Falling for the Brother

by Tara Taylor Quinn

“Of course,” she said.

  He’d known, too. Because Bruce had made it plain to him just how much Mason’s defection was costing him, how much pain it had brought him.

  “But Bruce didn’t hold that night over my head, Mason. We spoke about it the one time and then made a pact that it would never be mentioned again. I brought it up once, after Brie was born and I didn’t want there to be any doubts that she was his. But when he refused to take the paternity test, I let it drop. I always knew that night was there between us somehow, but not because of him. It was because of me. It was my own shame that ate at me.”

  The words were a kick in his gut, but Mason moved past that.

  “You don’t think he understood that? And capitalized on it?”

  “He never gave me the feeling that he didn’t trust me. He knew it was a one-time thing.”

  “Which was why he banned me from all family life, other than private visits with my father and Gram?”

  “He didn’t want the reminder of that one time.” She sat up straighter as she spoke.

  Mason did, too. “How would you know that if you never spoke about that night again?”

  “I’m not sure.” She shook her head. “But I’m positive that was why.”

  “Because he let you know in insidious little ways. Like, for instance, saying he no longer believed in people as he once had. That life had taught him nothing’s certain.”

  She stared at him. And a moment later said, “He was always referring to cases when he talked about...losing his faith in people.”

  “That’s what he said on the surface. But he knew the message he was sending you.” Mason had spent a lifetime dealing with Bruce.

  “How did you know he said that exact thing?”

  “I heard it, too.” He’d recognized it for what it was.

  So maybe he was the one to get this job done. Because he could see what others might miss.

  “We did him wrong, Mason.”

  He didn’t disagree. Not on his part. He was Bruce’s brother, and family was far more significant than the sometimes unreliable wiles of sexual desire. Not only that, he’d been there that night on a mission for his brother. But it was different for her...

  “You’d given him back your ring,” he reminded her. “You were no longer engaged.”

  “I threw it at him in anger. He’d said he was going to keep it for me until I wanted it back.”

  “Manipulation.”

  “Or the faith of a man in love.”

  For her, thoughts of their night together obviously evoked shame. The knowledge rankled. A bothersome but futile nuisance.

  “The point is, he was unfaithful first, Harper.”

  “He confessed to me the very next day.”

  “But he lied about the circumstance, making it sound like his motive had been clean and worthy, although the act itself was dirty. He told you he’d been with a perp that night and he’d been with Gwen. He also told you sex with the perp happened only once and it was multiple times.”

  Her silence spurred him on. “He had no business coming down on you for something he’d already done.”

  “Two wrongs don’t make a right.”

  “Agreed, but two wrongs should cancel each other out.”

  “What he did—it didn’t hurt me nearly as much as what I did to him.”

  Sound alarms went off all over his head. He stared at her. “How can you say that? I know how devastated you were! He betrayed your trust in him in the most elemental way.”

  “He had sex, yes, but for him it was emotionally meaningless—and at the time I slept with you I still thought I didn’t know the woman. That she was the perp...” Her voice broke, but she drew a breath and continued. “I didn’t have any kind of relationship with her.” She paused for a moment, then stated the bigger betrayal. “And Gwen... I didn’t know about her, about what they did, until you told me. Even though we were friends, I’m sure they slept together out of...expedience, after too much booze at the bachelor party.” She took another deep breath. “For me...the night...with you...you were...you...”

  She broke off again, as though she’d said too much—at a time when he needed more. Desperately needed more.

  In true Harper style, she looked him in the eye. “I couldn’t tell him you meant nothing. That the night meant nothing. Add to that, the fact that I slept with his brother, knowing he idolized you, knowing that if I wanted to get back at him, that was the way that would hurt more than any other.”

  Whoa. Hold on. “Are you telling me that you came on to me that night, that you kept coming on to me...because you knew how much it would hurt him?” The idea had never occurred to him. And stopped him in his tracks. Maybe with some other woman, he’d have caught on. But... Harper?

  “Of course not!” Dropping her arms to her sides, her feet to the floor, she sat up straight. “I would never, ever. Something like that wouldn’t even occur to me. My brain doesn’t work that way and—”

  The hurt in her voice pierced him. Mason reached out to her before thinking about what he was doing. He touched her arm. Lightly. With the backs of his fingers. Once there, they rubbed softly, just taking in the feel of her. And how she felt moved him to the point that he didn’t draw back as quickly as he should.

  “The thought never even entered my mind until you mentioned it. I was... Well, let’s just say I’m glad I wasn’t wrong.” She hadn’t come on to him to hurt Bruce.

  He pulled back. There were places they absolutely could not go. They’d go where they had to...but stay away from the rest.

  Like touching. Not again. Period.

  To force them back on track, he focused and came up with, “Bruce said it, though, didn’t he? He placed guilt on you for hurting him in the worst possible way, making your indiscretion seem much worse than his.”

  Once more, Harper shook her head, her eyes filled with pain. “I don’t remember him saying that specifically. It’s been five years and that talk wasn’t something I wanted to replay on a regular basis.”

  “But you did, didn’t you?” He knew how it worked. He’d been living with it all his life. He’d just been stronger than Bruce’s attempts to get at him. Immune to the disease. He’d somehow understood that his job was to love Bruce, to be there for him, waiting for the day he finally grew up.

  That day had never come.

  But the love hadn’t disappeared.

  “You didn’t see him that night, Mason, but I saw a Bruce I’ll never forget. He was crying. Crying. Not pretending. It was like...all his confidence, the bravado, just...left. He begged me not to give up on our lifetime of happiness because he’d messed up and gotten carried away by his need to bring in the bad guys.”

  “Sleeping with his partner after his bachelor party makes him a bad guy.”

  “The point is, he was really scared of losing what mattered most to him. And profoundly shaken because of what we’d done. We were the two people in his life he revered. And we’d let him down. Both of us.”

  Mason couldn’t deny the truth of that one. So he took a minute to settle in with it.

  “To know that what we did brought down tough-guy cop Bruce Thomas... I can still feel his body shaking as I held him, still hear him begging me to marry him. To forget you and give him the chance to spend the rest of his life proving his love to me. He said he didn’t blame me for my infidelity—that he’d brought that on himself by his own actions. He told me I was the only woman he’d ever loved—and that he’d been sure his love for me was the forever kind from the moment we met. I believed him. And felt like I owed him that second chance. I was so confused, ashamed of what I’d done, and kept telling myself that until Bruce was unfaithful, I’d wanted nothing more than to marry him.”

  Mason did believe that Bruce’s love for Harper was the forever kind. Bruce still loved Harper that way. Which was a hug
e part of the problem between the brothers. Because Mason had never gotten over her, either.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  “I’M NOT DENYING there are good sides to Bruce.” Mason chose his words carefully. The thin ice he was treading was melting beneath his feet. “I love my brother. He’s a great cop. A straight-up one. Completely dedicated to the job.” Bruce had always had wonderful qualities, which was one reason people were so drawn to him, to protecting him when his dark side got out of control. His parents had been the same way.

  And so had Mason. Right up until the beginning of the week when he’d seen the cast on Gram’s arm, the bruises on her face. And had been told that there’d been other previous hairline fractures.

  Did he dare hope Bruce hadn’t done it?

  “I’m convinced he needs help, Harper. Believe it or not, I’m trying to get him that help before he does something he won’t be able to recover from.”

  She watched him silently and he wished to God he knew what she was thinking. Did she understand what he was saying? Was she under Bruce’s mental control? Would she protect him at all costs—and hurt him by doing so?

  Vacillating between anger at his brother and a deep love for him, Mason wasn’t sure how to proceed. If he took himself off the case, O’Brien would be forced to make it public within their department. He’d had a report from urgent care. He had to follow up.

  The only way to protect Bruce was for Mason to find out the truth and then—if Bruce was guilty—quietly get his brother help. It wasn’t as if Gram was going to press charges against him.

  O’Brien could. Bruce could lose his job.

  He was hoping to prevent both of the last two scenarios.

  Turning to Harper with renewed purpose, he said, “Looking back, can you see how Bruce came out of that whole situation the victim, with you beholden to him? You slept with his brother, and he made that seem worse than the fact that he destroyed the trust between the two of you. Worse than him lying to you about who he slept with that night. Beyond that, he had slept with the perp, Harper. You were unfaithful once, during the two days you guys were broken up. He was unfaithful multiple times.”

  “For the job, except that one time with Gwen.”

  He held her gaze for a few seconds. “Does that make it okay?”

  She didn’t answer.

  * * *

  HARPER KEPT HER mind open. The evidence had to speak for itself. She understood what Mason was saying—to a point. Life wasn’t as easy, as black and white, as he seemed to need it to be. Emotions weren’t weighted based on the components that had sparked them. They were all part of the whole person, the whole package. She’d always been one less prone to drama.

  Bruce lived—and loved—big.

  “Did you know Grace hasn’t seen Miriam in over a year?” Elbows on his knees now, Mason faced her from his perch on the bench. His white tennis shoes looked brand-new. Hers were a year old. And black with fluorescent pink—Brianna had picked them out. She’d had a pair to match but had grown out of them.

  Shoes didn’t matter. But they were easier to focus on than the rest of the conversation Mason seemed hellbent on having.

  “Did you hear me?” he asked.

  She nodded. “I just... I can’t believe it.”

  Grace and Miriam no longer friends? “What happened?” They’d been friends since childhood. Almost seventy years. Through school, and through both of their marriages. Through Grace’s grief when her husband was killed on the job; he’d been a truck driver, not a cop...

  Grace had never remarried. Never had kids of her own. She’d emotionally adopted Miriam’s.

  “That’s one of the things I need to speak with Gram about in the morning. I’m shocked, too. This morning was the first I’d heard there was a problem between them and I think it’s important to know what happened. It could all be part of this same issue. As you’ve said, abusers isolate.”

  “Grace wouldn’t tell you what happened?” The two had always had a fierce loyalty to each other.

  His shrug, accompanied by a grim expression, put another knot in her stomach. She rocked forward and then back on her bench, trying to ease the pressure of the hard surface against her butt. She had more comfortable places to sit—places for conversation. She wasn’t taking him there.

  “She says that after you left, Bruce’s control got much worse. Her theory is that you were the first person who loved him who was able to walk away. You were the one person he couldn’t totally control. Everyone else—family, other women, Gwen—they all hung on, stuck around. Except for the women he dumped, of course, but then he was doing the walking away.”

  Harper just wasn’t getting it. Something must have happened to turn Grace against Bruce. She was clouding the facts with resentment or some other emotion.

  “Grace has known Bruce his whole life! When did she suddenly start thinking he was such a control freak?”

  Mason’s studied glance sent tension spiraling through her. But there was no real reason for her to feel that way. It wasn’t like he could convince her of anything...or would even try. He was talking to her for confirmation—or not. Investigating. Not judging.

  “Bruce has had...issues since he was a little guy,” he told her. “We all want people to like us, but Bruce seems to be obsessed with it. Even when he was accepting blame, he somehow came out the victim so he didn’t get into as much trouble. So he got sympathy instead of trouble. The thing with the asparagus wasn’t an isolated experience...” He’d taken a breath as though he was going to say more, but stopped, seemed to change his mind about whatever had been on the tip of his tongue.

  Harper wanted to call him on it. And yet she didn’t want to know. Deciding he knew best what information she needed, she let it go. This wasn’t a personal conversation. She was a witness being interrogated.

  Mostly.

  “Anyway, Grace, as well as Gram and my parents, knew that he had a need for things to go as he thought they should. He’d have tantrums, and they’d work through them.”

  “I can’t imagine they gave in to them.” The Thomas family played by the book. Good cops, all of them.

  “Of course not. But they sympathized with him, too. And there were times they didn’t know he was manipulating them.”

  She wanted to know about those times. In detail. Again, she didn’t ask.

  “We all thought he’d grow out of his insecurities as he got older. Instead, he just grew craftier at his manipulation.”

  She shook her head, shivering when her sweat-moistened T-shirt brushed against her skin. “If this was such a big issue, why didn’t I ever hear about it?”

  Mason seemed to be struggling for words and Harper couldn’t help wondering if he was seeing something that wasn’t there, if his perception of his brother was so unclear, it was difficult for him to recognize the truth.

  “We all wanted to believe he grew out of it,” he finally said, and she had to know what he wasn’t saying.

  “Including you?”

  Mason’s shrug looked painful. “Like the rest of the family, I wanted to believe that, too, but I don’t think I ever really did. Maybe for a while. Look at the supposed agreement I’ve been acting under for the past five years. No contact with you. I believed him when he told me you’d asked for the agreement—and that you were fully on board with it.”

  Okay, that was one example. But the situation had been untenable.

  “My brother’s had very little to do with me since then,” Mason reminded her. “We talked on rare occasions. I saw him, briefly, a time or two. That’s it. I kept up with him through Gram. And sometimes O’Brien and I would talk.”

  “You’re telling me Gram doesn’t see this side of him.”

  “Not that she’s admitting.”

  “Did she ever?”

  Another shrug. “I thought so. It seemed like
we all knew. But I can’t give you, or even myself, any concrete evidence that she did. I don’t remember it ever coming up with her there, although I’m sure it must have. She was around all the time.”

  She had to be honest with him.

  “I was with him for over two years, Mason, and I never saw it.”

  “Bruce was always on his best behavior when Gram was with us. He adored her and wanted her to think he was perfect. Maybe it was the same with you.”

  Apparently Mason had an answer for everything. What remained to be seen, however, was which one of them was seeing the real Bruce.

  The man wasn’t perfect. Clearly. She’d left him after only a year of marriage. But...

  “The undercover work he does—he’s gifted at it—but that takes its toll, too,” she said. “Maybe you need to figure that into your opinions.” He’d asked her for the truth. Could be it was up to her to clear Bruce so Mason could focus on finding out who had really hurt Miriam.

  If it wasn’t Bruce.

  That last thought trickling in bothered her. Surely she wasn’t going to let what Mason said play with her mind.

  Like he’d accused Bruce of doing.

  “He enacts different personas and his life depends on his ability to believe them enough to act them out. Sometimes he gets so involved in the person he’s playing, he forgets to drop the guise when he’s not at work. Maybe that’s what you’re seeing.”

  It was the reason her marriage had broken up—because she couldn’t trust Bruce to be faithful to her when he left for work every day.

  “According to Grace, your leaving, Bruce losing someone he loved and needed, seemed to make him more adamant than ever about controlling Gram. He couldn’t lose her, too. Gram was getting older and, one by one, she dropped activities from her schedule, saying that Bruce needed her.”

  “It makes sense, if you think about it,” she said, gaining strength in her mission now to give Mason her side of the story so that he could see it all clearly. He needed her piece of the puzzle. “She’d been living alone, having family dinner once or twice a week, but otherwise free to spend all the time she wanted with Grace. Then, suddenly, Bruce moves in with her and she has family to care for again. As you said, caring for family has always come first with Miriam. It’s what she lives for. Bruce gave her the purpose she’d lost. But still, she wouldn’t have the energy to keep up a full schedule and still cook and clean for him every day. Maybe Grace was jealous or put out because she lost her time with Miriam. Maybe she resented Bruce.”