Call It Destiny

come back and relieve David so that he could go! Is it over?“
    „No, I just decided to take a little break. This staff certainly knows how to party! I don’t think anyone’s even going to miss me for a while.“ Heather closed her fingers around the key and nodded as she went back down the hall.
    A few moments later she stepped inside the plush offices that belonged to her father until tomorrow morning. This would be her domain, Heather thought wonderingly as she trailed a finger along the mahogany desk top. Moving slowly, she walked across the thick rug to the wall of files. Soon she would be in charge of her beloved Hacienda.
    All those years in California away from the place she loved so much. It seemed like a lifetime. But now she was home.
    The deep leather chair behind the desk looked inviting. With a smile of distinct pleasure Heather sank down in it. How many times had she wandered into this office as a child and clambered over this chair? So many memories. And not all of them bad. It was only in her teen years that the temperaments of her father and herself had truly begun to clash. During those unstable years when she had been growing from child into woman, things had been tense and difficult. She had never stopped loving her father or the rest of her family. But she had needed to separate herself from the domineering influences in her life. Needed to prove herself and make her own way.
    And that was exactly what she’d succeeded in doing. She had needed those years in California and the task of proving herself to herself and her family had been accomplished. It was time to come home.
    Absently she began opening desk drawers. With a pleasant sensation of possessiveness she regarded the array of pens and pencils and paper clips in the center drawer and then shut it. The drawers on the left side yielded a battered dictionary and stationery with the Hacienda Strand letterhead. The Tucson phone book was stashed in the back.
    The right-hand drawers were locked. Experimentally Heather tugged at them, trying to remember where her father had always kept the key. Ah, yes. Behind the row of books on the top shelf of the bookcase across the room.
    On a whim Heather got up and went over to the case. Standing on tiptoe she scrabbled around behind a copy of a history of Arizona until her fingertips closed over the little key. Then she went back to the desk and unlocked the drawers.
    This was where her father had always kept the most vital financial records. The corporation’s check registers, bank-account information, various licenses were all still neatly filed here.
    Strange. Jake had taken over much of the day-to-day accounting work during the past two years. Heather wondered why a great deal of the financial information hadn’t been transferred to his office. From what she had been able to tell, Jake appeared to work out of his cottage.
    With idle curiosity she pulled one of the journals out of the drawer and began flipping through it. Perhaps her father hadn’t been very good at delegating authority. When she took over next week she would see to it that Jake took charge of these records. After all, he was supposed to be the financial wizard. He should have custody of the journals and ledgers and other such records.
    Her eye paused on some recent entries, noting that the handwriting was not her father’s or that of his secretary. It was strong masculine handwriting. Jake’s?
    A bit more intently she began to examine the various items. She was wrong about one thing. Her father certainly had delegated authority to Jake!
    Frowning intently, she reached for some of the official records of the corporation. Exactly what title did Jake hold?
    Five minutes later she sat staring at the copy of a recent corporate resolution that had been drawn up to open a new checking account at a local bank. The document clearly stated the owner of the Hacienda Strand, and it was not Paul Strand.
    Stunned, Heather read the name again and again, unable to comprehend what she was seeing in black and white.
    Fifteen minutes later, after poring over every vital document she could find, Heather was forced to acknowledge the truth. Jake Cavender owned the Hacienda Strand, and had owned it for the past six months.
    It had been about four months ago that her father had first approached her about returning to Tucson to take over the Hacienda. Three or four months ago that her parents had first begun to hint very seriously just how