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“To see me.”
“I guess.” Doris lifted a shoulder and rolled her chair back as the fax machine whirred to life. “Uh-oh, looks like someone found us. Probably from the main office.” Adjusting her reading glasses, she walked to the fax machine and waited for the paper it spewed forth. “Another memo about Isaac Wells, wouldn’t you know,” she said, clucking her tongue and shaking her short blond curls. “Aren’t we lucky to have policies out on him? I wonder what happened to that old guy
.”
“You and everyone else in town,” Tiffany said uneasily. Any talk of Isaac’s disappearance reminded her that the police thought Stephen knew more than he was telling. She shivered. Impossible. Not her boy. He was only thirteen.
Doris snapped up the page of information.
“When is Bliss moving in?” Tiffany asked in an effort to change the course of the conversation. How would she deal with seeing her half sister every working day? Bliss Cawthorne, “the princess.” John’s indulged and adored daughter. The only one of his three offspring allowed to bear his name. Get over it, she told herself as she settled into her morning routine, opening letters and invoices and scanning each with a practiced eye. It wasn’t Bliss’s fault that their father was an A number-one jerk, a man who’d ignored both of his other daughters for years. Until it was convenient for him.
Now, after his brush with death, he wanted to make everything nice-nice. As if the past thirty-odd painful years could be swept away. Just because he’d had himself a heart attack, he wanted to start over. Well, in Tiffany’s estimation, facing one’s mortality didn’t do a whole lot toward changing the past.
Give it a rest, she told herself and, taking her own advice, buried herself in her work. Several policyholders came into the office to pay their bills or fill out claim reports.
Tiffany worked through lunch, balanced the previous day’s invoices, made her daily trip to the bank, and had found time to chat with Doris about the kids and Doris’s planned trip to Mexico while eating a container of strawberry yogurt at her desk.
It was nearly quitting time when the bell over the door tinkled, and Tiffany glanced up. Her insides tightened a bit as she recognized Bliss, her face flushed, striding to the front counter.
Wonderful. Tiffany’s good mood disappeared.
With cheekbones a model would kill for and eyes as bright as a June morning, Bliss Cawthorne looked like a woman who had everything going for her. Slim and blond, she exuded the confidence of a person who knew her own mind and had never wanted for anything. She wore a white skirt, denim shirt, wide belt and sandals. Upon the ring finger of her left hand she sported a single pear-shaped diamond, compliments of her fiancé, Mason Lafferty, a local boy who, despite his poor roots, had returned to Bittersweet a wealthy, successful man.
Bliss practically glowed, she seemed so happy, and Tiffany had to stanch the ugly stream of resentment that flowed whenever she was face-to-face with her half sister. Fortunately, their meetings had been few and far between. Until now.
“Hi,” Bliss said with a smile.
Tiffany forced a grin. “Hello.”
“Did you sign the lease?” Doris asked, and Bliss, her steady gaze never leaving Tiffany, nodded.
“Looks like for the next year at least, I’ll be your neighbor.”
“Welcome aboard,” Doris said, walking around her desk to shake Bliss’s hand. Her bracelets jangled in the process, and she grinned widely enough to show off the gold caps on her back teeth. “It’ll be nice to have another woman around here, won’t it?” she asked, cocking her head in Tiffany’s direction.
“Absolutely.”
“It’s just us and Randy around back. He organizes guided tours into the wilderness—canoeing, backpacking, trail riding, whatever.” She fluttered her fingers by the side of her head, as if dismissing Randy’s occupation. “Seth was in the office you’re renting. Semiretired accountant, but he had a cancer scare last winter and decided to sell his business.”
There was nothing that Doris liked more than gossip, and she didn’t get as many opportunities as she wanted, so she was anxious to bend any ear she could.
“I hear you’re marrying that Lafferty boy.”
Bliss’s grin widened. “Next month.”
“Pretty soon after your father’s big to-do,” Doris observed.
“I guess it is.” Bliss was a little noncommittal, and Tiffany realized that her half sister had her own reservations about their father’s impending nuptials. Not that Tiffany blamed her. It seemed that the old man had kept Brynnie, his bride-to-be, as his mistress off and on during most of the duration of his first marriage to Bliss’s mother, Margaret. The guy was a creep. A slime. And you’ve got his blood running through your veins whether you like it or not.
“I’ve decided to take out the renter’s policy,” Bliss said, as if the subject of her father’s wedding was a little touchy. “I’ve listed all the assets—computers, fax machine, copier and furniture.” She and Doris began discussing the policy as Tiffany printed invoices. She heard Doris giving Bliss her best sales pitch for life, auto and liability insurance while slipping her a business card.
“We could take care of all your insurance needs, and we’d be right down the hall,” Doris was saying as Tiffany pulled the billings off the printer.
“I’ll think about it”
“And talk to your dad. We could help him out, too.” Doris nodded toward Tiffany. “I’ve asked Tiffany to call him and show him how we could help out, but she—”
“Doris!” Tiffany reproached, shaking her head. That was the trouble with her boss. Doris didn’t understand the word soft when it was applied to sell. “You don’t have to talk to John,” she said to Bliss. “Doris can call him herself.”
