“Don’t know if I can.” Taking off his reading glasses, he rubbed one hand over his face and Bliss was struck by how he’d aged in the past few years.

“Look, let’s not get all tied in knots about it,” Katie said. “Just tell me how the wedding plans are coming along.”

“Humph!” John pushed his chair back.

“They’re fine.” Brynnie shot him a look that dared him to argue, but for once, John Cawthorne held his tongue.

In the ensuing silence, Bliss glanced at the calendar. Only a few weeks until her father said “I do” for the second time in his life. Somehow, Bliss had come to terms with her father and his new bride. She had to find a way to lock away her past with him, to concentrate on the future so that she could honestly wish him happiness and maybe some kind of peace that had eluded him for most of his life.

“The invitations went out last week,” Brynnie was saying. “The flowers are ordered, the cake is gonna be beautiful and if I can only get those miserable caterers to come up with a decent meal for a price that wouldn’t make a millionaire’s eyes pop out of his head, we’ll be set.”

Katie glanced at her watch, then at Bliss. “Why don’t you take a ride into town with me and we’ll grab a soda or something?”

Bliss hesitated, but just for a second.

“Okay,” she said, involuntarily squaring her shoulders as if readying herself for battle. “Let’s go.”

Katie didn’t need any further encouragement. Within minutes they were out the door and on the road in Katie’s old rattletrap of a convertible. Despite her seat belt, Bliss clung to the door handle. The car was an older model with a big engine and it practically flew past the dry fields and rounded hills. Telephone poles whipped by and Bliss’s hair tangled in the wind. The radio was on and the pounding beat of an old song by The Who rocked through the speakers.

“I hear that you and Mason Lafferty are an item,” Katie said as she took a corner so fast the tires squealed.

“An item? Where’d you hear that?” Bliss was trying to hold her hair into a ponytail with one hand while clutching the door with the other. The last topic of conversation she wanted to deal with was Mason.

“Mom. She seems to have an ear to the ground.”

Or a nose for gossip, Bliss thought. “There’s nothing going on between Mason and me.”

“Why not?” Katie cast her half-sister a grin. “You have to admit he’s hot.”

“Oh, for the love of . . . Hot?”

“That’s the term the kids use. Josh is always telling me who’s hot and who’s not in the fourth grade.”