Falling For The Brother

CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_fbbbfedb-617e-5c16-9499-90a4f66c007d)

MIRIAM THOMAS. INSTANTLY ALERT, Harper Davidson stared at the report on the computer screen in front of her. Miriam Thomas. It wasn’t a common name. But not a stretch to think there’d be more than one woman bearing it.

As newly promoted head of security at The Lemonade Stand, a unique 5.1-acre resort-like women’s shelter on the California coast, Harper made it her first task every morning, after dropping Brianna at the day care on-site, to take a look at the resident status report. Kind of like a doctor looking at patient charts. In the month she’d been doing so, the task had consisted of nothing more than a simple wellness check. The fifteen new residents who’d arrived in those four weeks had all joined them during waking hours and she’d been notified immediately.

Miriam Thomas had been brought in at 2:00 a.m. with a broken arm and multiple contusions on her chin, as though someone had held her head still with great force.

Harper skimmed the basic details in the overview, suspended from any kind of reaction, as she searched out identifying information that generally wasn’t her primary concern. How old was the newest resident and where was she from?

Seventy-five. Albina, California.

Hands shaking now, Harper moved her mouse. Clicked. And clicked again, typing codes and passwords that would get her into a database containing the complete file. She was alone in her small office off the main building at the Stand, coffee not even made, and could hear the silence like the roar of the ocean just wooded acres away.

Miriam? At The Lemonade Stand? What had happened?

Her screen changed and she was in. She typed Miriam’s newly acquired resident number.

Who’d brought her here? She had to get further in to find out details. Why hadn’t Bruce let her know?

The Stand would’ve had no reason to call Harper unless Miriam had asked them to. Which wasn’t likely. Harper’s background check had mentioned her ex-husband by name, but not his family, and it wasn’t like anyone would have memorized that information anyway. She’d never taken the Thomas name. And even if she had, it wasn’t all that uncommon.

She’d never taken the name because she never should have married Bruce.

But...

The page opened and Harper pulled back. In her three and a half years on staff at The Lemonade Stand she’d seen a lot of disturbing injuries and broken women. They were an everyday fact. Not that she ever grew desensitized. But she’d learned early on to draw boundaries around her personal emotions—just as she had as a cop when she’d been first responder at a deadly car crash. Or a murder.

Gazing into the meek stare coming from Miriam’s photo, she lost those boundaries. Miriam, meek? And the bruises on that soft chin... Her face bore little resemblance to the face Harper was used to—one more prone to smiling with confidence that all would be well. Miriam had been the ultimate law-enforcement family member. The wife of a detective. The mother of a detective. The grandmother of a cop. She’d taken it all in stride, certain that her men would survive and make it home in time for dinner.

Or whenever they were expected.

They always had, too.

Her husband had died at home, from kidney disease. Her son, Bruce and Mason’s father, had passed away at home, too, from a heart attack due to being a hundred pounds overweight—not that Harper had been there. She’d only heard about it from Bruce when they’d met in his driveway to pass Brianna back and forth for his bimonthly visitation overnighters.

Taking a minute to catch her breath, on what had started out as a normal Tuesday morning in July, Harper got a bottle of water out of the small fridge beside her desk and sipped from it. Then she swept nervous fingers through her short blond hair and reached for the mouse. Scrolled slowly past that photo.

Miriam had been brought to them from the urgent care in Albina; the report didn’t say who’d brought her in and she assumed someone from the urgent care had called The Lemonade Stand. One of Harper’s employees—probably Sandra, who was the most senior officer on duty the previous night—would have driven over to pick her up. Harper would have a report on that, too.

Scrolling further, she stopped. Stared.

Miriam’s abuser was... Bruce Thomas?

She blinked. Read it again. Picked up the phone and hit the first speed dial.

“Lila Mantle.” The newly married managing director of The Lemonade Stand—a woman who’d given Harper more courage than she knew—answered on the first ring, her tone as calm and level as always.

Lila might smile more readily these days and go home to her family every night, but the fifty-three-year-old was still as dedicated, reliable and firm as she’d been all the years Harper had known her. And, based on what she’d heard, just as she’d been since the opening of the Stand more than a decade ago.

“Our new resident...”

“Miriam Thomas, yes. She’s in Bungalow 7.”

Harper could see that. In a bedroom by herself.

“She’s HSR?” She’d get to the Bruce mistake in a second. High Security Risk meant that someone from Harper’s staff had to be watching her at all times.

“Yes.”

Another sip of water went down with difficulty. The guard assignment wasn’t a problem. She’d do it herself, for any of their residents, anytime the need was there.

What the hell had Miriam gotten herself into since her son had died? Bruce’s father, Oscar, had moved in with his mother after Bruce left home. Made sense, since both of them lived alone in houses way too big for either one of them.

Miriam needed someone to take care of. And Oscar, an Albina police captain, had worked ungodly hours protecting the public and had wanted someone to take care of him at home.

“Why is she HSR?” Harper asked the question before she was ready for the answer.

“Her abuser’s a decorated member of the Albina PD.”

Harper shook her head. “Who?” she asked. One of Bruce’s friends? That might explain the name mix-up.

“Her grandson. Bruce Thomas. He works as an undercover officer and apparently has the skills to convince anyone of anything he wants them to believe. And he has cop friends all over the state. If he doesn’t already know where she is, we can assume he will soon enough. He isn’t being formally accused, and the police aren’t officially involved as of yet. No one wants to ruin a decorated public servant’s reputation unless there’s solid proof that he’s done wrong.”

She couldn’t believe any of this.

“Bruce wouldn’t hurt his grandmother.”

Lila’s silence seemed to echo through the line, and Harper realized she’d spoken aloud.

“You know Bruce was my husband,” Harper said.

“Of course.”

“He wouldn’t do this, Lila. I swear to you. He adored his grandmother.” But someone had hurt Miriam. She couldn’t quite grasp it. And...

“Has anyone called Mason? He’s Bruce’s older brother. He’s a special crime scene investigator based in LA, but travels all over the country. He’ll vouch for Bruce.”

For most of their lives, Bruce had idolized Mason.

From what she knew, the rift between them hadn’t healed, but they talked occasionally. And if the chips were truly down, they’d defend each other to the death. The Thomas family was just that way.

“Mason Thomas is the man who delivered Miriam to us.” Lila’s tone didn’t change. The calm didn’t waver.

Sitting forward, Harper put her water bottle on the desk with such force, water sloshed over the top and puddled. She grabbed a tissue, sopped up her mess. “Mason was here?”

She hadn’t seen him since the week before she’d married Bruce.

And tried not to think of him. Ever.