Too late, she thought. She’d always been a fool for Mason Lafferty. They’d been so young, so innocent, and so afraid of falling in love.

It seemed as if everything and nothing had changed. Slowly she dismounted.

The wind stirred, rustling through the trees and causing wildflowers to bend in its wake. Bliss sighed for all the could-have-beens until she noticed the shadow creeping slowly beside her. Squinting against the sun she saw Mason, tall astride his horse, rangy and rugged as the mountains that towered around them.

Her heart squeezed as it always did when she was alone with him, and a tiny voice inside reminded her that he was the one—he had forever been the one—who was wedged deep in her heart, be he bad, good or indifferent. “Mason,” she said, surprised that her voice had lost some of its timbre.

“Thought I might find you here.” He swung down from his gelding and let the horse roam free.

“Did you? Why?”

“Because, like it or not, Bliss, I know you.”

Her throat turned to dust but she wouldn’t be so easily seduced. “No, Lafferty, you don’t know a damned thing about me. Not anymore.”

Slowly he sauntered toward her. “When you weren’t at the house and Delores said you’d taken off riding, I thought I’d be able to catch up with you. So I, well, ‘borrowed,’ I guess you’d say, one of the horses in the stables and rode out here. After all, this is the scene of the crime, so to speak.”

“‘Crime’? You mean accident.” Oh, God, his eyes were such an incredible hue of gold.

He lifted a shoulder. “Whatever.” The corners of his mouth twisted. “I—” His gaze centered on hers and she knew in an instant that he was searching for her soul. “I thought there were some things you and I should get straight.”

“Like what?” she asked warily and wished her pulse would slow a little. So he’d followed her out here, so they were alone together in the dying sunlight, so her throat was as dry as a desert wind, so what?

“I wanted to say that I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

Somewhere nearby a crow cawed loudly.

She stiffened. “You didn’t.”

“Of course, I did.” He closed the short distance between them.

Trying to back away, she nearly stumbled but his hands, rough and large, caught her and held her upright. His fingertips were warm through the light cotton of her blouse and she felt them press intimately against her ribs, as if there were no barrier, no flimsy piece of cloth separating his skin from hers.

“Terri didn’t mean anything to me, Bliss,” he said, a muscle jumping in his jaw.

“Then why did you sleep with her?”

“It was before I met you. Before I understood.”

“Understood what?”

He hesitated for a second. “What caring about a person is all about.”

Oh, God, she wanted to believe him. But there was too much time, too many lies. “Mason, you don’t have to explain.”