A Family Kind of Guy (11 page)

He actually looked perplexed for an instant.

“Listen, Bliss,” he said, clearing his throat and walking to the fireplace, where he leaned against the mantel, as if he, too, finally realized the need for distance between them. “You'd be doing your father and Brynnie both a big favor by suggesting he sell the rest of his property.”

“I think that's his decision. And now I have some advice for you. Just leave Dad and Brynnie alone. They have enough problems without having to deal with you.”

“And what about you, Bliss?” he asked.

“What about me?”

“Should I leave you alone, too?”

“Absolutely.” She tried not to notice the way his jeans settled low over his hips and the play of muscles in his forearms as he moved. Dark gold chest hair sprang from the V of his neckline, and she remembered exploring the springing curls that covered his nipples with young, interested fingers.

“I think you're afraid of me.”

She laughed and shook her head as she headed for the door again. “Don't flatter yourself, Lafferty. You don't scare me.”

“Maybe I ought to.”

“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 laughed 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…

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.

“You must be John's daughter,” a rawboned, slightly intimidating cowboy drawled. He was tanned from long hours of hard work under the glare of the sun and his eyes, staring at her from the shade beneath the brim of his Stetson, were a light golden brown. Intense and unblinking, they stared at her in an uncompromising appraisal that caused her breath to catch and warned her that she should run now while she had the chance.

“That's right.” Why did her tongue want to trip all over itself?

His grin was a slash of white against bronzed skin. “He's proud of you, let me tell you.”

“Is he?” She smiled back, then blushed. This guy was way too old for her and she wasn't one to flirt, but there was something about him that made her want to linger. “Bliss Cawthorne,” she said boldly, extending her hand and remembering the manners her mother had drummed into her head from the time she was a toddler.

“Lafferty. Mason Lafferty.” He dropped the trunk and covered her soft, small outstretched palm with his bigger callused hand. His fingers were rough, covered with dust and warmer than the breeze that swept through the grassy acres. He tipped his hat and didn't apologize for the dirt that he left smudged on her skin.

“You work for Dad.” There was something about him that nudged her curiosity, something that set him apart from the rest of the men who called John Cawthorne their boss.

“Most of the time.” He hitched the trunk onto his back and started for the porch.

“And the rest?”

He glanced over his shoulder and winked at her so slowly she felt her knees turn to jelly. “Raisin' hell, if you believe the stories in town.”

“Should I?” Lugging her suitcase, she struggled to keep up with his long, easy stride.

His gold eyes glinted. “Every word. Hey, don't carry that—I'll get it.” He cocked his head toward the bag she carried.

“I can handle it.”

“Can you?”

She knew she was being baited and she flushed. After all, this guy wasn't a boy; he was a man and he scared her more than a little. “I can handle a lot of things,” she said, tossing her head. Margaret Cawthorne might have taught her daughter to be a lady, but she'd also instilled a fervor in Bliss to carry her own weight and be independent enough not to have to rely on any man, especially not a cowboy.

John walked out onto the porch. “Damned mechanics,” he grumbled, then noticed Mason. “Take the trunk and the rest of her things into her bedroom—down the hall, second door on the right. Next to the bath.”

“I can show him. I know where it is,” Bliss said, feeling the fiery rays of the sun beating against the back of her neck. Heat shimmered in waves across the pastures, and dust, kicked up from the movement of cattle and horses in nearby fields, floated in the air. She was beginning to sweat and her blouse was sticking to her back and her heart was pounding so loudly she was sure everyone within ten feet of her could hear it.

“Good.”

“When you're finished with the luggage, Lafferty, run down to the machine shed. The combine's acting up again, according to Corky, and the shop in town is overloaded. No one can look at the machine for three weeks at the earliest. Holy hell, how can you run a ranch like this?” Scowling and grumbling to himself, her father strode across the parking lot toward the machine shed.

Mason's jaw hardened. He held the screen door open for Bliss. “Your old man is gonna give himself a stroke if he doesn't calm down a little.”

“It's just his way,” she said but felt an unspoken tension in the cowboy walking beside her. His muscles were suddenly strung tight, his knuckles showing white around the handle of the trunk.

Hurrying through the cool interior of the house, she bumped shoulders with him a couple of times and nearly tripped over her feet at the contact. Being alone with him was nerve-racking. She reminded herself that he was just one of her father's hands—a worker on the ranch. Right? So why did she feel instantly that there was something about him, something primitive and sexual, that bothered her and caused her already-flushed skin to break into beads of anxious perspiration? “You can put the trunk in the corner,” she said, opening the door of her room and indicating a spot near the small closet.

“Whatever you say, princess.”

She bristled at the name. “I'm not a princess.”

His lips twitched. “Hmm. Coulda fooled me.” He dropped the trunk on its end and hesitated long enough to make her uncomfortable. There was something in his eyes, something wickedly intriguing that warned her he was the kind of man to avoid—the kind of man a woman in her right mind wouldn't trust. “Anything else?”

“No, uh, I think I can handle the rest.”

“You sure?” His voice was low and a little raspy, as if he'd breathed too much dust or smoked too many cigarettes.

She wasn't sure of anything. “Yeah. Don't worry about it.”

With a wink that bordered on something far more sexual than she'd ever experienced, he left the room as quickly as he'd come in. She set her suitcase on the bed and opened the window. Suddenly the tiny bedroom seemed airless and hot. In the old mirror over the bureau she caught her reflection and nearly died. Her cheeks were a bright shade of pink, her blond hair wild, her eyes wide with an anticipation she'd never seen before.

The breeze that moved the curtains and filled the room didn't help much. Nothing did, she came to find out. Whenever she was around Mason, she couldn't seem to catch her breath or even untangle her thoughts.

* * *

In the days that followed, that summer ten years ago, she saw Mason enough, though most often from a distance. He roped steers, he branded stock, he castrated calves, he shoed horses and he strung fence wire. The muscles of his back and shoulders, tanned from long hours laboring in the sun, moved fluidly as he worked, straining, then relaxing and drawing her eyes to the faded jeans that rode low on his hips. Dusty and torn, they offered a glimpse of a strip of whiter skin whenever he stretched, and that tantalizing slash of white, coupled with the curling golden hair on his chest, caused a warmth to invade the deepest, most private part of her, and she had to force her gaze away.

“You're being silly,” she told herself on Tuesday evening when she was walking toward the stables and spied Mason leaning against a car—a yellow sedan—she didn't recognize. The driver was a pert woman with short dark hair, an upturned nose and doe-like brown eyes that gazed upward through the open window to Mason's face. The car idled, exhaust seeping from the tailpipe, the thrum of the engine competing with the sounds of warblers and sparrows singing in the trees and fields.