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“Maybe,” she admitted. “But you don’t.” The lie hovered between them in the air for a few seconds until she turned and shoved open the door, only to find a young girl, somewhere between eight and nine, hovering on the landing. “Oh.”
“Dad?” the child asked, looking over Bliss’s shoulder.
“Dee Dee.” Bliss heard the smile in his voice and realized that she was staring at his daughter. With a fringe of brown hair and freckles bridging a tiny nose, Dee Dee looked from Bliss to Mason and back again.
“Bliss Cawthorne, this is my daughter, Deanna.”
“Glad to meet you,” Bliss said automatically, though she felt a stab of deep regret for the child she’d never had, had never had the chance to conceive with Mason.
“Yeah.” Dee Dee chewed on her lower lip for a second. “Mom just dropped me off.”
“And didn’t stick around. Figures,” Mason said, eyeing the street as if looking for Terri’s car. “Are you hungry?”
“Starved. Can we go to McDonald’s?” Dee Dee asked, her eyes suddenly bright with anticipation.
“Sure. You game?” he asked Bliss and she saw the girl’s shoulders droop a bit.
“No…uh, no thanks,” she said, not wanting to intrude on father and daughter. “Another time.” She hurried down the stairs and offered a pathetic excuse of a wave. It wasn’t Dee Dee’s fault that she’d been conceived when Mason was dating Bliss, and yet Bliss didn’t want to be reminded of the man’s faithlessness.
She skirted the main house and made it to her car without looking over her shoulder. As she slid behind the wheel, she told herself it didn’t matter that Mason had cheated on her, that he’d gotten another woman pregnant while he’d been seeing her, that he’d never loved her. He had an ex-wife and a daughter, and Bliss had her own life to lead—without him.
* * *
That night Bliss threw off the covers and glared at the digital readout on the clock near the bed. Two forty-five. Great. She’d been in bed since eleven and hadn’t slept a wink. Ever since returning to Bittersweet, she couldn’t wrench Mason out of her mind. Seeing him with his daughter hadn’t helped. She’d been reminded of just how he’d betrayed her, how much she wanted a child of her own.
Outside, rain fell steadily from the sky, fat, heavy drops pummeling the roof, splashing in the gutters and dripping from the leaves and branches of the old oak tree that stood near her window.
Why hadn’t he told her about Terri Fremont years ago when Bliss was falling in love with him? What was the reason he’d left Bittersweet without even stopping to say goodbye to her? Why was he back now and why was it so important that he buy her father’s place? And why, oh, please, God, why, was she still thinking about him, wondering at her response to his kiss while hating herself for caring?
“Stop it!” she muttered, punching her pillow in frustration. She reminded herself for the millionth time that Mason Lafferty was nothing to her. Nothing!
So why was she thinking of him? Why? Why? Why? “Because you’re an idiot,” she told herself.
Knowing that sleep was impossible, she slid her arms through the sleeves of her robe and stepped into her slippers. Oscar, who had been curled up beside her, was already on his feet, stretching and yawning. He followed her into the kitchen and waited at the pantry door until she reached inside and tossed him a biscuit. While he crunched on his snack, she heated cocoa in the microwave.
Mason was a problem, but not one she could solve tonight. She needed to forget him and return to Seattle as she’d planned. Her father was recuperating at a rapid pace, and if he and Brynnie could quit fighting long enough to walk down the aisle and say their vows, then Bliss would leave Oregon and get back to her old life.
Her old, peaceful and somewhat boring life.
Sliding into a chair, Bliss cradled the warm cup in her hands and let the chocolate-scented steam fill her nostrils and whisper over her cheeks. She’d told herself again and again that she was over—make that long over—Mason, but tonight, while the sky was thick with clouds and the outside air dense with rain, she wasn’t so sure of her feelings.
Seeing Mason, touching Mason and kissing Mason had brought back memories, painful and tarnished. She’d spent ten years repressing her thoughts about him, trying not to compare him to other men she’d dated, hoping against hope that someday she’d never think of him at all, believing that he was just a summer fling—a schoolgirl crush. Nothing more.
Now she was ready to second-guess herself. “Fool,” she exclaimed, and when Oscar gave out a disgruntled “Woof,” she l
aughed without any sense of satisfaction. “That’s right, dog, your mistress is a first-class, A-one moron, I’m afraid.”
Old feelings—excitement, anger, hurt and even a trace of first love—resurfaced. She remembered the tumbling, breathless feeling of hearing his voice or kissing him or swimming nude in the nearby river with him. “Oh, Bliss,” she whispered, stirring the hot chocolate and creating a small whirlpool in her cup, “I thought you were smarter than this.”
The memory of the first time she’d seen him, tall and lean, covered in dust as he’d offered to lift her suitcases and trunk from the back of her father’s truck, haunted her. And tonight, alone in the kitchen of the ranch house, with only the rain and Oscar to keep her company, that memory stretched out vividly before her. It had been ten years ago, but tonight it seemed as real as if that summer had happened yesterday…
CHAPTER SIX
Bliss sipped her cocoa and remembered that sultry afternoon when she had come to her father’s ranch that summer. The housekeeper had called to John Cawthorne as he’d climbed out of his truck.
“Phone call for you, in the den,” she’d said, standing in the doorway of the house and pushing aside clumps of dry dirt left from boots with her broom.
John, swearing under his breath, had dashed toward the front door and had left Bliss standing alone by the truck in the blistering sunlight. As she stood in the dusty gravel parking area near the garage, harsh, unforgiving rays pounded down on her crown and shoulders. She felt totally alone, a city girl plucked out of her nest and tossed here with a father who usually ignored her. As she reached into the bed of the truck for one of her bags, she silently wished, as she had since she could remember, that she had a sister or brother with whom she could share her misery.
