by Lisa Jackson
He started to argue, thought better of it and shrugged. “Whatever you say, kid. I just think it’s time to make peace. I’ve made my share of mistakes in the past and now I’d like for you and your sisters to be part of a family.” He scratched at the stubble silvering his jaw. “But I’ll try not to push you too fast.”
“Thanks, Dad,” she whispered, her throat clogging at his kindness. Crusty as he was, he had his good points. Somehow she’d have to get over her feeling that he’d betrayed her mother. She only wished she knew how.
She walked to the window and forced it open. Returning to Bittersweet might have been a mistake. A big one. Not only would she have to deal with this new patchwork of a family, but also, she was bound to run into Mason again.
So? He was just a man. What they had shared was over a long, long time ago. Or was it?
Chapter Three
His first mistake had been returning to Bittersweet.
His second was seeing Bliss again.
“You’re an idiot, Lafferty,” he told himself as he parked on the edge of Isaac Wells’s property just as night was threatening to fall. The woman had the uncanny ability to get under his skin. Just like before.
“Hell,” he ground out, chiding himself for believing that he could see her and not care. He’d been thinking about her ever since leaving the Cawthorne spread—a place he intended to have as his own, if only to prove a point.
But he couldn’t think of Bliss right now. He had too much on his mind. First he had to fight with Terri over custody of Dee Dee and secondly he had to find his sister. Patty had been in Bittersweet recently. Jarrod Smith had determined that much, and she’d come here to this scrappy piece of land owned by their uncle, a man who had turned his back on them years ago.
Isaac Wells.
A number-one bastard.
Who had now disappeared. Vanished, without a trace.
Mason climbed out of the pickup. In one lithe movement, he vaulted the fence and walked up the short, rutted lane to the dilapidated cabin that Isaac had called home.
An old wooden rocker with battle-scarred arms and a worn corduroy pad on the seat, pushed by the wind, rocked gently on the front porch. The old man had spent hours on the stoop where he’d whittled, read the stars, strung beans from his garden, and spat streams of tobacco juice into an old coffee can he’d used as a spittoon. He’d made few friends in his lifetime, but had unearthed more than his share of enemies.
So what had happened to him? Had someone killed him and taken his body? But why? Or had he been kidnapped? Or had he just taken a notion and up and left? Mason rubbed the back of his neck in frustration and wondered if Patty had been involved. “Hell’s bells,” he muttered as he scanned the countryside. Berry vines and thistle were taking over the fields, and the barn, which had never been painted, was beginning to fall apart. The roof sagged and some of the bleached board-and-batten siding was rotting away.
What the hell had happened here?
Foul play?
Or had an addled, lonely old man left in desperation? No one seemed to know and everyone within fifty miles was frightened. Mysteries like this didn’t happen in these sparsely populated hills. The town of Bittersweet and the surrounding rural landscape were far from the rat race and crime of the city; that was part of the charm of this section of Oregon. But Isaac’s disappearance had changed all that. Dead bolts that had nearly rusted in the open position were being thrown, security companies contacted for new installments, and, worst of all, shotguns cleaned and kept loaded near bedsteads in the event that an intruder dared break in.
The townspeople and farmers were nervous.
The sheriff ’s department wanted answers.
And there was nothing. Not a clue.
Except for Patty.
Shadows lengthened across the dry acres that made up Isaac Wells’s spread. Mason kicked at a dirt clod, then scoured the darkening sky, as if in reading the stars that were beginning to wink in the purple distance, he could find clues to the old man’s disappearance. Of course there were none. Nor were there any celestial explanations for why Mason seemed destined to deal with Bliss Cawthorne again. He couldn’t stop himself, of course, and truth to tell, he was inwardly grateful that she hadn’t married another man and had a couple of kids.
Like you did.
He’d been foolish enough to think that by seeing her again he’d realize that what he’d felt for her all those years ago—some kind of schoolboy infatuation wrapped up in guilt—would have diminished; that he’d see her and laugh at himself for the fantasies that had haunted him over the years.
“Moron,” he growled as memories of his youth, of that time in his life when he was searching, hoping to find something, anything to cling to, flitted through his mind. Boy, had he made a mess of it. He stretched out his left hand, felt the old scar tissue in his arm tighten and was reminded of the horrid, black afternoon when she’d almost died. Because of him. Though John Cawthorne didn’t know the whole story and probably never would, the God’s honest truth was that Mason had nearly killed her.
He shoved a wayward hank of hair from his eyes and silently leveled an oath at himself. He’d been the worst kind of fool.
She’d turned into the beauty her youth had promised. Her hair was still a streaked golden blond, her eyes crystal blue, her lips as lush as he remembered. Her body was thin in the right places, and full where it should be. Yep, she’d matured into what he suspected was one hell of a woman, and the defiant tilt of her chin as she’d challenged him today in the barn had only added to her allure.
He looked around the outside of the small house, noticed the faded real-estate sign planted firmly in the grass and frowned. Who would want this scrap of worthless land?
“Damn it all to hell,” he muttered as he headed back to his rig. He had enough problems in his life. Running his businesses, trying to convince Terri that Dee Dee was better off with him, and hoping to find his flake of a sister were more than enough. Now, like it or not, he would have to deal with Bliss.
Life had just gotten a lot more complicated.
* * *
“You know, Dad, I’m still having trouble with all this.” Bliss slid a pancake onto the stack that was heaped on the plate before her father. She’d slept fitfully last night, her dreams punctuated with visions of her father strapped to an IV, of meeting women she didn’t know and introducing herself as their sister and, of course, of Mason. Good Lord, why couldn’t she get him out of her mind? It had been ten years since she’d been involved with him. A decade. It was long past time to forget him.
“What kind of trouble?” Her father slathered the top pancake with margarine, then reached for the honey spindle. Drizzling thick honey over his plate, he looked up at his daughter as if he expected her to accept the turn of events that had knocked her for such an emotional loop.
“You know with what. Brynnie. My half-sisters. The whole ball of wax, for crying out loud. It’s . . . Well, come on, Dad, it’s just . . . well, bizarre, for lack of a better word.” She shook her head, then winced as she poured them each a cup of coffee. After setting the glass pot back in the coffeemaker, she settled into the empty chair across from him.
“Not bizarre, honey. It’s right.”
“Right?”
“For the first time in a lot of years, I . . . I feel free ’cause I’m not livin’a lie.” Blue eyes met hers from across the table. “Your mother was a fine woman—I won’t take that away from her—but we weren’t happy together. Hadn’t been for a long time.”
“I know.” A dull pain settled in her heart. She’d felt the tension between her parents, known that theirs wasn’t a marriage made in heaven, but still, they had been married and Bliss, though she hated to admit it, still believed in “till death us do part.”
“She’s gone, honey,” her father said. “I would never have divorced her, you know.”
“Only cheated on her.”
He looked down and sliced his hotcakes with the s
ide of his fork. “Guess I can’t expect you to understand.”
“I’m trying, Dad,” she said, unable to hide the emotion in her words. “Believe me, I’m trying.” Resting her elbows on the table, she cradled her cup in two hands. Through the paned windows she could see the barn and pastures. White-faced Hereford cattle mingled with Black Angus as they grazed on grass sparkling with morning dew.
The silence stretched between them, with only the ticking of the clock, the low of cattle, the rumble of a tractor’s engine in the distance and an excited yip from Oscar as he explored his new surroundings, breaking the uneasy quietude.
John washed down a bite of pancake with a swallow of coffee. “Since I had the heart attack and looked the Grim Reaper square in his black eyes, I’ve decided to do exactly what I want with the few years I have left.”
“And that includes marrying this . . . this Brynnie woman.”
“Believe it or not, Bliss, she’s got a heart of gold.”
“And a string of ex-husbands long enough to—”
“She made some bad choices, I know. So did I. And if it’s any comfort to you, I never ran around with another woman while I was married to your mother.”
“Just Brynnie.” Bliss couldn’t hide the bitterness in her voice.
“Yes.”
“Isn’t she enough?”
He shoved his half-eaten breakfast aside and skewered his daughter with a look of sheer determination. “I know you don’t approve. Can’t blame you. But no one was hurt.”
“What about Mom?”
“Your mother and I . . . We had an arrangement.”
“An arrangement?” Bliss sputtered, choking on a mouthful of coffee. “It’s called marriage, Dad, and one of the vows a person takes when they get married is fidelity. To be faithful. It doesn’t seem a lot to ask.” She couldn’t help the rising tone of her voice as if she were on the earth solely to defend Margaret Cawthorne’s honor. Everything she believed in was being tested and though she was trying, really trying to understand, she was having difficulty. Rise above it; it’s not a big deal, Mom’s gone, her mind argued with the loyalty that burned bright in her heart and the belief that love lasted a lifetime.
Her father reached across the scarred maple table and took her hand in his rough, callused fingers. “I’m sorry, Bliss, really. I never wanted to hurt anyone. Not you. Not Margaret. Not Brynnie. Seems it’s all I do.” He frowned, patted the back of her hand and picked up his fork again. “But now it’s time to heal, to make some peace, to recognize the family that I have.” His lips pinched together. “I wanted you to be a part of it, to meet your sisters, to find out about them. This is a chance for all of us to finally be a family.”
“Of sorts.”
“Yes. Of sorts.”
Dear God, why did she feel like a heel? Someone had to make him face the truth. Now was one of the times she wished she really did have a sister or brother with whom she could share the burden of her father’s problems. But she did have sisters, didn’t she? Two half-sisters. Certainly they would add up to a whole one—Oh, for the love of Pete, this was making her crazy.
The sound of a truck’s engine rumbled through the air, and from the porch Oscar gave an excited “woof.” Bliss recognized the pickup from the day before and her heart did a little lurch when she spied Mason behind the wheel.
“Now what?” her father grumbled, looking over his shoulder and squinting against the sun rising over the hills.
“Trouble,” Bliss predicted.
“Young upstart pup, Lafferty. Always pushing.” He eyed Bliss speculatively. “You’d think with all he owns, he’d give up on this place.” His jaw hardened slightly and his eyes thinned in anger. “Then again, maybe it’s not the place that’s got him so interested. Maybe it’s you.”
“I don’t think so.” Bliss remembered how easily Mason had left her ten years before, but couldn’t drag her gaze away from Mason as he stepped out of the truck. Tall, lanky, hard-edged, with a walk that bordered on a swagger, he approached the front door. Tinted sunglasses shaded his eyes and a scowl etched deep grooves over eyebrows slammed together.
“I’ll get rid of him,” she said, wiping her hands on a dish towel and telling herself that she had the guts to face him.
“No way. He’s as sticky as hot tar.”
Bliss scraped her chair back and hurried to the front hallway just as he knocked. Yanking open the door, she faced him across the threshold and ignored the stupid, wild knocking of her heart.
A slow-growing smile wiped the grim expression from his face. “Mornin’, Bliss.”
“Hi.” Dear Lord, was that her pulse jumping in her neck, visible in the V neckline of her T-shirt? Great! What a fool she was. A naive, stupid fool. She and Mason had been in love once, or maybe it was even puppy love, but what they had shared, that hot flirtation, was long dead. Yet she couldn’t help the fluttering of her pulse or the urge to swallow against a suddenly dry throat. “Do you make it your primary objective in life these days to harass people?”
“Only a few special ones,” he teased and she fought the urge to smile.
“Like Dad.”
“Or you.” He pocketed the sunglasses and stared at Bliss with eyes that were as seductive as cool water in a blistering desert at high noon.
“Wonderful.” She managed a bit of sarcasm.
“Look, I just want to talk to your father.”
“You talked to him yesterday.”
“I know, but I’d like to finish the conversation.”
“It’s finished, Lafferty. Take a hint.”
“I forgot to give him the offer.” He glanced over her shoulder. “Is John around?”
“You bet I’m around,” John answered, walking in his stocking feet along the dusty patina of the hardwood floor. “What is it you’re lookin’ for—as if I didn’t know?” He glanced at his daughter and scowled. “I already told you. I ain’t sellin’. No matter what the price.”
Bliss lifted a lofty brow, encouraging Mason, if he had the guts, to draw her father into a battle he would surely lose.
Mason leaned a shoulder against the doorjamb.
“Since you and Brynnie are going to tie the knot, I thought you might want to retire, see a little of the world with your new bride, take it easy.”
“You mean the old stud should be put out to pasture?” With a hoarse laugh and a scrape of his fingers against his empty shirt pocket where he searched by habit for a nonexistent pack of cigarettes, Bliss’s father shook his head. “One measly little heart attack isn’t gonna scare me away from doin’ what I want.” He rapped his knuckles against his chest. “The old ticker’s just fine and I’m gonna run this ranch like I always have.” Again his fingers scrabbled into his pocket and he frowned when he realized that his cigarettes were gone, as his doctor had insisted he give up smoking after the heart attack. Bliss suspected that he still sneaked a puff now and again along with his chew, but she’d never caught him with a cigarette. Not that she could stop him from smoking. No one had ever been able to tell John Cawthorne how to live his life.
Mason reached into his back pocket and drew out a long envelope that he slapped into John’s hand. “I think you’d better talk to Brynnie about this. In the meantime, here’s a formal offer—for the acres in your name.”
“In my name?” John questioned.
“Fair price. Good terms. Think about it.” Mason slipped his sunglasses onto the bridge of his nose.
“Don’t need to,” her father insisted, but he didn’t toss the envelope back at Mason as Bliss had expected. Instead, his bony fingers clamped over the manila packet.
Mason’s gaze centered on Bliss. “I’ll see you later,” he said through lips that barely moved as he glared through his sunglasses, and Bliss had trouble drawing a breath.
John wagged the envelope at Mason. “Just remember that a few years back we had a deal.”
“A deal?” Bliss repeated.
“That’s right. Signed, sealed and
delivered.” Her father’s smile was shrewd and self-serving and Bliss felt a sliver of dread enter her heart.
“I haven’t forgotten.” Mason’s shoulders tightened. The skin over his face seemed to grow taut and his gaze, behind his tinted lenses held hers briefly before he turned and strode back to his truck.
Oscar bounded along behind him and Mason paused long enough to scratch the dog between his shoulders before climbing into the cab of his Ford.
“Pushy S.O.B.,” John grumbled as the pickup tore down the lane. He was already opening the envelope, anxious to explore its contents, which surprised Bliss. For someone who was so vocally against selling the ranch—especially to Mason—John Cawthorne was certainly interested in the bottom line. But then, he always had been. That was how he’d made his money.
Scanning the pages, he walked into the living room, picked up his reading glasses from the fireplace mantel, plopped them on the end of his nose and then settled into his favorite battered recliner.
“You know why he’s back in town, I suppose?”
“Other than to try and talk you into selling?” she bantered back.
“Seems he’s decided to settle down here, be closer to his kid.” He glanced up, looking over the tops of his lenses. “Can’t fault him for that, I suppose.”
“No.”
“But rumor has it he’s trying to get back with his ex-wife. You remember her? Terri?”
How could she ever forget? “Of course, I remember.”
“Good.” He looked back to the pages again.
Why it should bother her that Mason was seeing Terri, she didn’t understand, but the old wounds in her heart seemed to reopen all over again. Straightening a hurricane lantern sitting on the mantel, she said, “Okay, so what was this business about a deal between you two? As far as I knew, you didn’t want anything to do with him.”
“Still don’t.” Her father hesitated a fraction. “I had to do something to get him out of town. So I paid his medical bills and gave him the old heave-ho.”