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“You’re probably right,” Bliss agreed as she sat across the table, her back to the window. Outside the glass a robin was busy pulling up worms from the morning-damp lawn. Bliss didn’t have to like the woman, just hear her out. Unfortunately, Katie seemed to be one of those bubbly, wear-your-heart-on-your-sleeve types that she found endearing.
“I have to admit, though,” Katie said, sipping her coffee as Bliss cut the rolls apart and placed one of the sugary confections on a small plate, “after living with three brothers it was a relief to know that I had a sister—well, really, two sisters!”
Katie, all five feet two inches of her, cut into her pastry. She was small and wiry, with quick movements and the exuberance of a brushfire at the height of summer. No moss grew under this little woman’s feet. “And what’s your name?” she asked as Oscar, slowly wagging his tail, galloped into the room, only to slide to a stop at the table.
“Oscar. I’ve had him a couple of years.”
“Well, you’re just adorable,” Katie said to the dog, who wiggled at her feet. “Do you hear me? A-dor-a-ble.” Without checking with Bliss, she tossed the mutt a bite of pecan roll, which he tossed and gulped in one swift motion. She wiped her hands and asked suddenly, “Do you have any kids?”
Bliss ignored the jab in her heart and shook her head. “No. At least not yet. Never been married.”
“Neither have I, but I’ve got a boy—Josh. He’s hell on wheels and the most wonderful thing that ever happened to me. I always say kids are the biggest blessing and curse of your life. You love them so much you worry about them day and night.” She bit her lower lip and stared out the window, but Bliss guessed she wasn’t seeing the horses grazing in the field grass or one of the ranch hands shoring up the ramp to the back of the barn. No, Katie was in her own private world—a world that seemed to revolve around her son.
Bliss felt the same tug on her heartstrings that had become a regular feeling whenever she thought of her own childless state. Ever since coming to Bittersweet, she had been conscious of her biological clock. This wasn’t a new experience. For the past few years as her friends and coworkers had become mothers, she’d felt her maternal instincts awakening, and she’d only wished she could have given her mother a grandchild while she was alive.
“Lately, Josh—he’s ten going on sixteen—has been getting into a powder keg of trouble. I’m telling you, when school’s not in session, look out!” Katie flung her arms wide, as if they’d been blown apart, before she finally turned away from the window and met Bliss’s uneasy stare.
“Oh, I guess I came on like gangbusters, didn’t I?” With a smile, she added, “I’m glad to finally meet you, Bliss, even though this is kind of weird for both of us. You know, I didn’t know John was my real dad until just after his heart attack. For all those years I thought Hal Kinkaid was my biological father.” She shook her head as if at her own folly and chewed on a bite of pecan roll. “He and I were never close. Never. But still, finding out that he wasn’t the guy whose genes are running around in my body was a sho
ck.”
“I imagine it was,” Bliss replied, though, in truth, she couldn’t imagine anything of the sort. The whole conversation was surreal in a way. What could she say to this forthright woman who seemed to have no qualms about talking about any subject under the sun, including her own conception, illegitimate though it was?
Katie propped one foot on the brace of one of the empty chairs scattered around the table. “It’s really an odd sensation, you know,” she admitted, “growing up believing one thing and learning that you were lied to and that everything you believed in is bogus.”
Bliss only nodded. Her entire life, it seemed, had been a lie.
“Hal Kinkaid—the guy I thought was my dad—was a real jerk. I mean, a first-class bastard. Why Mom connected with him, I’ll never know. He drank too much, always ran around on my mom, left her with a pile of bills. Strange as it sounds, I was relieved that he wasn’t related to me.”
“Yeah, but what about Dad?”
Katie shook her head and rubbed her arms as if she was suddenly chilled. “That’s a tough one. Especially for you and your mom.” She propped her chin on one hand and didn’t argue when Bliss refilled both cups. She added sugar and, this time, a little bit of cream, watching in idle fascination as clouds rose in the dark brew.
“Thanks,” the redhead said, taking a sip. “To think that John Cawthorne had two families. I can’t say I have too much respect for him—well, or for Mom, either—but there it is. Now your mother’s gone and they’re finally getting married. What can I say?”
“It’s…hard.”
“Bingo. On one hand I think they should slow down, let the rest of us catch our breath and deal with all this, and on the other I understand their need to be together. Who knows how much time they have?” Katie shrugged and blew across the top of her cup. “I just hope the rest of us—you, me, Tiffany and my brothers—can handle this. Well, and of course, I hope John can make Mom happy. She deserves it.”
Bliss didn’t comment, and Katie raised her hands as if to ward off physical blows. “I know, I know, you probably hate her for what she did.”
“Hate’s too strong a word,” Bliss admitted.
“But you have to resent her.”
That much was true. Wiping away a drip of coffee from her cup, Bliss said, “Let’s just say I loved my mom a lot. She might not have been perfectly suited for my dad, but she deserved him to be true to her. It’s him I’m having the problem with.”
“Me, too,” Katie admitted before taking a long swallow from her cup. “I just hope we can all work this out and be friends.” She grinned. “I know, that’s beyond optimistic, but it doesn’t make sense for anyone to hold any grudges. What would that accomplish?”
“Nothing, I suppose,” Bliss reluctantly agreed.
“Yeah, so go and tell your heart, right?” Katie laughed without much mirth. “This is one dandy mess.”
“Touché.”
“You know, this is probably hard for you to believe, but my mom wouldn’t hurt a flea. Lord knows, she tried to break it off with your dad several times—or at least that’s what she said—but they just couldn’t stay apart. Every time she married another guy in an attempt to get over your father, she swore she’d have nothing to do with John Cawthorne, but then the marriage would begin to fail, probably because her heart wasn’t in it in the first place, and John would come back to Bittersweet and it would begin all over again. I was too young and out of it to notice.”
“I don’t want to hear this,” Bliss said, her heart squeezing for her mother and the family they’d been.
