“What have you got other than an apartment and a job?”

“Oscar.” She hitched her chin up an inch.

“That mutt of a dog can move with you. You can sublet your apartment and work from Oregon, what with fax machines and computer links and all. I know you spent one summer working out of a cabin in the San Juan Islands and another in Victoria. So don’t give me any guff about having to be near the office. I’ll have the phone company put in more telephone lines to the house for your modem and whatever else you need. The way I understand it”—he eyed her as if expecting her to mount a protest—“or at least what you’ve always led me to believe, is that you’re pretty much independent anyway.”

That much was true. She worked with two other architects restoring old buildings in Seattle, but she was between projects right now and had planned to take a vacation to Mexico or the Caribbean or somewhere in the sun. So why not Bittersweet? A dozen reasons why. Mason Lafferty was at the top of the list. If he still lived there. She hadn’t heard from him in a decade and had never asked her father about him, though she had, over the years, gleaned a little about his life from people who had run across him. Not that it mattered. He’d betrayed her. Pure and simple.

Like your father betrayed your mother.

Well, she, for one, wasn’t about to dwell on the mistakes of her past. Not now. Not ever.

As for the half-sisters she’d never known existed, what would be the point of meeting them now? True, she’d been raised as an only child and had always wished for siblings—brothers or sisters—but now that she was faced with her father’s infidelity, she wasn’t sure she could accept her sisters. Oh, what was she thinking? Sisters? Half-sisters? Two of them? What would she say to them? What could she say?

“This is way too sudden for me, Dad.”

“And I’m runnin’ out of time.” He scowled and clicked off the television. “Who knows when the Grim Reaper’s gonna knock on my door?”

“Don’t talk like that!”

“I’ve already had one heart attack. I think it’s time to live my life the way I want to.” He rubbed his jaw, scratching the silver bristles covering his chin. “Besides, you’ll like Brynnie, if you only give her a chance.”

Bliss wasn’t so sure. Brynnie, was, after all, her father’s mistress and even though Bliss had known that her parents had drifted apart over the years, she couldn’t just accept this other woman as part of her family. Bile climbed steadily up her throat, but she forced it back down.

“Your mother and I . . . Well, we were never right for each other. We were from different worlds. I was at home in the saddle with a plug of tobacco, and she wanted to see the damned ballet.”

“I remember.” Margaret Cawthorne was from old San Francisco money. John had been a cowboy with a keen mind who had bought land during the recession and made a fortune. He’d split his time between Seattle where he owned property and Bittersweet, Oregon, where his ranch was located.