Because you’re a fool, Lafferty. You always have been, where that woman is concerned.

He finished his drink in another gulp and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Ten years. It had been ten years since he’d seen her. A decade of telling himself she meant nothing to him, but then, with one sidelong glance from her innocently seductive eyes, he’d come undone and last night, with the hot breath of a wind blowing the curtains in his room, he hadn’t slept, but had envisioned Bliss’s face as he’d stared through the window at the moon. Now he remembered in vivid detail her expression when she’d answered the door. For a second he’d seen the glimmer of happiness in her eyes but it had been quickly hidden by a facade of anger.

Why the hell did it matter what she thought? She was just one woman, and John Cawthorne’s daughter to boot.

“Idiot,” he growled, contemplating another drink before screwing the cap on the bourbon bottle. He jammed the bottle back into the cupboard and slammed the door. Bliss. Gorgeous, sophisticated and intriguing Bliss Cawthorne. Why hadn’t she married, had a dozen kids and gotten fat? Why did she still attract him after all these years, all these blasted long, lonely years? “Grow up, Lafferty,” he chided. He’d learned long ago not to entrust his heart to a woman. Any woman. Especially Bliss Cawthorne.

Besides, the old man was right. Inadvertently, Mason had nearly killed her years before. And there was more to it than that. He and Cawthorne had made a deal. A pact practically signed in Bliss’s blood.

So cancel it, an inner voice suggested and he felt a grim smile tug at the corners of his mouth. He’d always believed in honoring his bargains, but Cawthorne had never played fair. So, technically, the deal was null and void.

Bliss, if she’d have him, was his for the taking.

He had only to figure out if he wanted her and for how long.

Chapter Four

“See that sorrel mare?” John Cawthorne leaned against the top rail of the fence and pointed a gnarled finger at a small herd of horses in the north pasture. The animals grazed lazily, twitching their tails at flies while their ears flicked with each shift of the wind.

“She’s gorgeous.” Bliss watched as the red mare’s nose lifted and her nostrils flared slightly, as if she’d somehow divined that she was the center of attention.

“I want you to have her.”

“What?”

“That’s right. She’s yours.”

“But I live in Seattle, Dad. In a condominium that’s hardly big enough for Oscar and me.” Bliss hazarded a smile. “Trust me, the horse won’t fit”

He chuckled. “I know, I know, but I reckon, now that your mom’s gone, you’ll be spending more time down here with your old man.”

“And my stepmother.” The words still stuck in Bliss’s throat though she was trying, damn it, to accept this new and, she still thought, ludicrous situation.