Falling For The Brother

CHAPTER TWO

THE LAST THING Mason Thomas had ever expected, or wanted, was to need anything from Harper Davidson. Needing her—wanting his brother’s woman—was something he’d been living with since the first night Bruce had brought her home. He took full accountability for his inappropriate reaction, had dealt with and paid for it. All of which was a hell of a lot easier when he didn’t have to see her.

Fully aware that the last thing in the world she probably needed was to have him knocking on the door of her office, he hesitated in the hallway.

“She knows you’re doing this?” He gave Lila Mantle his most commanding stare. “That you’re bringing me to see her.”

“I spoke to her twenty minutes ago.”

“And she agreed to meet with me.”

Lila frowned as she studied him. Up to that point, he’d felt her to be nothing but supportive. A colleague helping him out in a despicable situation.

“Is there a reason she shouldn’t have?” Dressed in a dark blue suit with her hair up in a bun, Lila didn’t seem the least bit intimidated by his six-foot-two-inch stature.

He shrugged. The reason wasn’t as important as protecting Miriam. He’d taken a huge gamble that Harper would agree with him, but now that he was about to see her, he wasn’t as confident. He’d dressed for a normal day’s work out in the field, examining scenes. Khakis, button-down shirt rolled up to his elbows, black slip-ons. Seeing Harper hadn’t figured into it. “I haven’t seen her in five years,” he said.

Which didn’t answer the question. Lila’s glance let him know she wasn’t completely satisfied with his answer, but she didn’t push. At least not yet. He was left with the impression that she might. He needed her on his side; without The Lemonade Stand, he didn’t have much hope of saving his grandmother, let alone freeing her to enjoy some happy days in the years she had left. God knew, she’d earned them.

Lila knocked, ushered him ahead of her, said a few words and stepped out, closing the door behind her.

“Mason.” Harper got to her feet, but kept her desk between them, a pencil in her hands. Her hair was shorter than he remembered, her eyes as blue, with the tinge of violet around the edges that he’d never forgotten. She didn’t seem any happier to see him now than the last time he’d looked at her. The morning after...

“Harper.” Hands at his sides, he stood there in a moment of uncharacteristic hesitation. Not sure what to do, how to take control of his interview. Hugging her was definitely out.

Mentioning the past...ditto.

“You look good.” She wasn’t quite smiling, but there was no chill in her gaze, either.

“So do you.” He hoped to God the wealth of feeling in that statement didn’t convey itself to her.

They’d known each other since Bruce had brought her home from work more than six years before, a new recruit who’d also been his new romantic interest, to have dinner with the family, but Mason had never taken much time to actually talk to her that night.

After his initial reaction to her—feeling like he’d been hit by a semi and liking it—he’d deliberately shied away from conversation. She was his brother’s girlfriend.

The time for talk would’ve been when he found her on the beach in tears, sobbing hysterically, a week before her wedding. Unfortunately, he’d just come from one hell of an argument with his brother—cursing Bruce for having been unfaithful to her—and hadn’t given any real thought to conversation. He’d wanted beer. As much as he could get, as quickly as he could pour it down his throat.

He hadn’t left her sitting there crying, though. He’d made the biggest mistake of his life. He’d invited her along.

“I like your hair shorter,” he said, mostly to remind himself that the night in question was long ago. To get his head out of the past and into his current situation.

Some women might have raised a hand to their hair. Made a comment. Smiled even. Harper just nodded.

Although he was having more difficulty than he’d expected holding her eyes, he’d refused to look lower than that pencil in her hands. But when she continued to assess him, his damned gaze dropped.

And noticed the gun strapped to her hip. The beige uniform hadn’t surprised him. Both of the guards, her employees, whom he’d met the night before, had been wearing them. They’d been armed, too, but...

“I’m fully trained to use it,” she said, seeing where his gaze had landed.

He nodded. “Graduated at the top of your academy class,” he said, letting her know he remembered. From what he’d been told, she quit the Albina police force when she divorced his younger brother. According to his father, for the two years she’d served, she’d been a good cop. Good instincts. No hesitation.

It wasn’t like she was hesitating now, either. She was...waiting.

He’d asked for the meeting. This was his call.

“My grandmother...” He stopped, met Harper’s stare. In his line of work as an independent crime scene investigator, he saw a lot of gruesome things, studied horrific photos and picked apart heinous crime scenes down to the smallest detail. He’d learned how to compartmentalize a long time ago. He opened his mind, not his heart. And yet, he had to take a minute to stop the quiver inside him as he thought of the scene he’d come upon the evening before.

“I’ve been working in Alabama for most of the past month,” he began. “Was on a serial killer job in Boston before that. With all the new DNA technologies, cold cases are coming out of the woodwork, and departments don’t always have the manpower or the time necessary to study the evidence and pictures...”

She seemed fully focused on him.

“Anyway, you don’t need me to get into that,” he concluded.

She held the pencil in one hand now, while two fingers of the other moved up and down the shaft. She wasn’t as composed as he’d thought.

His family wasn’t hers anymore. Hadn’t been for all that long anyway. Didn’t mean she didn’t care about Miriam. They were still her daughter’s family.

He’d seen pictures of the kid a couple of times in the past four years. Cute. From what his grandmother—who chattered about her on a regular basis—had relayed, Mason figured the child might be a bit too inquisitive for his comfort, but smart. According to Miriam, the little girl had a great disposition, not at all whiny.

Harper wasn’t the whiny sort. He couldn’t imagine her being tolerant of it in her daughter.

She was still watching. Waiting for him.

“I make it a point to stop and see Miriam as soon as I return from a job. Especially since Dad’s been gone...”

Harper hadn’t gone to Oscar’s funeral. Brianna had been there, but Mason only got a brief glimpse of her. In Bruce’s arms. Clinging to him and burying her cute blond head in his shoulder as someone approached. Mason had spent most of his time watching over his inconsolable grandmother, and Bruce had left him to it. Keeping his distance from the older brother who’d betrayed him.

Miriam had taken her son’s death much harder than her husband’s, and Mason had his hands full. Back before his mother died, she’d always been at Gram’s side, and then his father had stepped in. Now it was up to him.

“I was expecting to be in Alabama until next week, but I caught a break in the case and got an earlier flight out. Gram’s been struggling a lot this year. Seeming to age right before my eyes...”

“Did you talk to Bruce about it?” He listened carefully as she mentioned his brother. Her ex. Trying to determine if the closeness his brother had alluded to truly existed. Her tone, her expression... She could’ve been speaking of a mutual friend.

“I did,” he said, watching her even more astutely now, wondering again if she and his brother were as close as Bruce wanted him to believe. If maybe she knew more than he’d expected. Speaking slowly, choosing his words with care, he said, “More than once. Each time he told me I was imagining things. Says she’s just getting older and that if I saw her more often I’d know that.”

Harper’s brow furrowed. “I thought...” She shook her head, looking perplexed, giving him cause to wonder for a second if she actually knew Miriam was there. Then he remembered that he wouldn’t be standing in her office if she didn’t know. Lila’d had to talk to her before Mason could see her.

“Thought what?”

“Miriam...you... Bruce...” She shrugged and he remembered how shocked he’d been the first time he’d realized how slender her shoulders were. They could carry a lot of weight. “I thought you and Bruce were working together here...running some kind of undercover investigation to figure out what happened.”

Now he was the one who felt confused. And tense all over again. How exactly did a guy go about turning in the brother he loved? “Bruce has been abusing her, Harper. I thought... Lila said you knew.”

The pencil dropped as Harper leaned both hands against her desk. “She said as much. I figured you guys were using Bruce as a cover, you know, so as not to alert whoever you suspect...”

She thought he and Bruce were a team? That they’d somehow reconciled? Which had to mean she and her ex weren’t that close, after all. With Bruce it was sometimes impossible to tell exactly where he stood—even for Mason, and he’d had more experience resisting his brother’s convincing charm than anyone else.

“Bruce still won’t be in the same room as me if he can help it,” he said. “Which is why I always make appointments to see Gram when he’ll be away from the house.”

“He won’t be in the same...” She shook her head again, alarm emanating from her expression, her posture, everything. “I really thought you were working together here...”

“The agreement didn’t disappear just because your marriage did,” he said now, glad he hadn’t taken a seat in the chair across from the desk. He’d have had to stand up again. “He still has the goods on me, and I still don’t want them spilled.” That made him sound like a total ass, and while he was one, his reputation wasn’t the reason he continued to honor his little brother’s wishes. “I hurt him,” he said now. “My presence still hurts him. Staying away is the price I pay for the choice I made.”

“A-agreement?” She completely ignored the rest of it.

He might have been forgiven for thinking she was slightly daft. If he hadn’t known her better.

“The agreeement.” He drew the word out, certain that neither of them wanted to get any further into it.

“I’m sorry, Mason, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

White-hot anger at the injustice of life shot through him and was gone as instantly, leaving calm in its wake. A level, assessing calm. With a reminder that just because something changed one person’s entire life, that didn’t mean it affected another’s. Just because the agreement had hurt him irrevocably, didn’t mean it had changed Harper’s life at all.

“Bruce wouldn’t go to Dad or Gram, or create any kind of family rift, as long as I never contacted you and stayed away from you. And as long as I gave him his space, stayed away from him as much as possible. He’d speak to me when necessary, but otherwise I wasn’t to contact him.”

One night with Harper had cost him the brother who’d once idolized him.

With more than a frown now, she shook her head. “What on earth are you talking about?” She wasn’t calm anymore. If anything, she sounded pissed off.

Not that he blamed her. He’d screwed up all their lives because he’d been drunk and not thinking straight. Not that she hadn’t consented. But she’d accompanied him to the bar that night, her fiancé’s older brother and soon-to-be brother-in-law, devastated, her whole life falling apart, looking for compassion. For an explanation, a way to understand what Bruce had done. Not for alcohol-induced sex.

Bruce had been counting on him to help her understand...

“I mean it, Mason! Tell me what on earth you’re talking about.” Her hands, splayed on the desktop, were shaking with tension.

He hadn’t seen her in five years. The last time he had seen her she’d been naked. And horrified to find herself in bed with him. Could he be blamed for feeling a little bothered here?

“After you told Bruce what happened,” he said, “before you were married, he came to me. Said the two of you had talked and worked everything out.” She’d told her fiancé that she’d slept with his older brother.

And Bruce had still wanted to marry her. Because his brother was that much in love with the woman. Even now.

She nodded. “That’s right. We did.”

He could understand why Bruce had forgiven her. After all, his brother had just slept with his partner.

And Harper had slept with Mason but afterward, even before agreeing to go ahead with the marriage to Bruce, she’d never so much as called Mason. Again, not that he blamed her. She’d owed him nothing. Her loyalty had been to the man she’d decided to marry, even after he’d hurt her so badly. The man she loved so deeply she’d chosen to forgive him for what he’d done. It wasn’t as if Mason had done anything deserving of loyalty.

“So... I’m talking about the agreement the three of us reached...” he said slowly.

Which earned him another shake of her head. “I haven’t even spoken to you since... How could you possibly think we reached some kind of agreement about anything?”

“You didn’t want to see me,” he reminded her. “Bruce explained. Understandable. I suppose I could have insisted on hearing the words directly from you but frankly, at that point, I was just glad to be done with it all. And still be welcome in my family.”

“Welcome in your... Mason, why on earth wouldn’t you be welcome? It’s not like Bruce was any saint—and if I was welcome, why wouldn’t you be?”

“Let me get this straight. You’re telling me you didn’t know about the ultimatum?”

“About you staying away or Bruce would cause a stink?”

“Yeah.”

“Of course not! I would never have agreed to such a thing. If you, or Bruce, felt it necessary to tell your father or Miriam what we’d done...that was up to you two.”

Another question burned its way through the barriers he was trying desperately to hang on to. “Did you tell your parents?”

He’d only met them once. At the engagement party. But he’d spent more than an hour talking to her father. Had really liked both of them. They were farmers. Down-to-earth. Practical, not prone to drama. And yet, emitting a love that couldn’t be missed.

“Yes. Eventually. Not at the time...” She picked up the pencil again. “This isn’t getting us anywhere,” she said. “I had no idea that Bruce had gone to you, or that you’d been warned to stay away, but it’s all in the past. We have other concerns to deal with.”

She was right to get the conversation back on course. But this was his interview. He’d requested it. And he had to know where she stood. Where they stood. His grandmother’s life could very well depend on it at this point.

“Didn’t you ever wonder why I wasn’t around?” he asked.

For the first time since he’d come into the room she looked down. As though ashamed. Or embarrassed. “I figured you were mad at me for marrying Bruce.”

He had been. More than mad. But... “And you thought that would be reason enough for me to miss my only sibling’s wedding? You thought I was that much of a selfish ass? That I couldn’t get over myself for an afternoon?”

Her gaze flew back to his. “Not because you couldn’t get over yourself, no,” she said. “I thought you weren’t there because you couldn’t witness something you felt was wrong.”

It might have come to that—if he’d had a choice to make. More likely, he wouldn’t have gone because he’d still wanted her himself. But she’d loved Bruce. And Lord knew, Bruce adored her. No one had ever been in doubt about that. Including the other women his brother had slept with. “Bruce told me I wasn’t welcome. Warned me that if I showed my face he’d let everyone know what a jerk I was, taking advantage of his fiancée a week before the wedding.”

Her mouth twisted, and he remembered how it had tasted—a combination of beer and sweetness.

“He never would have done that.”

Her defense of his brother didn’t surprise him all that much. If the situation were reversed, he might do the same. Bruce had a way about him that compelled people to like him. To trust him. And even when, like Mason, you were forced to see his other side, you still loved him. Because he wasn’t a mean or malicious man. He was, at his core, a needy one.

“On the contrary, he most certainly would have.” And it wouldn’t have been the first time he’d stabbed Mason. It just would’ve been the worst.

“He’d have had to out me, too. And himself.”

Mason almost laughed, but not out of humor. “It isn’t like he would’ve taken a mic and announced the news,” he said. “Or even told the whole story. His version would’ve been more along the lines of an emotional aside to my father, where he was the total victim and where I got you drunk and then slept with you after you passed out.”

“And you don’t think I’d have stood up for you? Told the truth? You think I would have let it stay at that?”

He stared at her. “What I think is that you never would’ve known,” he said. “You didn’t know about the agreement...” Her stricken look bothered him. “My father certainly wouldn’t have told you. I just wouldn’t have been welcome anymore.”

“Your father would never have turned his back on you, Mason. Even I know that.”

She was right. To a point. “He’d see me, talk to me, sure. He’d definitely come running if I called in need.” Just as he would for Bruce. It was their way. “But any family invitations...they’d have stopped. Him calling to catch up, or to tell me one of his infamous stupid jokes...that would’ve stopped.”

If she didn’t realize by now how insidious Bruce could be with his twisting of truths, maybe she never would. Maybe he wouldn’t be able to rely on her for help. All he knew was, he had to try.

“And it wouldn’t have ended with my dad,” he said. “If Bruce needed support for something else, he’d drop a word in someone else’s ear at the pertinent time.” Bruce had been playing his parents against him since elementary school. Because Mason’s footsteps had been too big to fit him. Because Bruce, growing up in Mason’s shadow, had never felt he had a chance to become something great on his own. He’d developed a need to have everyone love him the most. A sense of competitiveness. Mason had understood that back then. And on the whole, Bruce’s manipulations had been pretty harmless.