A Family Kind of Guy

From #1
New York Times
bestselling author Lisa Jackson comes a fan-favorite story of giving your first love a second chance…

Bliss Cawthorne had once pictured herself as Mason Lafferty's wife. That is, until the wealthy rancher broke her heart and married another woman. Now, thirteen years later, Bliss is back in town and refuses to allow Mason to woo his way into her heart again. But can she resist her old flame's charm the second time around?

Years ago Mason was told that he wasn't good enough for his boss's daughter. So, reluctantly, he had let Bliss go—for love's sake. But he wouldn't make the same mistake now that she was home...

“What we had was over a long time ago. I don't believe in reliving the past.”

“How about changing the future?” Mason asked.

Bliss's heart stopped for a crazy minute, and in her mind's silly eye, she saw herself walking down an aisle in a white dress, swearing to love him for the rest of her life, becoming his wife and bearing his children. Mason's babies. A part of her heart shredded when she remembered he already had a child, one who had nothing to do with her.

Her heart twisted at the thought of children.
Someday,
she silently told herself.
Oh, sure, and when is that going to happen? Remember, Bliss, you've got a long way to go. You're twenty-seven years old and still a virgin…

Also By Lisa Jackson

The McCaffertys: Slade

The McCaffertys: Matt

The McCaffertys: Thorne

The McCaffertys: Randi

Lone Stallion's Lady

Proof of Innocence

A Twist of Fate

The Millionaire and the Cowgirl

Sail Away

Tears of Pride

Secrets and Lies

Million Dollar Baby

Obsession

A FAMILY KIND OF GUY

LISA JACKSON

The books in the FOREVER FAMILY miniseries are dedicated to my family, those who are living and those who have passed on. I was lucky enough to have lived an enchanted childhood thanks to my parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins and sister. My adulthood has been blessed with two incredible sons, a fabulous niece, three great nephews and a host of new members.

Thank you all.

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Bittersweet, Oregon

Ten years past

She was the most beautiful woman he'd ever set eyes upon and she was mad. Mad as hell. At him. He had the sting of her slap to remind him. “Just listen—”

“You listen, Mason, okay? I love you and I don't want to. That's the bottom line.”

Blue eyes snapped furiously above cheeks that were flushed in anger. One fist clutched the reins of her intended mount's bridle; the other hand looked as if it itched to slap him again.

“You don't.”

Thin lips compressed and she hooked a thumb at her chest. “Don't tell me what to feel, okay? Or what to say or do. Got it?”

“Yes, princess.”

She stiffened. “And don't ever,
ever
, call me that again.” She stepped forward a bit, dragging the pinto's head with her. “And get this straight, okay? You can't tell me what to do, Lafferty,” she said in a voice that reminded him he was but a hired hand and she was, in fact, “the princess”—the daughter of his millionaire boss. “Don't even try.” She placed one small, booted foot in the stirrup and hoisted herself into the saddle, then yanked on the reins. “A-di-os.” The horse whirled before Mason had time to grab hold of the reins.

“Bliss, come on. Don't be a fool.”

“Too late for that, don't you think?” she asked with more than a trace of irony. The anger drained from her face and was replaced by sadness. “Way, way too late.”

The sky was dark, threatening, the air hot and cloying as a storm brewed over the hills. Clouds moved in the barest of breezes, and Mason wished that he could shake some sense into her.

“Wait a minute, Bliss.” Again he reached for the bridle, but she was quick. Too quick. She slapped Lucifer on his rump.

“Just stay away from me!” Leaning forward, she pressed her knees into the pinto's sides. “Hi-ya!”

“No—”

Ears flattened to his head, the colt bolted forward at a dead gallop. His hooves flung mud and dirt. Aptly named Lucifer, the demon tore across the paddock and through the open gate to the grassy fields beyond.

Mason's back teeth ground together. He was torn. Bliss Cawthorne was a stubborn, prideful creature who deserved to get caught in a downpour, but then again, the storm might be worse than just a summer shower.

I love you.
Words he'd longed to hear but which scared the stuffing out of him. There was no future for them; there never would be.

You can't tell me what to do, Lafferty. Don't even try! Just stay away from me!

As if he could. Hadn't he spent the past weeks trying to do just that?

Thunder rumbled over the surrounding hills and he silently cursed himself up one side and down the other. He shouldn't have let her go. Should have physically restrained her, but short of hog-tying her, there'd been no way to keep her at the house.

You could have told her you loved her, too, and right this minute you might finally be in bed with her, feeling her hands on your body, kissing those pouting lips and making love to her.

Hell. He didn't love her and wouldn't lie, so he'd been between the proverbial rock and a hard place.

Eyes narrowing against the first spattering of rain, he rubbed his jaw where she'd slapped him as he'd argued with her. The skin stretched over his cheek still stung, but he'd been turned on by the fury in her eyes. “Dammit all.” He kicked at a rock and sent it careening into the fence post, but his gaze was fixed on Bliss again, now far in the distance astride Lucifer.

Just the sway of her rump as the horse loped gave him an arousal that ached against his fly. What the devil was wrong with him? The boss's daughter was off-limits.
Way
off-limits. No one who worked on the ranch knew it better than he, yet he'd found excuse after flimsy excuse to be next to her or close enough that he could watch her.

The smell of her skin aroused him. The way she angled her chin and wrinkled her nose caught him off guard and was sexy as all get-out. But why?

Sure, she was pretty with her pale blond hair and cornflower-blue eyes. Her cheekbones were high, her jawline strong, her eyebrows arched, but, come on, Lafferty, there were lots of pretty women in the world. Yet this woman—no, make that
girl;
she wasn't quite eighteen yet—was different and appealed to him on another level, a level that scared the living tar right out of him.

She was like no other.

For a fleeting second, he thought of Terri Fremont, the girl he'd dated before Bliss had come to visit her father this summer. At twenty-one, Terri still looked like a pixie. Petite with freckles, short brown hair and huge brown eyes, she'd chased Mason down mercilessly and vowed to love him despite the fact that he had, at the time, been dating several women.

A little prick of guilt jabbed at his brain because he knew in the deepest parts of his soul that he'd never cared for Terri the way she'd cared for him. He'd tried to explain it to her, over and over again, but she had refused to listen, assuring him instead that he would “learn to love her” as much as she loved him.

She was wrong and he'd been forced to break it off with her. They had no future. He had dreams and they didn't include a wife. He glanced at Bliss's form again, just as horse and rider disappeared into the dark shadow of pine trees that skirted the base of the hills. Maybe a woman like Bliss would eventually change his mind. But not now.

The rain began in earnest. Thick, fat drops shimmered from the dark, foreboding sky. In the next field, the horses, sensing the change in the atmosphere, lifted their heads, noses to the wind, nostrils quivering in anticipation. This storm would be a bad one. And Bliss Cawthorne, headstrong fool, was out in the middle of it.

He had no choice but to follow her and haul her back to the ranch.

Just stay away from me.

“No way, lady,” he growled, as if she could hear him. He squared his hat on his head and whistled sharply to Black Jack, a rawboned, ebony gelding blessed with the speed of Pegasus and the temperament of an angel.

“You and me, partner,” he said as he hitched Black Jack to the fence, ran to the stables for a bridle and threw it over the gelding's head. He buckled the leather straps with deft fingers and climbed onto the beast without a saddle. “Let's go,” he said, digging in his heels as Black Jack took off.

Lightning sizzled above the hills.

Great. “Come on.”

The horse's strides lengthened and they were through the open gate, flying over the bent grass and wildflowers mashed by the rain. Thunder rumbled ominously through the dark heavens.

He should never have let her go and he silently swore at himself as the wind pressed hard against his face and the downpour flattened his hair. There were too many things he shouldn't have done to count them all.

He'd had no right to touch her. No reason other than lust to kiss her. No sane excuse for taking off her clothes and… “Oh, hell.” This wasn't the time to think about how yielding she'd been, or how, out of some vague sense of duty, he hadn't, when offered the chance, made love to her.

“Come on, you miserable piece of horseflesh!” His knees prodded his mount as rain drenched his shoulders. Maybe he should have made love to her and been done with it, but he'd realized, almost too late, that Bliss Cawthorne wasn't the kind of woman to love and leave. Nope, she was the type of female who crawled into a man's blood and settled there—the kind of woman who spelled trouble with a capital
T.

He gave Black Jack his head and the game horse flattened his ears, stretched out his neck and sprinted through the fields, his legs eating the sodden ground in quick, even strides. Wind tore at Mason's face and hands and he smiled grimly to himself. Bliss Cawthorne, princess and only daughter of John, was in for one hell of a surprise when he caught up to her.

“Son of a bitch,” he muttered, swiping at the water on his face. He glanced at the spot in the trees where she'd vanished, then cursed himself for being a fool. Bliss wasn't his kind of woman; but then, no one was. He'd make sure of it.

* * *