“Your mother and I…well, we were never right for each other. We were from different worlds. I was at home in the saddle with a plug of tobacco, and she wanted to see the damned ballet.”
“I remember.” Margaret Cawthorne was from old San Francisco money. John had been a cowboy with a keen mind who had bought land during the recession and made a fortune. He’d split his time between Seattle, where he owned property, and Bittersweet, Oregon, where his ranch was located.
A cloud passed behind his eyes, as if he still felt some kind of regret.
“But you stayed married.”
“Believed in the institution. And there was you to consider.”
“You made a mockery of the institution, Dad. And of me.” Bliss stood, folded her arms over her chest, leaned against the cool wall and stared out the window to the parking lot three stories below. Rain drizzled from oppressive gray clouds, streaking down the panes. She could scarcely breathe. Her parents hadn’t loved each other? Her father had been and still was involved with another woman? How could she not have known or guessed? She swallowed against a suddenly thick throat. Everything she believed in seemed to be falling apart, and more rapidly by the moment.
“I always thought opposites attracted,” Bliss said lamely. Heat stole up the back of her neck when she thought of her one experience with a man as opposite from her once-prim city-girl ways as could be. Mason Lafferty, the randy, tough-as-rawhide ranch hand who had worked for her father the summer she was almost eighteen, had managed to steal her naive heart before her father had stepped in.
“I suppose there’s some truth to the saying, but not as opposite as we were. In the beginning, I guess we didn’t realize how different we were and then…well, I found Brynnie.…” He had the good grace to look sheepish and Bliss felt the bleak ache in her heart thud painfully. He’d cheated on her mother with this woman he intended to marry. He’d fathered a child with her. “Brynnie’s had her share of troubles, you know. Been married a few times and has some older boys that give her headaches you wouldn’t believe.”
From the half-open door Bliss heard the reassuring beep of heart monitors and the quiet conversation of the nurses busying around their station, from which the corridors fanned toward the private rooms on the outside walls of the building. A medications cart rattled by and the elevator call button chimed. Sighing, Bliss looked down at her father, her only living parent.
“Come down to the wedding, Bliss,” John said, his leathery skin stretched tight over his cheekbones. “It’s important to me. Damn it, honey, I know it will be hard for you, but you’re tough, like your ma. The way I see it, I’ve lost too much time already and I think we should start over. Be a family.”
“You and Brynnie and her children and me,” she clarified.
“And Tiffany.”
“Right.” She shook her head and blinked back her tears. “Dad, do you know how absurd this all sounds? It’s not that I don’t want to, but I need some time to catch up. I walked into this room an hour ago and didn’t know anything. Now you expect me to accept everything you’re telling me and be a part of a family I knew nothing about. I don’t know if I can.”
“Try. For me.”
She wanted to agree to anything, to promise this man who had nearly met his maker that she’d try her best to make him happy, but she didn’t want to lie. “I’ll give it a shot,” she said, wondering why she would even think of returning to Bittersweet, the place where, as far as she knew, not only her half sisters lived, but where she’d lost her heart years ago to a cowboy who had used her and thrown her away.
As if reading her thoughts, her father fingered the edge of his sheet and announced, “Lafferty’s back in Bittersweet.” His mouth tightened at the corners and Bliss’s heart lost a beat. “Lookin’ for property, the way I hear it.”
“Is he?”
“His ex-wife and kid are there, too.”
Wonderful, she thought grimly. “Doesn’t matter.”
His eyes narrowed a fraction. “Just thought you’d want to know.”
“Why?”
“Well, you and he—”
“That was a long time ago, remember? He got married.”
“And divorced.”
She’d expected as much. Mason wasn’t the kind of man who could commit to one woman for very long. She’d found that out. The hard way. “I couldn’t care less,” she lied, and cringed inside.
“Good. You’ll have enough to deal with.”
“If I come.”
“I’m countin’ on it, Blissie,” her father said with an encouraging smile. “It’s time for me to start over and I can’t do it without you.”
A huge lump filled her throat. Half sisters.
She’d have to meet them sometime, she decided without much enthusiasm, but that didn’t mean that she had to like them.
CHAPTER TWO
“Bliss Cawthorne’s coming back to town.”
Mason froze, his pen in his hand as he sat at his desk. “What?”
“You heard me.” Jarrod Smith snagged his hat from the hall tree as he walked to the door of Mason’s office. “Just thought you’d like to know.”
“You’re full of good news, aren’t you?” Mason said, leaning back in his desk chair until the old springs creaked in protest. His stupid pulse had jumped at the mention of Bliss’s name, but he calmed himself. So she was returning to Bittersweet. So what? He didn’t doubt that she cursed the day she’d ever set eyes on him. He didn’t blame her.
She was, as she always had been, forbidden.
Jarrod grinned like a Cheshire cat. “Supposedly it’ll be a short visit, just coming back for her old man’s wedding.”
“To your mother.” Mason had already heard the news that had swept like wildfire through dry grass along the streets of Bittersweet. In the taverns, churches and coffee shops, the topic of John Cawthorne’s marriage had been hashed and rehashed. Not that Mason cared so much about what Cawthorne did these days, except when it came to the ranch, the damned ranch. Behind the old man’s back he’d made a deal with Brynnie to buy out part of it. His conscience twinged a bit; he had a ten-year-old deal with the old man, too. One he no longer intended to honor.
“Yep.” Jarrod squared his hat on his head and paused at the door. “This is a small town.”
“Too small.” Nervously, Mason clicked the pen.
“But you couldn’t stay away.”
Mason grimaced and glanced at the picture propped on the edge of his desk. In the snapshot a pixie of a girl with dark hair and amber eyes smiled up at him. Freckles dusted her nose; teeth too large for her mouth were a little crooked in a smile as big as the world. Dee Dee. Well, really, Deanna Renée, but he’d always called her by her nickname. “I’ve got my reasons for coming back,” he admitted.
“Don’t we all?”
“I suppose,” Mason allowed. He and Jarrod had been friends for years, ever since high school. Jarrod had been everything from a log-truck driver to a detective with a police department in Arizona somewhere, but he’d been back in Bittersweet for a couple of years running his own private-investigation business. Mason had hired him to track down his younger sister, Patty. So far, no luck; just a few leads that always seemed to peter out.
Jarrod’s smile was slow as it stretched across his jaw. “So what’re you gonna do about Bliss?”
Bliss Cawthorne. “Not much.” His stomach tensed as he remembered her eyes, as blue as a mountain lake, and lips that could curve into a smile that was innocent and sexy as hell all at once. She’d nearly died. Because of him. Because he’d been weak.
Jarrod pretended interest in his knuckles. “You and she had a thing once.”
If you only knew. “A long time ago.” But it feels like yesterday.
“Old feelings die hard.”
“Do they?”
“She’s not married. Never been.” Jarrod twisted the knob and shouldered open the door. “It’s almost as if she’s been waiting for you.”
&
nbsp; Mason nearly laughed as he folded his arms over his chest. “My guess is that she’d just as soon spit on me as talk to me.”
“Still blaming yourself for that accident?”
Mason shrugged, as if he didn’t give a damn, but the muscles in his shoulders tightened like cords of a thick rope that had been wet and left to shrink in the sun.
“Hell, Lafferty, it wasn’t your fault.”
Mason didn’t answer.
Jarrod shook his head. “I probably shouldn’t have said anything, but you were bound to find out sooner or later. I was just letting you know that she’ll be back. She’s still a good-lookin’ woman—or so her old man brags—and still gonna inherit a pile of money, so if you’re not interested, I’m sure a lot of other men around these parts would be.”
Jealousy, his old enemy, seeped into Mason’s blood. “Including you?”
“Maybe,” Jarrod admitted with that lazy smile still fastened on his face. “You know it’s nice to keep it in the family, and now she’ll be my what? Stepsister?”
“If the wedding of the century ever comes off.” He knew that Smith was needling him, and yet he couldn’t take anything when it came to Bliss lightly. Even after ten years.
“See ya around.”
“Right.”
Jarrod left the door open when he left. Mason watched as his friend, wearing jeans, cowboy boots with worn heels and a faded denim jacket, sauntered out of the exterior office, stopping long enough to say a few words to Mason’s secretary, Edie, to make her blush.
Jarrod Smith had a knack for breaking women’s hearts. Though he owed the man his life, Mason didn’t like the idea of Jarrod being anywhere near Bliss Cawthorne. She deserved better than to be another of Smith’s conquests.
Oh, right, because you were so good to her.
Frowning, he picked up his coffee cup and scowled as the weak, cold brew hit the back of his throat.
Bliss Cawthorne.
The princess.
The one woman he could never quite wedge from his mind, even though he’d married another.
In his mind’s eye, he saw her again at the edge of the cliff, slipping from his grasp. He heard the sound of his own terrified scream, felt that same horrifying certainty that she would be dead in an instant.
But her old man had shown up just in time.
Thank God.
John Cawthorne had arrived on horseback, his foreman with him.
“What’s going on here?” Cawthorne had shouted, then reached around Mason and grabbed hold of Bliss’s leg just as his own grip had given way.
“Hang on, Blissie—for the love of God, man, pull! Pull!”
Mason’s ebbing strength had revitalized. Though pain jolted through his arm, he caught hold of her free leg and yanked. The two men dragged her back to the ledge, where she lay, eyes closed, blood streaming from the cuts on her head.
“Ride like hell to the truck, call the police and get a helicopter for her,” John commanded the foreman. Rain dripped from the brim of his hat; mud oozed around his boots. His face was etched in fear and his eyes, two smoldering blue coals, burned through Mason with a hatred so intense it nearly smelled. “You miserable son of a bitch, you nearly killed her.” He bent down on one knee and touched his daughter tenderly on the cheek. “Hang on, honey. Just hang the hell on.”
The minutes stretched on.
Mason was in and out of consciousness and barely heard the helicopter or the shouts from the pilots. Nor did he feel the whoosh of air as the rotor blades turned above him and bent the wet grass skirting the ledge.
All he knew was that when he awoke, battered and broken, the helicopter had taken Bliss away and left him alone with John Cawthorne and the older man’s festering hatred. A half-smoked cigarette bobbed from the corner of Cawthorne’s mouth.
“Now, you lowlife son of a bitch, you listen to me,” Cawthorne commanded in a voice barely above a whisper. His face was flushed with rage, his hands clenched into hard, gnarled fists. “You stay away from my daughter.”
Mason didn’t answer. He couldn’t. Pain screamed up his left arm where the horse had kicked him and his chest felt so heavy he could scarcely breathe. Rain, in cold, pounding sheets, poured from the sky, peppering his face and mud-caked body as he lay, faceup, at the edge of the ravine.
“Bliss is half-dead, Lafferty, all because of you. You nearly cost me my best stallion as well as my daughter’s life. If I had the balls, I’d leave you here for the buzzards.” The cords of his neck, above his grimy slicker, were taut as bowstrings. “It would serve you right.” He wiped his face with a muddy hand, leaving streaks of brown on his unshaven jaw as he glared up at the heavens. “But you’re lucky. Instead of letting you die like you deserve, I’ll cut you a deal. Twenty-five thousand dollars over and above your medical bills if you walk away.”
Mason blinked, tried to speak but couldn’t say a word. His arm wouldn’t move and his breath came in short, shallow gasps that burned like hell and seemed to rip the tissue of his lungs.
“You leave Bittersweet, never contact Bliss again and marry Terri Fremont.”
What? His head was heavy, his mind unclear from the raging pain, but he didn’t understand. “No way. I can’t—” he forced out in a bare whisper.
“You know Terri’s pregnant with your kid.”
No! Impossible. He hadn’t been with Terri since Bliss had entered his life two months ago, but as he blinked upward at the dark, swollen clouds and into the fury of John Cawthorne’s face, he felt a sickening sensation of calamity barreling, like the engine of a freight train, straight for him.
“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 of 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 step-relatives she hadn’t known existed and watching as her father, foolish old man that he’d become overnight, walked 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.