Page 47 of A Family Kind of Guy (Forever Family 1)

“Maybe you should slow down a mite.” Brynnie patted Katie’s hand and Bliss felt a lump forming in her throat. Though she and her mother hadn’t been the touch-and-hug kind of mother and daughter, they’d been close, and seeing this display of affection between Brynnie and Katie brought to the surface a part of her she’d tried to suppress—the part of her that missed Margaret Cawthorne so badly that sometimes she still fought tears. “Tiffany might need a little more time, you know, to get used to things.”

“It’s been over thirty years,” John interjected.

“But not for her.” Brynnie took a chair at the table so she could face Bliss’s father. “You know she might not come to the wedding. You’ll have to accept that.”

“Don’t know if I can.” Taking off his reading glasses, he rubbed one hand over his face and Bliss was struck by how he’d aged in the past few years.

“Look, let’s not get all tied in knots about it,” Katie said. “Just tell me how the wedding plans are coming along.”

“Humph!” John pushed his chair back.

“They’re fine.” Brynnie shot him a look that dared him to argue, but for once, John Cawthorne held his tongue.

In the ensuing silence, Bliss glanced at the calendar. Only a few weeks until her father said “I do” for the second time in his life. Somehow Bliss had to come to terms with her father and his new bride. She had to find a way to lock away her past with him, to concentrate on the future so that she could honestly wish him happiness and maybe some kind of peace that had eluded him for most of his life.

“The invitations went out last week,” Brynnie was saying. “The flowers are ordered, the cake is gonna be beautiful and if I can only get those miserable caterers to come up with a decent meal for a price that wouldn’t make a millionaire’s eyes pop out of his head, we’ll be set.”

Katie glanced at her watch, then at Bliss. “Why don’t you take a ride into town with me and we’ll grab a soda or something?”

Bliss hesitated, but just for a second.

“Okay,” she said, involuntarily squaring her shoulders as if readying herself for battle. “Let’s go.”

Katie didn’t need any further encouragement. Within minutes they were out the door and on the road in Katie’s old rattletrap of a convertible. Despite her seat belt, Bliss clung to the door handle. The car was an older model with a big engine and it practically flew past the dry fields and rounded hills. Telephone poles whipped by and Bliss’s hair tangled in the wind. The radio was on and the pounding beat of an old song by the Who rocked through the speakers.

“I hear that you and Mason Lafferty are an item,” Katie said as she took a corner so fast the tires squealed.

“An item? Where’d you hear that?” Bliss was trying to hold her hair into a ponytail with one hand while clutching the door with the other. The last topic of conversation she wanted to deal with was Mason.

“Mom. She seems to have an ear to the ground.”

Or a nose for gossip, Bliss thought. “There’s nothing going on between Mason and me.”

“Why not?” Katie cast her half sister a grin. “You have to admit he’s hot.”

“Oh, for the love of… Hot?”

“That’s the term the kids use. Josh is always telling me who’s hot and who’s not in the fourth grade.”

“This isn’t elementary school.” And yet her heart pounded like that of a schoolgirl whenever she heard his name.

“I know, but, as I told you before, Mason’s one of the most eligible bachelors in these parts.”

“I’m not in the market,” Bliss said, as if to convince herself. “Why don’t you date him?”

“Naw. Known him all my life. He hung out with my older brother, Jarrod, so even though he’s sexy as all get-out, I’m immune.” She eased up on the gas as she approached town. A wooden sign welcoming visitors to Bittersweet needed a new

coat of paint and the railroad tracks that had run parallel to the road curved toward the spindly-looking trestle bridge that spanned the river. Flat, single-story strip malls had sprouted on the outskirts of town, while in the older section, near the town square and Mason’s office, shops with false Western-style fronts rose two or three stories.

“Do you know his wife?” Bliss asked as Katie nosed her car into a parking spot.

“Terri? Sure.” She turned off the engine and tossed the oversize key ring into her purse. With a shrug, she added, “She’s okay, I guess. After the divorce, she moved to—Colorado, I think. Either Boulder or Aspen or… Well, it doesn’t matter. A few years ago she moved back here with Dee Dee, her and Mason’s daughter.”

Bliss remembered the girl with the soulful eyes.

They walked across the hot sidewalk, where tiny particles of glass reflected in the sunlight. Katie opened the door of a coffee shop with her hip and waved to a waitress in a checked blouse and brown pants.

She seemed to know everyone in the place, from an old man with one leg and a charming smile to a five-year-old blonde girl who burst out of the restroom and careened into Katie’s waiting arms. “Cindy Mae West, what’re you doing here?” Katie asked with a wide grin as she scooped up the urchin.

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