APOLOGIZING, CITING WORK as his reason for barely taking time to say goodbye to Gram, Mason accompanied Grace out to his SUV. He vowed to get back to Santa Raquel as soon as possible and make it up to her. Gram had been there for him all his life. She was floundering and it was his duty to be there for her now.
First, he had to deal with Elmer Guthrie.
And get himself back in line.
He was a father. And couldn’t tell anyone he cared about—particularly not Gram. She’d never mentioned the night he spent with Harper; it was possible his brother had kept his word and never told her about it. From what he understood, Bruce had simply explained that the brothers had had a falling-out and that it was between the two of them.
Gram would definitely not approve of what Mason had done. Infidelity was one thing, and bad enough. Sleeping with your brother’s fiancée was something else entirely. Especially since he’d been on a mission for Bruce—sent to comfort Harper, to make sure she was okay, until she calmed down and Bruce could talk to her.
Made from the same cloth as his grandmother, Mason didn’t approve of what he’d done, either.
Thankfully Grace talked, and did whatever she was doing with her yarn, most of the way home. She and Gram had a great visit, she said, and they’d caught up on so much. Gram hadn’t offered any insights that could help Mason’s investigation and Grace hadn’t pushed. She hadn’t wanted to lose Gram a second time. She’d apologized, on first getting in the car, for not learning anything new regarding Gram’s injuries.
“I really do think she fell off a stepladder,” Grace told him again as they approached Albina. “She looked me straight in the eye when I asked her about it. I don’t know, maybe I should have pushed harder, but that’s what caused our problem to begin with. I just kept hoping she’d tell me something, but... I didn’t ask her about that man you mentioned, Elmer Somebody. I figured if she didn’t bring it up, I shouldn’t, either.”
The older woman’s wrinkled forehead was furrowed as Mason glanced at her.
“You think that man hurt her? And not Bruce? I feel awful blaming him if he really didn’t do anything, but I know what I heard that one day on the phone, and I just put that together with everything else and drew my own conclusion. No wonder she was so upset with me for maligning him.”
“You weren’t the only one who suspected him,” Mason pointed out. There’d been valid reason to suspect his brother. That reminder was one he needed.
“So you think this other guy did it? I mean, like I said, I think she really fell off the stepladder, but you said the breaks in her arm weren’t consistent with that...and the bruises on her face... So it must be this guy.”
“It’s possible.”
“I should’ve asked her about him. I probably didn’t do enough...”
“You did fine,” Mason assured her. “Great. It’s my job to take care of the criminal situation. She needs you just to be her friend. If she tells you something, then by all means, I hope you’ll help us by sharing it, but if she doesn’t, that’s okay, too.”
He wasn’t as desperate for Gram’s confession anymore. He expected to get one from the abuser himself that afternoon. Much better than Gram having to testify.
They’d quietly take care of Guthrie, make certain he never had the chance to hurt Gram again, and Gram could move home and resume her old life.
“I asked her to come back to the choral group when she gets home,” Grace said.
“Did she say she would?”
Grace shook her head. “She said she didn’t want to tire herself out. That she had a lot to take care of at home.”
He glanced her way. Saw her frown. He wished Gram’s answer had been different, but thought it might take time to get her confidence back.
“I wonder if maybe I pushed her too hard there. We’re in the second half of our seventies, heading toward eighty. I do my housekeeping, but not like I used to. I don’t have anyone else to clean up after or cook for, and I still tire more easily than I used to. Stands to reason that keeping house for someone else, doing all the cooking... She’s probably too tired to handle a full social schedule, too.”
He didn’t like the sound of that any better. He thought of the dirty dishes in the kitchen of Gram’s house when he’d gone there to investigate. Bruce’s things strewn all over.
He thought of his daughter in that house, thinking Bruce was her father.
“Then I guess it’s time my brother learned how to do some of his own housework,” he said, focusing on keeping his voice even. “Not enough to make her feel less useful, but enough to give her time to spend time on other endeavors, as well.”
Grace’s expression cleared. She nodded.
Having a plan, Mason felt better.
* * *
IT WAS LATE afternoon when Tasha, who’d been assigned to Miriam for the afternoon shift, summoned Harper, saying Miriam wanted to see her.
Brianna was at the pool with a couple of residents and their kids for another hour. Thinking this was a day for miracles, hoping that Grace’s visit had changed something for Miriam, enabling her to testify regarding her injuries, she left the reports on her desk and hurried across the resort to Miriam’s bungalow.
Tasha smiled at her as she went inside. “She’s alone,” was all she said.
Expecting Miriam to be there to greet her, Harper glanced around the living room and then through what she could see of the bungalow. “Miriam?”
Dressed in blue capris and a matching short-sleeved top, with white sandals, Miriam looked her usual classy, put-together self as she came out of the kitchen, drying her hands on the burgundy towel she held.
“I’d like a word with you,” she said, motioning Harper toward a chair at the dining room table—out of sight of the front window, through which Tasha could see them.
Understanding Miriam’s need for privacy, she joined her, taking a seat. Looked at Miriam’s cast, and then saw the anger in the other woman’s eyes.
Had Mason told her about Brianna? That was unthinkable. He wouldn’t have.
All the way over here, she’d been imagining her phone call to him, letting him know about Miriam’s breakthrough.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“I want you to stay away from Mason.” Miriam’s tone didn’t carry the same anger Harper had read in her expression. It might have been there, but was veiled.
“I don’t...”
“Grace told me, when he was late coming back for her, that he said he had a meeting with you while she was with me. I thought he was waiting outside, or running an errand, or maybe having breakfast...”
With no idea where this was going and Brianna’s paternity heavy on her conscience, Harper didn’t respond.
“Bruce will be hurt all over again... Mason seeing you... I want you to stop.”
It was like a curtain of black gauze came down over Harper, a barrier, and yet offering no protection. The pain Miriam was inflicting came from within Harper.
“He’s investigating a case of abuse against you.” She chose her words carefully. “I’m the officer in charge of your protection.”
“Don’t try that one on me...” Miriam stopped and visibly gathered herself as her anger started to appear.
“Bruce has been in touch with me, too,” Harper added, to reassure her. “He called to let me know that he and Mason are working together to bring you home.”
“The boys are talking? Working together?” The light that suddenly appeared in Miriam’s eyes was a beautiful thing. Harper had loved Miriam deeply during her time in the family. There was no doubt in her mind that Miriam’s heart was good, that her entire life was dedicated to her family.
She nodded, as Miriam looked to her for confirmation, but didn’t say any more. The details of the case weren’t hers to divulge.
Disappointed that she hadn’t been called for a big revelation, she was nonetheless relieved that she’d been able to allay Miriam’s fears and started to rise, to get back to the work that was going to keep her sane over the coming weeks.
Mason was Brianna’s father...
“That’s even more of a reason. I’m begging you.” Miriam spoke again, and Harper settled back in her seat. “Leave Mason alone. I...” Miriam’s hand on Harper’s was weaker than she remembered. And a huge surprise. “Please, Harper, you’re a good mother to that sweet little girl, a good cop. Just...please...leave Mason alone. If you want to be part of our family, I will welcome you, but you belong with Bruce. He adores you.”
After her time with Mason in the alcove that morning, she was pretty sure he adored her, too. And knew she adored him. So what about him? Did he simply not matter because Bruce, who’d been unfaithful to her on many occasions, had met her first?
She’d slept with Mason before things had been fully resolved between her and Bruce. After she’d formally broken their engagement. And then she’d married Bruce anyway.
She’d made that choice.
“He told me about you and Mason.” Miriam’s tone was soft, but there was no disguising the anger brimming in it. “After you left...he told me.”
Harper had no words for that.
“I can understand how much it hurt you that he slept with that perp, but it’s acceptable, from a legal standpoint, for an undercover to have sex while undercover if he must do so to preserve his cover as long as it’s not entrapment, as in a prostitution case. While doing so as a married man carries other ethical concerns, at least he came right home and told you. But you—you who’d slept with his brother—couldn’t forgive him.”
Bruce had told Miriam about her and Mason?
Deflecting the blame from himself.
It was like Mason had said. Bruce used his own version of the truth, his own perspective, to keep himself in people’s favor. He hadn’t told Miriam about sleeping with Gwen, though.
“He said you’d always wanted Mason...” Oh, God. It was true. She hadn’t realized Bruce had known. She hadn’t even admitted the truth to herself until the past week.
Not with full consciousness.
“He told me how it happened, that you got drunk with Mason one night, and Mason took you to his place to sleep it off. How he gave you his room and took the couch. Then, when he was asleep, you went to him in the living room and threw yourself at him. When he didn’t call you the next day, you still wanted to marry Bruce. But it wasn’t like you thought it was going to be, was it? Being with Bruce wasn’t a way to stay close to Mason. To see him, when he shunned you. He never came around. You being there kept him from his brother, from his family, out of loyalty to Bruce because of what he’d done.”
Other than her motives, it was all true. Or at least a pretty close version of the truth. Harper felt sick.
Miriam didn’t even know the worst of it.
“Then when Bruce makes a mistake with a stranger who meant nothing to him, you leave him high and dry, so you can pursue Mason. But until now, Mason had nothing to do with you. He’s a good man. A Thomas.”
She’d never, ever pursued Mason. Unless you counted moving from his bedroom to his living room that night. That she’d done.
But she’d never gone after him. Never contacted him. Not that night. Not before it, and not after.
She could see how Miriam might think she had, though. With the facts being presented to her as they’d been.
How could she not have realized that Bruce had seen what she hadn’t? That her heart had always belonged to Mason?
How awful that he’d known it.
And he’d loved her so much, he’d married her anyway.
“Now, with all of this, you’ve got your chance. Mason is here, talking to you. I’m begging you, Harper, please walk away. Leave him alone.”
She couldn’t. Not completely. He was the father of her child.
She could tell Miriam about Gwen. About the other times Bruce had found it necessary to sleep with a perp. How he used sex even when it wasn’t completely necessary. But that would only make Miriam defensive and they needed her to tell them who’d been hurting her. If she didn’t press charges, it would be much more difficult to protect her.
Needing to find a way to reassure Miriam that neither she nor Mason had any intention of pursuing so much as a close friendship out of obligation to Bruce, Harper was searching for the right words when her phone rang.
“It’s Bruce,” she said, glancing at the screen, and took the call.
“Hey, babe, I’m here with Mason.” Babe? He hadn’t called her that in years until this past week. Not even when he’d been trying to get her to agree to think about giving them a second chance.
That felt like a lifetime ago. Before she’d known Mason was the father of her child.
“We need you to bring Miriam to meet us...” He named a place, a national park, halfway between Santa Raquel and Albina. “We’re hoping, with the two of us together, and apart from anyplace that has any emotional hold on her, she’ll tell us the truth about what’s been going on.”
At first she wondered if he was drunk. Glancing at Miriam, who was clearly interested in finding out what Bruce was saying, she said, “Okay, when?” The last time Bruce had asked to meet with her, Mason had told her to do it.
But taking Miriam out of the shelter? She had to speak with Mason. And couldn’t very well challenge Bruce’s statement that he and Mason were together. Not in front of Miriam, who knew Bruce was on the phone and who’d just warned her away from Mason.
“We were thinking tomorrow morning?”
Smiling for Miriam’s sake, she agreed to a time the next morning and rang off.
To Miriam she said, “He’s got some free time tomorrow and wants me to meet him.”
“And you agreed.” Miriam smiled, too, patting her hand. “You’re a good girl, Harper,” she said. “Just...stay away from Mason.”
A warning tone had crept into those last words and Harper found it hard to believe that anyone was getting away with abusing this woman.