Falling for the Brother

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  Another flash of confusion crossed Miriam’s face, to be replaced with a glance at Mason. “You don’t seriously think Elmer did this to me, do you?” Her quiet tone commanded attention.

  Mason’s slow nod stabbed Harper. She hurt for him. For Miriam. And for...

  “We know he did it, Gram.” Bruce took over. “Mason already got a warrant for him.”

  Harper cringed. Got a warrant. It was true, but only for questioning. Such strong talk, which was his usual manner, but at the moment, in this situation, way out of line. She wished he’d leave the next few minutes to Mason.

  “You got a... He’s under arrest?”

  “No.” Mason shook his head. “The warrant was for questioning.” Mason sent Bruce a look, one Harper interpreted as suggesting he take it down a notch. “I talked to him yesterday afternoon.”

  “You seriously think he did this,” she said again. “You’re going to arrest him?”

  Mason didn’t deny it. How could he? Harper knew he had every intention of following through as soon as they got Miriam to press charges.

  “You’re going to arrest him?” she asked again, her tone gaining so much strength Harper took another step forward, inexplicably drawn toward her.

  “Gram...” Bruce reached for her...and Harper froze. Just froze in her tracks. Those arms...thrust toward... She wasn’t there. She was somewhere else. Another time...

  Before Bruce could calm Miriam, she was standing at the side of the table, facing him. “You’re going to arrest Elmer? On what grounds?”

  Harper saw it like a movie on TV. Separate from what was going on in her real life.

  Mason was beside Miriam now, an arm around her. “Gram, we just want to talk. Please, sit down and we’ll get through this. Together.”

  Gazing up at Mason seemed to calm her for a minute, while Harper stood there, completely separate from Miriam’s situation, horror filling her to the core.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  MIRIAM WAS SHAKING her head. Harper forced herself to focus on the older woman. Just as her mother had taught her. When emotion seemed overwhelming, you thought of others. Tended to others.

  “Elmer and I are in love,” Miriam announced. “Yes, he came over that night. He comes over a lot of nights when Bruce is gone and he...usually stays longer. We sit and watch TV together. I understand why Bruce doesn’t approve. I am old. I’ve already got my family and my life. I also have twice as much money as Elmer does, and he might be after that. I don’t even care. Bruce was the one who cared. Always worrying that you’d think he was after any assets I had. That you’d really send me away...”

  Harper needed to sit down. Mason’s glance at his grandmother held pure shock.

  “I’d send you away? What are you talking about?”

  “Him.” She pointed at Bruce. “He said you were concerned about me getting older. That you’d said some things. That I had to do what he said so you’d let the two of us live together in peace.”

  What? Harper wasn’t sure she was following it all. Her gaze stayed on Mason—it was the only way she seemed to be holding herself together. There. In the present moment.

  When Bruce had reached for Miriam...the past had slammed back on her. She couldn’t find her way...

  “Why did you get so defensive with Grace?” Mason’s tone was loving as he faced his grandmother. At least Harper thought it was. “Why not tell her about it? She’d never even heard of Elmer.”

  The way Miriam stared at the ground hit Harper hard. She felt as though she was living inside the older woman. “Because I know that Bruce is right,” she said. “I’m seventy-five years old and here I am, thinking I’m falling in love? What do I know? How can I know for sure that I’m not losing my mind? Grace was already telling me I wasn’t seeing things clearly, telling me Bruce was turning me into an old woman before my time, robbing me of the life I had left and that I couldn’t see it. And... I’ve never felt anything like I feel for Elmer. Love’s always been practical and calm for me. Like a gentle flower that blooms forever. With Elmer it’s more like a burning fire.” She shuffled her feet. Lifted her cast, then lowered it, and looked up to the sky. “At seventy-five I’m finally feeling a burning fire?” She shook her head. “I tried to stop seeing him, but I knew he was just down the street, that he was alone, and I missed him so much...”

  She broke off and Harper, feeling that moment of insecurity acutely now, wanted to take Miriam’s hand, regardless of whether or not she’d be pushed away.

  Before she could move, Miriam faced Mason. “Monday night, Elmer saw Bruce’s car leave and came over. When he saw my face, my arm, he insisted on taking me to the hospital right away. The only way I could get him to drop the idea was to agree to drive myself. I couldn’t let him take me for just this reason. I knew everyone would blame him. Bruce would blame him, and Elmer’s an easy target. He’s a guy down the street with no one to defend him. He’s not a cop. Not the grandson I adore and who adores me.”

  She started to cry then. Not racking sobs. Just tears filling her eyes and spilling over to run down aged cheeks.

  Bruce stood, joining Mason beside Miriam. “Come on, Gram, let’s sit back down,” he said. Following his brother’s lead, he reached behind her, putting a hand between her shoulder blades.

  Harper cringed at that touch, and very slowly Miriam turned toward her. She must have made a sound. The older woman met her gaze, seeming to find something there, and then turned to Bruce.

  “Maybe I’m so old I should live very carefully for the rest of my days, preserving what time I have left,” she said, enunciating her words slowly. “You say I should take precautions so I don’t inadvertently cause my own death. I’m sure you’re right that I’m too old to start over. You’re completely right that I get tired more easily now than I did even five years ago. I fully believe you when you tell me that if I won’t take what you’ve determined are those necessary precautions, Mason will put me in a home where they’ll watch over me and make sure I’m safe. And if that happens now, then so be it...”

  “What!” Mason’s bellow, his look of horror, had Harper as transfixed as Miriam’s words did.

  The woman didn’t seem to notice either of them. She actually poked a finger in Bruce’s chest. “But if you think, for one second, that I’m going to let you do anything...anything...nasty to that dear, sweet man, then you’ve grossly misjudged this tired-out, weak old woman.”

  Harper had to do something. She knew she did. But her feet were planted to the ground where she stood, and she could feel her heart thundering in her chest.

  Miriam glanced at Mason. “He broke my arm,” she said, pointing at Bruce. “He didn’t mean to. I’d climbed up on the stepladder again when he was right there and I could’ve asked for help and he was just trying to get me down without me hurting myself.”

  Everyone stared. At Miriam, at Bruce, at each other. Like fools the four of them stood there, looking from one to another.

  “I—” Bruce started, and Miriam stomped her foot.

  “I won’t hear it, Bruce,” she said. “I fell off that ladder. I told everyone. I didn’t mention that it happened when you grabbed my arm, because I know that you were only trying to get me down safely, that you didn’t mean to hurt me. I know if I was younger, your grip wouldn’t have broken my arm. I even called Gwen, crawled out of my bedroom window at the Stand to get to a phone without anyone finding out, so she’d go to Mason and get him to stop thinking you did anything wrong. I knew what they’d say if they ever found out it was you. I’d have gone to my grave with the truth, but for you to stand there and blame Elmer...”

  So much to process. Harper could barely take it in. Couldn’t move.

  “I would never hurt you, Gram.” Bruce’s voice broke. He turned to Mason. “I swear to God, I’d never hurt her, you know that.” His gaze turned to Harper next, still a couple of yards
away from them.

  “She’s old.” He returned his attention to Mason. “Her bones are frail. You try to help her and she breaks. I...I’d lose my entire life, my career, all the people I help, the lives I save... So many people would be put at risk, and you just weren’t going to let it go. You had to have someone to blame. I don’t grab her hard.” He looked at Harper again. “Just enough to keep her from falling. She won’t listen.” He said the last part to Mason. “If she’d listen I wouldn’t have to hold her chin to get her attention. She’s on that blood thinner, you know, and if you just touch her she bruises.”

  He turned back to Miriam. “You leave the room when I try to talk to you. If you’d stay put and listen, I wouldn’t grab you, to hold you back. I’ve told you that. We’ve talked about it so many times. But you still walk out. I couldn’t let you walk out when you were upset. You might hurt yourself...”

  Bruce came by it honestly. The thought struck Harper out of the blue. Walking out was what he did when he got upset.

  “You know how much I love you, Gram. When Harper left, you were all I had. You were there for me and for my daughter. You know that. I’d die for you.” He had tears in his eyes.

  He looked at Mason again. “I can’t lose her, man. When I lost Harper, it practically killed me. You remember that.”

  Then his gaze turned to her. “This week...please don’t let this change anything, babe. You and I...we’re finally finding our way back. The picnic at the beach... We can be a family again, Harper. A real family. I’m begging you...”

  He said more. She didn’t hear him. Didn’t hear anything but the sound of her own blood rushing. She was back in the past, hearing him beg.

  And...

  She took a breath so deep, it hurt clear to the bottom of her lungs. “He grabbed me, too.” She admitted something she’d pushed so deeply inside that she’d forgotten. Because, as a cop, she would never be a victim. Hadn’t ever allowed the vision of herself to formulate. She’d gotten out instead. Downplayed. Justified the one second in a lifetime as a normal reaction of a man watching his wife walk out on him. Until she’d seen Bruce reach for Miriam’s arm at the table. She’d been trembling with the truth ever since. “That last morning, when I was leaving. I had my three-month-old baby in my arms and he grabbed me so hard I almost dropped her. He had his hand under her. He’d have caught her. But the next day...my arm was bruised.”

  She looked at Bruce then, aware of Mason’s presence in the background of her life, but knowing she had to do this on her own. “There will never be an us,” she told him. “I see now that there never really was.”

  She might not have consciously remembered that last act. He hadn’t meant to hurt her. Hadn’t come at her with violence, but merely with a desperate need to keep her from walking out on him. He’d let her go the second she’d told him to. But she’d never lost the feeling that she couldn’t go back—under any circumstances. She’d convinced herself it was the cheating. The lack of trust. She’d made her decision to divorce him because of those things.

  “I had a hand under Brie that day, Harper. I would never have let her fall.”

  He was right. She’d already admitted as much. “It doesn’t change the facts. You grabbed me with force. You lied to me throughout our whole marriage. Yesterday when you told me about Gwen going to Mason’s house, that was just to put doubt in my mind about Mason. You told Gram I’d always been after him, when, in truth, you’d sent him after me that night. And you failed to mention that I’d given you back your ring because of your infidelity. When I ended our marriage because you were unfaithful, you made it sound like it was the first time you’d been with someone else. It wasn’t the first time. I feel pretty certain it wasn’t just the third or fourth time, either.” She remembered his lies about Gwen and the bachelor party, but everything was coming at her too fast. “A few minutes ago, when you were talking to Gram, you were talking about how you were just trying to keep her from getting hurt, but you knew her bones were fragile and you grabbed her anyway. It’s about control with you, Bruce. You have to be in control all the time. That’s what it’s always been about. That night I spent with Mason... You’d lost control. The only way for you to get it back was to get me to marry you. You had to make sure he never had a chance to take me from you again, didn’t you? You kept him away by making him feel guilty about the night we’d spent together. And then you played on my guilt. All these years...”

  The words, when they started coming, wouldn’t stop. “There’s always an excuse with you. An explanation. A justification. It’s always someone else’s fault.”

  Bruce raised a hand, and she thought he was going to hit her. She put her arms up to protect herself, but the blow didn’t come.

  Instead, he strode away, swiftly, got in his car and squealed out of the parking lot.

  Someone had to call the police. Put a 9-1-1 out on him. She looked at Miriam.

  Mason pulled out his phone.

  * * *

  HE’D BEEN LEFT without a ride. Letting Bruce drive them to the park had gone against every instinct Mason had, but he’d been so focused on making up to his brother for the fact that he’d stolen away his only child, he hadn’t been on his game.

  He’d nearly put both of the women he revered in danger.

  Miriam’s abuser was Bruce.

  Mason had been so certain earlier in the week and yet, now that he’d had confirmation, he could hardly believe it.

  Not only had his brother been regularly abusing their grandmother, he was more mentally unhinged than even Mason had suspected.

  He had to surmise that the only reason Bruce had made it on the force for so long was that he’d spent most of his working hours pretending to be something he wasn’t—with no direct supervision. He’d successfully closed cases that won convictions without actionable complaints. That was all the department knew.

  Riding in the back seat of Harper’s SUV, he felt like something of a criminal himself. The one thing which he’d prided himself on had been his ability to put the puzzle together. But when it had mattered the most, he’d blown it.

  He’d known his brother was a manipulator. A controller. And yet he’d left Gram there with him. Had left Harper with him before that.

  Harper was getting Gram back to the Stand, where she’d be safe. Until Bruce was in custody, they were all at risk. Once they arrived, Mason was going to order a rental car. There was no way he was leaving any of the three females in his life until his brother was behind bars. Gram, Harper and Brianna weren’t going to be out of his sight if he could help it.

  “You can’t back down on pressing charges, Gram,” he said from the seat behind her. “No matter how much you love him. No matter what kind of guilt attacks your heart.”

  “I know.” Miriam reached over to Harper with her good hand. “We’re going to do it together, aren’t we?”

  It was the first time that it had been mentioned, that Harper would be part of bringing down the man Brianna believed to be her father.

  Whether Harper had recognized it before or not, it was clear that she’d been a victim of Bruce’s manipulation. Even her leaving him hadn’t prevented him from keeping a measure of control over her.

  Harper glanced at Miriam, and then quickly back at the road. He’d noticed she’d been avoiding her rearview mirror since he’d slid into her car.

  “Yes, we are,” she said now.

  He had a feeling that the decision to help prosecute her ex-husband, even if it was only with testimony to add further weight to Miriam’s, had just been reached.

  And that she had other decisions to make, as well.

  Did he dare hope he might figure among them?

  Did he deserve to?

  It seemed obvious that Bruce’s initial breaking point had come when Harper had slept with Mason that night. His brother had responded by begging her to marry him. A
nd what she’d said that day made sense. He’d done it as a way of making certain that Mason couldn’t have her. Couldn’t be with her.

  Bruce always had to maintain control.

  As Mason thought about it, he realized that everything Bruce had done in his entire life had been geared to that end. From how people looked at him, what they thought of him, how they treated him—he’d needed to control it all. Maybe because of his insecurity?

  Maybe he’d truly loved them and the vulnerability that had caused had been too much for him.

  Where that left any of them, he had no idea.

  One thing he knew for sure, though. He had to let Harper figure that out for herself. She had to figure out her past—and her future.

  She’d already lost too much of her life to a man’s manipulation.

  * * *

  MASON HAD BEEN pretty adamant about Harper and Brianna’s staying at the Stand overnight until Bruce was in custody. Police officers were on-site to take Miriam’s and Harper’s statements, and an official warrant was issued for Bruce’s arrest. No one knew if that would go easy, or if, knowing he’d lost all control of his life, he’d be on the run.

  Domestic violence charges would get him some jail time. But they weren’t going to put him away for long.

  They could end his career, though. And Harper couldn’t even imagine what that would do to him. Or what he might do because of it.

  To better ensure her daughter’s safety, Harper agreed to stay at the Stand on Sunday night. Lila offered her and Brianna her own personal suite, used whenever she had reason to be at the Stand overnight.

  Just off the managing director’s office, the suite, decorated in Victorian style with lace and roses, included a little kitchen and sitting room as well as the bedroom.

  Mason had driven his rental car over to her apartment to pick up a list of things for her and Brianna. Bruce had never been to the apartment, but he knew the address. As she tucked Brianna into bed that night, the little girl was a bit hyper due to her excitement at having a sleepover and being able to play with her friends after supper. Harper sucked in her breath over another stab of debilitating doubt, accompanied by a physical pain that sliced through her.