“No, I wanted to know, but it’s . . . I don’t know.”

“Painful. I get it. You feel like your dad betrayed your mother and therefore he betrayed you. I understand. I didn’t mean to open up any old wounds.”

“No, no, it’s all right.” The last thing Bliss wanted was to alienate Katie, her half-sister, a woman as unlike her as day was to night. But she found Katie Kinkaid refreshing and outspoken, relaxed and honest. No false pretenses. No worries about decorum or what the neighbors might think or say. In short, Bliss found herself warming to Katie whether she wanted to or not.

Katie sliced Bliss a curious look. “I don’t mean to pry, but since we’re getting to know each other, I wanted to ask a couple of things.”

Bliss’s back stiffened. “Such as?”

“You visited here when you were growing up, didn’t you?”

“The summers—Well, some of them.” Unease knotted Bliss’s already tight stomach.

“Then you know Mason Lafferty.”

It was a statement, and it hung in the air. Bliss had taken a bite of her roll, and it suddenly felt like a lump of wet cement wedged against the top of her mouth.

“He, uh, worked for Dad a long time ago.”

“Until he was fired,” Katie said, then drained her cup again. “You know, my brother Jarrod was his best friend at the time and thought John—er, Dad—oh, whatever he is—gave Mason a bum rap. There was something about a riding accident and you, right?”

Memories, as dark and dismal as that fateful day ten years past, scraped at Bliss’s soul. She cradled her cup in her palms, as if expecting to gain some warmth from its heat. “I ended up in the hospital.”

“Because of Mason?”

“No, in spite of him,” Bliss admitted, thinking back to that storm-ravaged day and her wild ride to the north edge of the property.

Katie cleared her throat and Bliss came crashing back to the present. Her half-sister was still staring at her, waiting for an explanation. “I took the horse out even though Mason warned me not to, that a storm was brewing.”

Katie picked at a raisin left on her plate. “Mason took the fall for you—well, so to speak.”

“I told Dad the truth, but he never believed me, thought I was covering up for Lafferty’s—what did he call it? Oh, uh, his ‘bad attitude, insubordination, pathetic sense of judgment and lack of respect.’ That was it.”

Katie let out a long, low whistle. “That’s not the Mason Lafferty I knew.”

“Me, neither,” Bliss admitted, but her heart ached just the same, because Mason had used her and lied to her, left her for another woman—a woman pregnant with his baby.

“Ever since his divorce from Terri, he’s become one of the most eligible bachelors in the county,” Katie said, one eyebrow lifting.

“Is that right?” Bliss wasn’t interested, or so she told herself. She drained her coffee cup.

“Well, that’s just the recent consensus because he hasn’t lived here in years. Just returned a few months ago so that he could be closer to his kid. In fact—”