Out of habit she started the coffee and was unloading the dishwasher when she heard the shuffle of bare feet on the floor. She turned and found Mason, dressed only in his worn jeans, rubbing his jaw and glancing out the window. His hair, mussed and falling over his forehead, made him seem younger than his years and his broad shoulders were tanned. But she couldn’t ignore the scar that ran around his upper arm, a reminder that his arm had nearly been torn from its socket as he’d tried to save her all those years ago.

“Good morning,” she said as the coffeepot gurgled to life.

“It is, isn’t it?” One side of his mouth lifted in a playful smile that she found absolutely endearing. She’d miss that smile as well as his lips upon her skin when she returned to Seattle.

“The best. Coffee’ll be done in a second.”

“Good.”

“How about breakfast?”

“You get dressed and I’ll buy.”

“No reason,” she countered. “I can cook.”

“What d’ya know? Three languages, ballet, a B.A. in architecture and she can cook.”

“That’s a Masters in architecture,” she reminded him as he walked up behind her, wrapped his arms around her waist and kissed the back of her neck.

“My kind of woman.”

She laughed and felt him fiddle with the belt of her robe. “Hey, wait a minute—”

“Breakfast can wait,” he growled against her ear as the robe parted and he lifted her from her feet.

As it was, breakfast was forgotten.

* * *

The fax machine whirred to life and Bliss waited, pushing aside the drawing she’d been working on. It had been four days since her father had been released from the hospital, and each night she’d spent with Mason. They’d talked of everything and nothing, but never once broached the subject that seemed forbidden to them. The future was off-limits. He was worried about his sister and his daughter; she was concerned about her father and the marriage that was once again “on.” By the end of next week, Brynnie would officially be her stepmother.

And then what? Pack up Oscar and return to her life in Seattle?

Twiddling her pencil, she walked to the fax machine and read the memo from the office—another bid and a friendly note from one of the partners asking her when she planned to return.

“Never,” she thought aloud, then caught herself. Because she wanted to stay here in this tiny town to be near her father? Or Mason? Or both?

Disgusted by the turn of her thoughts, she decided to drive over to Brynnie’s to see John, but she’d barely made it out the front door when a brown station wagon pulled into the drive and parked between two of the pickups used by the hired hands.