They sat in deck chairs in the shade of a larch tree. A breeze moved across the rolling acres, stirring the leaves and bending the grass of a field of hay not yet mown. The sound of sprinklers jetting water to irrigate the surrounding pastures vied with the distant hum of traffic far off on the highway.

“I know this is hard for you,” Brynnie ventured as she set her glass on the table. Her fingernails were long, squared off and matched the peach gloss of her lips.

“Very.”

“It’s hard on everyone,” John said thoughtfully, a hint of regret in his voice.

“Well, here goes.” Brynnie looked Bliss straight in the eye. “Look, honey, I’m not proud of everything I’ve done in my life. Lord knows, I’ve made more than my share of mistakes and I’ll probably make a few more before they bury me.

“Gettin’ involved with your dad was inevitable, believe me, but our timing was always wrong. Well, maybe there never could have been a good time. But you have to believe me when I tell you that I never meant to hurt your ma.”

Bliss didn’t say anything. Her throat was too tight and her eyes stung with unshed tears.

“From all I’ve heard, she was a good woman. Deserved better.” Brynnie’s brown eyes shadowed with a pain she’d borne for years, but still, Bliss wasn’t completely moved.

“She deserved the best,” Bliss said. She slashed a glance at her father and noticed the hardening of his jaw, the determined set of his chin. Her mother had always said he was a stubborn man.

“I’m making no excuses, Bliss. Never claimed to be a knight in shining armor. Sure, I’ve made my share of mistakes just like Brynnie said. But then what man, or woman for that matter, hasn’t?”

Bliss cast a mental glance at her own fractured love-life. Her first and, really, only love had been Mason Lafferty, and surely that relationship had been doomed from the start. With trembling hands, she lifted her glass and took a sip of tea. The cool liquid slid down her throat as she pushed Mason from her mind and concentrated on her father who had taken out his pocketknife and was avoiding her gaze as he cleaned his fingernails with a sharp blade.

“Unfortunate as it is, Blissie, your ma’s gone now and Brynnie’s divorced. Seems as if we’re finally gettin’ a break and this time we’re gonna grab it. It’s about time.”

“Amen,” Brynnie said and reached over to pat John’s hand. Her rings sparkled in the sunlight and Bliss couldn’t help but wonder how many of the jeweled bands had been given to her on her various wedding days by her ex-husbands and which, if any, had been gifts from her secret lover.

Brynnie’s smile seemed genuine and for the first time Bliss caught a glimmer of what her father saw in a woman who was so unlike her socially upstanding and rigid mother. Brynnie seemed like someone who could roll with the punches and always land on her feet. Nonjudgmental. No false sense of pride. No matter what challenges life tossed this woman’s way, Bliss guessed that Brynnie handled them and managed to end up grinning.