The Bliss Factor Read Free Page A

and something resembling a wigwam.
    “Here we are,” he said, turning in time to see her holding up the sides of her skirt, surveying the wet, muddy mess of her own bare legs and once pristine shoes.
    “I’m sorry,” he said, reaching into his pocket, she thought for a handkerchief. He pulled out a phone instead and flipped it open.
    “You have an iPhone? And you know how to text?”
    “Things have changed,” he said, looking sheepish. “I’ll give you my number. And your mother’s.”
    Too late to keep her from wasting a couple of hours looking for them, not to mention the embarrassment of being accosted by a complete stranger. Except embarrassment wasn’t exactly the residual impression, Rae thought, remembering those warm, hard muscles, and that hot, talented mouth and how strong and broad he’d felt under her hands, how she’d lost her breath and grown dizzy as she fell into him, the sexual spell he cast so overwhelming she forgot where she was, what she was doing, and what kind of kook she was doing it with . . . And then he’d let her go and walked away like she’d been just another woman in the crowd. Which was exactly what she’d been. Her brain got it, flashing back to the snickers and the whispers and the humiliation. Her body held out hope.
    She fell into step with her father as he started down the road, trying to eject the armorer from her mind—and any other body parts that were currently re-experiencing that kiss, not to mention all that . . . manhood plastered against her.
    She was grateful when her parents’ familiar old Airstream travel trailer, with its lifetime of distracting memories, came into sight. To some it would be vintage, with its shiny aluminum skin and the rounded corners that came straight off a sixties’ drawing board. To her parents it was home, as lovingly cared for as any brick or frame house on a square of suburban lawn. To Rae, it represented the past, okay to visit as long as she didn’t have to stay too long.
    “Air-conditioning?” she asked when her father opened the door and coolness flooded out.
    “Your mother insisted,” Nelson said. “Something about power surges. I tried to ask her how using more electricity, which only adds to global warming, could possibly be a remedy for power surges. I mean, we only live in this little trailer, but driving it from place to place, using all that fossil fuel, is a big enough carbon footprint, if you ask me, and we use just as much water as anyone else so—”
    “Dad.”
    The tirade cut off abruptly, Nelson Bliss blinked owlishly at his daughter for a second or two before he remembered where the conversation had started. “You don’t know what she meant, do you?”
    Rae almost chuckled, her father was so endearingly clueless. “She was probably talking about hot flashes.”
    “Oh,” he said looking relieved. And then the mysterious-female-drama angle hit him, not to mention the fact that he was discussing it with his daughter, and his face turned red. “Ahh . . .”
    “The air-conditioning feels good,” she said, putting the conversation back on comfortable ground for them both.
    “Just between you and me, it’s kind of nice to come into all this cool after a long day in the heat and the crowds and the dust. Speaking of which, why don’t you clean up while we’re waiting.”
    Rae did just that, but she left the bathroom door open. “What’s with all the mystery?” she called out over the sound of running water. Her skirt could be dry-cleaned, but her shoes were a dead loss, waterlogged and mud-stained. She gave up on them and settled for washing the dirt off her legs. “Is Mom okay? Aside from the wonky internal thermostat?”
    “Mom is fine, wonky thermostat and all” came an unmistakable voice, the one from all her worst memories. And her best.
    Rae poked her head out the bathroom door and there was Annie Bliss, a circlet of flowers on her head, her hair falling in wild curls to her waist, the copper