The image of Matthew Whitaker would never have come to haunt her if Johnny weren’t a Whitaker in every temperamental little bone in his body. Like should know what to do with like. Who else but a Whitaker could understand the family characteristics?

Richard had been dead a long time, and hell would freeze over before Lorna turned to either his father or his brother for help. But Johnny had needs that she couldn’t fulfill either emotionally or financially, and that reality was no small blow to her pride and fierce spirit of independence. The Whitakers had it all-money, power, a respected name-and Johnny was the only heir. Surely he had certain rights…

Irritably, Lorna punched the pillow and ordered herself to settle down. She didn’t know why she allowed herself to dwell on the subject of the Whitaker family.

The Whitakers didn’t believe that Johnny was Richard’s son. And they never would.

It was almost two months later that hell froze over. Literally, Lorna thought crossly as she did her best to control her ancient Camaro, which was bucking in the wind. She tried not to see the violent weather as a bad omen.

She’d grown up in the shadow of the University of Michigan where her father was a professor, and the attachment she felt to the small town of Ann Arbor was strictly a sentimental one. She loved it. Huge old brick buildings, ivy-covered, reeking with character and tradition, stood on tree-lined streets that climbed the gently rolling hills. In summer, the landscape was English-garden green; in spring, small blossoming trees sent out their fragrances in the shadow of larger oaks and maples; in winter, the snow piled up in Tudor doorways and casement windows with the picturesque quality of a Norman Rockwell painting.