“It was getting to be too much for him,” Mason said. “When you left, and then with Gram growing older...his family on the law-abiding path was slipping away from him...”
She hadn’t thought of it that way, but it made sense.
“I could’ve been the constant that kept him from—”
“From what?” she interrupted. “You were out of his life by his dictate,” she reminded him. “And these past few months, you’ve been doing your best to be there for him. To protect him. Even getting the FBI to agree to bring him in with dignity.”
Not that it had happened. He’d been found dead first.
“He didn’t give you the chance to really help him, Mason. He never gave you the chance. Not in the past three months. Not in a lifetime of being a big brother,” she added, fighting for the future. Hers. Mason’s. Brianna’s.
Fighting for her family.
“I’m scared to death that he’s still in control, Mason. That we’re going to let him choose our end, too.”
He straightened at that, his gaze intent. Still, he said nothing.
“Five years ago, he sent you to me,” Harper said, the words coming of their own accord from depths she’d been hiding for far too long. “Right here...he sent you here. Tonight, he sent me to you. Maybe he didn’t mean to. I’m fairly sure he didn’t. But I’m here because of him. Because I know that we can be in control if we choose to be.”
His lips tightened, but he still kept his hands to himself. Harper figured she could be making a huge mistake, thought about that for a second and knew she didn’t care.
If he didn’t want her, didn’t feel the same way she did, then they’d share an embarrassing moment and move on. Move forward in a different direction. Because there was no doubt they had some kind of future together.
Bruce was gone, but Brianna would always be there between them. With them. Connecting them.
Something much stronger than words had brought them together. They needed it now. Something much stronger than words.
Moving slowly, she slid over, then up onto her hands briefly as she settled herself on his lap. “I’ve only ever seduced a guy once in my life,” she whispered, her hands on either side of his face. “I can’t guarantee I’m good at it, but I can promise you it works.” Her voice faded as, with each word, her lips moved closer to his, and she kissed him. Softly at first.
And then, his arms came around her, crushing her to him with such force that she thought she might have tasted blood. Hers. His. Both of them mingling their lives together in every possible way.
She hadn’t intended to have sex on a cold beach that night.
Hadn’t intended to do more than talk to him.
But when, an hour later, with the sand in her clothes scratching at her skin as she walked arm in arm with him up the beach back toward their cars, she wasn’t the least bit sorry.
Or ashamed of what she’d done.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
HE’D BEEN IN the darkest night his soul had ever known and she’d come to him. Not used to fanciful thinking, or at least to allowing it to enter his conscious thought, Mason walked up the beach feeling like he’d just been given new life. He’d been living in an emotional cocoon all his life, keeping his own feelings contained in order to make room for his brother’s.
It was what Bruce—and to an extent his parents and grandparents—had expected of him. It was what he’d expected of himself once he became an adult.
He didn’t regret the choice he’d made to protect his younger brother. He regretted the things he hadn’t seen.
He hadn’t been able to find a way to get past that. To live with it in any semblance of peace.
In one sentence, Harper had shown him the way.
They could choose. If they were to stop being victims of Bruce’s manipulation, they had to choose.
He wasn’t Mozart.
Neither was Bruce, but he’d been gifted. In a way, his brother had been the anti-Mozart.
“If I hadn’t come here tonight, would you have called me? Ever?” She was looking up at him, but he didn’t meet her gaze. Still trying to grasp the fact that Harper was there with him. Perhaps for more than a moment.
“I was going to come by tomorrow to see Brianna, you knew that.”
“I know,” she said, and let it drop.
But he couldn’t. He hadn’t called her five years ago, after the most incredible night of talk and sex, because of his brother.
And he’d been staying away for the same reason. Sort of. He’d just begun to understand how much that sort of mattered.
“I’m not going to pressure you, Harper,” he told her. “Or try to convince you that we belong together. Nor am I going to suffocate you with what I need...”
She halted in the sand, her arm dropping away from behind him. “Would you stop?” she said, in the angriest tone she’d ever used with him. “You think I don’t have the strength of mind to stand up to pressure? Because let me tell you—”
He stopped her with a finger to her lips and a smile on his face.
“Okay, tiger, I get it,” he said. “And you’re right. That was insulting. You left Bruce. Do you realize you’re the only one who was ever able to do that?”
“Not completely I didn’t.”
“Because you had Brianna. Without that, I’m sure you would have.”
Her smile was sad, but her eyes glowed for him again. “Maybe. I hope so.”
Suddenly he had a million things to say and had to get them lined up in his mind. “I think we should go on a date,” he said. First things first. He’d been wanting to go out with her for six long years.
“We’ve had sex...twice. We have a daughter—and you’re asking me out?”
“Yep.” Pulling her up against him, he added, “I’m not saying that’s all we’ll do. We need to face facts, and a major fact is, we’re combustible when we’re together. But we’re family. We share a daughter. It just seems like...if we’re going to have it all, we should take a little time to date.”
Harper’s life was filled with beach, the air, the sea. “I love you, Mason Thomas,” she said. And stopped, horror filling her eyes.
As though she felt guilty... As he should. No. Bruce had had his chance. He’d hurt everyone. Mason was going to spend the rest of his life doing what it took to make sure his brother never hurt anyone again.
“I love you, too, Harper Davidson, soon to be Thomas, I hope. And I’ll stand on my brother’s grave and tell you so. What Bruce brought into our lives wasn’t a healthy love. This is, like a flower that blooms forever, and a burning fire, just like Gram said.”
Harper pulled back. “Miriam... She’s not going to like this. Bruce had her convinced that I was always after you, and that’s why I took the first chance I had to get out of our marriage, because you never came around...”
He shook his head. Kissed her quiet. “Gram sees him for what he is now, Harper, or at least sees enough of what he was. Loving Elmer showed her the difference between dependence and love. And she sees you for what you’ve always been, too. She asked me this afternoon if I thought you’d ever forgive her.”
“There’s nothing to forgive,” Harper said. “How do you blame a heart that was only doing its best to love?”
Her words hit him hard.
With her usual wisdom, Harper had just sent Bruce on a new journey away from them where, hopefully, his spirit would find, and be able to accept, real love.
Loving wasn’t easy. It didn’t guarantee there’d be no pain. But its promise, that it would be stronger than pain, stronger than evil, that it would be everlasting...was the ultimate truth. A truth that even Bruce couldn’t reframe.
* * *
“YOU READY?” MORE nervous than she’d ever been, Harper looked down at her daughter a couple of months after her walk on the
beach with Mason, loving the red velvet dress, the curly blond hair, the black patent shoes, but mostly, loving the open, engaging, trusting grin on Brianna’s face.
“Yep!” Brianna said, “You ready?”
In a short black, figure-hugging dress with a big red satin bow on one hip, and wearing black two-inch heels, Harper squeezed Brianna’s hand as they approached Mason’s front door. “I’m ready,” she said. There was no doubt in her mind about what they were about to do, about a choice she’d already made. But the emotion that accompanied everything these days was still a bit hard for her to get used to.
Why jittery knees and breathlessness, butterfly stomachs and rapid heartbeats had to go along with something so incredible, she had no idea.
“It’s the best Christmas present ever, huh?” Brianna said, her voice almost a whisper. Harper just wanted to pick her up, hug her and never let go. The moment she’d given birth, she’d been introduced to Magic.
Mason deserved the same. “Yes, it is.”
“Because you’re the mom I always wanted,” Brianna said, and Harper started to cry. She’d stop. She had to stop.
And had a smile plastered on her face as Mason opened the door. “I thought you’d never get here!” he said, swinging Brianna up and giving her a hug before putting her down, saying, “The tree’s all bare and waiting for you.” He motioned toward the other room, the family room where the three of them had spent a few evenings over the past couple of months. They’d decided to keep the place, so they could stay in a home of their own when they came to visit Gram and her parents in Albina. So they could entertain both sides of their family at the same time. As they were doing during this first Christmas together.
“I think we should do presents first.” Brianna hadn’t moved from the doorway. “Don’t you, Mommy?” The look she gave Harper was clearly a hint.
“At least one,” Harper agreed, standing back.
Brianna tugged Mason’s hand. “Can you come down here?” she asked. Of course he bent immediately, putting himself on eye level with her.
Harper knew what was coming, what Brianna was going to tell him, but she didn’t know exactly what the little girl would say. The idea had been Brianna’s, so the gift was hers to give.
Brianna looked back at Harper as though for reassurance, and she smiled, nodded, in spite of the tears already in her eyes.
“I have a present that isn’t like one you open,” she told Mason, her tone steady and unmistakably serious.
“Okay.” Mason smiled at her, waiting patiently.
“My present is you are the daddy I always wanted.”
Love exploded around Harper, bathing her, healing her. Filling her.
Leave it to a four-year-old to know the perfect words.
Or...leave it to Brianna.
Harper started to sob. Bent over with the exquisite pain of loving—with the pain of letting go of the bad.
Mason hadn’t moved. He had tears on his face, too. He was smiling at Brianna. And he hadn’t moved.
“Mommy used to say that to me when I was a baby.” Brianna just kept right on talking in her matter-of-fact way. “I don’t ’member that part, but she says it to me when I’m sick or sad and it always makes me feel better, and I say it to her and she feels better, and now your present is to feel it, too.”
Mason looked up at Harper. “You...when...”
“Mommy told me how you helped her one time, because my other...daddy asked you to when she was sad. She said how you helped her feel better and that made you my daddy. She said because we didn’t want to hurt my other daddy’s feelings, you were keeping that a secret. But now that he’s in heaven he would want Mommy to tell.”
It hadn’t been quite like that, but close enough.
Mason lifted Brianna off the ground and into his arms. “You’re most definitely the baby I always wanted,” he said to her, then reached for Harper, pulling her into their hug. “And Mommy is the mommy I always wanted, too,” he said. His voice was strong, sure, but his eyes were still glazed with tears. “I had a special present for tonight, too,” he said, releasing Harper to reach into his pocket. He pulled out a black box and handed it to Brianna. “Open it.”
And as she did, he said, “Harper and Brianna, will you marry me?”
Harper grinned, she cried, she opened her mouth, but before she could say a word, Brianna pulled the ring out of the box and said, “Oh, yes, we will! Won’t we, Mommy?”
Without waiting for an answer, she grabbed Harper’s arm, pulling her hand up and putting the ring on the little finger of her left hand.
There were still some things to teach their daughter. And many things she was sure to teach them, but Harper knew all she had to know that night.
She loved. She was loved.
The rest would take care of itself.
* * * * *
If you enjoyed this romance from
Tara Taylor Quinn,
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A FAMILY FOR CHRISTMAS
FOR JOY’S SAKE
THE FIREMAN’S SON
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Summer by the Sea
by Cathryn Parry
CHAPTER ONE
SAM LOGAN’S SUMMER plans were turned upside-down in a single phone call.
Twenty-four hours later, his eleven-year-old daughter, Lucy, stood in his tiny bachelor kitchen, surrounded by her suitcase, her iPad, and a ragged and well-loved stuffed bear that he hadn’t even known she still slept with.
Sam stared at it—and her—in shock. Seeing that teddy bear made him realize he really had no idea what was going on with his daughter. He felt completely inadequate to the task of being Lucy’s full-time dad.
Ironic, considering Sam worked with kids her age every day. He taught environmental science to middle school students. Sam was known as a laid-back teacher. A guy who could handle whatever came his way without getting his feathers ruffled or ruffling feathers. It was his great strength, his inner Zen.
But the panic rose from deep in his chest and clutched at his throat, affecting his ability to breathe. This must be what swimmers felt like when they were caught up in a giant, sucking rip current.
Sam had never been caught in a rip current himself. As a professional lifeguard at Wallis Point beach in summer, he knew the signs and avoided the trap. A few times per season, he rescued people caught in the grip. He even taught the younger guards—college-aged men and women—to notice the signs so they could warn others, too.
Avoidance of danger had always been key in Sam’s world.
Sam wiped sweaty palms on the back of his shorts. Lucy was here, sitting at his kitchen table, pushing her light brown hair from her eyes and staring at her luggage, probably as uncomfortable as he was. Her mother had decided to head to Alaska for the summer to work as a singer on a cruise ship, so Sam was now responsible for her. For ten long weeks. Alone. During lifeguard season.
Shaky, he wondered what he should do with her—feed her lunch, maybe? Usually she came to his house for two Saturday afternoons per month—had ever since she was a toddler—and before they left for whatever fun activity he’d planned that day, Lucy always sat and ate a peanut butter sandwich and drank an orange soda. That was their tradition.
So he opened his refrigerator door. No orange sodas. Instead, one whole shelf was filled with a batch of craft brew he’d made earlier in the week
. He bent and felt past the beer bottles, finding two cold cans in the back of the fridge. “Luce,” he said, straightening, “I’m out of orange soda. Would you like a ginger ale?”
His daughter regarded him stoically. “Yes, please. I’ll make my own sandwich.”
“Okay. Good.” Feeling a little more hopeful, Sam popped the two cans open then passed her one. Without any drama, she stood, got a plate, bread, peanut butter and knife and began making lunch for herself.
He should calm down. He and Lucy would be fine—they could figure out this new arrangement as they went. He saw her often enough to know the basics of caring for her according to the rules Colleen had insisted upon since Lucy was a baby.
Sam had been blindsided when she’d been born. Though he and Colleen hadn’t been together anymore and Sam had been a young father—just twenty-one at the time—he had coped. He would have preferred to see Lucy more often, but the lawyers had told him what was best for the three of them, and Sam had rolled with it. He would roll with it now.
He seated himself across from Lucy and took a long drink of the almost medicinal-tasting ginger ale. Even if he had no idea what he was going to do with her for the next ten weeks—and he couldn’t take Lucy to a movie or a museum or a theme park or even his brother’s house near Boston every day, like he usually did when he had her—he wasn’t going to freak out. Neither was he going to put the burden on Lucy. The situation wasn’t her fault. Sam didn’t want to be like his own parents and force inappropriate decisions on her the way they had with him and his brother when they were kids negotiating a difficult divorce.
Be Zen. Be detached. Stay cool.
That’s what Sam had learned young. Dealing with other people’s kids in the public school system reinforced the lesson for him daily. It was best to keep calm under pressure. Have non-emotional and non-threatening conversations. Use humor whenever possible.
Sam gave Lucy his easiest smile. “It’s all good, Luce. There are worse places we could be stuck together for the summer, right?”
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