“We had no choice,” said Sydney, trying to reassure him.

“Oh, yes, we did.”

True enough. She wasn’t about to take on that debate. “I’ll go find out what she wants, then we can talk, okay?”

Before he could tell her no, she cut through the entrance foyer to the bedroom door, turning the cut-glass knob as quietly as possible, just in case Grandma had fallen asleep.

Grandma’s eyes were open, but the sparkle was gone from their blue depths. The harsh, noonday sun streamed in through the paned window, making her look small and frail beneath the patchwork quilt.

“Sydney,” she whispered, reaching for a hankie.

Sydney clicked the door shut and came to her side. “Can I get you anything? A drink of water? An aspirin?”

“I’ve done something terrible, Sydney,” said Grandma, dabbing the hankie beneath her nose.

“Grandma?” Sydney crouched down by the bed. “What’s wrong?”

“Everything’s wrong.”

“Tell me.”

Grandma grasped Sydney’s hand, searching her eyes. She drew a breath. “I have no right to ask.”

“Go ahead and ask.”

“What I did. What I’m going to say. Please don’t tell my family.”

“Of course I won’t.”

Grandma drew a breath, and there was a catch in her voice as her glance slid away from Sydney’s. “It was me.”

“What was you?”

“I faked the Thunderbolt.”

A jolt of shock ricocheted through Sydney’s body. “What? When? How?” Then she quickly shut her mouth, biting back more staccato questions.

She forced herself to moderate her voice. “Do you know where the real one is?”

Grandma shook her head miserably. “No.”

“I don’t understand,” said Sydney, straining not to sound judgmental. Why on earth would Grandma fake her own heirloom? Did she need money?

“It was a long time ago.”

Sydney nodded, waiting for this to start making sense.

“I was young, only twenty.” Grandma’s voice faded and a faraway look came into her eyes.

Sydney carefully lowered herself to the carpet, trying not to interrupt the flow of the story. She rested her back against the small bedside table, placing her hand on Grandma’s.

“It was Harold’s and my second anniversary, and I was pregnant with Neil. And there was this woman…”

Sydney’s heart sank.

“She had a baby. A son.” Grandma’s voice broke. “He was six months old…”

“I’m sorry.”

Grandma shook her head. “She said things. She knew things.” She looked into Sydney’s eyes. “I could tell it was all true.”

Sydney groaned in heartfelt sympathy. What a hurtful secret. What a terrible thing for Grandma to experience. “I am so sorry.”

“Things weren’t like they are now,” Grandma continued, “the neighbors would have gossiped, Neil would have been ostracized, sales from the ranch might have dropped.”

“Did you talk to him?” asked Sydney. It was Harold’s responsibility to make it right.

Grandma shook her head.

“Why not?”

“We’d been through so much. We’d come so far.”

Sydney didn’t understand.

“I was lonely that first year, and I blamed Harold, and we weren’t…” The silence stretched.

“It wasn’t your fault,” said Sydney. Infidelity was not justifiable, no matter what was going on in a relationship.

Grandma gave a watery smile. “The Thunderbolt was all my doing.” She stabbed a finger against her chest. “Me. I was young and inexperienced. Then I was afraid of what people might say. Bottom line, I wanted my husband and our life more than I wanted a piece of jewelry.”

A cold chill snaked up Sydney’s spine. “What are you saying?”

Grandma impatiently swiped at a tear with the back of her hand. “I gave it away.”

Oh, no.

“She demanded the Thunderbolt and I gave it to her.”

Sydney’s entire body cringed.

“She said Rupert was the first-born Erickson, and so he was entitled. She promised she’d leave us alone forever.”

“She blackmailed you?”

Grandma nodded, her voice quavering. “And I was a willing victim. To save my marriage, I betrayed my family.”

Sydney closed her eyes. “Did it work?”

Grandma gave a short laugh. “It worked. It worked for thirty years. Except…”

Sydney dropped her head forward onto her chest. There was nothing she could say, nothing anybody could say. The Thunderbolt was gone.

In her mind she saw a flash of her mother’s blond hair, the twinkle of her silver locket-the heirloom that had been snatched away from Sydney. She didn’t know for sure, but she thought it was the day before the fire. She was five years old, and it was the last day her mother had held her. The last day she’d seen the silver locket, or anything else her family had ever owned.

“Can you get it back?” Grandma asked in a small voice. “Because if you could get it back…”

Sydney opened her eyes and nodded. “Yes,” she promised, although she had no idea how she was going to keep it. Then a vow came from the deepest recesses of her being. “No matter who has it. No matter where it is.”

Hope rose in Grandma’s eyes, and a little color came back to her cheeks. “I made a mistake.”

“No, you made a decision.”

“How can I explain-” Grandma’s voice broke. “The boys…”

“Cole and Kyle don’t have to know.” Sydney shook her head. “Your secret is safe with me.”

Seven

“Katie?” Cole held the phone to his ear as he watched the dust billow out behind the doctor’s deep-treaded SUV tires.

“Hey, Cole,” his sister-in-law answered cheerfully around the whistling of a teakettle. “What’s going on? Where was Sydney last night?”

“Can you come down to Grandma’s right away?”

“Why?” The whistling subsided.

Cole shifted away from the closed bedroom door, dropping his voice to make sure he wasn’t overheard. “Because we need you.”

A beat went by before Katie spoke. “What’s wrong?”

“Is Kyle there?”

“Cole, what’s wrong?”

“It’s not…” he began. Not what? Not bad? Not major? Not terrible?

The reality was, it was all of those things and more. He straightened the black-and-white picture of his grandfather that hung above the mantel. “Listen, I’d really rather tell you guys in person-”

The tension rose in Katie’s voice. “To hell with that.”

Cole gripped the carved wood fireplace mantel. “You sure Kyle’s not there?”

“He’s in the barn. Give!”

“Fine. Okay.” Where to start? He couldn’t just blurt out that the brooch was missing. “Sydney and I stayed over in Wichita Falls.”

The concern in Katie’s voice vanished, replaced by interest. “You did? But I thought…”

“Not for that.”

“No? Because, you know, she’s really a-”

“Can you just come down to Grandma’s?”

“Is Sydney still with you?”

“Yes.”

Katie paused and he could almost hear her smiling. “Sure. We’ll be right there.”

“Good.” Cole squeezed his eyes shut, trying to alleviate the pounding between his temples.

The door to Grandma’s bedroom squeaked open and he punched the off button on the phone.

He turned to face Sydney. “She okay?”

Sydney nodded, blinking glassy, reddened eyes, rubbing her upper arms as if the air-conditioning was too cold for her. “She’s fine.”

“You okay?” he asked, peering more closely. Was she upset about her career? That would be understandable.

“I’m perfect.” She waved away his concern, as if it was a gnat buzzing around her head.

Okay. No sympathy. Fine. “What did Grandma say?”

“She said the brooch was at the ranch for several months in 1978.”

“Does she know who faked it?”

“My best suggestion is you talk to the local people who were around back then. Maybe-”

“So, she doesn’t know.”

Sydney took a sharp breath, as if he was annoying her again. “Maybe you could find out who saw it, if anyone seemed to have a particular interest in it…”

Cole told himself to ignore her mood. She had to be disappointed in the turn of events. Her career was on the line, and he couldn’t blame her for thinking about herself.

He nodded. Interviewing the neighbors seemed like as good a place as any to start.

Sydney turned to gaze out the front window, tugging the elastic out of her hair and finger-combing it to redo the ponytail. “While you talk to the local people, I’m going to California-”

“California?” Where the hell had that come from?

She nodded, still gazing at the snowcapped mountain peaks on the far side of the valley. “Gwen is, uh, sending a list of likely antique dealers. There’s a concentration of them in California, and I can check-”

“Uh-uh. No way.” Cole shook his head. He acknowledged that she was a valuable asset to the search, but he wasn’t letting her take over completely. It was his family, his property. She simply had a passing commercial interest.

Sydney turned to face him. “What do you mean no way?”

“I’m going to California.”

“You don’t know a thing about antiques.”

“If you go, I go.”

“But somebody has to stay here.”

“Kyle can interview the neighbors.”

Sydney jerked back. “Kyle?”

“He and Katie are on their way here.”

“Now?”

“Yes. Now.”

Her eyes narrowed. “You told them?”

“No. But I’m about to.”

“But…”

“But what?”

Sydney bit down on her lower lip, the wheels of her brain obviously churning a million miles an hour. “I just think the fewer people who know…”

“Kyle’s my brother.”

She got a funny look in her eyes.

Was she worried?

Afraid?

Scheming?

Would he ever be able to trust this woman again? She couldn’t have predicted the brooch had been faked. But Kyle had pegged her as an opportunist. Was she trying to make this latest turn of events work for her?