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“Just give me a second, okay?”
“What for?” Katie glanced at her watch.
“I’ll only take a minute.” Bliss was already heading along a path winding through a rose garden and arbor. Butterflies and bees flitted in the air as she turned from the side of the house to the backyard where Dee Dee was still perusing a slick teen magazine.
“Hi,” Bliss ventured, not sure why she wanted to connect with this kid but knowing deep down that it was important.
Dee Dee looked up but didn’t smile. “Oh. Hi.”
“Saw you out here reading and thought I’d see what you were up to.”
“Waitin’ for my dad.”
“He’s not here?”
“Naw.” She shrugged as if she didn’t have a care in the world, but a shadow of worry slid through her eyes and Bliss suspected Deanna Lafferty was used to hiding her feelings. “Mom just dropped me off.”
“Is he expecting you?”
Again a lift of one shoulder. “Who knows?”
“Can you get into the house?”
“Tiffany will let me in.” She chewed on her lower lip and looked at the main house. “It’s okay.”
“You’re sure?”
Her expression changed and Bliss read “Yeah, and what’s it to you?” in the set of her jaw. Great, she was making friends left and right today. “I’m fine, okay?”
“Sure. See ya around.” With a wave, Bliss was off and she caught a glimpse of Tiffany at the kitchen window. The pane was open and Tiffany seemed to be washing dishes or something, but Bliss guessed she’d heard the entire exchange. Good. At least Dee Dee had an adult to keep an eye on her.
“What was that all about?” Katie asked, once Bliss had settled into the passenger seat of her car.
“Just checking.”
“On Mason or his daughter?”
“Dee Dee seemed unhappy.”
“Don’t blame her. Terri’s talking about pulling up stakes again, this time to Chicago, and Dee Dee doesn’t want to be so far from her dad.”
“But Mason just moved here.”
“I know.” Katie edged into traffic. “That might be the reason. Terri might not want to be so close to her ex.”
“But it would be best for their daughter to be close to both parents.”
“I’m not judging. Just telling you what could be happening.” Once outside the town limits, Katie lead-footed it, leaving Bittersweet in a trail of dust. She fiddled with
the dial on the radio, came up with an oldies station that was playing “Ruby Tuesday” by the Rolling Stones, and while Mick Jagger sang through the speakers, she drove like a maniac past the fields and hills that led back to the ranch. Exhaust spewed from the tailpipe and the wind streamed through Bliss’s hair, but she barely noticed.
Her mind was on Mason’s doe-eyed daughter, and she felt a twinge of remorse that she’d ever been jealous of the sad girl.
“You know,” Katie said, oblivious to the turn of Bliss’s thoughts, “Tiffany’s got her own set of problems, what with J.D. Santini and all.”
“Her…brother-in-law, right?”
“One and the same. Kind of a cross between James Dean and the Marquis de Sade, if you ask me.”
