Wearing a hat to cover her hair and sunglasses to shade her green eyes, Briar McKenna pulled into the lot behind her office in downtown San Francisco. It was late February, and she had just turned thirty-five, but the last thing on her mind was celebrating her birthday. Her hope that she could pass unnoticed disappeared when she saw the crowd of reporters by the building’s rear door, and she’d barely come to a stop before the throng spotted her and rushed over. With so many people surrounding the car, it was a struggle to get out of the low-slung Mercedes, and when microphones bristled in front of her face she wanted to reach out and sweep them all away. Why can’t they just leave me alone? she wondered angrily, searching for the security guard.

"Miss McKenna, have you heard that--"

"Mrs. Lord, did you know--"

"Ms. McKenna, would you care to comment on--"

Now what? she thought, wishing they would all just go away.

But they wouldn’t, of course. As the widow of Hayden Lord, of Lord Industries, she was news. Why that should be, when Hay had been the celebrity, was beyond her. Her husband’s brief illness had been a nightmare with these people dogging her every step. He had been on a private floor, but some reporters had bribed their way in to talk to the nurses and even, in one case, to catch a glimpse of his medical chart. The funeral was a further atrocity, reporters practically falling into the grave itself to get their pictures. She’d been so distraught she wanted to sue them all—after she had them arrested. But Spencer Reed, one of Hay’s attorneys, had gently told her it was impossible. Hay had been a public figure; as distasteful and distressing as it was to have the media hounding his family, she had to put up with it.

But not anymore, Briar thought, ignoring the babble and reaching back into the car for her briefcase. Hay was gone, out of her life forever, and these people had no more claim on her. She had endured enough, more than anyone should have to put up with. Didn’t they understand that her husband had just died?

"No comment," she said brusquely, heading toward her office building. One aggressive reporter stood in her path, his tape recorder thrust out, obviously prepared to block her way physically until she answered his questions. Since she had no intention—desire, but not intention—of shoving him aside, she just stared at him coldly, her face under the hat and glasses a pale mask of disdain and contempt, until he glanced uneasily around, dropped the recorder into his pocket, and stepped aside. That didn’t stop the rest of the crowd, which followed her into the building, shouting questions as she headed directly to the elevator, her head high, looking neither right nor left. Mercifully a car was waiting, but just as she was about to enter, one last shrill shout rose above the other voices, demanding her attention.

"But surely you can give us one quote about your stepdaughter, Fredrica Hudson, and her intention to contest her father’s will, can’t you, Mrs. Lord? I mean, you did know she filed this morning, didn’t you? Are you going to fight her, or aren’t you?"

So that’s what this is about, Briar thought, wondering how the press had gotten hold of it before she knew. Then she realized wearily that Fredrica had probably called the media herself. Her stepdaughter had made no secret how she felt about her father’s will, which had established huge trusts for Fredrica and her brother, but which had left the bulk of the estate to Briar; in fact, Spence had barely concluded the reading before Fredrica had stormed out, announcing that she was going to contest. Briar was surprised that it had taken her this long; after all, she thought, the funeral had been two weeks ago.

"No comment," she said again. She would not discuss family problems in public, and when a wail of collective protest arose, she reached for the button that would close the elevator doors.

"All right, people, that’s enough," a new, authoritative voice said from the back of the crowd. "Come on, give Ms. McKenna a break."

Muttering, the throng parted, and Briar saw her executive assistant, Gabe Atwater, pushing his way through. He wasn’t a tall man, barely two inches over her own slender five-foot-eight, but he seemed taller because he carried himself with almost as much confidence as she did. He’d been with her since she moved the office downtown six years ago, and she didn’t know what she’d do without him. He seemed to read her mind at times, and he was grinning as he got into the elevator with her. Ignoring the renewed outburst from the reporters, he firmly punched the button for their floor. As the doors closed, he said to those milling around, "We’ll issue a statement later. That’s all for now, folks."

Briar expelled an angry breath as the elevator began to rise smoothly upward. Removing her sunglasses, she looked at Gabe. "A statement? Was that really necessary? You know I don’t like to comment on anything Fredrica does."

"Yes, well, I had to tell them something," he said, shrugging. "It was either that, or have them all get in here with us. You didn’t want that, did you?"

"God forbid," she muttered. "Running the gauntlet in the parking lot was bad enough. How in the world did they ever find out?"

"You mean you didn’t know?"

"I never know what Fredrica is doing. Furthermore, I really don’t care."

"You should about this. She held her own little press conference this morning."

"I see," she said. "On the court house steps, I imagine."

"In front of God and everybody," he agreed. "I take it you’re not surprised."

She took off her hat and shook her hair free. "Not particularly," she said. She really didn’t want to talk about it.

Gabe heard her tone and took his cue. Casually changing the subject, he said, "By the way, what are you doing here? I thought you were going to take some time off."

She had planned to, but to what purpose? She couldn’t believe that it hadn’t even been a month since the funeral; it seemed a lifetime—and no time at all. Would this horrible emptiness she felt inside ever subside? Would the pain go away? When would she stop turning to say something to a man who was no longer there? She couldn’t bear staying home alone in that big, empty house, waiting to find out.

"I was," she said, as the elevator doors opened. "I decided I didn’t need it."

Gabe was wise enough not to pursue it. Holding the doors for her, he waited until she had stepped out and then followed. The offices of McKenna TimeSave, the executive time management company Briar owned, were in front of them, the double glass doors inscribed with the company logo, a stylized sun that could have been rising or setting, shedding its rays over the ‘M’ of McKenna, which had been depicted as a mountain. Briar, who had designed the logo herself, had often been asked by clients whether she’d intended for the design to represent sunrise or sunset. She always answered that no matter where you were, the sun was coming up or going down somewhere, and the important thing was what happened to the time in between. It had amused and pleased her to think that the logo, and her explanation of it, had generated more business over the years than a direct mail campaign. Now she took no pleasure in it; the only thing she could think of was how she was going to fill all those hours without Hay.

Gabe tactfully left to head to his own office, and as Briar started toward hers, her secretary, Patsy Summer, looked up. Half rising from her desk, she exclaimed, "What are you doing here?"

Briar was beginning to wonder that herself. What was the saying? No matter where you go, there you are. It had never seemed more true than now; she’d left the house to escape memories, but they had just followed her here.

"I just couldn’t stay home any longer," she said. "Would you hold any calls for a while, please? I need time to get my bearings."

"Well, sure," Patsy said, with the ease of long familiarity. She had been Briar’s secretary for ten years, from the days when McKenna TimeSave had first opened its doors in a tiny office in San Jose. There had been two desks then, one for each of them, one phone line, and nothing else but Briar’s fierce determination to succeed. They’d come a long way, and Patsy looked at Briar with the eyes of a friend. "Are you sure you should be here? Are you okay?"

"I’m fine," Briar said, although she wasn’t. She tried a smile. "Just pretend I’m not in."

Patsy gave her a look. "Oh, sure. I suspected it the instant you walked in the building. If I’d known you were coming, I’d have warned you about those stupid reporters."

"If I’d known about those reporters, I wouldn’t have come."

"You want some coffee?"

"No, not just yet," Briar said, walking into her office. She closed the door, then leaned against it. She hadn’t expected it to be so hard; she’d just arrived and already she was exhausted. How would she concentrate?

But anything was better than moping around at home, so she moved away from the door and tossed her things on the sofa against the wall before going to the window. Her corner office had a beautiful view of the city, and as she stared out at the gray day, she absently twisted her wedding ring—a wide gold band with a raised setting for the perfect three-carat solitaire. The diamond flashed fire whenever it caught the light, and when she realized what she was doing, she looked sadly at her hand.

When Hay had died, she had debated about continuing to wear the ring. She thought she remembered reading somewhere that it was bad taste, or at least a social faux pas, for a widow to wear her wedding band, so she wondered if she should put it away. Surely Fredrica thought so; Hay’s outspoken only daughter had already expressed her disapproval. But then, Fredrica, who was five years older than she, never approved of anything Briar did. She had never figured out whether Fredrica’s dislike stemmed from the fact that Briar was younger, or that such a nobody with no family, no background, and hardly a name to call her own, had snared a man like Hayden Lord.

Not that it mattered. At the time of her wedding to Hay, only five years before, he had already been married three times—twice divorced, once widowed—and was thirty years older than she as. She felt that a man of his age and experience knew what he wanted better than his spoiled, pampered adult daughter did, and she finally became so exasperated with Fredrica’s innuendoes and sly intimations that she’d told her so.

A mistake—but one of many she’d made with her stepdaughter, who had promptly proceeded to tell anyone who would listen that Briar had only married her father for money. Fredrica had conveniently overlooked the fact that Briar owned her own lucrative company and was successful even before she met Hayden Lord—and that, in fact, Lord Industries had been Briar’s client when she and Hay met, not the other way around. Recalling again that distasteful scene Fredrica had made at the reading of the will, Briar’s mouth tightened. How little Fredrica knew her father.

Or me, she thought, moving away from the window at the soft buzz from the intercom on her desk. She started to press the speaker bar, but just then the diamond caught the light again, and at its fiery sparkle she closed her eyes against a new spasm of grief.

Would there come a time when she was able to think of Hay without this terrible sense of loss? Would there be a day when she didn’t see him in her mind’s eye as he had been in that private room at Stanford Medical, hooked up to machines, tubes snaking away everywhere, with the incessant beep-shoosh sound of respirator and monitor filling the suite, robbing him of dignity and making her want to scream?

Sometimes she thought the image she would take to her own grave would be the sight of Hay’s silver hair, mussed and untended, a strand or two falling across his pasty forehead as he lay against the pillow. He had always been so meticulous, so polished and fastidious and precise about everything, especially his appearance. He would have hated knowing how disheveled he looked, and there had been moments when she wondered if that thought had been uppermost in her mind the day she signed the papers terminating his life-support. Those disordered strands of hair made him seem so fragile, so defenseless and vulnerable, and she knew he would have hated that most of all.

She had signed, despite Fredrica’s insistence that she had no right to do so. Her stepdaughter’s outburst had filled the hospital corridor until Jarris, or Jaz, as the family called him, Fredrica’s younger brother by ten years, had forcibly hauled his sister away.

But that had only been a continuation of her problems with Fredrica, she thought tiredly, as she pressed down the speaker bar to the intercom.

"Yes, what is it, Patsy?"

Her secretary answered in the cautious tone that meant she was going to ask Briar to take care of something she probably wouldn’t want to. Formal as always in front of visitors, Patsy said, "A Mr. Weitz is here, Ms. McKenna. He says he’s from Appleby, Cromwell, Attorneys-at-Law, and he insists on seeing you. I told him he had to make an appointment, but he claims the matter is urgent."

Certain this had something to do with Fredrica’s decision about contesting the will, Briar tensed. "What does he want?"

"I don’t know," Patsy said disapprovingly. Briar could just see her eyeing the intruder with mistrust, ever the protective guardian of her valuable time, and she smiled until her secretary added, "He won’t tell me. He says it’s private."

Patsy’s tone indicated that Weitz, whoever he was, was probably prepared to camp outside the door until she agreed to admit him. Wondering if he’d been sent to intimidate her, Briar decided to see him. "All right," she said. "Send him in. Tell him he has five minutes—no more."

"Yes, Ms. McKenna," Patsy said demurely, and a few seconds later, she ushered the visitor into the office.

Briar sat behind her desk and looked up coolly as the man entered. His appraising expression irritated her and she took charge immediately. "Mr. Weitz, is it? I’m Briar McKenna. What I can do for you?"

Weitz, who was a big man with considerable bulk, gingerly sat down in the chair she indicated, placing a battered briefcase on his knee. With a broad grin, he said, "It’s not what you can do for me, but what I might be able to do for you."

She wasn’t in the mood for sparring. "I don’t understand."

"Oh, you will," he said. He held up the briefcase. "Do you mind?"

Thinking he had about thirty seconds to get to the point, she nodded curtly. "Go ahead. But can we make it brief?"

"We can make it however you want," Weitz said, taking out a ballpoint clipped to a folder. "Now, this is just for form’s sake, but your name is Briar McKenna?"

"I just told you that."

"Of course," he said, making a note on one of the papers. "But we have to go by the book."

"What book? Listen, Mr. Weitz, I don’t know what your game is, but you told my secretary that you represented a legal firm. If you’re—"

"No, I told her I worked for Appleby, Cromwell. I’m not an attorney; I’m an investigator for them."

Briar was really angry now; she stood. "In that case, you may leave right now. I don’t appreciate your using underhanded tactics with my secretary to get to me. Good day, Mr. Weitz. Please show yourself out."

"Hey, wait—I really am legitimate," he protested. "Do you want to see my identification?"

"No, I’d like you to leave."

"Aren’t you interested in what I’m investigating?"

"Don’t be coy, Mr. Weitz. Since you’re here, I presume it has something to do with me. But unless I’m under criminal investigation, in which case you can contact my attorney, I’m not interested in whatever you have to say."

"Not even if it involves your family?"

"The Lords—"

"No, I mean your people."

She stiffened. She had no people. "If this is a joke—"

"Oh, it’s no joke, I assure you. Shall I continue?"

She sat down again, unsure what to say. Hay’s death had precipitated so much publicity; as his grief-stricken wife, and then his young widow, she’d been at the center of much of the media storm. With all the coverage, maybe it wasn’t surprising that someone had started to delve into the background she preferred to leave behind, and as she stared at Weitz, she wondered if he—or whoever was paying him—was attempting a little blackmail. She didn’t have anything to hide, but neither did she care to have the facts of her bleak childhood existence become public knowledge.

Aware that she had allowed the silence to go on too long, she said abruptly, "What ‘people’ are you talking about?"

But instead of answering, Weitz asked a question of his own. "Have you ever heard of a woman named Juliet Caulfield?"

"No, I haven’t."

"How about a man named Duncan McKenna?"

She tried not to show her surprise. Her maiden name was McKenna; to Hay’s amusement, she’d kept it after they were married—and not only for business reasons. He’d understood how important her name was to her; because she knew next to nothing about her background or family, or even if her parents had been married or not, she’d always felt that her name was the only thing she truly owned, and she wanted to keep it. Dear man that he’d been, Hay had simply laughed and shrugged and told her she could call herself Godzilla if it made her happy—as long as she agreed to be his wife.

No! she told herself fiercely. She had been through this before, and she would not raise her hopes. Coolly, she said, "The name isn’t familiar, Mr. Weitz. Why—"

He held up a hand. "Patience, please. I have to get the facts right."

She’d been patient long enough. "What facts? I’d appreciate it if you would tell me just why you’re here!"

Her tone wiped the smile from Weitz’s face. "I’m here about your inheritance, Ms. McKenna."

Thinking that Fredrica had sent him after all, her face froze. "What do you mean?"

"If you’re who I think you are, and we can prove it, then you’ve just inherited some property north of here near Sonoma. At one time, it was a horse-breeding farm. But now, I’m afraid, it’s just a rundown old ranch—" He grinned again despite himself "—on some of the most prime real estate in California."

Outwardly, she didn’t change expression. But inside, she felt almost physically weak. Could this be the answer she had been seeking all these years? Her hand clenched on the desk. The land itself, or the monetary value of it, was inconsequential to her at the moment; what was important—breathtakingly, achingly important—was the thought that maybe, by some miracle, she…

Ruthlessly, she controlled her runaway thoughts. She’d been searching for years for even the slightest clue to her parents, her family, her roots—and she had learned nothing. Was she to believe that this man could walk in out of nowhere and tell her that he had the answer she’d been seeking all this time?

"I see," she said, in command once more. "And what makes you think I inherited this property?"

"If you’re a descendant of Sloane and Marguerite Caulfield, you have."

"Then I’m afraid you’ll have to continue your investigation, Mr. Weitz," she said. "You see, I have no family. I’ve been an orphan since birth."

But instead of looking surprised or dismayed, as she had expected, he just smiled. "Everyone has a family, Ms. McKenna."

"Well, I don’t."

"You know who your mother was."

At the mention of her mother, she tensed again. "My mother died in childbirth."

"And her name was Ariana McKenna."

"So the orphanage records state," she said, unable to throw him out as she so desperately wanted to do. How had he known that? Did she intend to let him go on with this? It seemed so, for she couldn’t prevent herself from adding, "But since you seem to know so much about me, you’re undoubtedly aware that even though efforts were made to trace her family, no one was ever able to find any evidence that that was actually her name."

"That’s true," he said calmly. "There isn’t any evidence—that we’ve been able to trace so far, that is—that Ariana McKenna was legally married. However, evidence does exist to prove that her given name was Ariana Caulfield."

Briar drew in a sharp breath. Even she had never been able to find that out. She started to ask what proof he had, then she caught herself. She would not get her hopes up again. She had spent years of her time and thousands of dollars of her money trying to find a single clue that might lead her to someone in her family—to a relative, any relative, even a remote cousin. But despite hiring her own investigators—and despite even Hay’s considerable efforts on her behalf after they were married—nothing had ever turned up. Her eyes narrowed.

"Just what is your game, Mr. Weitz?" she asked coldly.

"No game, Ms. McKenna, honest. I was hired to find the last surviving heir to the Caulfield property, and—"

"And you don’t want anything from me."

He looked injured. "I’ve already been paid, if that’s what you mean."

"I wasn’t thinking of that, exactly, but as we both know, evidence is not proof. "

"I agree, especially in a court of law," Weitz said. "However, we do have a statement—"

"What kind of statement?"

"From someone who knew your mother."

Someone who knew her mother? Her pulse began to race even as she told herself that was impossible. She had dreamed of such a moment for years; as a child she had spent so much time imagining how it would be to meet someone who had actually known her mother—who could tell her what Ariana had looked like, or what color her hair had been, or whether her eyes had been blue or green—that to hear it aloud now was like being told she wasn’t going to die after all.

"Oh?" she said. "And who is that?"

"I’m sorry, but I’m not at liberty to tell you."

Her expression set, she leaned back. "I see," she said. "How convenient for you."

He flushed, but she didn’t care; she was holding herself under tight control. She’d been right to deny that this man, this… stranger… held secrets to a past she had tried for many fruitless years to unlock; she’d been right not to get her hopes up again. Had she really believed she would ever know what her mother’s laugh sounded like, or how tall she had been, or how clever or talented or kind? And had she really thought that she would ever learn anything about her father, who had always been even more an elusive shadow than her mother had been?

She thought of the lonely, cold years at the orphanage. No one had ever mentioned her father directly, but there had been times when she had heard herself referred to as "unfortunate," or, even more ominous, "misbegotten." She’d been twelve before she’d found the courage to sneak into the office one night to search for her file. She’d used a flashlight to avoid detection, and she’d never forgotten the icy pall that gripped her when the feeble beam of the light finally illuminated her record, and she saw, for the first time, the word Unknown written in the space where her father’s name should have been. Choked with tears, not daring to cry for fear of being discovered, she’d crept back to her bed in the ward. Misery nearly overwhelmed her, but as she drew the chilly coarse sheet up to her chin, she became certain that someone had made a terrible mistake. She wasn’t a bastard, she told herself; her parents loved each other, and they had loved her. One day they would come and take her home with them, and all these sad years would be just a horrible dream.

It hadn’t happened, of course, and as time went on, she finally abandoned her fantasy. But she never stopped believing that her parents had loved each other, and she was certain that if it had been possible, they would all be together. Over the years, despite all lack of proof, that belief had become an absolute, unshakable conviction she had never shared with anyone, even Hay.

Looking at the investigator again, she said, "I’m sorry, but I don’t believe you, Mr. Weitz. If you knew how much time and effort I’ve spent on my own trying to find one scrap of evidence, one inkling that what you just said is true…"

Weitz glanced around her well-appointed office. "I can imagine," he murmured, reaching into his briefcase again. "But as I said, I have a statement—"

"From an anonymous source."

"Not anonymous," he corrected. "Someone who wishes to remain unknown. But I assure you, the statement is legal, authenticated, and binding."

Imperiously, she held out a hand. "Let me see it then."

"Not yet, I’m sorry."

She sat back disgustedly. "Oh, I get it. I’m to take this on faith."

"You have my word it’s true."

"And that’s supposed to mean something to me?"

He handed her a card. "Call Appleby and Cromwell. They’ll vouch for me."

Briar took the card with two fingers. "I might do that," she said. "Now, is there anything else?"

"As a matter of fact there is."

She wanted to sigh with exasperation. "What now?"

"According to my statement, Ariana Caulfield possessed a very distinctive piece of jewelry, a gold pendant with the initials "C.F." on it. The witness claims to have seen her with it many times. Would you have any knowledge of such a pendant?"

Briar’s formidable composure faltered. Without realizing it, her hand stole to her throat, and as she stared at Weitz, her green eyes seemed enormous, the only color in her suddenly ashen face. "How did you—" she started to say, and then caught herself. Angry color suddenly flooded her cheeks again as she demanded, "Who put you up to this? How did you find out about the pendant?"

"Ah, so you do know about it," Weitz said. Apparently unfazed by her show of temper, he sat back. "If you have it, it will make things so much easier."

"For whom?" she demanded. She’d thought she had herself in hand, but the mention of the pendant had shaken her badly. No one but her husband knew about that pendant; it was her most prized possession, even more valuable to her than any of the gems Hay had given her. That pendant was the only thing, the only link to the mother she had never known, to the identity she would never have, to the roots she would never put down. Not trusting even the bank, she kept it in the vault at home.

"For the court," Weitz said, answering her question. "We still have to prove that you’re the heir to the Caulfield property, and that pendant, along with the statements I have, will establish your identity beyond the shadow of a doubt." He suddenly looked anxious. "You do have it, don’t you? The orphanage said they gave it to you when you left."

Briar didn’t hear him. She was thinking of the pendant, tracing every intricate line and whorl of the markings on the gold face by memory. She had studied it so often that she could have drawn the engraving herself. She had never known what the letters "C.F." stood for; no one else seemed to know, either. The locket had been the only thing of value in her mother’s possessions, and it had been sent with Briar, the infant, to the orphanage.

She couldn’t count the times she had daydreamed about those letters; growing up, she had made up stories about them, conjuring up tales about how the locket had come into being, and why her mother had it. At one time, she’d had a cold, empty, little room at the Y. She’d been about sixteen or seventeen, then, and worked at the diner across the street while she went to school at night. She hadn’t money for a television; she barely had enough for a portable radio, so imagining stories about the locket had been her meager entertainment. Lying on the hard, narrow bed in her room, she’d made up names to go with those letters she thought stood for her father’s initials: Charles Falstaff… Christopher Fairchild… Craig FitzGerald… Each one more dashing than the last.

"Ms. McKenna? You do have the pendant, don’t you?"

Did she dare hope? She looked at her visitor. "If I do?"

"If you do, then we’ll prove you’re the rightful heir to that land in Sonoma."

She still would not allow herself to give full rein to her feelings; she’d been disappointed so many times. "What’s in this for you, Mr. Weitz?" she asked. "Beyond your finder’s fee, I mean."

"Oh, the money’s nice, of course," he said. Then he smiled. "But I’d say it’s more a satisfaction, you know? I enjoy doing my job—putting together with things they’ve lost—or that lost them." His smile broadened even more. "You see, I was adopted myself. I know what it is to wonder about roots—to feel… incomplete. Know what I mean?"

She stared at him for a moment, then, ashamed of herself, she dropped her eyes. "Indeed, I do."

"Well, it’s all right then."

She made herself look up again. Standing, she held out her hand. "I’m sorry for my behavior, Mr. Weitz. It’s just—"

He stood, too, enfolding her hand in his. "I know," he said gently. "I’ll be in touch."

She didn’t accompany him out, but as he reached the door, she said, "Mr. Weitz, there’s just one thing."

He turned. "What’s that?"

She was almost afraid to ask. She had thought about it, dreamed about it, imagined it for so long that she wondered if finding out at last would be a disappointment. But she couldn’t let him leave without asking, so she said, "The initials on the pendant… ‘C.F.’ Do you know what they stand for?"

He slapped his forehead. "Didn’t I tell you? Well, that’s something, isn’t it? They stand for the Caulfield Farm, Ms. McKenna. That old horse-breeding farm you inherited was once one of the premier racing farms in the country, it seems. People came from all over the world to buy those horses, as I understand it. Back in Sloane and Marguerite’s time, the ranch was called the Caulfield Farm; it needed no other introduction than that." He grinned suddenly. "You like horses, Ms. McKenna?"

"Yes," she said faintly, thinking of the Thoroughbred jumper she kept at a nearby stable. "I… like horses."

Weitz winked. "Then maybe we’ll be hearing about the Caulfield Farm again sometime soon, eh? Well, good-bye for now. As I said, I’ll be in touch."

Briar hardly noticed him leave. As she sank into her chair again when the door closed, she was still reeling from hearing the names of people who might have been her forebears. Sloane and Marguerite Caulfield. Juliet Caulfield… Ariana Caulfield. It took her breath away.

Her hand shaking, she reached for the telephone and called her attorney.