Page 19 of A Family Kind of Guy (Forever Family 1)

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.

CHAPTER FOUR

“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.”

He chuckled. “I know, I know, but I reckon, now that your mom’s gone, you’ll be spending more time down here with your old man.”

“And my stepmother.” The words still stuck in Bliss’s throat, though she was trying, damn it, to accept this new and, she still thought, ludicrous situation.

“And hopefully your sisters.”

“If—and it’s a pretty big if, Dad—I’m interested and they’re willing to meet me halfway. What’re the chances?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted, clearing his throat. “I just think it’s all worth it. I’d hate for you—or them, for that matter—to miss out on getting to know each other.”

“We might fight like cats and dogs.”

“You might. Then again…”

She plucked a piece of clover from a clump near the fence post and twirled the purple bloom in her fingers. “Okay, okay, point well taken. Tell me about them.”

“Well…” He stared off across the fields to a distance only he could see. “You know that Tiffany’s older than you. She’s a widow now. Works part-time as a secretary at an insurance agency in town. She’s got a son, Stephen—my oldest grandkid, mind you—almost fourteen and hell on wheels, the way everyone in town says. Then there’s that cute button of a daughter of hers, who’s around three. My only granddaughter, so far.”

He looked away quickly, as if bothered by the conversation, and Bliss fought back a feeling of having the rug pulled out from under her. She’d always thought that she would be the one to give her parents grandchildren—when the time came. As the years passed and her friends married and started families of their own, she’d heard her own biological clock ticking away.

“After her husband died, Tiffany moved down here to be close to her grandmother—you’ve heard of Octavia—Octavia Nesbitt?”

Bliss nodded. Who hadn’t heard of Bittersweet’s most prominent and flamboyant citizen? Octavia had inherited the Reed estate years before, as she’d been nursemaid and caretaker of Bittersweet’s oldest and most wealthy citizen. When Cranston Reed had died, he’d left his fortune to the widow Nesbitt.

“Well, when Tiffany’s husband, Philip, died a few months back, she packed her kids into a U-Haul truck and drove south from Portland. She moved into an old house her husband had bought about a year back—it’s been cut up into apartments that she rents out for a little extra money.”

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