by Lisa Jackson
“Oh, who cares?” she asked herself as she took a long sip from her cup. Life sometimes seemed to move in strange, fateful circles. Who would have thought that she would be here, at her father’s ranch, drinking tepid cocoa at three in the morning? Back in Bittersweet. Involved with—no, not involved with—dealing with Mason again. “Fool,” she muttered to herself as she tossed the remains of her drink into the sink and Oscar, panting, tagged along behind her to the bedroom.
She’d made a mistake with Mason in the past, but she wasn’t going to repeat it. “Once burned, twice shy, you know,” she told her mutt as Oscar slipped through the open door to her room and hopped eagerly onto her bed. “Okay, okay. Since you were already here earlier, tonight you can sleep with me, but that’s it.”
She slid beneath the sheet and sighed. The rainstorm had moved on, but she was still here, in bed with only a dog for comfort, and the nagging feeling that all the promises she’d made to herself wouldn’t help where Lafferty was concerned. He was just one of those kinds of men that slipped under a woman’s skin and wouldn’t go away.
“Great,” she thought aloud as she tugged at the covers. Well, she wasn’t an ordinary woman. She was strong. Independent. Margaret Cawthorne’s daughter. And she’d be damned if she’d let any range-rough cowboy change the course of her life or mess with her head. Mason Lafferty, damn him, could go straight to hell, for all she cared.
* * *
Mason towel-dried his hair roughly while barely glancing at his reflection in the foggy mirror. He hadn’t seen Bliss in nearly a week and like it or not, he was going quietly out of his mind. He threw on slacks, shirt, socks and shoes, then walked through his apartment and thought it seemed emptier than before. His heels rang against the hardwood floor, echoing loudly enough to make the rooms seem hollow.
He snagged his jacket from a peg near the back door and slid his arms through the sleeves. He’d thought of Bliss off and on over the years, but had made a point to keep any lingering and provocative memories of her where they belonged—strictly in the past. Then again, he hadn’t expected her to show up in Bittersweet, nor had he thought her old man would remarry so quickly on the heels of his first wife’s death. Life, it turned out, was oftentimes stranger than fiction, and a hell of a lot more complicated.
Frowning, he thought of his own situation. How, as a small boy, he’d watched his father drive away in a beat-up old Dodge truck, the exhaust a blue haze in the coming darkness as the pickup rumbled away. He’d clung to his mother’s hand, swallowing back the tears that burned in his throat, blinking against the rain that poured from the sky. He’d been five at the time, his sister, Patty, barely two. She’d sucked her thumb as she’d sat balanced on their mother’s slim hip.
“It’ll be all right,” Helen Lafferty had said, her chin held high, her nose and eyes red from endless nights of crying. Mason had heard the fights, listened to his mother beg his dad to stay—to keep the family together, to stay with them. She’d forgive him the drinking. Forget the other women. Ignore his gambling.
But he’d left just the same.
“You go on to bed, Mason,” she’d said, swiping at her tears. “I’ll rock Patty to sleep out here on the porch.”
Only years later did Mason realize that Albert Lafferty couldn’t handle responsibility, a family, or just plain settling down. He’d never seen his father again and hadn’t missed him.
“Yeah, right,” he told himself now. His mother had never remarried and when she’d discovered she had breast cancer the year that Mason turned eighteen, she’d taken matters into her own work-roughened hands. Without insurance or a nest egg, she couldn’t afford the operation that probably wouldn’t have saved her life anyway. So, stoically, with no word to her children, Helen Lafferty had opened a bottle of sleeping pills, swallowed every one, and never woken up. She’d left Mason and Patty a simple note asking them to forgive her and begging Mason to look after his younger sister.
Well, he’d made one hell of a mess of that. Patty, he suspected, was in more trouble now than she’d ever been, and trouble, it seemed, was her middle name. As for Mason himself, his life had never been more complicated. He was considering suing Terri for custody of Dee Dee, Patty and old Isaac Wells were missing, he’d bought half the ranch and had old John mad as a hornet at him and, to top matters off, now Bliss Cawthorne, “the princess,” had strolled right back into the middle of his life.
His back teeth gnashed together as he locked the door of his apartment behind him.
He wouldn’t have believed that seeing her again would bring back a rush of memories he’d hoped to have forgotten. It seemed unfair to be haunted by the past, but then, he’d learned a long time ago that life was neither fair nor easy. Growing up in poverty, he’d developed a keen understanding of the fact that in order to even out the stakes in this life, a man had to have money and lots of it. His old man, when he’d been around, had taught him well. A few years later John Cawthorne had only reinforced that theory.
“Jerk,” Mason growled and wondered where was the sense of satisfaction he’d been hoping to feel, why had the warm knowledge that he was finally getting even escaped him. Somehow, he suspected, this all had something to do with Bliss and how he felt about her, how he’d felt about her in the past and what the future might hold for them.
Snorting in disgust at the turn of his thoughts, he headed down the stairs and to a space near the street where he’d parked his rig. Traffic was sparse on the quiet streets of town.
He should forget Bliss. She’d stumbled into his life at a time when the last thing he’d needed was involvement with the boss’s daughter, but she’d been the most incredible woman he’d laid eyes upon in a long time and fighting his attraction to her had failed miserably.
Then he’d nearly killed her. He should never have let her take off on that horse in the middle of a storm. He should have risked her wrath and refused to let her saddle Lucifer. It would have been better to risk the old man’s anger and lose his job than to have Bliss’s life endangered.
But then he’d never been smart when it came to John Cawthorne’s daughter. He hadn’t been then; wouldn’t be now.
Ten years after the accident, he was still drumming up excuses to see her, to be alone with her. Even as he climbed into his truck and silently swore that he’d keep his hands off her, he already knew that he was only kidding himself. Before the day was out, he’d find a reason to see her again.
“Hell, Lafferty,” he told the eyes glaring back at him in his rearview mirror. “You’ve got it and you’ve got it bad.” He threw his pickup into reverse, backed out, then nosed the truck onto the dusty pothole-strewn avenue. “Real bad.”
Chapter Seven
Crossing the fingers of one hand, Bliss silently prayed and pushed a button on her new fax machine. “Let this work,” she muttered as the machine hummed obediently. She’d tried to transmit the bid she’d been working on for two days to her office in Seattle with no success. This time she was in luck. “Thank you, God of All Things Electronic,” she said as she filed her original away and heard the phone ring down the hall.
“For you!” her father yelled.
“Got it,” she sang back, conscious of the irritation in John Cawthorne’s tone. He and Brynnie were speaking again, but the situation was still tense and the wedding plans, though progressing, were in a constant state of flux. “Hello,” she called into the extension.
“Bliss, hi, this is Katie Kinkaid. I, uh, thought you might want to meet for coffee or lunch or . . . well, whatever.”
No time like the present, her mind prodded her, although, deep down, she wanted to avoid this meeting like the plague. “Sure, I can meet you, or you might want to come out here. Delores made a killer batch of pecan rolls and I brought some French-roast coffee from an espresso shop in Seattle.”
“You’re on,” Katie said with a lot more enthusiasm than Bliss felt. “I’ll be there in half an hour.”
“Great.” Bliss hung up a
nd told herself it was time to get to know her half-sister, whether she wanted to or not. She straightened the den and told her father goodbye as he and Brynnie were off to talk to the preacher, who, Bliss hoped, was a decent premarriage counselor.
By the time Katie wheeled into the drive, Bliss had heated the gooey rolls, made a fresh pot of coffee and was halfway through the newspaper.
Katie rapped hard on the screen door, then let herself in, meeting Bliss in the hallway to the kitchen. She had curly auburn hair, pink cheeks and green eyes. “Hi.” She seemed a little nervous but managed a cute grin. Extending her hand, she took Bliss’s fingers in a crushing handshake. “I know this is hard for you. Jeez, it’s hard for me and I really don’t know what to say to you, but I think—I mean, the best thing is for us to get to know each other.”
“I suppose,” Bliss acquiesced, ambivalent. What do you say to someone who is the product of your father’s infidelity? How do you accept them or they accept you?
“The truth of the matter is,” the redhead said with refreshing honesty as she sailed down the hallway as if she’d done it a hundred times before, “I’ve been torn. From the minute I heard about you and realized that you were my sister, I wanted to meet you, but was afraid and embarrassed and, oh, it’s just so damned complicated.”
“Isn’t it?” Give the woman a chance, Bliss. She’s obviously struggling with this as much as you are.
In the kitchen Katie paused and eyed the rolls that Bliss had put on the table. “Mmm, smells great.”
“Good. Sit, sit.” Bliss waved her into a chair and poured them each a cup of coffee. She handed Katie a mug and watched as the younger woman spooned two teaspoons of sugar into her brew. “When Mom told me that John was my father I thought we should get together to shake our heads at our parents’ stupidity if nothing else.” She rolled her large eyes. “And I thought kids were hard to understand. You know, sometimes adults are ten times worse.”
“You’re probably right,” Bliss agreed as she sat across the table, her back to the window. Outside the glass a robin was busy pulling up worms from the morning-damp lawn. Bliss didn’t have to like the woman, just hear her out. Unfortunately, Katie seemed to be one of those bubbly, wear-your-heart-on-your-sleeve types that she found endearing.
“I have to admit, though,” Katie said, sipping her coffee as Bliss cut the rolls apart and placed one of the sugary confections on a small plate, “after living with three brothers it was a relief to know that I had a sister—well, really, two sisters!”
Katie, all five feet two inches of her, cut into her pastry. She was small and wiry, with quick movements and the exuberance of a brushfire at the height of summer. No moss grew under this little woman’s feet. “And what’s your name?” she asked as Oscar, slowly wagging his tail, galloped into the room, only to slide to a stop at the table.
“Oscar. I’ve had him a couple of years.”
“Well, you’re just adorable,” Katie said to the dog who wiggled at her feet. “Do you hear me? A-dor-a-ble.” Without checking with Bliss, she tossed the mutt a bite of pecan roll, which he tossed and gulped in one swift motion. She wiped her hands and asked suddenly, “Do you have any kids?”
Bliss ignored the jab in her heart and shook her head. “No. At least not yet. Never been married.”
“Neither have I, but I’ve got a boy—Josh. He’s hell on wheels and the most wonderful thing that ever happened to me. I always say kids are the biggest blessing and curse of your life. You love them so much you worry about them day and night.” She bit her lower lip and stared out the window, but Bliss guessed she wasn’t seeing the horses grazing in the field grass or one of the ranch hands shoring up the ramp to the back of the barn. No, Katie was in her own private world—a world that seemed to revolve around her son.
Bliss felt the same tug on her heartstrings that had become a regular feeling whenever she thought of her own childless state. Ever since coming to Bittersweet she had been conscious of her biological clock. This wasn’t a new experience. For the past few years as her friends and coworkers had become mothers, she’d felt her maternal instincts awakening, and she’d only wished she could have given her mother a grandchild while she was alive.
“Lately, Josh—he’s ten going on sixteen—has been getting into a powder keg of trouble. I’m telling you, when school’s not in session, look out!” Katie flung her arms wide, as if they’d been blown apart, before she finally turned away from the window and met Bliss’s uneasy stare.
“Oh, I guess I came on like gangbusters, didn’t I?” With a smile, she added, “I’m glad to finally meet you, Bliss, even though this is kind of weird for both of us. You know, I didn’t know John was my real dad until just after his heart attack. For all those years I thought Hal Kinkaid was my biological father.” She shook her head as if at her own folly and chewed on a bite of pecan roll. “He and I were never close. Never. But still, finding out that he wasn’t the guy whose genes are running around in my body was a shock.”
“I imagine it was,” Bliss replied, though, in truth, she couldn’t imagine anything of the sort. The whole conversation was surreal in a way. What could she say to this forthright woman who seemed to have no qualms about talking about any subject under the sun, including her own conception, illegitimate though it was?
Katie propped one foot on the brace of one of the empty chairs scattered around the table. “It’s really an odd sensation, you know,” she admitted, “growing up believing one thing and learning that you were lied to and that everything you believed in is bogus.”
Bliss only nodded. Her entire life, it seemed, had been a lie.
“Hal Kinkaid—the guy I thought was my dad—was a real jerk. I mean, a first-class bastard. Why Mom connected with him, I’ll never know. He drank too much, always ran around on my mom, left her with a pile of bills. Strange as it sounds, I was relieved that he wasn’t related to me.”
“Yeah, but what about Dad?”
Katie shook her head and rubbed her arms as if she was suddenly chilled. “That’s a tough one. Especially for you and your mom.” She propped her chin on one hand and didn’t argue when Bliss refilled both cups. She added sugar, and this time, a little bit of cream, watching in idle fascination as clouds rose in the dark brew.
“Thanks,” the redhead said, taking a sip. “To think that John Cawthorne had two families. I can’t say I have too much respect for him—well, or for Mom, either—but there it is. Now your mother’s gone and they’re finally getting married. What can I say?”
“lt’s . . . hard.”
“Bingo. On one hand I think they should slow down, let the rest of us catch our breath and deal with all this, and on the other I understand their need to be together. Who knows how much time they have?” Katie shrugged and blew across the top of her cup. “I just hope the rest of us—you, me, Tiffany and my brothers—can handle this. Well, and of course, I hope John can make Mom happy. She deserves it.”
Bliss didn’t comment, and Katie raised her hands as if to ward off physical blows. “I know, I know, you probably hate her for what she did.”
“Hate’s too strong a word,” Bliss admitted.
“But you have to resent her.”
That much was true. Wiping away a drip of coffee from her cup, Bliss said, “Let’s just say I loved my mom a lot. She might not have been perfectly suited for my dad, but she deserved him to be true to her. It’s him I’m having the problem with.”
“Me, too,” Katie admitted before taking a long swallow from her cup. “I just hope we can all work this out and be friends.” She grinned. “I know, that’s beyond optimistic, but it doesn’t make sense for anyone to hold any grudges. What would that accomplish?”
“Nothing, I suppose,” Bliss reluctantly agreed.
“Yeah, so go and tell your heart, right?” Katie laughed without much mirth. “This is one dandy mess.”
“Touché.”
“You know, this is probably hard for you to believe, but my m
om wouldn’t hurt a flea. Lord knows, she tried to break it off with your dad several times—or at least that’s what she said—but they just couldn’t stay apart. Every time she married another guy in an attempt to get over your father, she swore she’d have nothing to do with John Cawthorne, but then the marriage would begin to fail, probably because her heart wasn’t in it in the first place, and John would come back to Bittersweet and it would begin all over again. I was too young and out of it to notice.”
“I don’t want to hear this,” Bliss said, her heart squeezing for her mother and the family they’d been.
Katie pursed her lips. “Sorry. Tacky of me. My brothers say that I don’t know when to keep my mouth shut, and I guess they’re right.”
“No, I wanted to know, but it’s . . . I don’t know.”
“Painful. I get it. You feel like your dad betrayed your mother and therefore he betrayed you. I understand. I didn’t mean to open up any old wounds.”
“No, no, it’s all right.” The last thing Bliss wanted was to alienate Katie, her half-sister, a woman as unlike her as day was to night. But she found Katie Kinkaid refreshing and outspoken, relaxed and honest. No false pretenses. No worries about decorum or what the neighbors might think or say. In short, Bliss found herself warming to Katie whether she wanted to or not.
Katie sliced Bliss a curious look. “I don’t mean to pry, but since we’re getting to know each other, I wanted to ask a couple of things.”
Bliss’s back stiffened. “Such as?”
“You visited here when you were growing up, didn’t you?”
“The summers—Well, some of them.” Unease knotted Bliss’s already tight stomach.
“Then you know Mason Lafferty.”
It was a statement, and it hung in the air. Bliss had taken a bite of her roll, and it suddenly felt like a lump of wet cement wedged against the top of her mouth.
“He, uh, worked for Dad a long time ago.”
“Until he was fired,” Katie said, then drained her cup again. “You know, my brother Jarrod was his best friend at the time and thought John—er, Dad—oh, whatever he is—gave Mason a bum rap. There was something about a riding accident and you, right?”
