A Family Kind of Guy (16 page)

She voiced a soft moan of protest that went unheeded.

His mouth was hard and warm and molded so effortlessly against hers. He smelled of leather and aftershave, musky and male. A part of her let go—after ten long, heart-wrenching years.

His lips were as sensual and insistent as they had been years before, and she was just as lost to him now. In the warm interior of his office, a decade had melted away.

Don't do this, Bliss. Don't let him use you again!

But she couldn't stop herself.

His mouth moved over hers with a wild abandon that touched the deepest part of her. Within a heartbeat her traitorous body began to respond, and desire, hot and long slumbering, awoke with a vengeance. She could hardly breathe, her knees threatened to buckle and her mouth opened willingly under the sweet, gentle pressure of his tongue.

Somewhere in the back of her mind she knew she was making a horrid, life-altering mistake, but she didn't care. For the moment, she only wanted to close her eyes and drown in the seductive whirlpool of his taste, his smell, his touch.

With a moan, she started to wind her arms around his neck. Then, as his fingers toyed with the hem of her T-shirt, she realized that she was falling into the same precarious trap that had snared her ten years earlier.

He used you before.

He'll use you again.

He never loved you and never will.

“I—I can't,” she managed. “W-we shouldn't… Oh, Lord, this—this isn't a good idea,” she whispered, lifting her head and feeling dizzy. Her eyelids were at half-mast, her blood flowing like lava.

“I know.” He kissed her—a soft, teasing brush of his lips over hers.

She melted deep inside. “I don't think—”

Another featherlight kiss to the corner of her mouth. “Don't think.”

Sweet heaven, how she wanted him. Her legs turned wobbly. “Listen, Mason, please, I can't do this.” Forcing the unwanted words over her tongue, she pushed him away with all her strength. She was breathing hard, her chest rising and falling with each breath, her anger pulsing in her ears. “What we had was over a long time ago. I thought you understood that a few minutes ago, but if you missed the message, let me give it to you loud and clear, okay?” Somehow she found the strength to say what her heart so vehemently denied. “I don't believe in reliving the past.”

“How about changing the future?”

Her heart stopped for a crazy minute and in her mind's silly eye, she saw herself walking down an aisle in a white dress, swearing to love him for the rest of her life, becoming his wife and bearing his children. Mason's babies. A part of her heart shredded when she remembered he already had a child, one who had nothing to do with her. Tears touched the back of her eyelids and she said dully, “We have no future.” And that was the simple truth. They both knew it. “Look, don't…don't you have an oil well to drill, or some tractors to sell, or some livestock to brand?”

A slow, sexy smile spread across his face. “I was just about to call it a day.” Reaching behind her head, he snapped off the lights. “Maybe you and I should have dinner or drinks,” he suggested, and a part of her longed to be with him, to forgive him, to be confident enough to make love to him without the need to think of becoming his wife.

“I—I don't think that would be such a good idea.”

“Scared?” he taunted, and a spark of amusement flared in his eyes.

“No way.”

“Then why not go out with me?”

Because I can't take a chance. I don't want to get hurt, and I can't trust myself when I'm around you!
“I…I have plans.” Even to her own ears, her excuse sounded feeble. “With Dad.”

He hesitated, his silence accusing her of the lie. His jaw slid to one side. “Then I'll take a rain check.”

“Fine. Right.”

“I'm serious, Bliss. Anytime you want to see me, drop by.” Amber eyes held hers for a second. “You know where I live.”

“Yes. At Tiffany's.”

He nodded and touched her lightly on the arm. “Anytime.” A tremor stole through her at the thought of being alone with him at his place. He opened the door and she walked through with as much dignity as she could muster, but all the way down the stairs to the first floor, she felt her lips tingle where Mason had kissed her and her cheeks, where the stubble of his beard had nibbed against her skin, were slightly tender. Oh, Lord, what was she getting herself into? She shoved open the front door and heard Mason's keys jangling in the lock but she didn't wait for him to follow her.

Quickly, she hurried outside to the sidewalk. The flow of traffic was lazy in the late afternoon and in the town square across the street, women pushed baby buggies or watched their children play on equipment in the park. She thought she spied Tiffany Santini pushing her daughter on a swing, and again her heart twisted at the thought of children.

Tiffany threw her head back and laughed as the imp in the swing said something she found hilarious. Tiffany's black hair gleamed in the sunlight, and mother and daughter seemed carefree and incredibly happy.

Someday,
she silently told herself.
Oh, sure, and when is that going to happen? Remember, Bliss, you've got a long way to go. You're twenty-seven years old and still a virgin.

“So tell me, Lafferty, what is it you're afraid of?” Jarrod asked. He peeled the label from his bottle of beer while some old country ballad wafted through the smoky interior of the bar. From the back room, billiard balls clicked while conversation at the few odd tables scattered around the room was punctuated by laughter. A television mounted high over the bar was tuned in to a baseball game, which the bartender watched as he polished the battered old mahogany with a white towel.

“Afraid of?” Mason took a swallow from his long-necked bottle and let the beer cool his throat. He didn't like lying, wasn't much good at it, but knew that once in a while it was necessary. This was one of those times. “Nothing.”

“Bull.” Jarrod eyed him with the calm of a cougar advancing upon a lamb. He leaned forward. “You're scared that Patty's involved up to her eyeballs in old man Wells's disappearance.”

“I don't know how.” That much was the truth, though he couldn't help suspecting that Patty, with her penchant for trouble, knew something about their uncle's vanishing act. What, he couldn't imagine, but then, Patty always kept him guessing. He never knew what to expect from his muleheaded sister.

“Yeah, and I'm the pope.”

“Why would I pay you a lot of money if I already knew the answer?”

“That's
what I'd like to know.” He hoisted his empty bottle and signaled to a bored-looking waitress. “Hey, Tammy, how about another one?” He motioned to Mason. “For him, too.”

She nodded a head of overbleached and kinky-permed hair, and Jarrod swung his gaze to his friend again. “I get the feeling that you've led me on a wild-goose chase, Lafferty, and I don't like being played for a fool. You know that.”

“Look, I don't know where Patty is and I sure as hell can't begin to figure out what happened to old Isaac. As much of a pain in the butt as he was, most of the people in this county think it's a blessing that he's gone, but I'm not one of them.”

Jarrod snorted as Mason drained his beer. “Right.”

The waitress, slim in her blue jeans and white T-shirt, deposited two more bottles on the table. “Anything else?”

“Not just yet,” Jarrod said, flashing her a smile that was known to break women's hearts.

She, today, wasn't in the mood. “Just let me know,” she said sourly and took the empties.

“You got it.” Jarrod rolled the new bottle between his palms.

Jarrod had phoned Mason, invited him for a drink, and Mason had agreed. He needed something—
anything
—to get his mind off Bliss. But he wasn't too keen on being grilled by his old friend.

Jarrod checked his watch. “Look, I've got to go, but there's one more thing.”

“Shoot.”

“It's about Mom.”

“Brynnie?”

With a sharp nod, Jarrod settled back in the booth. “She's in a pile of trouble because of her deal with you about her acres of the ranch. Old man Cawthorne is fit to be tied and he wants blood. Yours and Mom's.”

“So I heard.”

“Yeah. He feels that she betrayed him.”

“What do you want me to do about it?”

Jarrod rubbed his jaw. “I don't know. Maybe sell the ranch back to her.” At the tightening of Mason's jaw, Jarrod sighed and shook his head. “Hey, you know there's no love lost between the man and me. I'd just as soon spit on Cawthorne as talk to him, but he's gonna be my stepfather—like it or not. And for some unfathomable reason, he makes Mom happy. Or he did, until she up and sold out to you. Now he's hot under the collar, furious with her, and she's got her back up. They're barely talking and they're supposed to be tying the knot.”

“Sounds like a marriage made in heaven,” Mason observed.

“There is no such thing,” Jarrod replied, finishing his drink and reaching into the back pocket of his jeans for his wallet. “You, of all people, should know that. This one's on me, Lafferty.” He tossed a few bills onto the table.

“I'll buy next time.”

“Nope.” Jarrod climbed to his feet. “Just be straight with me.”

“Always am,” Mason said, inwardly cringing at the lie.

“Good.” They walked outside, where a summer breeze was chasing down the dusty streets and a million stars were visible over the faint glow of the sparse streetlights. “So, are you going to give me a hint about where that sister of yours could be?”

“If I knew that, I wouldn't have to hire you.”

One side of Jarrod's mouth lifted. “But you're holding back. I can feel it. Don't you know that confession's good for the soul?”

“Got nothing to confess.”

“That'll be the day.” Jarrod opened the door of his pickup and paused. “By the way, I heard through the grapevine that you've been seeing Bliss again.”

The muscles in Mason's shoulders bunched. “That grapevine's all twisted the wrong way. She won't have anything to do with me.”

Jarrod pulled on his chin and hesitated for a second before dispensing his advice. “Just tread softly. Old man Cawthorne's already on the warpath.”

A smile tugged at the corners of Mason's mouth. “So I'm supposed to back off?”

“Just be careful.” Jarrod slid into the seat and jammed his keys into the ignition. “And be smart. Bliss is a classy lady.”

“I noticed.”

“She deserves the best.”

“Don't we all?”

Jarrod started the engine and his mouth tightened. “Don't use her, okay? I know you have a thing—some kind of personal vendetta—against her old man, but don't use her to get back at him.”

“Don't worry about it.” The last thing in the world he wanted to do was hurt Bliss, but he damned sure wanted to make love to her. And that was a problem—a problem that had been with him since the first time he'd seen her so many years ago, a problem he couldn't begin to solve.

But then again, he was a firm believer in the old “Nothing ventured, nothing gained” theory. Now was as good a time as any to test it.

On Bliss.

* * *

Astride Fire Cracker, Bliss craned her neck and peered over the edge of the ridge. Full from the spring runoff, the river far below slashed wildly over stones and fallen trees, carving a rushing swath through the stony canyon as it had on the day she'd nearly lost her life at this very spot.

Her heart began to pound and her hands sweat on the reins as the memories of that fateful afternoon ricocheted through her mind. She remembered Mason's warnings as clearly as if he'd just uttered them.…

“Don't be a fool.”

Too late, she thought. She'd always been a fool for Mason Lafferty. They'd been so young, so innocent and so afraid of falling in love.

It seemed as if everything and nothing had changed. Slowly she dismounted.

The wind stirred, rustling through the trees and causing wildflowers to bend in its wake. Bliss sighed for all the could-have-beens until she noticed the shadow creeping slowly beside her. Squinting against the sun, she saw Mason, tall astride his horse, rangy and rugged as the mountains that towered around them.

Her heart squeezed as it always did when she was alone with him, and a tiny voice inside reminded her that he was the one—he had forever been the one—who was wedged deep in her heart, be he bad, good or indifferent. “Mason,” she said, surprised that her voice had lost some of its timbre.

“Thought I might find you here.” He swung down from his gelding and let the horse roam free.

“Did you? Why?”

“Because, like it or not, Bliss, I know you.”

Her throat turned to dust but she wouldn't be so easily seduced. “No, Lafferty, you don't know a damned thing about me. Not anymore.”

Slowly he sauntered toward her. “When you weren't at the house and Delores said you'd taken off riding, I thought I'd be able to catch up with you. So I, well, ‘borrowed,' I guess you'd say, one of the horses in the stables and rode out here. After all, this is the scene of the crime, so to speak.”

“‘Crime'? You mean accident.” Oh, God, his eyes were such an incredible hue of gold.

He lifted a shoulder. “Whatever.” The corners of his mouth twisted. “I—” His gaze centered on hers and she knew in an instant that he was searching for her soul. “I thought there were some things you and I should get straight.”

“Like what?” she asked warily and wished her pulse would slow a little. So he'd followed her out here, so they were alone together in the dying sunlight, so her throat was as dry as a desert wind, so what?