Government agent Adrian Sword arrived in Pine Valley in May 1998 to help his friend Mike Roy in his mission to win back Erica Kane.  That particular mission failed, but Adrian stayed in Pine Valley, where he met Belinda Keefer (who mistook him for a stripper at Janet's wedding shower).  Adrian and Belinda were an item for quite a while.

That same summer, Adrian met and became friends with Opal Cortlandt, who hired him to be her chauffeur.  While working at Cortlandt Manor, Adrian saw Palmer sneak into the secret room in the basement and couldn't contain his curiosity.  It turns out that Palmer was hiding paintings that he'd recovered from the Nazis during WWII, and when one of the paintings was revealed to be hiding a list of Nazi whereabouts, Palmer nearly wound up in jail.

Belinda noticed that Opal was being very friendly toward Adrian, and at first thought Opal had a crush on Adrian.  When Adrian's father came for a visit, though, he reacted strongly when he found Adrian living with Opal, and at Christmas the truth came out:  Opal admitted to Belinda that Adrian was her son.  It seems that she and Frank Dawson had met in West Eleanor, Alabama, when she and Tad were trying to escape from Ray Gardner.  Frank and Opal fell in love, but shortly after Adrian's birth, the evil Ray arrived, and Opal left the Dawsons behind to protect them from him. 

Palmer, seeing the attachment Opal had to Adrian, accused her of having an affair with him, and she was admitted the truth to her husband just as Adrian walked in.  Tad, Dixie and Braden all heard the heated exchange, too, and Opal was forced to tell the whole story.  Adrian was quite upset, and Tad was none too pleased to discover he had a half-brother.

Palmer cost Adrian his agent gig when he planted a story in the Intruder about Opal and Adrian, blowing Adrian's cover.  In May 1999, Alice Dawson came to Pine Valley for a visit, to encourage Adrian to accept his newly discovered family, and Adrian wound up agreeing to be an usher in Tad and Dixie's (third) wedding. 

When Palmer and Opal's marriage went on the rocks, Adrian sided wholeheartedly with his natural mother. The two tried to take Cortlandt Electronics away from Palmer, but Erica's vote broke the tie in Palmer's favor.  Adrian did tie Palmer to a chair to force him to give Opal half of everything in the divorce.

Meanwhile, Belinda - and her Aunt Grace - were hoping that Adrian would pop the question, but that hope never materialized.  Belinda eventually gave up and accepted a job in Phoenix, leaving Adrian behind.  Aunt Grace tried to warn Adrian off of Tina Harding, who was working at the shelter, telling Adrian that Tina had spent her life in foster families and was emotionally fragile.  Adrian insisted that he cared for Tina, but it was a moot point since she then had a crush on Mateo.  When Mateo and Hayley reconciled, Tina took another look at Adrian and decided that she liked what she saw.  The two fell in love, although there were some rough patches largely due to Adrian's secrecy and involvement in Charlotte Devane's downfall.

When Jake's helicopter went missing in Chechnya, Adrian contacted friends to help locate him, but to no avail.  He and Ryan (and Gillian, who stowed away on the plane) went to Chechnya in person to rescue Jake, and when Ryan, Gillian and Jake went home to Pine Valley, Adrian stayed behind to help the orphans.  He eventually did get back to Pine Valley, where he and Tina resumed their relationship.

He got a phone call from his adoptive mother, Alice Dawson, on October 31st, 2000, telling him that his father Frank had had a stroke, and Adrian immediately left Pine Valley for Alabama.