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“A lot, I’ll wager. Don’t blame you.” He eyed her as he held open the front door and the scents she remembered—of floor wax, smoke and cooking oil—greeted her. She fingered the old globe, sending countries that no longer existed spinning.
She walked along the short hallway and pushed open the door. Her room was as it had been for as long as she could remember. Double bed, old dresser with a curved mirror, tiny closet. Rag rugs were scattered over an old, dull fir floor.
He dropped her small case on the foot of the bed.
“I’m drivin’ over to Brynnie’s for dinner later. You want to tag along?”
“No.” She was surprised how quickly the word was out of her mouth and hated the disappointment she saw in her father’s eyes. However, the truth of the matter was that she still needed time to settle in and grow more comfortable with this new life that was being thrown at her. Seeing Mason again didn’t help. Not at all. “Not—not tonight. Just give me a little time to catch up, okay?”
He started to argue, thought better of it and shrugged. “Whatever you say, kid. I just think it’s time to make peace. I’ve made my share of mistakes in the past and now I’d like for you and your sisters to be part of a family.” He scratched at the stubble silvering his jaw. “But I’ll try not to push you too fast.”
“Thanks, Dad,” she whispered, her throat clogging at his kindness. Crusty as he was, he had his good points. Somehow she’d have to get over her feeling that he’d betrayed her mother. She only wished she knew how.
She walked to the window and forced it open. Returning to Bittersweet might have been a mistake. A big one. Not only would she have to deal with this new patchwork of a family, but also, she was bound to run into Mason again.
So? He was just a man. What they had shared was over a long, long time ago. Or was it?
CHAPTER THREE
His first mistake had been returning to Bittersweet.
His second was seeing Bliss again.
“You’re an idiot, Lafferty,” he told himself as he parked on the edge of Isaac Wells’s property just as night was threatening to fall. The woman had the uncanny ability to get under his skin. Just like before.
“Hell,” he ground out, chiding himself for believing that he could see her and not care. He’d been thinking about her ever since leaving the Cawthorne spread—a place he intended to have as his own, if only to prove a point.
But he couldn’t think of Bliss right now. He had too much on his mind. First he had to fight with Terri over custody of Dee Dee and second he had to find his sister. Patty had been in Bittersweet recently. Jarrod Smith had determined that much, and she’d come here to this scrappy piece of land owned by their uncle, a man who had turned his back on them years ago.
Isaac Wells.
A number-one bastard.
Who had now disappeared. Vanished, without a trace.
Mason climbed out of the pickup. In one lithe movement, he vaulted the fence and walked up the short rutted lane to the dilapidated cabin that Isaac had called home.
An old wooden rocker with battle-scarred arms and a worn corduroy pad on the seat, pushed by the wind, rocked gently on the front porch. The old man had spent hours on the stoop, where he’d whittled, read the stars, strung beans from his garden and spat streams of tobacco juice into an old coffee can he’d used as a spittoon. He’d made few friends in his lifetime but had unearthed more th
an his share of enemies.
So what had happened to him? Had someone killed him and taken his body? But why? Or had he been kidnapped? Or had he just taken a notion and up and left? Mason rubbed the back of his neck in frustration and wondered if Patty had been involved. “Hell’s bells,” he muttered as he scanned the countryside. Berry vines and thistle were taking over the fields, and the barn, which had never been painted, was beginning to fall apart. The roof sagged and some of the bleached board-and-batten siding was rotting away.
What the hell had happened here?
Foul play?
Or had an addled, lonely old man left in desperation?
No one seemed to know and everyone within fifty miles was frightened. Mysteries like this didn’t happen in these sparsely populated hills. The town of Bittersweet and the surrounding rural landscape were far from the rat race and crime of the city; that was part of the charm of this section of Oregon. But Isaac’s disappearance had changed all that. Dead bolts that had nearly rusted in the open position were being thrown, security companies contacted for new installments, and, worst of all, shotguns cleaned and kept loaded near bedsteads in the event that an intruder dared break in.
The townspeople and farmers were nervous.
The sheriff’s department wanted answers.
And there was nothing. Not a clue.
Except for Patty.
