by Lisa Jackson
He was offering to sell his portion of the ranch back, wasn’t he? How bad could he really be?
“Well, I’m going to see him as soon as he’s in his own room,” Katie said, ignoring any advice to the contrary.
“Ah, Mom,” the boy whined.
“You, too, kid. He’s your grandfather.”
“Yeah, right. Since when? A few weeks ago? Big deal.” Josh tossed a wayward lock of hair from his eyes and scowled as if the world had wronged him.
“It is,” Katie insisted.
“Yeah, so where was he before? Huh? He knew you were his kid and he just looked the other way.” Josh rolled his eyes expressively. “Real great guy.”
“All that’s changed.”
“Come on, there’s nothing more we can do. Let’s get out of here,” Mason said. “Dee Dee, are you ready?”
She looked up and her lips pursed for just a second. “Sure.” Then, as if sensing her father’s disapproval, she tossed her book into her bag and was on her feet.
“I’ll take you both to dinner,” Mason announced.
“You don’t have to,” Bliss protested.
“I want to.”
“I’m not hungry.” Dee Dee fidgeted with the strap of her bag. She glanced at Josh and rolled her eyes. “Besides, Mom said she’d be back by now.”
Mason’s jaw clenched. “I know, but she was supposed to—”
“Wait a second,” Katie, ever vigilant, interrupted. “Why doesn’t Dee Dee come over to our place for a while? Josh and his friend Laddy just finished building a tree house and the neighbors have a litter of eight puppies. I’ll call Terri and square it with her.”
Dee Dee’s eyes lit up. “Puppies? Oh, Dad, could I?”
“I don’t know—”
“Please, Daddy,” Dee Dee begged, and Bliss watched as Mason’s heart melted.
“Don’t you have plans later with your mom?” Mason asked.
“Mom and Bob.” Dee Dee’s nose wrinkled at the thought.
“Don’t worry. As I said, I’ll give Terri a call on my cell,” Katie said, zipping open her purse and scrounging for her phone. “She can either pick her up at my place or I’ll run her home. It’s no big deal.”
Mason, it seemed, couldn’t deny his daughter anything, and in a matter of minutes the change of plans was arranged and Dee Dee remained with Katie and Josh.
Nonetheless, Mason wasn’t pleased as they left the hospital. “Damn that woman, why can’t she make a plan and stick to it?” he muttered, then shot Bliss an apologetic glance. “Not your problem.”
“I don’t mind.”
He ran stiff, frustrated fingers through his hair. “Terri’s talking about moving again,” he admitted, once they were walking across the parking lot. Heat shimmered in waves from the hot asphalt and the air was still even though it was late afternoon.
“Where?”
“The San Juan Islands, I think, or Chicago. It depends on Bob.” He slid his aviator glasses onto the bridge of his nose and she couldn’t see his eyes, but his entire demeanor had stiffened.
“Bob is—”
“Her fiancé or live-in or whatever you want to call it. He’s older, has kids my age and . . . Oh, hell, I don’t like the situation. I moved down here to be close to Dee Dee, have a little more influence in her life, and wouldn’t you know, Terri’s decided to take off again.” He opened the door of the truck and helped Bliss inside. The vinyl seat was hot to the touch even though he’d left the windows cracked, and an angry yellow jacket was buzzing loudly, pounding its striped body against the windshield. Mason slid behind the steering wheel, swatted the bee out the open window, then twisted on the ignition.
Bliss glanced at the clinic and sighed.
Mason slid a glance her way as he eased through the parked vehicles. “Your dad will be okay, you know.”
“How would I?” she asked.
Mason snorted. “John Cawthorne’s too stubborn to give up the ghost that easily.”
“You didn’t see him after the heart attack in Seattle.”
He couldn’t argue. Didn’t.
“It scared me.”
“I didn’t think anything scared you.”
She let out a hard laugh. “If you only knew.”
They drove back to the ranch in silence as the sun lowered over the western mountains. A tiny breeze kicked up and crickets began their twilight songs. Mason parked by the garage and walked her into the house. It was odd being alone with him here, in her father’s home, and she suddenly felt tongue-tied and awkward.
The house was too close, too reminiscent of another time and place. She helped herself to two sodas and carried them outside to the back porch. Shadows lengthened across the lawn.
“What will you do if Terri does move again?” she asked, unscrewing the top from a bottle of cola and handing it to him.
“Fight her, I suppose.” He took the drink and rolled the bottle between his hands. “I can’t follow her across the country, but I need to be close to Dee Dee. I made a mistake letting Terri take her away from me in the first place. I should have demanded that she stay in state. We lived in Montana then. . . .” He frowned and took a long swallow. “Doesn’t matter. It’s all water under the bridge. It wasn’t my first mistake.” His eyes found Bliss’s. The back of her throat tightened, just as it always did when he looked at her so long and hard. “I’ve made a lot of them.”
She fumbled with her bottle, but finally twisted off the cap. “We all have.”
He leaned a shoulder against the post supporting the overhang of the porch. “My worst was losing you.”
“Wh-what?” Her head snapped up and she nearly dropped her soda.
“You heard me.” He smiled ruefully. “What do you think buying this place was all about?”
“I thought you wanted it to prove a point. With my dad. He fired you a long time ago, humiliated you, and you thought that by buying this place you could get back at him.”
“That’s part of it, I guess. But it wasn’t really his land I was after. It was his daughter.”
She froze, not certain she understood everything he was saying. “Look, what happened between us was a long time ago.”
“Was it?” He took a long swallow from his drink and she watched his throat work.
“Yes.”
“What about now?”
Oh, God. “Now?”
He set his drink on the porch rail, removed hers from her grip and placed her untouched bottle next to his. Then, standing only inches from her, he didn’t touch her, didn’t inch even the slightest bit closer, but said, “I want you, Bliss. As much as I ever have.”
There it was. Hanging in the air between them. A statement so direct and frightening that Bliss didn’t know what to say. She wanted to step away, to put some distance between herself and this man who knew just what to do to upset her world, but she didn’t, and she held her ground, staring up at him and wishing he would take her into his arms and kiss her as she’d never been kissed before.
“You didn’t,” she finally said. “You . . . you had your chance and you left me.”
“Wrong.” His gaze centered on her lips. “I always wanted you, Bliss,” he said, his voice so low it was barely a whisper. “I just didn’t know how to go about it.”
“You’re lying,” she accused, but saw the naked truth etched in his features, the pain of baring his soul.
“I wish it was different with us, but it isn’t.”
“That’s how it has to be.”
“No way.”
She looked up at him, saw the passion stirring in his eyes and felt a trembling deep within her. The world seemed to shrink. Mingled fragrances of dry earth, bleached grass and blossoming Queen Anne’s lace didn’t diffuse the scents of leather, soap and aftershave that clung to him, nor did the coming twilight dim his blatant sexuality.
What was wrong with her? Why would she fall for his lines all over again? What kind of fool was she?
She only hoped that he
would leave soon and she would be away from him and would no longer notice the hard angle of his jaw, the dark secrets in his eyes or the way his jeans hung so low on his hips.
He was, after all, just a man.
But the only man who had ever been able to turn her head around and get under her skin.
Well, that had happened years before; a lifetime ago, it seemed. This time around, she was older and hopefully wiser.
He reached forward and she thought—hoped—that he would pull her into his embrace. Instead, he brushed a lock of hair from her cheek. At the feel of his fingertip, she trembled. Quicksilver images of his body, naked and hard, glimmering with sweat as he’d made love to her, flitted through her mind.
“Take a ride with me,” he suggested.
“A ride?”
“To Cougar Creek. Come on, Bliss. What have you got to lose?”
Just my heart. She swallowed hard. “Nothing.”
Didn’t he know how dangerous being alone together would be? Didn’t he care?
“Good.” He stuffed his hands into the back pockets of his jeans. “We can take us a thermos of coffee, or a bottle of wine.”
“Could we?” she teased, warming to the idea.
His grin was infectious. “You know,” he added, “I thought I recognized Lucifer in the south pasture. I suppose he’s still a mean son of a gun.”
“The meanest. Dad says Lucifer’s still a handful but not as young or as full of the devil as he once was.”
“None of us are.”
She noticed a shadow chase through his eyes, as if he, too, was remembering the fleeting past they’d shared so many years before. Suddenly she was leery. Being alone with him was tantalizing, but oh, so perilous.
“I—I don’t know. It’s been a long day and—”
“Coward.”
“I’m not—”
“So you still remember how to ride, city girl?” His voice was teasing, but deeper-sounding than usual.
The air between them grew thick. “I think I can manage.” “Good.” His smile was positively evil. “Then what are we waiting for?”
Chapter Twelve
By the time she’d called the hospital to check on her father, perked a pot of coffee, poured it into a thermos and wrapped a few cookies in aluminum foil, the sun had settled behind the mountains and twilight had descended. The first few stars were winking in a lavender sky, and a half-moon hung lazily over the horizon.
Mason was waiting for her in the paddock near the stables. Two horses, Lucifer and Fire Cracker, who was snorting and pulling at her tether, were saddled and tied to the fence.
“It’s, uh, getting late,” Bliss said, and Mason slid her a knowing smile.
“Don’t tell me you’ve become so much of a city slicker that you’re afraid to be out past ten? No one’s going to mug you out here, you know.”
“I was thinking of the horses. In the dark, they could step in a rabbit hole or stumble or—”
“They’re both more surefooted than either you or I,” Mason said, opening the gate. He untied the animals, took the thermos, cup and foil package to tuck into one of the saddlebags. “Come on.” Climbing astride Lucifer, Mason quickly pulled on the reins before the stallion tried to turn his head and take a nip out of Mason’s leg. “No, you don’t.” Mason chuckled and shook his head. “Still full of it, aren’t you, boy?”
Bliss laughed as Lucifer rolled his blue eyes and tossed his head in frustration. “I don’t know who I feel more sorry for. You or the horse.”
“The horse, definitely. I’m going to show him who’s boss.”
“This I gotta see.” Bliss’s worries evaporated as they rode through a series of connecting paddocks and corrals, then took off through a huge field of yellow stubble. The horses loped easily over the rolling ground while grasshoppers and a covey of quail fluttered out of their path.
Bliss, despite her worries, felt suddenly lighthearted and free. All her concerns about her father’s health, his upcoming marriage, her newfound sisters and mostly her volatile relationship with Mason, vanished in the clean air that tore at her hair and stole the breath from her lungs. Life was good, if complicated.
They rode through the pine trees and along a deer trail that wound upward to a craggy ridge overlooking the creek. A hawk soared high in the violet sky as stars winked and the moon cast the ground in shades of silver. Somewhere in the distance an owl hooted, only to be answered by a coyote whose cry was nearly drowned by the rush of water slicing through the canyon.
Mason climbed off Lucifer and the horse shook his great head, rattling the bit of his bridle. “This place hasn’t changed much.”
“No,” Bliss admitted, as she slid to the ground. While the rest of the world had careened into the future in a mad rush of fax machines, telecommunications, computers, and cellular phones, out here the land was the same as it had been for centuries. Fewer wild creatures roamed the hills, and Native Americans no longer claimed this part of the world, but the geography itself seemed unmarred by civilization.
He poured coffee into the cup, handed it to her, then took his from the lid of the thermos. They sat in silence, steam rising from their drinks as they let the dark mantle of the night surround them.
“So tell me about Dee Dee,” she said when the silence became uncomfortable and she found herself sliding glances at his profile. Damn, he was sexy. Crooked nose, high cheekbones, hard jaw, dark beard-shadow and heavy eyebrows over intense eyes gave his face character while his body was lean and muscular, rawhide-tough and strong.
“A great kid. Despite her parents.”
“You must’ve done something right.”
“I don’t know what.”
She sipped from her cup and the hot brew burned a path down her throat. Dear Lord, what was she doing here, alone with Mason beneath the stars, as a summer breeze played over the land?
He turned to face her and her heart kicked into a faster, more potent cadence. “So—so what happened between you and Terri?”
“Not much. That was the problem.”
“Oh.”
“Your old man convinced me that I should leave and marry her, that she was pregnant with my kid.”
“Wasn’t she?”
“Apparently not.” His words were bitter and harsh.
“But Dee Dee—”
“Wasn’t the baby. That one, I suspect, never existed.”
“What?” Bliss was stunned.
“Oh, Terri claims she miscarried, and before I knew what hit me, she was pregnant again. I think she lied about the first pregnancy because she and I . . . Well, we weren’t together much and then you came along. All of a sudden she turned up pregnant and then you nearly were killed in the accident. Your dad offered me money—more money than I’d ever had before—to disappear and do the ‘right thing’ by Terri, so I did. Then she ‘loses’ the baby. Before I can figure out if I should divorce her, she’s pregnant again.”
“With Dee Dee.”
“Yep.” He took a long swallow from the thermos lid.
“And that pregnancy was one of the best things that ever happened to me.” He lifted a shoulder. “But no matter how much you love your kid, if there’re no feelings between you and the mother, then the marriage is doomed.”
Bliss felt empty inside. All the years of envy and jealousy and misunderstanding were such a waste, such a horrid, painful waste. “If only I’d known,” she said with a sigh. “No wonder there’s so much bad blood between you and Dad.”
“He never thought I was good enough for you,” Mason said. “I was a poor kid who had to look out for his younger sister, a screwup who had no business being involved with his daughter, ‘the princess.’ The accident only proved him right.”
“It didn’t.”
“In his mind, Bliss.” He took another gulp of his coffee and tossed the dregs into the grass.
“Well, not in mine.”
“Is that so?”
“Mmm.” She caught the gleam in h
is eyes and her pulse jumped.
“Don’t tell me you didn’t regret getting involved with me.”
“Okay,” she teased, smiling. “I won’t.”
One side of his mouth lifted, revealing an off-center slash of white. “You’re a maddening woman, Bliss Cawthorne.”
“So I’ve been told.”
He was suddenly serious. “You know, I never meant to hurt you.”
“You didn’t,” she lied.
“I wish I could believe you.” He leaned back on his elbows and stared at her. “If I could change things—”
“You wouldn’t. You have a beautiful daughter, a successful business . . . What more could you want?”
“I already told you earlier.”
“I want you, Bliss,” he’d said. Not I love you. Not I want to marry you. It was more than she should have expected.
“I don’t know,” she said as the breeze ruffled her hair. She reached forward, spanning the small distance between them, and touched the back of his hand with her fingers. That one gesture was her undoing. The heat of his skin, the cords running along the back of his hand, caused her blood to ignite. She felt her pulse begin to throb, saw his gaze shift to the hollow of her throat.
With a groan, he moved closer. His fingers linked through hers and an intimate heat, like none other she’d ever felt, passed from his skin to hers.
Stop this, Bliss, while you still can. But it was too late. She was mesmerized by the depths of his eyes, the curve of his lips, the flare of his nostrils. He pulled her next to him and his mouth, wet and hard, found the pulse point in her neck.
No! No! No! a part of her screamed.
Yes, oh, yes! a deeper, more feminine part responded as Mason’s fingers twined in her hair. His lips tasted and touched, pressing soft kisses along the column of her throat. “I’ve wanted you for so long,” he whispered in a voice that was rough with need. “So damned long.” His lips found hers again, and desire, new and hot, danced wantonly through her blood.
She couldn’t think, could scarcely breathe as his hands lowered and he cupped both breasts in his rough hands. Bliss’s heart nearly stopped as he buried his face in the cleft, and through the thin cotton of her blouse his breath fanned her skin.
