A Family Kind of Guy (2 page)

Bliss ignored the rain. She dug her knees into Lucifer's sides and urged him ever upward along the old cattle trail. The colt, incited by the storm, streaked forward, his hooves digging into the soft mud, his sides heaving with the effort. Bliss felt free and unfettered, as if she didn't have a care in the world. Her hair, bound in a ponytail, streamed out behind her.

The rain fell more steadily, in thick, heavy drops, sheeting in the distance. Still she didn't stop. If she got a little wet, so what? Her anger was slowly dissipating, but the thought of Mason with his arrogant high-handedness telling her what to do after…after… Oh, Lord, she'd nearly made love to him just last night; practically begged him to take away her virginity when he, poised above her, muscles straining, sweat dampening his brow, had rolled away.

“Bastard,” she muttered. “Come on, come on,” she urged. The pinto, wide-eyed, with nostrils quivering at the smell of the storm, began to lather. Grasshoppers scattered. A startled pheasant flew away in a rush of glistening feathers. Bliss yanked out the rubber band restraining her hair as she leaned over Lucifer's shoulder, encouraging him to speed even faster along the path—upward, through thickets of spruce and oak toward the cliffs that guarded the river. “Run, you devil.”

The horse responded, his legs a flash, the wind causing tears to run from her eyes and fly off her cheeks with the rain. Trees were a blur.

The crest was close, just through this last copse of trees. As the saplings gave way, she pulled back on the reins and looked over the valley, this southern part of Oregon her father often called his home. Lucifer, tossing his head, slowed to a mincing walk.

“Thata boy.” She was winded and breathless, her heart drumming, exhilaration replacing anger. Who cared about Mason Lafferty, anyway? If she had any brains at all, she would forget him.

Telling herself that she'd get over the creep, she urged Lucifer to the crest near the edge of the ridge. From that vantage point she could see for miles, over the tops of the surrounding hills, past wineries and ranches and toward the town of Bittersweet.

Lucifer was spooked and blowing hard; the storm was getting to him. She'd only stay for a few minutes, then double back. By then she wouldn't have to race Mason again. At that thought her heart wrenched and she silently called herself a dozen kinds of fool.

She'd get over him. She had to. When she got back to Seattle—

A sizzling streak of lightning forked from the sky, singeing the air.

Lucifer reared.

“Whoa—” Bliss slipped in the saddle.

Thunder cracked, reverberating through the hills.

“It's okay—”

With a panicked shriek, Lucifer stumbled.

Bliss, already unbalanced, tumbled forward. “Hey, wait—” The reins slipped from her fingers. “Damn.”

Crack! Thunder crashed, snapping through the forest and reverberating against the outcropping of stone.

Lucifer shied.

The saddle seemed to shift.

She started to fall, grabbed for the pommel and missed. The rain-washed world spun crazily. She scrabbled for the reins. “Whoa—oh, God.”

With a wild, terrified whinny, the horse stumbled again. Bliss pitched forward. Wet strands of his mane slid through her fingers.

“Stop! Please—Lucifer!” The ground rushed up at her.

Thud! Pain shot through her shoulder, jarring her bones. Her head smacked against the ground. Lights exploded behind her eyes. Her boot, still caught in the stirrup, twisted, wrenching her leg.

A shaft of lightning struck, sizzling and sparking. Crack! An old oak tree split down the middle. Fire and sparks spit upward to the heavens.

Half the tree fell. The ground shook. Bliss screamed as she tried to free herself from the horse and saddle. Lucifer, spooked, bolted.

“No—no—oh, God!” she cried. Frantically she struggled to wiggle out of the boot or yank it from the stirrup as the frightened horse dragged her along the trail near the edge of the ravine.

Hot, blinding pain seared up her leg as she tried to grab at something, anything that she could find with fingers that were bleeding and torn. Still the horse ran forward, bolting at a fever pitch along the jagged edge of canyon that dropped hundreds of feet to the riverbed below.

“Stop! Lucifer, for God's sake…”

A blast—a loud, eerie whistle—pierced the sodden air just as some of the rocks beneath them gave way. Through horrified eyes she saw the river, winding silvery and snakelike what seemed a million miles below.

For a second, day turned to night. Another piercing blare of the whistle. Lucifer shuddered to a stop. Bliss's head slid over the edge of the canyon. Hair fell in front of her eyes. She was going to die.

She blinked, rolled over and clutched the rimrocks. Through a heavy curtain of raw pain she saw the vision of a rain-soaked cowboy atop a black stallion. Mason's face, white with fear, came into view.

“For the love of God!” He jumped down from Black Jack and rushed forward as one of Lucifer's hooves slipped over the edge.

“No!” Mason caught hold of her booted ankle. Her thigh wrenched and popped, burning with new, searing pain. Blackness threatened her vision.

Lucifer found his footing and reared, trying to shake himself free of the dead weight still attached to his saddle.

“Hang on!” Mason ordered. His grip was slick. Her weight pulled her ever downward as her fingers found no purchase on the rough stone.

“Mason!”

“I've got you.”

Steel-shod hooves glimmered as lightning flashed.

One hoof struck Mason in the temple. Crunch. He toppled, his fingers refusing to give up their grip.

The second hoof hit him in the side and Bliss began to slide over the edge even farther. Something deep inside her tore. His fingers relaxed, and the boot was slipping from her foot. She knew in that instant that she was about to die.

“I love you,” she tried to say, but the words caught in her throat. She heard noises. Voices. Panicked voices. Her father? Mason? She couldn't tell as she reached upward, hoping to find his hand but grabbing only air as she began to slide downward.

Now

Bliss snapped off the radio as she wove her convertible through the slick streets of downtown Seattle. Traffic was snarled, horns blared and she couldn't stand to listen to Waylon Jennings talk about cowboys—a breed of man she knew more than a little about.

Hadn't her father started out as a range rider? Not to mention Mason. Not for the first time she wondered what had happened to him. He'd married, of course, and had a child—her heart bled at the thought. In her schoolgirl fantasies she'd imagined she'd be the mother of Mason's child; and in that dreamworld, her mother was still alive—an adoring grandmother—and her father and Mason had reconciled because of the baby.

But of course that would never happen. Her mother had already died and now her father was battling for his own life. As for Mason…well, he'd just turned out to be her first love. Nothing more.

Stepping on the gas as the light turned green, she shoved all thoughts of Mason from her mind. Her Mustang convertible surged forward toward the freeway entrance. She didn't have the time or patience to reminisce about a love affair gone sour.

Her windshield wipers slapped rain off the glass as she maneuvered through the traffic. In the distance lightning flashed, and again she thought of that long-ago storm and how its fury had changed the course of her life forever.

She'd never seen Mason after that day.

“Don't think about it,” she warned herself as she headed toward the hospital where her father had been a patient for nearly a week, ever since he'd returned to Seattle to sign papers on some property he'd sold. “It's over. It's been over for a long, long time.”

Within minutes she'd exited the freeway and was winding through the wet side streets surrounding the hospital. She nabbed a parking spot not too far from the main entrance of Seattle General and braced herself. Her father, irascible and determined, would demand to be released. And would probably insist upon returning to his ranch in Oregon, though he still owned property here. She, as strong willed as he, would insist that he abide by his doctor's orders.

“Give me strength,” she muttered under her breath as she locked her car and sidestepped puddles as the wind tugged at the hem of her raincoat and rain pelted her hair.

Inside the hospital, she ignored the sense of doom that threatened to settle in her heart. Barely three months before, in this very facility, Margaret Cawthorne had lost her battle with cancer. Bliss had been at her side.

But it wouldn't happen again! Not this time. Her father was too strong to let some little heart attack get him. She punched the elevator call button and shook the rain from her hair.

On the third floor, she headed straight for her father's room and found him lying under a thin blanket, his face pensive, turned toward the window. His television was on, the volume low, tuned in to some golf tournament in progress. Flowers, cards, boxes of candy and balloons were crammed onto every inch of counter space.

John Cawthorne looked thinner and more frail than she'd ever seen him. Hooked up to a heart monitor and an IV, he was nothing like the man she'd grown up with, the tough-talking, badgering cowboy-turned-real-estate-mogul. At the sound of her footsteps, he glanced her way and a half grin teased the corners of a mouth surrounded by silver beard stubble.

“I wondered if you were gonna stop by,” he said, pressing a button on a panel of the bed in order to raise his head. The electric motor hummed and he winced a little as his stitches pulled.

“I wouldn't miss a chance to see you cooped up, now, would I?” she teased.

His blue eyes twinkled. “I hate it.”

“I know.”

“I'm not kiddin'.”

“I know,” she repeated, walking to the windows and adjusting the blinds. “Don't tell me—you want out of the prison and expect me to help you escape.”

He chuckled, then stopped abruptly, as if the pain was too much. “Look, I'm about to go stir-crazy around here, but the doc, he thinks I need to stay another couple of days.”

“I'm on his side. Don't even argue with me about it.”

She leaned over and kissed his forehead. “So tell me—and I want the truth—how're you feeling?”

“Like I was dragged through a knothole one way, then pushed back through the other.”

“I thought so. You're better off here, Dad.”

“But I've got things I gotta do.”

“Oh, quit whining,” she said with a grin. “Whatever it is, believe me, it'll keep.”

As quick as a cat pouncing, he grabbed hold of her hand and wouldn't let go. “No, honey, this time, I'm afraid it won't.”

“Oh, Dad—”

His lips compressed thoughtfully for a second. “There's something I've got to tell you, Bliss. Something I should've told you about a long time ago.”

For the first time since entering the gleaming room, Bliss felt a premonition of despair. An unidentifiable urgency etched the contours of her father's face and his gaze was steady and hard as it held hers. “Oh, God,” she whispered, suddenly weak in the knees. Tears, unbidden, formed in her eyes. “The doctor found something else—”

“No, no,” he was quick to assure her. “I'm gonna be all right, just gotta take care of myself.”

“Then what?” Her shoulders sagged in relief.

He hesitated, muttered an oath under his breath, then said, “I'm gonna get married again.”

“What?” She stiffened. Surely she hadn't heard correctly. “Married? You're joking.” He had to be.

“Never been more serious in my life.” His expression told her that he wasn't pulling her leg.

She steadied herself on the rail of his bed, clutching hard enough that her knuckles showed white.

“Now, wait a minute—”

“I've waited too long as it is.”

She was missing something here. Something important. “But Mom—”

“Is gone.”

“Oh, Lord.” She swallowed back the urge to argue with him and told herself she'd better hear him out. Maybe he was hallucinating from the drugs, maybe he'd grown attached to one of the nurses attending him and had developed a silly, dependent crush on her, or maybe—could it be?—he had a lover. No way.

“Sit down.” He waved her into a chair.

Gratefully, she sank into a chair wedged between the bed and the window. “I think you'd better start at the beginning,” she suggested, though she knew she wasn't going to like what she was about to hear. “Who—who is this…this woman?”

“Someone I love very much.” His smile was weak, but the set of his jaw was as hard as granite, and while the sportscaster on the television spoke in hushed tones as a golfer approached his tee shot, Bliss felt a welling desperation.

“I—I don't understand.”

“I know. Trouble is, neither do I, and I've had a lot of time to think about it.” His lips, dry and chapped, curled in over his teeth in a second's indecision, and with his free hand he tugged on the crisp white sheet covering his body.

“Is she someone you just met?”

“No.” The words seemed to ricochet off the stark hospital walls and echo dully in Bliss's heart. “I've known Brynnie for years.”

“Brynnie?” The name was familiar, but Bliss couldn't place it. “But Mom just passed away—”

“That's the hard part.” His gaze found hers and she saw the secret lingering in the blue depths—the truth that he'd been in love with another woman for years.

Bliss's heart twisted painfully. “No.” Though she had known her parents' marriage had been far from perfect, Bliss had told herself they had loved each other in their own special—if unconventional—way. After all, they had celebrated their thirtieth wedding anniversary just this past year. There hadn't been tension or arguments in the house; just a general sense of apathy and drifting apart as they'd aged. “Who is she?” Bliss asked, cringing inside and feeling suddenly cold as death. “Who is this Brynnie?”