A Family Kind of Guy (7 page)

“Like Dad.”

“Or you.” He pocketed the sunglasses and stared at Bliss with eyes that were as seductive as cool water in a blistering desert at high noon.

“Wonderful.” She managed a bit of sarcasm.

“Look, I just want to talk to your father.”

“You talked to him yesterday.”

“I know, but I'd like to finish the conversation.”

“It's finished, Lafferty. Take a hint.”

“I forgot to give him the offer.” He glanced over her shoulder. “Is John around?”

“You bet I'm around,” John answered, walking in his stocking feet along the dusty patina of the hardwood floor. “What is it you're lookin' for—as if I didn't know?” He glanced at his daughter and scowled. “I already told you. I ain't sellin'. No matter what the price.”

Bliss lifted a lofty brow, encouraging Mason, if he had the guts, to draw her father into a battle he would surely lose.

Mason leaned a shoulder against the doorjamb.

“Since you and Brynnie are going to tie the knot, I thought you might want to retire, see a little of the world with your new bride, take it easy.”

“You mean the old stud should be put out to pasture?” With a hoarse laugh and a scrape of his fingers against his empty shirt pocket, where he searched by habit for a nonexistent pack of cigarettes, Bliss's father shook his head. “One measly little heart attack isn't gonna scare me away from doin' what I want.” He rapped his knuckles against his chest. “The old ticker's just fine and I'm gonna run this ranch like I always have.” Again his fingers scrabbled into his pocket and he frowned when he realized that his cigarettes were gone, as his doctor had insisted he give up smoking after the heart attack. Bliss suspected that he still sneaked a puff now and again along with his chew, but she'd never caught him with a cigarette. Not that she could stop him from smoking. No one had ever been able to tell John Cawthorne how to live his life.

Mason reached into his back pocket and drew out a long envelope that he slapped into John's hand. “I think you'd better talk to Brynnie about this. In the meantime, here's a formal offer—for the acres in your name.”

“In my name?” John questioned.

“Fair price. Good terms. Think about it.” Mason slipped his sunglasses onto the bridge of his nose.

“Don't need to,” her father insisted, but he didn't toss the envelope back at Mason as Bliss had expected. Instead, his bony fingers clamped over the manila packet.

Mason's gaze centered on Bliss. “I'll see you later,” he said through lips that barely moved as he glared through his sunglasses, and Bliss had trouble drawing a breath.

John wagged the envelope at Mason. “Just remember that a few years back we had a deal.”

“A deal?” Bliss repeated.

“That's right. Signed, sealed and delivered.” Her father's smile was shrewd and self-serving and Bliss felt a sliver of dread enter her heart.

“I haven't forgotten.” Mason's shoulders tightened. The skin over his face seemed to grow taut and his gaze, behind his tinted lenses, held hers briefly before he turned and strode back to his truck.

Oscar bounded along behind him and Mason paused long enough to scratch the dog between his shoulders before climbing into the cab of his Ford.

“Pushy SOB,” John grumbled as the pickup tore down the lane. He was already opening the envelope, anxious to explore its contents, which surprised Bliss. For someone who was so vocally against selling the ranch—especially to Mason—John Cawthorne was certainly interested in the bottom line. But then, he always had been. That was how he'd made his money.

Scanning the pages, he walked into the living room, picked up his reading glasses from the fireplace mantel, plopped them on the end of his nose and then settled into his favorite battered recliner.

“You know why he's back in town, I suppose?”

“Other than to try and talk you into selling?” she bantered back.

“Seems he's decided to settle down here, be closer to his kid.” He glanced up, looking over the tops of his lenses. “Can't fault him for that, I suppose.”

“No.”

“But rumor has it he's trying to get back with his ex-wife. You remember her? Terri?”

How could she ever forget? “Of course I remember.”

“Good.” He looked back to the pages again.

Why it should bother her that Mason was seeing Terri, she didn't understand, but the old wounds in her heart seemed to reopen all over again. Straightening a hurricane lantern sitting on the mantel, she said, “Okay, so what was this business about a deal between you two? As far as I knew, you didn't want anything to do with him.”

“Still don't.” Her father hesitated a fraction. “I had to do something to get him out of town. So I paid his medical bills and gave him the old heave-ho.”

“Then he left to marry Terri Fremont,” she said, feeling an odd sensation that something else in the past wasn't what she'd thought it was. But that wasn't much of a surprise, was it? Hadn't her entire life been a lie?

“I just gave him some extra incentive.” He cleared his throat. “It wasn't too hard to figure out what was going on between the two of you and it worried me because I knew about the Fremont girl. So…I upped the ante a little, offered him a deal and he rose to the bait like a brook trout to a salmon fly.”

“No—”

His lips pursed in frustration. “It was for your own good, Bliss. That's why I did it. Remember, he already had a baby on the way.”

Bliss rested her hands on the back of the couch. “You shouldn't have gotten involved.”

“He needed surgery on that arm of his and his kid needed a father.”

“You're a fine one to talk,” she sputtered. Then, seeing the pain in his eyes, she wished she could take the words back.

“Is that what you think?”

“Yes,” she admitted, not wanting to hurt him but knowing that the lies would stop with her. “You fathered
two
children with women you didn't marry.”

“And I didn't want to see anyone, even a snake like Lafferty, make the same mistakes I did.”

“But—”

“No buts, Blissie,” he said, signifying that the conversation, as far as he was concerned, was over. He tilted his head to ensure that his bifocals were in the right position for reading. “Now, what have we got here?”

Bliss couldn't believe her ears. It was as if her father would use any means possible to get his way. She'd always known he was stubborn and determined, but this side of him was new to her and she wasn't sure she liked it very much.

“You know, for a man who swears up and down that he's not interested in selling this place, it's odd that you can't put down that offer.” Bliss swatted at a cobweb that floated between the old blinds on the window and the ceiling.

“Just thought I'd see what Lafferty thinks the place is worth.” With practiced eyes he skimmed the printed text and his eyebrows jammed together in concentration. “There's somethin' wrong here. The figures don't add up and… What in thunder? Is he out of his mind? This—” he snapped the crisp pages “—this is only for the north half of the property. I thought he wanted the whole place.”

“Didn't you say that part of the ranch was in Brynnie's name?”

Every muscle in John's body tensed. His gaze shot up to hers. “What do you mean?'

“Well, if he wanted the whole ranch, he'd have to deal with her for her part.”

“For the love of—” John scowled, rubbing the edge of the documents against the stubble of his chin and as he squinted, Bliss could almost see the wheels turning in his mind. “Brynnie's not like your mother, Bliss,” he said, though his voice lacked conviction. “She wouldn't expect me to give up what I love.”

“I'm not suggesting anything of the sort. And Mom would never—”

“Unless she got herself conned into it.” Her father snapped the leg support of the recliner into place and climbed to his feet. Wadding the offer in his fist, he headed for the den. “I think I'd better call my lawyer.”

“Why?”

“Just to make sure Lafferty doesn't try to pull a fast one.

* * *

“Damn it all to hell,” Mason grumbled, stomping on the brakes as his pickup slid to a stop beside the carriage house of an old Victorian home in the center of town. Four stories counting the basement, painted gray and trimmed in white gingerbread with black shutters, the mansion had been divided into separate apartments sometime between the 1920s and now. There were two other units in the old carriage house, as well, and for the next few months Mason would call the upper story of that smaller building home.

Climbing out of the cab, he spied Tiffany Santini, the widow who owned the place, clipping a few rosebuds from the garden. Tall, with dark hair and eyes, she was pleasant and pretty, the kind of woman who took to mothering like a duck to water. Mason didn't know much about her, but he liked the way she dealt with her kids—a teenage boy and a girl of three or four.

He waved and she smiled, hoisting a gloved hand as her little girl chased a black cat through the rhododendrons flanking the back porch.

Mason had decided to rent while he was negotiating for a ranch of his own and had chosen this complex over more modern units because he felt more at home in this charming older place, which had a backyard with a play structure that Dee Dee could use whenever she came over.

He walked up the outside stairs, unlocked the door and stepped into his living room. It was sparsely furnished with only the bare essentials. The hardwood floors were begging for throw rugs and the stark walls could have used more than a splash or two of color. But all that would come later—once he'd moved into a permanent place.

At Cawthorne Acres.

For the first time he wondered if his insisting on buying old John out was wise. True, Brynnie had come to him and he'd jumped at the chance to own a spread he'd fallen in love with as a kid, but now, with the old man's heart condition and Bliss thrown into the picture, he wasn't so sure that he'd made the right decision.

What was the old saying? Buy in Haste, Regret at Leisure. That was it. He hoped it didn't apply in his case.

In the kitchen he tossed his keys on the counter and reached for a glass. Pouring himself a stiff shot of bourbon, he tried to erase Bliss and the complications of dealing with her and her father from his mind. But it didn't work. Ever since seeing her yesterday afternoon and again this morning, he'd thought of her—even made an excuse to give Cawthorne his offer in person so that he could see her again.

Bliss Cawthorne, all grown up. He remembered her as she had been ten years earlier with honey-blond hair and eyes as blue as cornflowers. She'd been a smart mouth at the time, a big-city girl who was pretty and damned well knew it. A dusting of freckles had bridged her nose and she'd been tanned all over from hours of swimming in the river.

Mason had been working for old man Cawthorne, and although all the other hired hands had warned him that the boss's daughter was off-limits, he hadn't been able to keep himself away. Which was where all the trouble had begun and ended.

He tossed back a long swallow of his drink and felt the alcohol burn a welcome path down his throat. Why did he torture himself with thoughts of her? Why couldn't he think of her as nothing more than a love affair gone sour?

Because you're a fool, Lafferty. You always have been, where that woman is concerned.

He finished his drink in another gulp and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Ten years. It had been ten years since he'd seen her. A decade of telling himself she meant nothing to him, but then, with one sidelong glance from her innocently seductive eyes, he'd come undone and last night, with the hot breath of a wind blowing the curtains in his room, he hadn't slept but had envisioned Bliss's face as he'd stared through the window at the moon.

Now he remembered in vivid detail her expression when she'd answered the door. For a second he'd seen the glimmer of happiness in her eyes but it had been quickly hidden by a facade of anger.

Why the hell did it matter what she thought? She was just one woman, and John Cawthorne's daughter to boot.

“Idiot,” he growled, contemplating another drink before screwing the cap on the bourbon bottle. He jammed the bottle back into the cupboard and slammed the door. Bliss. Gorgeous, sophisticated and intriguing Bliss Cawthorne. Why hadn't she married, had a dozen kids and gotten fat? Why did she still attract him after all these years, all these blasted long, lonely years? “Grow up, Lafferty,” he chided. He'd learned long ago not to entrust his heart to a woman. Any woman. Especially Bliss Cawthorne.

Besides, the old man was right. Inadvertently, Mason had nearly killed her years before. And there was more to it than that. He and Cawthorne had made a deal. A pact practically signed in Bliss's blood.

So cancel it,
an inner voice suggested and he felt a grim smile tug at the corners of his mouth. He'd always believed in honoring his bargains, but Cawthorne had never played fair. So, technically, the deal was null and void.

Bliss, if she'd have him, was his for the taking.

He had only to figure out if he wanted her and for how long.

“See that sorrel mare?” John Cawthorne leaned against the top rail of the fence and pointed a gnarled finger at a small herd of horses in the north pasture. The animals grazed lazily, twitching their tails at flies while their ears flicked with each shift of the wind.

“She's gorgeous.” Bliss watched as the red mare's nose lifted and her nostrils flared slightly, as if she'd somehow divined that she was the center of attention.

“I want you to have her.”

“What?”

“That's right. She's yours.”

“But I live in Seattle, Dad. In a condominium that's hardly big enough for Oscar and me.” Bliss hazarded a smile. “Trust me, the horse won't fit.”