by Lisa Jackson
“Intimidated would be more like it,” Katie admitted. “Tiffany’s gone through some rocky times and I think she blames your—I mean, our—father.”
“Maybe she’s got valid reasons,” Bliss suggested as she swiped bread crumbs from the counter and tossed them into the sink.
“Probably. But she’s still our sister. I think we should give her another chance.” She hesitated. “You gave me one.”
Bliss lifted a shoulder. What could she say? It was impossible not to like Katie Kinkaid. “I’ll try.”
“Good.” With a wave, Katie was off, scurrying down the hallway like a whirlwind. Bliss followed her to the front door and closed it after Katie’s tired old convertible rumbled down the drive.
Left feeling breathless, Bliss walked back to the den. Each and every day, her life became more complicated than she’d ever expected. Her father’s impending marriage, her half sisters and Mason were more than she could expect to handle. Not at all certain she wanted to get to know either of her sisters any better, Bliss wondered if they’d ever come to terms with each other. Katie was a steamroller who seemed determined to take control of everyone’s life she crossed, and Tiffany sounded cold and aloof.
“Don’t judge,” she warned herself, but she was still wary. She had to be careful. Years before, she’d cast caution to the wind when it came to relationships and it had cost her; it had cost her dearly. She’d lost her heart and nearly her life. She wouldn’t make that mistake again. Not ever. Or so she tried to convince herself.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“So, is there a man in your life?”
Brynnie’s question startled Bliss. She nearly dropped the pot of coffee she’d been pouring for her soon-to-be stepmother. Though she and John were still at odds about selling the ranch, they had buried the hatchet in shallow, soft soil. Everyone was treading lightly and Bliss wondered if the wedding would come off as planned.
“A man in my life? No, not really,” she said, setting the glass pot back in the coffeemaker and handing Brynnie a steaming cup.
“A pretty girl like you? I don’t believe it.” Brynnie took a sip. “Mmm, that’s good.” She set her cup on the marred kitchen table and eyed her future stepdaughter. “You’re an architect, isn’t that what John told me?”
“When I’m working. Business has been a little slow lately.”
“Good. You can spend more time here with your dad.” She added cream to her cup. “I would think, in a job like yours, that you’d work with lots of men.”
Bliss swallowed a smile. “Too many.”
“Uh-uh-uh. That’s not the right attitude. By the time I was your age, I was through with my second husband and on to my third.” She laughed—a deep, throaty chuckle, made raspy by too many cigarettes.
“I guess I haven’t met the right man yet.”
“Of course you have. You just don’t know it.” Brynnie blew across her cup and sighed. “You know, he might be right under your nose.”
“Is that a fact?” The conversation made Bliss a little uncomfortable, but she couldn’t help being intrigued by this woman who was so different from her mother. While Margaret Cawthorne had always been perfectly dressed, not a hair out of place, her smile somewhat immobile, her fingernails polished, her jewelry refined and understated, Brynnie wore tight jeans, T-shirts that had seen better days and costume jewelry that was outrageous and fun, rather than elegant.
Brynnie eyed Bliss over the rim of her cup. “I heard you saw Mason Lafferty the other day.”
Bliss nearly choked on a swallow of coffee. This was a small town.
“I thought you two had some kind of, well—” she waved her pudgy fingers in the air and frowned “—chemistry, for lack of a better word.”
Heat stole up Bliss’s neck. That “chemistry” was none of Brynnie’s business, and yet she’d probably already heard the story of her involvement with Mason from Bliss’s father. “There was—once. It was a long time ago. It’s over.”
“Hmm.” Brynnie chewed on her lower lip thoughtfully. “Some loves die hard. Never go away. Oh, they can be put on hold or people can pretend they don’t exist, but it’s all a big lie and one day you look in the mirror and face the fact that the love of your life might slip away if you don’t do something.”
“Are you talking about you and Dad?” Bliss asked woodenly. This woman might soon become her stepmother, but, as far as Bliss was concerned, she had no right to hand out advice, especially on the subject of love.
“Right now, I’m talking about you.” Brynnie drained her cup as John’s boots pounded up the back steps to the porch. “You and Mason Lafferty. You can lie to yourself, if you want to, but it won’t do any good. Besides, he’s a good man and single.”
Bliss bit her tongue to keep from saying something harsh about Brynnie being involved with her father while he was married.
“That marriage didn’t seem to take. Over real quick. He and Terri split up years ago.” She pointed an accusatory red-polished fingernail in Bliss’s direction. “If you ask me, now that he’s back in town, Mason Lafferty is the best catch in Bittersweet. Well, next to your father and my own boys, of course.”
“Of course,” Bliss said drily as Brynnie shoved back her chair and the legs scraped against yellowed linoleum.
“My boys, now, they’re good men, but land’s sake, I pity the women they end up with.” She shook her head. “I swear the twins were enough to nearly send me over the edge when they were in high school. But that’s neither here nor now.”
“Stay away from Lafferty, Blissie,” John ordered as the screen door creaked open and he walked into the kitchen in his stocking feet. Pausing at the counter, he poured himself a cup of coffee.
“I’m not involved with Mason,” she replied.
“I’m not blind, y’know. I see how you look at him.”
“Give me a break,” Bliss said, though she felt a blush steal up the back of her neck. Was it possible that she was so transparent?
“I shouldn’t have to remind you that it was his fault you nearly—”
“No, Dad, you’re wrong,” she said vehemently. “Mason saved my life. I think we’ve had this conversation before.” Bliss stood and tossed the dregs of her barely touched coffee down the drain. Though she was furious with Mason for sneaking around behind her father’s back to buy his ranch, she wasn’t going to let John accuse him falsely. She slid her empty cup into the dishwasher. “Don’t worry about me. I can take care of myself.”
“Don’t give me all that feminist mumbo jumbo. Women need men to take care of them. Good men,” John said. Then, the minute the words were uttered, he looked as if he wished he could swallow them back again.
Bliss blanched. She thought of her mother and the years of betrayal she’d borne; of Brynnie, in love with one man while marrying others; of herself, never quite over a silly schoolgirl crush on Mason Lafferty. “I…I don’t believe that,” Bliss said.
“Neither do I.” Brynnie’s eyes had filled with tears and her chin wobbled. “John—”
“Ah, blast it all, anyway.” He rubbed a hand over his head, making his silvering hair stand on end. “What I meant was, Bliss, you could do better.”
Just like your mother could have. The unspoken words hung in the air like forgotten cobwebs, visible one minute, hidden the next in the shifting light of mixed emotions.
“Well, uh…” Brynnie cleared her throat and dug into her purse for her cigarettes. “I heard you met Tiffany the other day.”
“Tiffany?” Bliss repeated, still stung by her father’s statement.
“Yes. When you visited Mason.”
“You saw Mason and Tiffany?” John’s mouth pulled downward.
“I don’t think—” Bliss cut herself short as she remembered visiting Mason at his apartment. “Does Tiffany own an old Victorian in the middle of town?”
“Didn’t you know?” Brynnie found her pack of cigarettes and shook out a filter tip.
“No, I…” So that explain
ed the other woman’s cool, stunned reaction to her.
“I ran into Octavia—that’s her grandmother—down at the beauty parlor and she mentioned you’d been over.”
“Is that right?” John said.
“I didn’t realize she was Tiffany. I mean, I introduced myself and she didn’t give me her name, just looked shocked and pointed out Mason’s apartment.”
“So you went visiting him?” He sighed wearily. “You’re a smart girl, Bliss. I hoped you’d learned your lessons with that one.”
“I have. But—”
Resigned, he waved off her excuses. “It’s your life. Just use your head.”
“Always do, Dad.”
“Oh, honey, I wish I could believe that.”
“Trust me.”
“She’s a grown woman,” Brynnie reminded him. “And I’m not so sure either you or I are the right ones to be handing out advice.” She struck a match and drew long on her cigarette.
John’s jaw hardened. “I just don’t want her to make the same mistakes I did.”
“Or Margaret did,” Brynnie said, shooting a geyser of smoke from the corner of her mouth.
“I won’t.” Rather than continue the no-win argument, Bliss headed for the den. She heard Brynnie defending Mason and her father going through the roof. The happiness he was certain he would find with his bride-to-be seemed to fade with each passing day, and Bliss doubted he’d find the peace he was so determined to have.
“You should never have sold out to him,” her father was saying as Bliss walked the length of the house.
“It was my right.”
“Like hell. I’ve half a mind to call the son of a bitch myself.”
“Now, John, don’t get all worked up.…”
Bliss closed the door to the den behind her and leaned against the cool panels. What a mess. It seemed that John and Brynnie were forever at each other’s throats. A match made in heaven, it wasn’t.
But her part in it would soon be over; then they could fight it out like cats and dogs if they wanted to. Bliss only had to put up with a few more weeks of living with all this tension. Then, the Good Lord willing and true love, if that’s what you’d call it, winning out, her father would be married. Bliss would return to Seattle.
For a reason she couldn’t name, the thought of heading back to her apartment overlooking Puget Sound settled like lead in her heart.
Because of Mason. Because you can’t forget him and because you haven’t had it out with him. Face it, Bliss, what you really want while you’re down here is to find out why he abandoned you—why he ran away and why, when you cared for him so deeply, he didn’t return your love.
* * *
“All I’m saying, Lafferty, is that you had no right!”
Mason held the telephone receiver away from his ear as John Cawthorne, swearing and yelling, told him seven ways to go to hell for buying out Brynnie’s portion of the land. Though it had been days since the old man had found out, he was still furious and had, apparently, had another fight with his bride-to-be over the situation.
“I don’t like anyone sneaking around my back, dealing with a woman, playing on her emotions. You’re a snake, Lafferty, and I’ll see your sorry backside in court, let me tell you.”
“Fine.”
“If you think I’m going to sell my part of the ranch, you’d better think again! And stay away from my daughter. You’re not going to use Bliss to get to me!”
A quiet anger stole through Mason’s blood. “I wouldn’t.”
“Sure. Like you wouldn’t use Brynnie! Hell, Lafferty, you’d sell your own mother if you thought it would bring you a little profit in the future!”
Mason’s jaw tightened and his knuckles showed white on the receiver at the mention of his mother’s name.
“You’re not going to pull a fast one on me, y’know,” Cawthorne was yammering.
“Just think about the deal, Cawthorne,” he said, managing to keep his voice calm, though images of his mother, sad and old beyond her years, cut through his mind like razors. “That’s all that matters.”
“Like hell.” Cawthorne slammed down the receiver.
“Great. Just great.” Mason hung up and stood, stretching the tension out of the tight muscles of his back. Why the old man could get to him was a mystery.
Years ago, with Cawthorne standing in the rain, looming over him, offering him a deal for getting out of Bliss’s life, Mason had been blinded by pain and had silently sworn he’d get even one day. Now the day was at hand, but the sweet taste of revenge eluded him.
He glanced at his watch. Not quite five, and he’d had a hell of a day even without John Cawthorne’s verbal attack. Five cattle—three cows and two calves—had died of black leg on his ranch in Montana. The rest of the herd was quarantined, but there would still be losses—too many of them.
A foreman at the same ranch had fallen from the haymow, cracked three ribs and broken his ankle, and some neighboring rancher was screaming bloody murder about water rights. The neighbor had hired himself a local lawyer who had taken the case with a vengeance and was now threatening a lawsuit.
Then there was the matter of Patty. What had happened to her? It was strange that she’d quit calling him about the same time Isaac Wells had disappeared.
But John Cawthorne’s phone call was the one that bothered him the most. Because of Bliss. Mason couldn’t shake her out of his mind no matter how hard he tried. He’d always prided himself on being able to put each portion of his life into perspective, to give appropriate attention to the most pressing problems while letting others simmer until he was ready to deal with them, but Bliss dominated any other thoughts. Where she was concerned, he was beyond a fool.
“Get a grip,” he growled as he squared a hat upon his head. He grabbed his jacket from a hook on the brass hall tree and decided to call it a day. It was after six and he needed a drink. A stiff one. Maybe even a double.
He yanked open the door and there she was. Bliss Cawthorne in the flesh. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes troubled.
“I tried to stop her,” Edie, his receptionist-secretary, apologized helplessly, as if there was no way she could deter the intruder. Edie’s earphones were still in place, the cord to her transcriber dangling from the headset.
“It’ll just take a minute,” Bliss said.
Mason doubted it A minute? No way. An hour? He didn’t think so. Whatever was weighing heavily enough on Bliss’s mind to prod her down here looking for him, it would take a long time to hash out. “It’s all right, Edie.”
“But—” the secretary stammered, her feathers obviously ruffled.
“I’ll handle it,” Mason assured her as she glanced at her watch. “You can go on home. Just lock the door and have the answering service pick up.”
“Are you sure? It’s just that I have to pick up Toby.”
“I know.” He held the door to his office open and Bliss, looking suddenly as if she regretted whatever impulse it was that had driven her here, stepped inside. A cloud of her perfume trailed after her, but Mason refused to be affected by anything remotely feminine, even a scent that reminded him of long-ago years.
He closed the door softly and she nearly jumped.
“What’s going on, Bliss?” he asked.
“I—I came down here because of Dad.”
“You’re sure about that?” He couldn’t hide the skepticism in his words.
“Of course.” She cleared her throat and her spine visibly stiffened as she impaled him with those incredible blue eyes. “I want you to back off, Mason.”
“Back off?”
“Yeah, with Dad and his ranch. Surely there’s another parcel you could buy.” She tossed her hair over her shoulders. “Dad doesn’t need this now—all this pressure. He’s already had one heart attack and he doesn’t need another.
“He and Brynnie are at each other’s throats because of this mess. Because of you.”
He propped himself on the corner of his desk an
d folded his arms over his chest. There was more to this than money and land; he could see it in her eyes and the set of her chin.
“I told you before, Brynnie wanted to sell,” he reminded her.
“That was Dad’s land.”
“Which he had already deeded over to her.”
Bliss took a step forward, placing herself directly in front of him, and nailed him with a look that caused an uneven thumping in his chest. “You know, Mason, for years I’ve stuck up for you whenever Dad tried to pin that horseback-riding accident on you.”
“Did you convince him?” he asked drily.
“Never. But he knew what I thought.”
He lowered his gaze to the semicircle of bone at the base of her throat, where there was a pulse throbbing erratically. “And what was that, Bliss?” Mason asked boldly, painfully aware that her body was placed squarely between his legs, should he close them. His throat was so dry he had trouble concentrating. “What did you think?”
She paused and her gaze shifted. “I was the one who rode out in the storm. You saved me.”
“Did I?” He wasn’t convinced. Too many years of carrying a load of guilt around.
She didn’t answer and through the frosted, pebbled glass of his door, he noticed the lights dim in the outer office. Edie had left. He was alone with Bliss. His palms began to sweat. His thighs, straddling the corner of the desk, began to ache.
“Just stay away from Dad and Brynnie, okay? Don’t cause trouble between them.”
“You want them to be together?” he asked. “Given all the circumstances, I would have thought—”
“I want my father to be happy,” she interrupted. “That’s all. He’s…he’s already had one heart attack.”
“Which is the reason why Brynnie sold.” He rubbed his knees with his hands and felt a tightening in his groin, the start of arousal. He should just cut the lights and escort Bliss and her air of self-righteousness out the door. But he didn’t. He couldn’t. Being alone with her—so close that he could smell her skin, see the faint freckles bridging her nose, witness the sweep of her honey-brown lashes against her cheeks—was his undoing.