He took one more tug off the bottle, screwed on the cap and shoved it back where it belonged. A wife? No way. He’d tried that once before and look what a mess he’d gotten himself into. Yeah, but you married the wrong woman. You knew it at the time.

He folded the deed and slipped it into the inner pocket of his jacket just as the phone rang.

“Jarrod Smith, on line one,” Edie called through the open door.

“Got it.” Mason picked up the receiver. “Hey,” he said, “what’s up?”

“It’s Patty.” Jarrod’s voice was grim, without any trace of humor whatsoever. “I think I’ve found her.”

Chapter Ten

Chapter Ten

“I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” Bliss thought aloud, but Katie, determined that the sisters should meet, was threading the car into the slow stream of traffic that ran through Bittersweet. “You know I already met Tiffany once.”

“I heard. Mom said Octavia told her about it.”

“Tiffany never said a word about who she was or that we were sisters or anything.”

“She was probably shocked.”

“Beyond shocked. Way beyond,” Bliss said, remembering the horrified look in her half-sister’s eyes when she’d mentioned who she was.

“Well, she should have said something, but didn’t. We’ll give her a second chance.” Katie gunned through a yellow light, then eased up on the throttle as they passed hundred-year-old churches with spires and bell towers and wound down tree-lined streets flanked by stately old manors.

“She’s Mason’s landlady,” Bliss ventured.

“Mmm.” Katie sent her a sidelong glance. “Thought you didn’t care about him.”

“I don’t, much.”

Katie didn’t say a word, but looked as if she were swallowing an I-knew-it-all-along smile.

Bliss’s stomach tightened as Katie turned the corner to the street where both Tiffany and Mason lived. She told herself that her paranoia was ridiculous as Katie parked at the curb in front of the ornate Victorian house.

Bliss steeled herself for her meeting with her other half-sister. A sprinkler sprayed jets of water over the parched lawn and a black cat sunned itself on the pavement of the driveway near a basketball hoop. Bliss didn’t know what to expect. It had been over a week since she’d stopped by looking for Mason and had inadvertently introduced herself to Tiffany, and in that time she hadn’t heard a word from her. At Katie’s swift pace she walked up the brick path to the porch. Once at the front door, there wasn’t any time for second guesses. Katie pressed the button for the bell.

The door opened and Bliss stood face-to-face with her older sister again. Tiffany Nesbitt Santini looked no more like her than Katie did.