“Tell me about Brynnie’s other children,” Bliss said, forcing her thoughts from Mason. She rubbed her hand across the top rail and a sliver pricked her finger.

“Three boys. Jarrod, the oldest, and the twins, Trevor and Nathan. Brynnie had her hands full with those three and little Katie, let me tell you.” He grinned slightly as he stared at the mare, and not for the first time in her life Bliss wondered if John Cawthorne missed having sons, a boy to carry on his name. He nodded toward the mare. “You’ll like riding Fire Cracker.”

“Fire Cracker?” She plucked at the sliver with the fingernails of her other hand and heard a train rattling on far-off tracks.

Her father laughed. “Fire Cracker looks docile enough now, I suppose, but she’s got a little bit of the devil in her.” He slid his daughter a kind glance. “Like someone else I know.”

Bliss rolled her eyes. “That was high school, Dad. I’m pure as the driven snow these days.”

“Not if you’re any daughter of mine,” he said and slapped the top of the fence. “I’d better go see about the tractor. Seems to have a problem with the clutch.”

“Just take it easy, okay?”

He waved off her concerns as she watched him walk back to the equipment garage, a tall shed of sorts where tractors, plows, harrows, bailers and God only knew what else were stored. As he disappeared into the interior, Bliss bit her lip. John Cawthorne was and always would be her father. A man she’d been able to depend upon. A man she loved.

A man who had lied over and over again. A man who, until recently, had led a secret life. A man she’d trusted.

She wondered if she ever would again.

Even though she was disgusted that he’d been such a liar as well as a cheat, she’d somehow ended up with a couple of sisters. How many times had she, as an adolescent, wished and prayed for a close sibling, someone to share dreams and worries with, a friend to shop and gossip with, another teenager who was as confused as she when she tried to understand the incomprehensible world of adults? Now, as a woman, wouldn’t she love a new companion, another person who understood her hopes, dreams, ambitions, and concerns? Someone closer than a friend, a woman bound to her by blood?

Two, she reminded herself. Two women bound to her by blood.

But would either Tiffany or Katie want anything to do with her? Did she really want them to? She frowned as she finally managed to work the sliver free from her fingertip.

There was only one way to find out. Bliss would have to take the initiative and meet both her half-sisters, whether they wanted anything to do with her or not.

* * *

Mason drummed his fingers on his desk in his den, which was really the second bedroom of his apartment. Tonight the room with its glowing computer monitor seemed empty. Hollow. Like his own damned soul.