by Lisa Jackson
“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 side 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?”
“You 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.” D
ear 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 SOB,” 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.”
“Then he left to marry Terri Fremont,” she said, feeling an odd sensation that something else in the past wasn’t what she’d thought it was. But that wasn’t much of a surprise, was it? Hadn’t her entire life been a lie?
“I just gave him some extra incentive.” He cleared his throat. “It wasn’t too hard to figure out what was going on between the two of you and it worried me because I knew about the Fremont girl. So…I upped the ante a little, offered him a deal and he rose to the bait like a brook trout to a salmon fly.”
“No—”
His lips pursed in frustration. “It was for your own good, Bliss. That’s why I did it. Remember, he already had a baby on the way.”
Bliss rested her hands on the back of the couch. “You shouldn’t have gotten involved.”
“He needed surgery on that arm of his and his kid needed a father.”
“You’re a fine one to talk,” she sputtered. Then, seeing the pain in his eyes, she wished she could take the words back.
“Is that what you think?”
“Yes,” she admitted, not wanting to hurt him but knowing that the lies would stop with her. “You fathered two children with women you didn’t marry.”
“And I didn’t want to see anyone, even a snake like Lafferty, make the same mistakes I did.”
“But—”
“No buts, Blissie,” he said, signifying that the conversation, as far as he was concerned, was over. He tilted his head to ensure that his bifocals were in the right position for reading. “Now, what have we got here?”
Bliss couldn’t believe her ears. It was as if her father would use any means possible to get his way. She’d always known he was stubborn and determined, but this side of him was new to her and she wasn’t sure she liked it very much.
“You know, for a man who swears up and down that he’s not interested in selling this place, it’s odd that you can’t put down that offer.” Bliss swatted at a cobweb that floated between the old blinds on the window and the ceiling.
“Just thought I’d see what Lafferty thinks the place is worth.” With practiced eyes he skimmed the printed text and his eyebrows jammed together in concentration. “There’s somethin’ wrong here. The figures don’t add up and… What in thunder? Is he out of his mind? This—” he snapped the crisp pages “—this is only for the north half of the property. I thought he wanted the whole place.”
“Didn’t you say that part of the ranch was in Brynnie’s name?”
Every muscle in John’s body tensed. His gaze shot up to hers. “What do you mean?’
“Well, if he
wanted the whole ranch, he’d have to deal with her for her part.”
“For the love of—” John scowled, rubbing the edge of the documents against the stubble of his chin and as he squinted, Bliss could almost see the wheels turning in his mind. “Brynnie’s not like your mother, Bliss,” he said, though his voice lacked conviction. “She wouldn’t expect me to give up what I love.”
“I’m not suggesting anything of the sort. And Mom would never—”
“Unless she got herself conned into it.” Her father snapped the leg support of the recliner into place and climbed to his feet. Wadding the offer in his fist, he headed for the den. “I think I’d better call my lawyer.”
“Why?”
“Just to make sure Lafferty doesn’t try to pull a fast one.
* * *
“Damn it all to hell,” Mason grumbled, stomping on the brakes as his pickup slid to a stop beside the carriage house of an old Victorian home in the center of town. Four stories counting the basement, painted gray and trimmed in white gingerbread with black shutters, the mansion had been divided into separate apartments sometime between the 1920s and now. There were two other units in the old carriage house, as well, and for the next few months Mason would call the upper story of that smaller building home.
Climbing out of the cab, he spied Tiffany Santini, the widow who owned the place, clipping a few rosebuds from the garden. Tall, with dark hair and eyes, she was pleasant and pretty, the kind of woman who took to mothering like a duck to water. Mason didn’t know much about her, but he liked the way she dealt with her kids—a teenage boy and a girl of three or four.
He waved and she smiled, hoisting a gloved hand as her little girl chased a black cat through the rhododendrons flanking the back porch.
Mason had decided to rent while he was negotiating for a ranch of his own and had chosen this complex over more modern units because he felt more at home in this charming older place, which had a backyard with a play structure that Dee Dee could use whenever she came over.
He walked up the outside stairs, unlocked the door and stepped into his living room. It was sparsely furnished with only the bare essentials. The hardwood floors were begging for throw rugs and the stark walls could have used more than a splash or two of color. But all that would come later—once he’d moved into a permanent place.