And so had she.

She hadn’t belonged here ten years ago. She didn’t belong here now.

Thoughts a-tangle, she drove on into the country again and slowed automatically at the gravel lane that cut through fields of knee-high grass. The gate was open, as if she were expected, and the curved wooden sign bridging the end of the lane read Cawthorne Acres. Her father’s pride and joy.

John Cawthorne called this spot “heaven on earth.” She wasn’t so sure. She wasn’t seduced by the scents of honeysuckle and cut hay, nor did her heart warm at the sight of the horses milling and grazing, their tails swishing against flies. Nope. She was much happier as a city girl. Margaret Cawthorne’s daughter.

She slowed at the barn and parked near the open door. Oscar jumped out his side of the car. She reached into the back seat for one of her bags.

“Look, I thought I made it clear that I wasn’t interested!” John Cawthorne’s angry voice rang from the barn.

Bliss’s shoulders sagged. The last thing her father should be doing after his surgery was getting himself all riled up. She dropped the bag, opened the car door, climbed out and shoved the door shut with her hip. “Dad?” she called as she walked into the barn. Dust motes swirled upward in air thick with the odors of dusty grain and dry hay.

“Bliss—?”

Her eyes adjusted to the dim light and she saw her father leaning heavily on his pitchfork. His jaw was set, his face rigid and he was glaring at a man whose broad-shouldered back was turned to her and whose worn, faded jeans had seen far better days.

“I think you probably remember Lafferty.”

Bliss’s stupid heart skipped a beat and her throat went dry. “Lafferty?” she said automatically, then wished she could drop through the hay-strewn floor. What was he doing here?

In the shadowy light, he glanced over his shoulder. Gold eyes clashed hard and fast with hers.

She froze.

Gone was any trace of the boyish charm she remembered. This man had long ago shrugged off any suggestion of adolescence and was now all angles and planes, big bones, hard muscle and gristle. A few lines fanned from his eyes and bracketed his mouth. His hair, though still blond, had darkened and was longer than the style worn by most of the businessmen in Seattle.

“Well, what do you know?” he taunted, turning on a worn boot-heel and giving her an even better view of him. The skin of his face and forearms where his shirtsleeves were pushed up was tanned from hours in the sun and the thrust of his jaw was harsher, more defined and decidedly more male than she remembered. A day’s worth of whiskers gilded a chin that looked as if it had been chiseled from granite. “It’s been a long time.”

Not long enough! Not nearly long enough. “A good ten years.”

“Good?”

“The best,” she lied. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of knowing that he’d hurt her.