Falling for the Brother

“Would he come home drunk?”

“Bruce handles his alcohol, you know that.”

“Would he come home drunk?” he repeated.

“I’m not sure I’d recognize it if he had. I once saw him put down eight beers at an after-funeral gathering with the force, and he didn’t act any differently than if he’d been drinking tea. He didn’t argue when I announced that I was driving home, though.”

“Did he ever come home smelling of alcohol?”

“Sometimes. Slightly. He hangs out at the bar with off-duty officers. Again, something a lot of them do. Something I occasionally did, too, before Brianna came along. It’s good to unwind with other people who get it.” Surely Mason socialized sometimes when he was working with departments around the country.

“I went by to take a look through the house today before I headed back here.” He picked up a couple of fried green beans, put them in his mouth, then pushed the plate toward her. “If there’d been a fight, Bruce would’ve had plenty of time to clean up, but you never know what a scene can tell you. His truck was there, so I didn’t stop.”

He really seemed convinced that Bruce had done this.

“What about the house the two of you shared?” he asked. “Was anything ever broken? A knickknack that got shoved? Maybe a door opened with enough force to push the knob through a wall?”

“Of course not! Don’t you think I’d remember something like that? And have concerns of my own?”

He didn’t answer. Instead, he loaded his fork with sauce-smeared chicken niblets and ate them.

Still managing to keep her hands off the onion rings, and to nurse her second beer, she leaned forward. “Look, if you’re trying to convince me that Bruce would manipulate the truth to make someone look bad, maybe, given time and enough examples, you could get me to see that. I know that he struggles, and sometimes fails, to keep his work distinct from his personal life—in terms of separating a carefully concocted pretense from reality. But I also know, for a fact, that he owns up to his mistakes. Before he’s caught. Not afterward. Like that time he did a line of coke to prove to a dealer that he was trustworthy. He went to the captain the second he was off duty and volunteered for daily testing the rest of the time he was on that case. He never touched the stuff again.”

“Bruce doesn’t like to give up control. Nor does he have the ability to relax enough to enjoy the high. That’s why he’s never had trouble staying away from drugs.”

Her head cocked, she studied him. “What about you? You know how to ‘relax and enjoy the high’?”

It sounded like that was what he’d just told her. But…

“Nope. Which is why I understand and how I recognize the same trait in my brother. It’s also why neither of us drinks anything stronger than beer.”

“I’ve never so much as taken a drag from a joint,” she felt compelled to tell him. And then wondered why she’d felt that need. “Or a puff on a cigarette.”

His grin made her insides flip-flop. “I’ve met your folks,” he said. “They’re pretty straightforward, down-to-earth people. And with you being an only child, I’m guessing they kept you too busy on the farm, and too aware of the effect chemicals have on the body, to leave you with much opportunity, or desire, to experiment with substance abuse.”

Her parents’ all-organic fruit and vegetable business hadn’t made them rich. But it kept them comfortably warm, clothed and fed. “I know more about holistic treatments and remedies than I do traditional medicine,” she acknowledged, returning his smile. “And I also know that the world is what we make it—each of us, with our individual choices.”

She’d had a great childhood, and didn’t take that lightly. Or for granted. She felt a huge responsibility to give Brianna that same sense of purpose, of healthy living and societal contribution.

“I’m telling you, like I’ve already told you several times today, that if I had any suspicions about Bruce, any knowledge that would be of concern, I’d be calling Captain O’Brien myself.”