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“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.
