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A brother’s secrets, a brother’s love
Head of security Harper Davidson is shocked when her ex’s grandmother becomes the newest resident at The Lemonade Stand shelter. The suspected abuser? The woman’s own grandson, Harper’s ex-husband. None of this makes any sense. And yet she knows his brother, Mason Thomas, would not make these accusations lightly. For her daughter’s sake, Harper agrees to help Mason uncover the truth.
Clouding the investigation is the attraction that still lingers between her and Mason—a temptation Harper won’t give in to again. Harper’s loyalty and emotions are divided once more. And when past secrets come to light, she’s not sure who to trust...
Having written over eighty novels, TARA TAYLOR QUINN is a USA TODAY bestselling author with more than seven million copies sold. She is known for delivering intense, emotional fiction. Tara is a past president of Romance Writers of America. She has won a Readers’ Choice Award and is a seven-time finalist for an RWA RITA® Award. She has also appeared on TV across the country, including CBS Sunday Morning. She supports the National Domestic Violence Hotline. If you or someone you know might be a victim of domestic violence in the United States, please contact 1-800-799-7233.
Books by Tara Taylor Quinn
HARLEQUIN SUPERROMANCE
Where Secrets are Safe
Wife by Design
Once a Family
Husband by Choice
Child by Chance
Mother by Fate
The Good Father
Love by Association
His First Choice
The Promise He Made Her
Her Secret Life
The Fireman’s Son
For Joy’s Sake
A Family for Christmas
Shelter Valley Stories
Sophie’s Secret
Full Contact
HARLEQUIN HEARTWARMING
Family Secrets
For Love or Money
Her Soldier’s Baby
The Cowboy’s Twins
MIRA BOOKS
The Friendship Pact
In Plain Sight
Other titles by this author available in ebook format.
Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk
Falling for the Brother
Tara Taylor Quinn
www.millsandboon.co.uk
ISBN: 978-1-474-08108-5
FALLING FOR THE BROTHER
© 2018 TTQ Books LLC
Published in Great Britain 2018
by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF
All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.
By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.
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www.millsandboon.co.uk
For Scott Gumser, my “little” brother, my family, a huge part of a small pool of unconditional love. We’ve been on both sides of many fences and always, always, our arms are open, and our backs are protected. That means more to me than you’ll probably ever know...
“Mason.” Harper stood, but kept her desk between them, a pencil in her hands.
Her hair was shorter than he remembered. Her eyes as blue, with the tinge of violet around the edges that he’d never forgotten. She didn’t look any happier to see him now than the last time he’d looked at her. The morning after...
“Harper.” Hands at his sides, he stood there in a moment of uncharacteristic hesitation. Not sure what to do, how to take control of his interview. Hugging was definitely out.
Mentioning the past...ditto.
“You look good.” She wasn’t quite smiling, but there was no chill in her gaze, either.
“So do you.” He hoped to God the wealth of feeling in that statement didn’t reveal itself to her.
They’d known each other since Bruce had brought her home from work more than six years before, a new recruit, to have dinner with the family one night—but he’d never taken much time to actually talk to her.
After his initial reaction to her—feeling like he’d been hit by a semi, and liked it—he’d deliberately shied away from conversation. She was his brother’s woman.
Dear Reader,
This is a story that has been toying with me for pretty much my whole life. It’s a story about family. About what makes family. It’s a story that throws down all the chips and waits to see what family really means. It’s the story of two brothers who both love the same woman. And the woman who, in different ways, loves them both.
I’ve never been in love with brothers. Or personally known anyone who was. But I have always been a huge believer in family. In a body of love that’s yours no matter what you do. A body that might turn you in if you commit a heinous crime, but do it with tears on cheeks. A body that will then sit beside you in court and visit you in prison every single week. A body that, no matter what—no matter what—will love you.
I believe in my responsibility as a family member. My heart is open and the love is there...always. No matter what. Life has forced me to see the proof of this, to live by it, and I now know the statement to be completely true. So...Falling for the Brother was ready to be written. And read.
All the best,
Tara
TaraTaylorQuinn.com
Cast of Characters
Lila McDaniels—Managing director of The Lemonade Stand (TLS). She has an apartment at the Stand.
Wife by Design (Book 1)
Lynn Duncan—Resident nurse at TLS. She has a three-year-old daughter, Kara.
Grant Bishop—Landscape developer hired by TLS.
Maddie Estes—Permanent TLS resident. Childcare provider.
Darin Bishop—Resident at TLS. Works for his brother, Grant. Has a mental disability.
Once a Family (Book 2)
Sedona (Campbell) Malone—Lawyer who volunteers at TLS.
Tanner Malone—Vintner. Brother to Tatum and Talia Malone.
Tatum Malone—Fifteen-year-old resident at TLS.
Husband by Choice (Book 3)
Meredith (Meri) Bennet—Speech therapist. Mother to two-year-old son, Caleb.
Max Bennet—Pediatrician.
Chantel Harris—Police officer. Friend to Max and his deceased first wife.
Child by Chance (Book 4)
Talia Malone—TLS volunteer. Public-school scrapbook therapist. Student of fashion design.
Sherman Paulson—Political campaign manager. Widower. Single father of adopted ten-year-old son, Kent.
Mother by Fate (Book 5)
Sara Havens—Full-time TLS counselor.
Michael Edwin—Bounty hunter. Widower. Single father to six-year-old daughter, Mari.
The Good Father (Book 6)
Ella Ackerman—Charge nurse at Santa Raquel Children’s Hospital. Member of the high-risk team. Divorced.
Brett Ackerman—TLS Founder. National accreditation business owner. Divorced.
Love by Association (Book 7)
Chantel Harris—Santa Raquel detective. Member of the high-risk team.
Colin Fairbanks—Lawyer. Member of Santa Raquel’s most elite society. Principal of high-end law firm. Brother to Julie Fairbanks.
His First Choice (Book 8)
Lacey Hamilton—Social worker. Member of the high-risk team. Child star. Identical twin to daytime-soap-opera star Kacey Hamilton.
Jeremiah (Jem) Bridges—Private contractor with his own business. Divorced. Has custody of four-year-old son, Levi.
The Promise He Made Her (Book 9)
Bloom Larson—Psychiatrist in Santa Raquel. Domestic violence therapist. Divorced.
Samuel Larson—Santa Raquel high-ranking detective. Widower.
Her Secret Life (Book 10)
Kacey Hamilton—Daytime-soap-opera star. Identical twin to Lacey Hamilton. Volunteer at TLS.
Michael Valentine—Cybersecurity expert. TLS volunteer. Shooting victim.
The Fireman’s Son (Book 11)
Faye Walker—Paramedic. Divorced. Sole custody of eight-year-old son, Elliott, who is in counseling at TLS.
Reese Bristow—Santa Raquel fire chief.
For Joy’s Sake (Book 12)
Julie Fairbanks—Philanthropist and children’s author. Sister to Colin Fairbanks.
Hunter Rafferty—Owns Elite Professional event-planning business, specializing in charity fund-raisers. TLS is one of his clients.
Falling for the Brother (Book 13)
Harper Davidson—Former city police officer, head of security at The Lemonade Stand. Divorced. Has sole custody of four-year-old daughter, Brianna.
Bruce Thomas—Decorated undercover detective. Harper’s ex-husband. Father to Brianna.
Mason Thomas—Private crime scene investigator, national government security clearance. Estranged uncle of Brianna.
Contents
Cover
Back Cover Text
About the Author
Booklist
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Introduction
Dear Reader
Cast of Characters
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Extract
CHAPTER ONE
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.
So her assumption about how Miriam had arrived at the Stand was wrong. Had the urgent care in Albina called him?
But...wait a minute. “Miriam told you Bruce did this to her...” She went back to the picture of a battered Miriam. Staring at it. As though that would make all of this seem possible. Make some kind of sense. “And you’re telling me now that Mason corroborated her story?”
“Not quite. Miriam Thomas claims she fell off a stepladder in her kitchen and sees no point in being here. Mason Thomas is the one who’s claiming the abuse. He insists that she stay inside the grounds at all times until further notice.”
Confused, alarmed, just plain beside herself, Harper pursed her lips and studied the screen. Scrolling down. Then up. Then down again.
“But...what about the police? You said they aren’t officially involved, but is there a report waiting to be filed?” As a private facility, the Stand could keep Miriam if she chose to stay. But only if she wanted to be there. They weren’t a prison.
Or...she could sign a form asking them to prevent her from leaving, for her own safety. Until she’d had some counseling. So many times victims who’d undergone years of mental or emotional manipulation would feel they had to run back to their abusers. They couldn’t trust their own minds.
It happened. More often than Harper would ever have believed.
If Miriam had signed the form, Harper and her team would prevent her from leaving, but only for the designated period of time. Or until she signed a retraction in the presence of witnesses, including a Stand counselor.
“Miriam has refused to talk to the police or press charges. She’s not budging from her stepladder story.”
Frowning, Harper began to focus. “So why is she here?”
“She made an agreement with Mason. If she agreed to stay here, and to sign a VNL, he’d do an investigation himself without making it formal or involving the police.” VNL. The voluntary no release form.
“And Miriam signed it?”
“Yes.” That report would be waiting in her in-box, too. She’d just gotten to work and clicked on resident status... “For how long?”
“Two weeks.”
Mason had been there. At the Stand. And would be around for the next two weeks? Or, at least, somewhere between Santa Raquel, where the Stand was, and two hours north in Albina, where Bruce lived—if he was, indeed, investigating.
There were going to be ramifications. She knew it and could feel them building. She and Mason in contact... Bruce being accused... She had to get all the facts she could before she started to feel things that had nothing to do with Miriam. Or her job.
“Bruce didn’t abuse his grandmother,” she said with certainty.
Why the hell would Mason do this to him?
And then it occurred to her. The brothers must be working together. They knew who’d hurt their grandmother—someone she was protecting—and Bruce, with his undercover skills, and Mason, with his investigative talents, were going to put the guy at ease. They’d let him think he’d gotten away with it, then set him up somehow, in order to find the proof that would trap him and put him away without Miriam’s needing to testify against him. Which, clearly, she was terrified to do. You didn’t get those bruises on your chin by falling from a stepladder.
It was a long shot, considering the fact that the brothers hadn’t had much to do with each other—as far as she was aware—in five years, but Bruce would put all differences aside to protect Miriam from danger. And Mason would come running if Bruce needed him.
“Bruce’s brother is absolutely certain he did it.” Lila’s tone had a different quality to it now. Not defense. Or even authority. More like...compassion?
“Did you talk to him yourself?”
“Yes.” Then that meant...
“You were called in?”
“Yes.”
Prior to her marriage, Lila might have been at the Stand in the middle of the night, since she used to stay at her apartment there as often as she went home to the condo she’d owned. Calling her in had been more common then, too; she’d had no family, no one else who needed her. But that had all changed since she’d finally allowed herself to love again.