was exactly why she finally decided to go out with David after all.
    First, she searched the house for evidence that there might be a deed somewhere. In the back bed room, she found three boxes filled with letters and forms. She spent an hour going through them, th rowing away half of what she found.
    There were pictures of her parents that brought a lump to her throat, and pictures of Lisa and herself as children, playing in the sprinkler on a hot, August day, riding ponies as though they were stallions, smiling toothlessly from lips rimmed with birthday-cake icing. There were reports and insurance papers, theatre tickets and old Disneyland stubs. There were packets of seeds and old expired coupons for steak dinners at Parino’s. There were old passports and maps. But there was nothing to show that Granpa Jim had any claim to the land he had lived on for forty years.
    What David had told her had been a shock. In her wildest dreams she’d never imagined that the land she’d lived on most of her life really belonged to the Santiagos. It still seemed impossible. Wouldn’t someone have said something? Her parents, her grandfather? Maybe Lisa knew the truth, but she doubted it. No, she was pretty sure this problem was going to rest on her own shoulders.
    If only she knew where else to look for a deed. Maybe there was a safety deposit box somewhere. She tried questioning Granpa Jim but he couldn’t remember.
    “Don’t hold with those banks, anyway,” was all he would mumble when she questioned him.
    Shawnee was very much afraid David might be telling the truth. There certainly wasn’t any reason to think otherwise. But that didn’t mean she was giving up. Not a chance.
    She closed her eyes at the thought, steeling herself for the fight ahead. Truth or not, it made no difference. No matter what she found, she wasn’t going to let her grandfather be bullied off the land. She wouldn’t allow the Santiagos to drive her grandfather from his home again.  
    But in order to fight them, she would need ammunition. Knowledge was power; didn’t they always tell you that? And David was the man who held that power over her.
    So she would go to dinner with him. Maybe he would be able to give her information she could use. Maybe she would be able to talk him out of taking the land. She smiled ruefully. Hardly likely, but one never did know for sure.
    But first she made a phone call to Reid Carrington in Destiny Bay. He was her cousin and an attorney who had helped her parents in the past. Luckily, he was in town and agreed to come out to Destiny Valley to see what he could do to untangle the land ownership problems she was having.  
    “I’ll be out tomorrow,” he promised. “Where shall I meet you?”
    She hesitated. “How about the Kit Kat Koffee Shop on Main,” she suggested, thinking that would better than having him show up at their door and setting Granpa Jim off on one of his rampages.  
    “Great,” Reid said. “Eleven okay?”
    “Wonderful.”
    She fried her grandfather a few pieces of chicken, mashed some potatoes and made him a green salad to go with it, then took a quick shower and scanned her meager wardrobe for something to wear to meet David. She wanted to look special tonight. She told herself it was to turn him into putty so that she could mold him into whatever she chose and get more information from him, but deep down, she knew it was for more than that.
    The evening was still hot, so she finally chose a cream-colored peasant dress with delicate embroidery around the wide neckline and a circular skirt that flared around her legs as she walked. She wove her thick hair into a