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monitored by the newest in electronic control systems. The instrument panel that governed temperature, rain, and humidity in this miniature world was housed just outside the glass-walled structure. The technology was sophisticated enough to allow Oliver to create microclimates in different sections of the glass-walled jungle.

    Oliver used instruments to test the acidity of his potting soil, and he carefully calibrated moisture levels. He mixed fertilizers according to precise formulas and gaged light intensity with highly sensitive meters. But in the end he still relied on his senses and his instincts when it came to making most of his decisions.

    There was no point trying to force ferns to accommodate themselves entirely to modern technology. The primitive green plants came from another time and place, remnants of an era that had long since passed.

    Ferns were ancient survivors of a world that had had no flowering plants, a world that had not yet seen the first dinosaurs, let alone the bothersome little creatures that would one day evolve into humans.

    When Oliver walked through the time warp that was his greenhouse, he was filled with a sense of how the earth must have looked and felt hundreds of millions of years in the past. The journey gave him a link with his own past, back to the time when he had still been free to take another path. It was a path that would have led him down an entirely different road than the one he now traveled.

    The door at the far end of the greenhouse opened. Bolt stuck his head inside. “Mrs. Rain is here, sir. Shall I tell her you're out?”

    “There's not much point. She'll only return again later. Show her up here.”

    “She hates the greenhouse, sir,” Bolt reminded him without inflection.

    “I know.”

    “I'll send her up.” Bolt vanished, closing the door behind him.

    Oliver surveyed the young red fronds of a hacksaw fern. The fronds would turn green as they matured, but for now they lent an unexpected note of color to the surroundings. It occurred to him that Annie was going to have the same effect on his household. She would definitely add color.

    The door of the greenhouse opened again a few minutes later. Sybil Rain, dressed in a stylish cream wool suit and cream suede pumps, walked into the humid warmth. Her discreetly tinted blond hair was cut in a sleek, sophisticated curve that ended at her chin. The pale hair was a perfect foil for her brown eyes and classic features.

    Sybil had been a stunning beauty when she had married Oliver's father eighteen years ago. She was forty-six now, nine years older than Oliver, but she looked better than ever. Her face had actually developed some character over the years, much to Oliver's surprise. He had assumed she would remain a blond bimbo forever.

    “Oliver.”

    “Sybil.”

    She frowned in annoyance as she walked down the aisle between two long fern-laden benches. Oliver wasn't concerned about her expression. Sybil frequently looked annoyed when she was in his presence. He understood her feelings perfectly. He experienced exactly the same reaction toward her.

    The old animosity between them had existed so long it had become a habit for both. Each was capable of concealing it when others were around, but when they were alone, neither bothered.

    “My God, it's like an oven in here. How can you stand it?” Sybil pushed the trailing fronds of a shoe-string fern out of the way. The gold and diamond wedding ring Oliver's father had given her gleamed on her left hand.

    “I like it this way.” Oliver examined a row of covered glass dishes in which he was germinating some maidenhair spores. “More to the point, the ferns prefer it this way.”

    “The least you could have done was come downstairs for a few minutes so we could talk in comfort.”

    “I'm comfortable.”

    “And your comfort is all that matters, isn't it?” Sybil came to a halt on the walk. Her eyes were filled with an old bitterness.

    “Was there