by Lisa Jackson
“It’s what you’ve always wanted, Lafferty—money the easy way. Well, now you’ve got it. Just leave Bliss alone.”
Bile crawled up Mason’s throat and he turned his head in time to retch onto the sodden grass of Cawthorne’s land.
“The way I see it, you haven’t got much choice.”
Mason couldn’t argue.
“Have we got a deal?” He spat his cigarette onto the ground where it sizzled before dying.
No! Mason’s nostrils flared and he tried to force himself to his feet, got as far as his knees and fell back down, his head smacking into the mud, his arm and chest searing with agony.
“Moron.” Cawthorne’s voice had lost some of its edge. “Come on, son. Think of your future. You’ve got a kid on the way. It’s time to grow up. Face responsibility. And then there’s that little matter of your sister.”
Patty. Two years younger and beautiful, but oh, so messed up.
“She could use the money, even if you and Terri aren’t interested, but you’d better talk to the Fremont girl first. My guess is that she’s like most women and she’ll want all the money for herself and your kid.”
No! No! No! A burning ache blasted through his brain and his eyelids begged to droop.
“Now,” Cawthorne continued a little more gently, “have we got a deal?”
No way! Mason’s head reeled. He spat. Blood and mud flew from his cracked lips.
Cawthorne leaned down, the scent of smoke and tobacco wafting from him. “I’m giving you the chance of a lifetime, boy. All you have to do is say yes.”
Mason closed his eyes. Blackness threatened the edges of his vision, but still he saw Bliss’s gorgeous face. Cawthorne was right; he’d nearly killed her. If the old man hadn’t shown up when he did, if he’d lost his grip only seconds earlier, if he hadn’t followed her to the cliff . . . He swallowed and realized with an impending sense of doom that he had no choice.
“Well?”
Bliss, oh, God, I’m sorry. I’m so damned sorry. He felt more broken and battered than his injuries and realized that it was his soul that had been destroyed.
Through cracked lips, he agreed. “Yeah, Cawthorne,” he finally mouthed, his insides rebelling at the very thought of giving her up. He skewered the older man with a glare of pure hatred. “We’ve . . . we’ve got a deal.”
* * *
Now, ten years later, at that particular thought his stomach turned sour and he tossed the dregs of his drink into a straggly-looking fern positioned near the window.
So Bliss was finally returning to Bittersweet. With that little bit of knowledge, he knew that his painful bargain with Cawthorne was over. Though he should leave her alone, pretend that what had happened between them was forgotten, he couldn’t.
He’d returned to Bittersweet with a single purpose: to gain custody of his daughter and provide a stable life for her. He shouldn’t let anything or anyone deter him. Especially not Bliss Cawthorne. But there was that little matter of Cawthorne’s ranch. Mason had always loved the place despite a few bad memories. Now, as luck would have it, he had a chance of owning it, maybe settling down with his kid and hopefully finding the peace that had eluded him for most of his life.
Except that he was going to see Bliss again, and that particular meeting promised to be about as peaceful as fireworks on the Fourth of July.
* * *
“I should have my head examined,” Bliss muttered.
Oscar, her mutt of indiscernible lineage, thumped his tail on the passenger seat of her convertible as they raced down the freeway five miles over the speed limit. The radio blasted an old Rolling Stones tune as the road curved through the mountains of southern Oregon.
Oscar, tongue lolling, black lips in a smile that exposed his fangs, rested his head on the edge of the rolled-down side window. His gold coat ruffled in the wind and sparkled in the sun under a cloudless sky.
Bliss tapped out the beat of “Get Off My Cloud” on the steering wheel and wished she’d never agreed to this lunacy. What was she going to do in the town where she’d been so hurt, meeting half-sisters and a bevy of steprelatives she hadn’t known existed, and watching as her father, foolish old man that he’d become overnight, walk down the aisle with his mistress.
“Unreal,” she muttered as Mick Jagger’s voice faded and the radio crackled with static.
Oscar didn’t seem to care. He was up for the adventure. His brown eyes sparkled with an excitement Bliss didn’t share, and with a red handkerchief tied jauntily around his neck, he looked ready for ranch life.
Bliss’s hands tightened on the steering wheel. She’d changed her mind about driving to Oregon six times during as many days. Her father had recuperated and left Seattle two weeks earlier, then just this past week had called to tell her he was being married at the end of June. He wanted her to come spend some time with him, meet her new family, and be a part of the festivities.
Great.
And what about Mason? her wayward mind taunted. What if you run into him?
“The least of my worries,” she lied as she stepped on the gas to pass a log truck. She planned to avoid Mason Lafferty as if he were the plague. Her hands on the wheel began to sweat, and she bit down on her lip. She was over him. Had been for a long time. So what if he’d been her first love? It had been ten years ago—a decade—since she’d last seen him or felt his fingers moving anxiously against the small of her back.
At the old, erotic memory, goose bumps broke out on her skin and she closed her mind to any further wayward thoughts. Mason had never loved her, never cared. He’d left without a second glance. Hadn’t even had the decency to stop by the hospital where she’d fought for her life after the accident. Hadn’t so much as sent a card. In fact, he’d cared so much for her that he’d married another woman. He was the last man on earth she wanted.
An old Bruce Springsteen song, one she’d heard that painful summer, pounded through the speakers.
She snapped off the radio in disgust.
She wouldn’t think of Mason. At least, not right now. Besides, she had other worries. What about the two women who were supposed to be her half-sisters, for crying out loud? A nest of butterflies erupted in her stomach when she thought about the women she’d never known. Did she really want to know them? “Give me strength,” she muttered under her breath.
She exited the freeway, her stomach tightening in painful knots. Memories, vivid and painful, slipped through her mind. The hills of pine and madrona looked the same as they had ten years ago. The landmarks—an old trading post and an abandoned schoolhouse—hadn’t changed much. Barbed-wire fences surrounded fields lush with the spring rains, where cattle grazed lazily.
After a final rise in the road, the town of Bittersweet came into view. She passed by the old water tower that stood near the railroad station. Nearby, a white church spire, complete with bell and copper roof, rose above leafy shade trees surrounding the town square. Fences ranging from white picket and ranch rail to chain link cordoned off small yards within which bikes, swings, and sagging wading pools were strewn. The homes were eclectic—cottages and two-story clapboard houses intermingled with ranch-style tract homes and tiny bungalows.
In the central business district she drove past the old pharmacy where she’d ordered cherry colas one summer. She slowed to a stop at the single blinking red light in the center of town and noticed that the old mom-and-pop grocery store, once owned by an elderly couple whose names she couldn’t remember, had changed hands. It was now a Mini-Mart. Time had marched on.
And so had she.
She hadn’t belonged here ten years ago. She didn’t belong here now.
Thoughts a-tangle, she drove on into the country again and slowed automatically at the gravel lane that cut through fields of knee-high grass. The gate was open, as if she were expected, and the curved wooden sign bridging the end of the lane read Cawthorne Acres. Her father’s pride and joy.
John Cawthorne called this spot “heaven on eart
h.” She wasn’t so sure. She wasn’t seduced by the scents of honeysuckle and cut hay, nor did her heart warm at the sight of the horses milling and grazing, their tails swishing against flies. Nope. She was much happier as a city girl. Margaret Cawthorne’s daughter.
She slowed at the barn and parked near the open door. Oscar jumped out his side of the car. She reached into the back seat for one of her bags.
“Look, I thought I made it clear that I wasn’t interested!” John Cawthorne’s angry voice rang from the barn.
Bliss’s shoulders sagged. The last thing her father should be doing after his surgery was getting himself all riled up. She dropped the bag, opened the car door, climbed out and shoved the door shut with her hip. “Dad?” she called as she walked into the barn. Dust motes swirled upward in air thick with the odors of dusty grain and dry hay.
“Bliss—?”
Her eyes adjusted to the dim light and she saw her father leaning heavily on his pitchfork. His jaw was set, his face rigid and he was glaring at a man whose broad-shouldered back was turned to her and whose worn, faded jeans had seen far better days.
“I think you probably remember Lafferty.”
Bliss’s stupid heart skipped a beat and her throat went dry. “Lafferty?” she said automatically, then wished she could drop through the hay-strewn floor. What was he doing here?
In the shadowy light, he glanced over his shoulder. Gold eyes clashed hard and fast with hers.
She froze.
Gone was any trace of the boyish charm she remembered. This man had long ago shrugged off any suggestion of adolescence and was now all angles and planes, big bones, hard muscle and gristle. A few lines fanned from his eyes and bracketed his mouth. His hair, though still blond, had darkened and was longer than the style worn by most of the businessmen in Seattle.
“Well, what do you know?” he taunted, turning on a worn boot-heel and giving her an even better view of him. The skin of his face and forearms where his shirtsleeves were pushed up was tanned from hours in the sun and the thrust of his jaw was harsher, more defined and decidedly more male than she remembered. A day’s worth of whiskers gilded a chin that looked as if it had been chiseled from granite. “It’s been a long time.”
Not long enough! Not nearly long enough. “A good ten years.”
“Good?”
“The best,” she lied. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of knowing that he’d hurt her.
“I knew you’d come,” her father said and propped the pitchfork against the wall. He crossed the short distance between them and gave her a bear hug with arms that weren’t as strong as they once had been.
“Did I have a choice?”
“Always.”
She laughed as he released her. “No one has much of a choice when you set your mind, Dad. Mom used to say that stubborn was your middle na—” She bit her tongue and reminded herself that her mother, proud and ever-faithful, was gone. And her father was hell-bent to marry someone else.
“That she did,” John agreed. “That she did.”
The moment was suddenly awkward and Bliss, as much to change the subject as anything else, said, “I hope I didn’t hear you shouting a couple of minutes ago.”
“Me?” Her father’s eyes twinkled. “Never.”
She turned to Mason. “He’s not supposed to get overly excited.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” Shoving callused hands into the back pockets of his jeans, Mason smiled, a sizzling slash of white that was neither friendly nor warm, just downright hit-you-in-the-gut sexy. Well practiced. A grin guaranteed to turn a young girl’s heart to mush.
But she wasn’t a young innocent anymore and all of Mason’s wiles to which she’d been so vulnerable long ago, couldn’t touch her. Not now. Not ever again. Her fingers curled into fists and her fingernails dug deep into her palms.
“Good.”
His gaze raked up and down her wrinkled blouse and the tangle of her hair, only to pause at her eyes. “How’ve you been?”
As if he cared.
“Fine . . . I mean, great. Just great. Really.”
“You look it.”
She felt a blush climb up the back of her neck. “It must be because of all the clean living I do, I guess.”
Mason laughed. “Right.”
Her father snorted.
“You don’t believe me?”
“I know you.”
“Did know me. A long time ago. I—I’ve grown up.”
“I noticed.”
Bliss wasn’t fooled by Mason’s well-honed charm. Not a bit. How many nights had she cried bitter tears over this two-timing thoughtless bastard? In an instant, she wanted to strangle him and wasn’t about to listen to any of his cheap compliments. She’d made that mistake before. Years ago he’d cut her loose and broken her heart; she’d never trust him again. Folding her arms under her breasts, she asked, “So what’re you doing here?”
His smile only broadened as if he were amused by her discomfiture. Amused!
“Tryin’ to buy the ranch out from under me, that’s what he’s doin’,” her father said, his blue gaze blistering. “I told him I’m not selling.”
“Why would you?”
“Because it’s too much for him.” Mason was matter-of-fact.
“Who’re you to determine that? Just ’cause I had a little heart attack don’t mean I’ve got one foot in the grave.” Her father was as irascible as ever. Good. That meant he was getting better.
“Just think about it, okay?” Mason suggested. “And while you’re at it, you might want to talk to Brynnie.”
“Why?” her father demanded, suspicion flashing in his eyes.
“She’s going to be your wife, isn’t she?”
“Of course.”
“Then you probably should ask her what she wants.”
“I always do.”
One of Mason’s brows rose skeptically. “I’ll bring you the offer. You can read it over.”
John looked about to argue, but clamped his mouth shut.
With a nod to Bliss, Mason strode across the wedge of sunlight that had pierced the gloomy interior of the barn, shouldered open the door until it bounced against the wall and disappeared. A few seconds later a truck’s engine roared to life and gravel sprayed from beneath heavy tires.
“No-account bastard,” her father said as he reached into his back pocket and pulled out a plug of chewing tobacco. He started to bite into the black wad, then hesitated as if he’d caught the censure in his daughter’s eyes. “It’s just a little chew, Blissie, and since I can’t smoke . . . Oh, hell.” He shoved the dark plug back into his pocket. “What’s Lafferty want this place for? He owns property all over the West.” John hung his pitchfork on a peg near the door and walked outside where the breath of a breeze cooled the air. Leaves, lush and green on the apple tree near the front porch, turned softly in the wind.
“I was hoping you were down here taking it easy,” she said.
“I am.”
“I don’t think working in the barn and arguing at the top of your lungs is what the doctors had in mind.”
“What do they know?”
“Come on, Dad,” she cajoled as they reached her car.
“Don’t you start in on me, too. I’ve spent the last few weeks cooped up in bed, so I thought I’d come into the barn and clean up a bit. Nothin’ more. Then Lafferty showed up.” He glowered at the driveway. “I’ve thought about sellin’ out, but it galls me to think that a no-account like Lafferty wants to buy.”
“What do you care?” she asked and her father’s eyes flashed. “Weren’t you the guy who always said, ‘Money is money, as long as it’s green’?”
“I know, I know,” he agreed as Oscar explored the shrubbery around the house. “It’s just that I care about this place, even if Brynnie doesn’t.”
“Why doesn’t she like it?”
He shrugged. “Too many bad memories here for her, I guess.” He settled a hip against her fender as sunli
ght bounced off the convertible’s glossy finish.
“Because you were married to Mom?” Bliss asked, her heart wrenching.
“Even though your mother never lived here, it bothered Brynnie.”
“Because you were married.”
“I suppose.”
Oh, God, this was going to be hard. A stepmother. One who had been involved with her father for a long, long time. Maybe this was a mistake. Maybe she shouldn’t have come back.
“I’ll look over the damned offer,” he admitted, “but I’m not gonna accept it.”
Oscar romped over, wagged his tail. As Bliss reached down to scratch him behind his ears, she glanced at the wake of dust that was settling on the long gravel drive.
“I know it was tough for you to come here,” he volunteered, swiping at a yellow jacket that buzzed around his head.
“I’m worried about you,” she admitted.
“Yeah, but it’s more than that. You’re curious as hell about Brynnie and the girls.”
Lifting a shoulder, Bliss hoisted a bag from the back seat and hauled it toward the house. Her father carried a smaller case and followed her. “A little.”
“A lot, I’ll wager. Don’t blame you.” He eyed her as he held open the front door and the scents she remembered—of floor wax, smoke and cooking oil—greeted her. She fingered the old globe, sending countries that no longer existed spinning.
She walked along the short hallway and pushed open the door. Her room was as it had been for as long as she could remember. Double bed, old dresser with a curved mirror, tiny closet. Rag rugs were scattered over an old, dull fir floor.
He dropped her small case on the foot of the bed.
“I’m drivin’ over to Brynnie’s for dinner later. You want to tag along?”
“No.” She was surprised how quickly the word was out of her mouth, and hated the disappointment she saw in her father’s eyes. However, the truth of the matter was that she still needed time to settle in and grow more comfortable with this new life that was being thrown at her. Seeing Mason again didn’t help. Not at all. “Not—not tonight. Just give me a little time to catch up, okay?”
