Envious

by Lisa Jackson

  “Come on, come on,” he urged Lucifer as he silently cursed himself for not watching which of the old cattle trails that webbed over the base of the hills she’d taken. He rode by instinct, sweating beneath his shirt, his eyes narrowed on the terrain ahead.

  At the base of the hills, he guided Lucifer upward, heading along one of the dusty paths, hoping to catch a glimpse of Bliss or her dogged little horse. He stopped twice, listening for the sound of hoofbeats and hearing nothing but a train rumbling on distant tracks.

  “She’ll be all right,” he told himself. “She’s got to be. Come on, you miserable piece of horseflesh. Run!”

  Beneath branches, through swarms of insects, around stumps and boulders the game horse ran. Across patches of moonlight and past a creek with a tumbling waterfall that sprayed a soft mist, he rode until at last the trees gave way to the ridge.

  His heart stopped. He saw her silhouette, darker than the surrounding hills, astride Fire Cracker and riding wildly past the very tree struck by lightning ten years before. The old trunk was leafless and dead, the core burned black by the decade-old bolt from the sky.

  “Slow down!” Mason yelled. “Bliss!”

  She twisted in the saddle, her hair fanning around her. “I love you!”

  She froze, but the horse kept moving.

  “Bliss—”

  She gathered the reins back, slowing the mare while rocking.

  “Move,” he yelled at his mount. “Come on!” He remembered the last time, how she’d nearly died. Because of him. Again! “Oh, sweet Jesus!” He kicked his horse forward. Bliss toppled. She screamed. Thud! She hit the ground with bone-cracking certainty.

  Mason vaulted off his horse. “No, oh, God, no!” He reached her in an instant, dragged her crumpled body to his. “Bliss, Bliss, oh, love,” he whispered, holding her and praying to a God he’d had no words with in years that she was all right. He couldn’t have hurt her again, couldn’t have been the cause of any more pain. But a bruise and scrape marred the perfect skin near her temple and she sagged limply, as if there were no life left in her.

  “I love you,” he said and felt tears clog his throat. “Please, sweetheart, don’t . . .” He couldn’t lose her. Wouldn’t! She was breathing shallowly, but her eyes fluttered open for an instant and a faint smile touched her lips.

  “Mason,” she mouthed.

  “Hang in there, baby, I’ll take care of you.”

  “I . . . I know . . .” Then she drifted off again and he felt the cold mind-numbing fear that she might be lost to him forever. He whistled to his horse, rose to his feet and carried her gently. She wasn’t going to die on him, nor was she going to leave him.

  It had been ten years and he wasn’t going to wait any longer. This woman was the only woman he’d ever loved, the only one who could touch his heart. Somehow, some way, he was going to save her.

  * * *

  Bliss felt as if she were drowning. The water was warm and calm, a blackness dragging her under.

  “Can you hear me? Bliss?”

  A voice. Mason’s voice. Oh, Lord, how she loved him. “Blissie. Wake up now.”

  Her father. And he sounded worried. So worried. About her.

  “Don’t leave me.” Mason again. She would never leave him. Why would he think . . . ? She struggled to open her eyes only to allow a blinding flash of light to pierce her brain. Pain exploded at her temples.

  “Did you see that?”

  “She’s comin’ around.”

  “Mason?” she said, but no sound escaped her and her throat felt as dry as sandpaper.

  “I’m here, darlin’,” he replied and she felt his hand, big and callused, rubbing the back of hers. Again she tried to force her eyes open and this time, despite the painful brilliance, she managed to blink and stay awake.

  “Where—where am I?”

  “At the hospital in Medford,” Mason said. His face, all harsh planes and angles, was hovering over hers, and she watched as relief washed over his features.

  A doctor appeared, nudged Mason aside and shone yet another light into her eyes as she lay on the starched white sheets. “You’re going to be all right,” he assured her, though she hadn’t been worried “You’ll be able to go to your father’s wedding.”

  “Good.”

  “Just as long as she goes to hers,” Mason said.

  She blinked again. “Wh-what?”

  The doctor moved aside and Mason took her hand, linking his fingers through hers. “Marry me, Bliss.”

  “Now, wait a minute—” her father protested from somewhere behind Mason.

  “Forgive me and marry me.” Mason swallowed hard. “I love you. I want you to be my wife, to be Dee Dee’s stepmother. To be the mother of my children, our children.”

  Tears filled her eyes. Her heart melted. Children. Mason’s children.

  Mason kissed her on the temple. “I’ve always loved you, Bliss Cawthorne, and I swear, I’ll love you for the rest of my life.”

  “And I’ll love you for the rest of mine.” Her voice was weak and cracked, but her conviction was strong. Managing a smile through her tears of joy, she stared into the golden gaze of the man she’d loved for as long as she could remember. “There s nothing to forgive, Mason, nothing. And of course, I’ll marry you.”

  “Oh, hell,” her father said.

  “No, Dad, it’s heaven,” she assured him.

  “Whatever makes you happy, Blissie,” her father said, his voice filled with emotion.

  “Maybe we should plan a double ceremony,” Mason teased.

  “I don’t think so,” she said. “I don’t want to share our wedding day with anyone but you.”

  Her father cleared his throat. “Whatever you want. Brynnie will be thrilled and your sisters—Hell, I forgot. Katie’s been worried sick about you.”

  “And Tiffany?”

  There was a pause. “She’s still not talkin’ to me, but she called Katie once and this hospital twice. She’s concerned about you, kiddo. Looks like you might have finally won her over.”

  Bliss wasn’t sure but she smiled inwardly. Sisters . . . and children . . . and, of course, a husband. Mason.

  “I’ll go give Brynnie a call. She’ll tell your sisters. Love ya, kid,” her father said, touching her lightly on the shoulder. “Try and forgive a foolish old man for trying to protect his daughter, would you?”

  “Sure, Dad,” she said, just thankful to be alive. She wasn’t happy with what he’d done and there were still some issues they had to resolve, but she’d give him another chance because she truly believed that both of her parents had thought they had her best interests at heart. She heard her father leave the room and vowed to work things out. With him. With her half-sisters. With Mason’s daughter. Somehow, she would make things work.

  “So as soon as I get the doctor to spring you from here,” Mason said, interrupting her thoughts and staring down at her with his incredible gold eyes, “I’ll expect you to start making wedding plans.”

  “Will you?”

  “Unless you want to elope.” His smile was positively and deliciously wicked.

  “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “Just as long as you promise to be with me forever.”

  “No longer?”

  She laughed, and he winked at her.

  “It’s a deal, Bliss Cawthorne. You and me. But only until forever.”

  “Should we shake on it?” she asked, grinning, her heart so filled with happiness she thought it might burst.

  “Shake on it? Hmm.” His eyes twinkled. “We could, but you know, I had something else in mind. Something more . . . intimate.”

  She sighed and rolled her eyes. “You’re trouble, Lafferty. Big trouble.”

  “I am,” he agreed. “But only with you, love. Only with you.”

  A FAMILY KIND OF GAL

  To Mom and Dad

  You are the best

  Chapter One

  So this was the place.

  With a jaundiced eye, J.D. Sa
ntini studied the immense house with its apron of drying lawn and Apartment for Rent sign posted near the street where he’d parked. Gray clapboard accented with bay windows, black trim and a smattering of white gingerbread, this was where Tiffany had run.

  Wonderful. Just damned great.

  His gut clenched and he told himself that he wasn’t throwing her out of her home. Not really. And certainly not right away. What he was doing was for her own good. In her kids’ best interests.

  Then why did he feel like Benedict Arnold?

  “Hell.”

  Pocketing his keys, he climbed out of his Jeep. The dry heat of southern Oregon in mid-July hit him square in the face.

  Bittersweet. A fitting name for the town, he thought; as good a destination as any if a person wanted to turn tail and run. Which is what she’d done.

  His jaw clenched when he thought of her. Tiffany Nesbitt Santini. Sister-in-law. Gold digger. Lover.

  Damn, he hated this.

  Get over it, Santini. What did you expect when you took the job with the old man? You dived headfirst into this mess and your eyes were wide-open.

  He reached into the back seat of his Jeep Cherokee for his beat-up duffel bag and briefcase.

  It was now or never.

  Damn, but “never” sounded appealing.

  His leg still pained him when he walked, but he hitched the strap of his bag over his shoulder and made his way up a brick walk that needed more than its share of new mortar.

  He tried not to notice the crumbling caulking around the windows and the trickle of rust that colored the downspouts as he climbed the two steps to the front door.

  This house and its sad need of repair are not your problem.

  Right, and the Pope wasn’t Catholic.

  Everything Tiffany did affected him. Whether he wanted it to or not. She was the widow of his brother, mother of his niece and nephew, and the only woman whom he’d never been able to forget.

  And trouble. Don’t forget the kind of trouble she is.

  He jabbed on the bell, heard the chimes peel softly from the interior and waited impatiently. What could he say to her? That, unbeknown to her, he owned part of this old house, because her dead husband, his older brother, had been an inveterate gambler? That he thought it would be better if she sold the place, bought something newer and more modern, that it would be best if the kids were . . . what? Moved again? Uprooted to live close to the Santini enclave? He snorted at that thought. For years he’d avoided being roped into the tight-knit-to-the-point-of-strangulation clan, but then he was a man. It was different for him, wasn’t it? He didn’t have kids.

  A black cat darted through the shadows of overgrown rhododendrons and azaleas. Footsteps dragged through the house and the door was opened just a crack.

  “Yeah?” Suspicious thirteen-year-old eyes peered out at him through the slit.

  “Stephen?”

  The eyes narrowed. “Who’re you?”

  J.D. felt a shaft of guilt. The kid didn’t even recognize him. That wasn’t Stephen’s fault so much as it was his. “I’m your uncle.”

  “Uncle? You mean—?”

  “J.D.”

  “Oh.” Stephen’s voice cracked and his skin, olive in tone, was instantly suffused with color. A flicker of recognition flashed in his eyes. He opened the door farther, standing aside as J.D. hitched his way into the foyer.

  “What happened to your leg?”

  “An accident. Motorcycle. The bike won.”

  “Yeah?” Stephen’s eyes gleamed and the hint of a smile slid over his lips. He would be a good-looking kid in a few years, but right now he was a little rough around the edges. Soon his jaw would become more defined and his face would catch up with his nose. The boy reminded J.D. of himself and his own misdirected youth. “You’ve got a motorcycle?” Stephen asked, obviously awed.

  “I did. It’s in the shop.”

  “What kind?”

  “A Harley.”

  “Cool.”

  He couldn’t have impressed the kid more if he’d claimed to be a millionaire. “It doesn’t look so cool now. Funny what plowing into a tree does to a bike.”

  Stephen managed the ghost of a smile. J.D. noted that Stephen’s black hair was shaggy, his brown eyes filled with distrust, and his muscles so tense that J.D. half expected him to make a run for it at any moment.

  “Is your mother here?”

  The kid’s gaze fell to the floor and he seemed to be studying the intricate floral patterns of a throw rug at the foot of the stairs. “She’s . . . she’s not around right now.”

  “She’s in jail!” a little voice chirped from the landing. A pixieish face, pink-cheeked and surrounded with black curls, was stuck through two balusters.

  “What?”

  Stephen shot his sister a killing look. “Hush, Chrissie.”

  Jail? J.D. eyed the boy. “What’s she talking about?”

  “Nothin’, Chrissie doesn’t know what she’s talkin’ about.”

  “Do too!” the imp retorted indignantly.

  Stephen worried his lip for a second, then shrugged, as if he didn’t care one way or the other. “Okay. Mom’s down at the police station.”

  “Why?”

  “Dunno,” he mumbled, obviously lying. “I just got stuck baby-sitting.”

  “I’m not a baby!” Christina dashed down the stairs on her chubby legs. The blue-black curls bounced and her eyes were wide with wonder.

  “You’re here alone?” he asked.

  “Ellie’s downstairs.” Christina dashed across the hall and through a swinging door leading into the kitchen.

  “Who’s Ellie?”

  “Mrs. Ellingsworth.” Stephen shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other. “She lives in one of the apartments downstairs and when Mom has to work, Ellie looks after Chrissie.”

  “And you?”

  Stephen’s spine stiffened. “I don’t need a baby-sitter.”

  This was getting him nowhere fast. J.D. set his bag and briefcase onto the floor. “So . . . when will your mom be back?” Something was up—something the kid didn’t want him to know about.

  “Dunno. Soon, I guess.” Stephen was prickly, but must have heard the rudeness in his voice because he added, “You can, uh, wait for her here or in the parlor, if ya want . . . or—”

  Christina barreled out of the kitchen and ran to one of the narrow, beveled-glass windows flanking the front door. “Mommy!” she cried with delight. She threw open the door and raced down the steps.

  J.D. turned and saw Tiffany climbing out of a sedan she’d parked in the shaded driveway.

  Tall and slim, with shoulder-length black hair that framed an oval face, she was more than attractive; she was downright gorgeous, the kind of woman who expected and received more than her share of male attention.

  “A male magnet,” his mother used to say.

  Folding some papers into an oversize bag, she looked up, saw Christina flying across the yard and offered her daughter a smile that froze as her gaze landed directly on J.D. Her eyes, a gold color J.D. had always found disturbing, hardened and the skin stretched taut over her high cheekbones was suddenly suffused with color. “Hi, honey!” she said to her daughter as she scooped the three-year-old up from the ground.

  “Lookie who’s here.”

  “I see.” She seemed to steel herself in her sleeveless white blouse, still crisply pressed and stark against her tanned skin. She walked toward the front door and the slit in her khaki-colored skirt moved enough to show off her long, well-muscled legs.

  Yep. There was a reason his divorced brother had fallen so hard and fast for Tiffany Nesbitt. The same reason that had nearly done J.D. in. Nearly.

  From the foyer, Stephen cleared his throat. His voice cracked again. “Mom . . . Er, Mom. Uncle J.D. is here.”

  “So I see.” She lifted a finely arched brow. White lines of irritation bracketed her lips. “Jay.”

  “Tiff.” His damned pulse elevated a fraction.
>
  “Looks like your timing is impeccable as always,” she said with more than a trace of sarcasm.

  “What’s going on here?” J.D. asked.

  Still carrying her daughter, she walked into the house and shut the door. “A misunderstanding.”

  “With the police?”

  “The juvenile authorities,” she corrected, her gaze skating to her son for an instant before returning to J.D. She flashed him a look that warned him not to dive too deeply into these murky waters. Whatever was going on, it was serious. Christina wriggled and Tiffany set her daughter on the floor. “You know, J.D., of all the people I expected to run into today, you’re the last.”

  “I should have called.”

  She lifted a shoulder as if she didn’t give a damn, but barely restrained fury snapped in her eyes. “Not your style.”

  His jaw tightened, but he supposed he deserved the blow. “No.”

  Stephen glanced up through the shaggy bangs. “I’m takin’ off. Me and Sam are goin’ fishin’ and swimmin’.”

  “Sam and I,” Tiffany corrected as if on automatic pilot. “You’re supposed to be grounded.”

  “I thought we had a deal.” Stephen rubbed his nose with the back of his hand. “I did all the chores and my homework.”

  “Isn’t school out for the year?” J.D. asked.

  Tiffany shot him another harsh glance. “Summer school.”

  “Yeah, and it’s dumb,” Stephen grumbled. “Look, I just want to go swimmin’.”

  Tiffany glanced at her watch. She looked about to argue with the boy, then thought better of it. Probably because J.D. had shown up. “Okay. But be back by five.”

  “Ah, Mom. Come on, it’s summer—”

  “Five or don’t go at all,” she said firmly.

  Stephen obviously wanted to take her on but thought better of it and chewed on the corner of his lip instead.

  In J.D.’s opinion, the odds were better than ten to one that the kid wouldn’t make curfew. He knew what the boy was thinking; he’d been there.

  “And your room is clean?”

  “Clean enough.”