But he couldn’t think of Bliss right now. He had too much on his mind. First he had to fight with Terri over custody of Dee Dee and secondly he had to find his sister. Patty had been in Bittersweet recently. Jarrod Smith had determined that much, and she’d come here to this scrappy piece of land owned by their uncle, a man who had turned his back on them years ago.

Isaac Wells.

A number-one bastard.

Who had now disappeared. Vanished, without a trace.

Mason climbed out of the pickup. In one lithe movement, he vaulted the fence and walked up the short, rutted lane to the dilapidated cabin that Isaac had called home.

An old wooden rocker with battle-scarred arms and a worn corduroy pad on the seat, pushed by the wind, rocked gently on the front porch. The old man had spent hours on the stoop where he’d whittled, read the stars, strung beans from his garden, and spat streams of tobacco juice into an old coffee can he’d used as a spittoon. He’d made few friends in his lifetime, but had unearthed more than his share of enemies.

So what had happened to him? Had someone killed him and taken his body? But why? Or had he been kidnapped? Or had he just taken a notion and up and left? Mason rubbed the back of his neck in frustration and wondered if Patty had been involved. “Hell’s bells,” he muttered as he scanned the countryside. Berry vines and thistle were taking over the fields, and the barn, which had never been painted, was beginning to fall apart. The roof sagged and some of the bleached board-and-batten siding was rotting away.

What the hell had happened here?

Foul play?

Or had an addled, lonely old man left in desperation? No one seemed to know and everyone within fifty miles was frightened. Mysteries like this didn’t happen in these sparsely populated hills. The town of Bittersweet and the surrounding rural landscape were far from the rat race and crime of the city; that was part of the charm of this section of Oregon. But Isaac’s disappearance had changed all that. Dead bolts that had nearly rusted in the open position were being thrown, security companies contacted for new installments, and, worst of all, shotguns cleaned and kept loaded near bedsteads in the event that an intruder dared break in.

The townspeople and farmers were nervous.

The sheriff ’s department wanted answers.

And there was nothing. Not a clue.

Except for Patty.

Shadows lengthened across the dry acres that made up Isaac Wells’s spread. Mason kicked at a dirt clod, then scoured the darkening sky, as if in reading the stars that were beginning to wink in the purple distance, he could find clues to the old man’s disappearance. Of course there were none. Nor were there any celestial explanations for why Mason seemed destined to deal with Bliss Cawthorne again. He couldn’t stop himself, of course, and truth to tell, he was inwardly grateful that she hadn’t married another man and had a couple of kids.