Bliss’s hands tightened on the steering wheel. She’d changed her mind about driving to Oregon six times during as many days. Her father had recuperated and left Seattle two weeks earlier, then just this past week had called to tell her he was being married at the end of June. He wanted her to come spend some time with him, meet her new family, and be a part of the festivities.

Great.

And what about Mason? her wayward mind taunted. What if you run into him?

“The least of my worries,” she lied as she stepped on the gas to pass a log truck. She planned to avoid Mason Lafferty as if he were the plague. Her hands on the wheel began to sweat, and she bit down on her lip. She was over him. Had been for a long time. So what if he’d been her first love? It had been ten years ago—a decade—since she’d last seen him or felt his fingers moving anxiously against the small of her back.

At the old, erotic memory, goose bumps broke out on her skin and she closed her mind to any further wayward thoughts. Mason had never loved her, never cared. He’d left without a second glance. Hadn’t even had the decency to stop by the hospital where she’d fought for her life after the accident. Hadn’t so much as sent a card. In fact, he’d cared so much for her that he’d married another woman. He was the last man on earth she wanted.

An old Bruce Springsteen song, one she’d heard that painful summer, pounded through the speakers.

She snapped off the radio in disgust.

She wouldn’t think of Mason. At least, not right now. Besides, she had other worries. What about the two women who were supposed to be her half-sisters, for crying out loud? A nest of butterflies erupted in her stomach when she thought about the women she’d never known. Did she really want to know them? “Give me strength,” she muttered under her breath.

She exited the freeway, her stomach tightening in painful knots. Memories, vivid and painful, slipped through her mind. The hills of pine and madrona looked the same as they had ten years ago. The landmarks—an old trading post and an abandoned schoolhouse—hadn’t changed much. Barbed-wire fences surrounded fields lush with the spring rains, where cattle grazed lazily.

After a final rise in the road, the town of Bittersweet came into view. She passed by the old water tower that stood near the railroad station. Nearby, a white church spire, complete with bell and copper roof, rose above leafy shade trees surrounding the town square. Fences ranging from white picket and ranch rail to chain link cordoned off small yards within which bikes, swings, and sagging wading pools were strewn. The homes were eclectic—cottages and two-story clapboard houses intermingled with ranch-style tract homes and tiny bungalows.

In the central business district she drove past the old pharmacy where she’d ordered cherry colas one summer. She slowed to a stop at the single blinking red light in the center of town and noticed that the old mom-and-pop grocery store, once owned by an elderly couple whose names she couldn’t remember, had changed hands. It was now a Mini-Mart. Time had marched on.