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* * *
He spent the night and it seemed natural to wake with his arms around her, his face buried in the crook of her neck. How many years had she dreamed of opening her eyes to see the sunlight caress the contours of his face? His beard had grown overnight and his eyelashes brushed the tops of his cheeks. In slumber there were no lines of worry disturbing the skin of his forehead, no creases of suspicion pulling at the corners of his mouth.
I love you, she thought, but didn’t dare utter the words. This was an affair, nothing more—the culmination of years of old dreams. They weren’t kids any longer but adults with their own sets of problems, their own lives. He ran several ranches and a corporation or two; she was working on becoming a partner in the firm where she worked in Seattle. He had an ex-wife and a daughter; she had Oscar, who, by the sounds of the whining at the bedroom door, needed to go outside.
She threw on a robe, padded down the hallway and let Oscar out the front door. Delores, the cook and housemaid, had the week off, but a few of the ranch hands had already parked their trucks near the barn.
Out of habit she started the coffee and was unloading the dishwasher when she heard the shuffle of bare feet on the floor. She turned and found Mason, dressed only in his worn jeans, rubbing his jaw and glancing out the window. His hair, mussed and falling over his forehead, made him seem younger than his years and his broad shoulders were tanned. But she couldn’t ignore the scar that ran around his upper arm, a reminder that his arm had nearly been torn from its socket as he’d tried to save her all those years ago.
“Good morning,” she said as the coffeepot gurgled to life.
“It is, isn’t it?” One side of his mouth lifted in a playful smile that she found absolutely endearing. She’d miss that smile as well as his lips upon her skin when she returned to Seattle.
“The best. Coffee’ll be done in a second.”
“Good.”
“How about breakfast?”
“You get dressed and I’ll buy.”
“No reason,” she countered. “I can cook.”
“What d’ya know? Three languages, ballet, a BA in architecture and she can cook.”
“That’s a master’s in architecture,” she reminded him as he walked up behind her, wrapped his arms around her waist and kissed the back of her neck.
“My kind of woman.”
She laughed and felt him fiddle with the belt of her robe. “Hey, wait a minute—”
“Breakfast can wait,” he growled against her ear as the robe parted and he lifted her from her feet.
As it was, breakfast was forgotten.
* * *
The fax machine whirred to life and Bliss waited, pushing aside the drawing she’d been working on. It had been four days since her father had been released from the hospital, and each night she’d spent with Mason. They’d talked of everything and nothing but never once broached the subject that seemed forbidden to them. The future was off-limits. He was worried about his sister and his daughter; she was concerned about her father and the marriage that was once again “on.” By the end of next week, Brynnie would officially be her stepmother.
And then what? Pack up Oscar and return to her life in Seattle?
Twiddling her pencil, she walked to the fax machine and read the memo from the office—another bid and a friendly note from one of the partners asking her when she planned to return.
“Never,” she thought aloud, then caught herself. Because she wanted to stay here in this tiny town to be near her father? Or Mason? Or both?
Disgusted by the turn of her thoughts, she decided to drive over to Brynnie’s to see John, but she’d barely made it out the front door when a brown station wagon pulled into the drive and parked between two of the pickups used by the hired hands.
Tiffany Santini climbed out of the car, glanced at a couple of the workers who were unloading hay into the barn and hurried to the front porch.
“Oh—did I come at a bad time?” she asked, seeing the car keys swinging from Bliss’s fingers.
“No, come on in. I was going to visit Dad, but it can wait.”
“He’s not here? I thought he was released from the hospital.”
“He was, but he’s staying at Brynnie’s for a little while. Come in.” Bliss was glad for the distraction and the truth of the matter was that she was intrigued by her slightly uptight older half sister. She didn’t expect they’d become friends overnight, but at least they could get to know each other.
On the front porch, Tiffany said, “Look, I want to be honest with you. I heard that he was rushed to the hospital, that they thought it was his heart but it turned out that he’d gotten too much sun or something—and I didn’t know what to do.”
