Gram was in white capris with a blue short-sleeved shirt when she came up to the main building to meet him. She’d never been overweight, but she seemed to be getting smaller. Thinner. Like she was shrinking in on herself.
Could be his imagination, of course. Or guilt. He’d ripped her from the one thing that had always mattered to her—looking after her home. Her family.
He’d taken away her purpose.
“Did you enjoy your time with Brianna yesterday?” he asked when she took the seat opposite him at the same card table they’d shared the day before. The little girl was Gram’s family. A child who could benefit from a daily dose of her great-grandmother’s loving care.
“She asked me why I had a bruise on my chin and had a lot of questions about the cast,” Gram said. Her short silver hair was curled and styled as usual. She was wearing makeup, too. Something she’d always done.
“From what I understand, she’s about as precocious as they come.” He tried not to think about the child too much—other than to assure himself that she was well cared for. Although she was his family, too, she was off-limits to him. Didn’t do to build a yearning for what would never be.
“I’m sure her mother put her up to it,” Gram said in a truculent tone of voice that was not like her. Or hadn’t been, in his experience, until the past couple of days.
“Harper wouldn’t use her child, Gram.”
He received a long look from watery green eyes. “Yes, she would.”
“Brianna loves you. Of course she’d have a lot of questions when she saw your cast. I hear she has a million questions about everything she notices.”
“She told me her mother said I’d been hurt.”
“Because Harper wanted her to be prepared. She didn’t want her scared or worried. She wanted her to know that you’re safe. And that you’re going to be fine.”
His words garnered him another long look. If he didn’t know better, he’d think she wasn’t sure she could trust him.
Which was downright ludicrous.
And a little scary, too.
What had Bruce told her? About him? About Harper?
Had his brother effectively isolated their grandmother so that he was her only champion? The only one she trusted?
It fit the typical pattern of abuse. Fit Bruce’s own pattern, too, in that he had a history of manipulating the truth to make others look bad—and to make himself look better by comparison. To keep others from thinking less of him about something he’d done. Or to minimize the price he’d have to pay.
“You’re on her side,” Gram said, her words ramping up the tension inside him.
“I’m on your side,” he told her, covering her hand with his. “I love you, Gram. It’s the reason you’re here. Because you’ve been hurt, more than once, and I have to make sure you’re protected.” Leaning forward he looked her straight in the eye, finding it difficult to speak for a second or two. “You know me,” he continued when he could. “You know how much I love you and you know I can’t ignore this.”
Her lips trembled before they formed a smile. She nodded. And then said, “I fell off my stepladder.”
Mason wished he could end the meeting for the time being. That he could take his grandmother out to lunch, to the mall, to the beach. To hear her laugh and tell him stories from when he was little. Or, even better, from when his father was little. She’d been quite the dynamo back then.
“I need you to tell me what happened last night, Gram. How you got out of your room.”
He expected her to pull her hand away. To see a return of the almost belligerent expression she’d worn the day before when Harper had joined them. Instead, she nodded once more.
“You aren’t going to like it.”
He’d already figured that much. His gut tight, he waited to hear how bad it was going to be. She was safe. Bottom line was still good.
But if she was going to risk her own safety to sabotage Harper, he’d have to waste valuable time finding a new place for her—and lose Harper’s help, as well.
He’d also lose his one advantage, the one thing he’d had to convince Gram to stay here at all—the promise of daily visits with Brianna.