“I haven’t forgotten.” Mason’s shoulders tightened. The skin over his face seemed to grow taut and his gaze, behind his tinted lenses held hers briefly before he turned and strode back to his truck.

Oscar bounded along behind him and Mason paused long enough to scratch the dog between his shoulders before climbing into the cab of his Ford.

“Pushy S.O.B.,” John grumbled as the pickup tore down the lane. He was already opening the envelope, anxious to explore its contents, which surprised Bliss. For someone who was so vocally against selling the ranch—especially to Mason—John Cawthorne was certainly interested in the bottom line. But then, he always had been. That was how he’d made his money.

Scanning the pages, he walked into the living room, picked up his reading glasses from the fireplace mantel, plopped them on the end of his nose and then settled into his favorite battered recliner.

“You know why he’s back in town, I suppose?”

“Other than to try and talk you into selling?” she bantered back.

“Seems he’s decided to settle down here, be closer to his kid.” He glanced up, looking over the tops of his lenses. “Can’t fault him for that, I suppose.”

“No.”

“But rumor has it he’s trying to get back with his ex-wife. You remember her? Terri?”

How could she ever forget? “Of course, I remember.”

“Good.” He looked back to the pages again.

Why it should bother her that Mason was seeing Terri, she didn’t understand, but the old wounds in her heart seemed to reopen all over again. Straightening a hurricane lantern sitting on the mantel, she said, “Okay, so what was this business about a deal between you two? As far as I knew, you didn’t want anything to do with him.”

“Still don’t.” Her father hesitated a fraction. “I had to do something to get him out of town. So I paid his medical bills and gave him the old heave-ho.”

“Then he left to marry Terri Fremont,” she said, feeling an odd sensation that something else in the past wasn’t what she’d thought it was. But that wasn’t much of a surprise, was it? Hadn’t her entire life been a lie?

“I just gave him some extra incentive.” He cleared his throat. “It wasn’t too hard to figure out what was going on between the two of you and it worried me because I knew about the Fremont girl. So . . . I upped the ante a little, offered him a deal and he rose to the bait like a brook trout to a salmon fly.”

“No—”

His lips pursed in frustration. “It was for your own good, Bliss. That’s why I did it. Remember, he already had a baby on the way.”

Bliss rested her hands on the back of the couch. “You shouldn’t have gotten involved.”

“He needed surgery on that arm of his and his kid needed a father.”

“You’re a fine one to talk,” she sputtered. Then, seeing the pain in his eyes, she wished she could have taken the words back.