Edgy, Walker drank only one beer while Sam sipped white wine and admired the sunset. In jeans and jacket, she wasn’t dressed provocatively, but he was so aware of her that it was all he could do to keep from grabbing her hair and hauling her off to his cave.

Memories were tumbling out of her, and the story was fascinating, like a giant puzzle he needed to piece together. He ordered her another chardonnay.

“I was so sheltered,” she admitted with a gesture of self-deprecation. “It never occurred to me to wonder where the money came from. I knew my parents were established artists and assumed the income was theirs. When I turned sixteen, Wolf bought me the Subaru, nothing fancy. He said he didn’t want me driving icy roads in anything less than a four-wheel drive, and I just accepted that we had money for new cars. When it came time for college, I received a full scholarship at Brigham, so I never asked about the other costs of school.”

“Why environmental science?” He wanted another beer, but one thing led to another, and he was keeping his head on tight this time around. He wouldn’t let his caretaker neurosis mess with his head again, especially with a woman who was a mystery even to herself.

Sam shrugged. She’d removed her jacket and her slim shoulders lifted her breasts against her loose shirt in a way that had him sucking an empty bottle.

“I’ve always grown plants. I took care of the vegetable gardens and the flowers and it was just something I did. It kept me grounded, as you said earlier.” She paused, as if considering how much to tell him. “I knew agriculture wasn’t for me. I didn’t want a farm. But science. . . that offered possibilities. My parents were all for it.”

He waited while she gathered her thoughts. She had long, slender fingers and despite the work she’d been doing these past days, her nails were neat and well-shaped. His mind drifted to how they would feel. . .

“And then they were dead,” she said flatly, even though grief shadowed her eyes. “One day I was planning on going home for Thanksgiving, and the next, I had no one to go home to. They had filled my life so completely that I hadn’t realized I had no life without them.”

He remembered the day his dad disappeared, but at the time, he had hope he’d turn up. It wasn’t the same finality she’d suffered. “Painful memories. I can see where you might want to shut them out.”

“Cass was responsible for shutting down my memory,” she said without equivocation. “I loved my parents, and I know they loved me, even if I was adopted and didn’t think or look like them. I never tried to shut out their memory, even after I learned that they didn’t tell me the whole truth.”

“Which is?” He could listen to her all evening, which was probably safer than going back to the suite.

“It took me a while.” She sipped her wine as she worked through her thoughts. “After they died, a lawyer called to say he was executor of their estate and that he’d keep providing for my student housing and allowance as always. He suggested I sell the farm, though, because the artwork had a finite inventory and the income from it would eventually dry up.

“I was too grief-stricken to ask more.” She looked regretfully at the almost empty glass. “Are you sure you want to hear all this?”

“It’s the best bedtime story I’ve ever heard. What did you do with the farm?”

“I couldn’t bear to give it up, at first, but then I realized I couldn’t bear to live out there all alone either. So I had the lawyer sell it to an elderly neighbor who had adult children who wanted to live nearby. I thought my parents would approve of that. It was only at that point that I started questioning where my allowance came from.”

“You said it was in a trust?”

She nodded. “The Samantha Moon Trust, and it had been established shortly after my birth, which finally made me wonder about my birth parents. I knew I was adopted and had never cared to know more.”

“But you were suddenly without family and started looking around.” Everything she was saying was sensible. But somewhere, the crazy came in. “How did you do that and still keep up your studies?”

“Not well,” she admitted. “The Mormons have one of the biggest genealogy databases in the world, and I simply didn’t have time to sort through it. After I realized Jade and Wolf had been born in San Francisco, I wondered if maybe I had been too, so I checked California adoption records and discovered I was born to Zachary and Susannah Tolliver. But I couldn’t find anything in the database for either of them. That’s when I gave up and hired a professional.”

“A professional genealogy researcher? I wish I’d known you’d done that. I could have saved Sofia the trouble of digging.” Although would he have taken Sam’s word? He ran his hand up and down his empty bottle—until she abruptly stood up and almost fell.

“We need to read your laptop to see what your secretary found out about Cass.” She steadied herself on the table. “I know Cass raised my birth father as her own, because she told me so, but she didn’t give me the whole story.”

Standing, Walker laid down cash for the bill and grasped her elbow to lead her out. “You’re not used to alcohol.”

She laughed. “Mormons, remember? Only one of my friends drank, and we didn’t have money for anything except cheap beer. No matter how I tried, I never fit with the crowd anyway. By the time I graduated, I desperately missed my parents and their more liberal views. I hoped to find others like them.”

Others? As in other artists? People with brown skin? Walker wanted to know more, but he had to stick to the case. “So you somehow found Cass in California?”

“The genealogist did. She traced census reports and addresses and thought Cass might be a relation because of the Tolliver name and her location. She could only find a mail-drop for her in San Francisco. I was prepared to start knocking on doors if necessary, but Cass finally responded to my letter.”

“And she agreed to meet you in the restaurant in Monterey?” Walker helped her into the Explorer and hurried around to the driver’s side to hear the rest of the story.

“I told her I’d never seen the ocean. I don’t know why she didn’t suggest San Francisco. Maybe it’s too big a city for me to drive in?”

“Probably, or too big for Cass to handle anymore. She pretty much lives in Hillvale these days, although I guess her occasional disappearances are to whatever she has going in San Francisco.”

“Anyway, she sent me the GPS as a graduation gift when I told her I would be driving out. I was so terrified of leaving all I knew that the GPS was like someone holding my hand.”

“And it never occurred to you that Cass might be a fraud trying to con you out of your trust fund?”

She shrugged, and her loose shirt slid off one shoulder, revealing skin pale as moonlight. “I’m sheltered but not stupid. The trust fund was well invested, and my parents didn’t draw on it often. It isn’t enormous, just enough so that I can survive if I don’t live luxuriously. I was trying to get up the nerve to travel on my own—I even got my TSA pre-check card—so I took care not to overspend. I never carry anything but my credit card.”

“What did Cass tell you when you showed up?” He steered the SUV up a narrow road to the hilltop resort.

“She told me that she’d raised my father since he was an infant and gave him her husband’s name, so Zachary Tolliver was his legal name, and I could look at her as my grandmother.” In the moonlight, her pale features wrinkled with concern. “She said my real grandmother was part of the psychedelic drugs era, became a heroin addict, and my father was born with fetal drug addiction, which made him a difficult and sickly child.”

“And Zachary’s real father?” Walker parked the Explorer in an obscure part of the luxury hotel’s lot, away from the Jags and BMWs. No sense in disturbing the clientele with an official vehicle.

“My grandfather didn’t marry the heroin addict. According to Cass, my grandmother died of an overdose within a year, and my grandfather didn’t want anything to do with his sickly son. But he provided a trust fund for Zachary’s support.”

“This isn’t going to end well, is it?” He got out his case with the laptop and punched his reservation into his phone, gaining the code for their room. By the time they reached the front door, he had their e-key and steered her toward the elevators.

She halted at the elaborate bouquet in the main lobby. “Some of those are from Australia,” she said in wonder, reaching out to touch what looked like a prickly purple thorn. “Do they grow them here?”

“Clueless. The only plant I’ve ever grown is weed, and I don’t mean the garden variety. And it died.” Walker finally dragged her away, but now he realized she’d never been in a fancy hotel. He was dealing with a virtual newborn.

“Were you experimenting in smoking or growing?” she asked as they entered the elevators.

Not totally a newborn then, if she knew what pot was. Of course she did, she took botany classes and lived with artists. “Both. That was back in college when I was young and stupid.”

“And now you’re thinking I’m just out of college and equally young and stupid.” She yanked her elbow from his grip.

Shame that, he’d been enjoying the flesh-to-flesh contact. “No, a little naïve, perhaps, but not stupid by a long shot.”

She pondered that as the elevator opened directly into the suite. Even he was a little impressed by the grandeur. Sofia had warned him that this would suck his pocket dry.

Sam gawked in silence.

Walker removed his holster, then perused the sleeping situation. Two equally grandiose bedrooms joined by an enormous sitting/dining area. If he were really lucky, it had a well-stocked bar. He found the refrigerator and the bar and poured himself another beer. It was going to be a long night if he had to stay up and watch Sam sway around the room, caressing flower arrangements and tinkling the keys on the grand piano. He wanted to yank the combs out of her hair and let it fall down her back.

“More wine?” he asked, offering up a full-size bottle. “Or champagne?”

“Champagne? I’ve never had champagne.” She sauntered over to examine the bottle. “I can’t drink all that. Maybe some other time.”

He unwrapped the cork and popped it. “It’s not every day you find long lost family and your memory. How much more did Cass tell you?” He must be as insane as the Lucys to believe this crap, but it all fit with what he already knew. He found a glass in the bar and poured the bubbly under a bright light so she could admire the fizz. She was a cute drunk, and he needed her to continue the story to keep from pouncing on her.

Sam gave him another of those devastating smiles that went straight to his groin. Taking the glass, she sipped cautiously. “It tickles.”

“It’s really dry, so it may be an acquired taste. You don’t have to drink it if you don’t like it.” It was the hundred-dollar a bottle stuff, but as he’d said, it was worth celebrating this temporary reprieve from real life. Tomorrow, they’d head back up the mountain to lunacy.

One day at a time was all he was doing these days.

“I probably shouldn’t acquire the taste, but I’m willing to try anything once.” She sipped some more before returning to his question. “Cass kept things from me. I remember getting frustrated when I asked who my mother was and why she gave me up for adoption. She told me Zack died the same way his mother had, by overdose. But she didn’t say my mother was dead too. And she didn’t mention what happened to Zach’s father, my real grandfather.”

He seated her on the couch so she didn’t wobble—and so he could sit beside her and drink in her scent as he opened up his laptop. “Let’s see what Sofia turned up.”

“Do you think any of this affects your father’s death?” she asked, watching over his shoulder.

“We already know Cass is related to the Kennedys, who own half the town. My father was researching some kind of fraud case when he went up there. I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t be looking into drug addicts. His business was more corporate than that.” He connected with his personal hotspot instead of the hotel Wi-Fi. “If you’re what. . . twenty-four?”

She nodded.

“Then chances are good that if your birth father lived with Cass, he was connected to people who were still living in Hillvale a few years after you were born—when my father arrived. If Cass is a Kennedy. . .” He scrolled through the family tree file Sofia had created on Cass. “Bingo.” He turned the screen around where she could see it.

She studied all the crisscrossing lines. “Complicated family. My heroine-addict grandmother doesn’t seem to be related to Cass. She put no father’s name on Zach’s birth certificate. So why did Cass and her husband adopt him?”

Walker clicked a link so she could read the data easier. “Sofia has access to databases your genealogist doesn’t. Geoffrey Kennedy ran a DNA test on Zach before he set up the trust fund.”

She clicked back to trace the family line. “Geoffrey Kennedy was my grandfather? I went on a date with my uncle?”