Falling for the Brother

“You’ve talked to him?”

“I wanted his opinion.”

That didn’t sound good. In a day that already stank.

She loved her job. Loved helping these women, protecting them. Loved being able to have Brianna on the premises all day. Safe and secure and close by.

“I’ve spoken to Sara, as well.” Sara Havens Edison, the Stand’s top counselor. Lila would have filled her in, for Miriam’s sake.

“None of us will even entertain the idea of you stepping back, so please let’s get that off the table now.” When Lila’s eyebrows rose, something she’d never seen before, Harper found herself nodding before she’d even had time to think.

“Good. As soon as Mason Thomas gets here, we’ll see what he has to say and go from there…”

Harper nodded again. “Tasha’s really beating herself up about this,” she said. “She wants to quit. She thinks she let us all down. I assured her that she hadn’t, but she was still pretty upset when she left.”

“Survivors are sometimes still affected by the way their abusers made them feel—as though they aren’t good enough,” Lila said, watching her. “It’s not uncommon for them to revert to victim mode—where they retreat, rather than stand up and fight for themselves.”

“She’d fight with every ounce of her energy for any of these residents,” Harper said. Tasha was tough. Emotionally strong. “I’d bet my own life on her.”

Lila’s nod told her the other woman had something on her mind. You might not always know what she was thinking, but you could count on the fact that she was thinking. That she saw more than she let on.

“And so would all of us here,” Lila said. “Is she scheduled back this evening?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll have Sara call her in for a chat before her shift. We aren’t any more eager to lose her than we are to lose you.”

Lila’s glance seemed to carry more than her words were saying. But if there was a message for her there, she wasn’t getting it. Before she could pursue the matter any further, or even decide if she wanted to, there was a knock at her door.

As Harper stood, Lila let Mason in, indicating the seat next to her as she sat down again. He glanced at her, and then away, exchanging a polite “how are you” with Lila as Harper sank back into her chair.

He looked…so good. His short, thick hair a little askew, as though he’d been scratching his head, his strong features with their permanent honeyed tan, the polo shirt that hugged muscles she knew intimately, and…well, she didn’t need to look at his khakis. Didn’t need to look at any part of him.

“My grandmother wasn’t trying to make the Stand’s security look bad,” he said, starting right in. “She needed to prove to herself that she still had her independence, that she was still capable of being her own boss. Unfortunately, in order to do that, she chose to act like a child. I suspect the way I initially handled this might have made her feel like one. She climbed out of her bedroom window. She’d intended to climb back in, but Tasha found her first.”

Harper’s heart was pounding in her chest. Her knees were weak, and she felt a sudden need to weep. None of which made any sense.

“Because our security measures are good,” Lila said, turning to Harper. She nodded. The strange moment passed.

“I have to admit, a seventy-five-old woman climbing out her window was not something my staff or I considered when we discussed how best to keep Miriam safe on the premises.” Somehow, she came out sounding one hell of a lot more professional than she felt.

“She gave me her word that she’d follow the program from here on out,” Mason said.

Lila stood. “Good, we’ve got things resolved here. I’m going to have a chat with Sara and then I’ll be in my office if either of you needs me.”

And just like that, a meeting Harper had expected to be painful was over in less than five minutes and she found herself alone with Mason. Again.

He’d made a four-hour round-trip because his grandmother had climbed out a window and Harper and her top-notch team hadn’t known a thing about it.