Unlikely Lovers

Chapter 4

Brandon's POV

Arriving at the VA right before 10am, Brandon asked the front desk where he could find a guy named Tyler Tate. Tyler came up just as he finished his question. "He's right behind you." Turning around, Tyler had a look of shock on his face, seeing Brandon for the first time.

"Wow, you are like a walking duplicate of your brother," Tyler told him.

"Most of our similarities end at looks," Brandon tells him. Noticing he's on crutches, he motions for him to lead the way to a seating area. "Thank you for your service, I'm sorry you lost a buddy."

"He was more than a buddy, he was like a brother. That's why I'm making sure his girl is okay. I was to be their best man when they tied the knot next year." Tyler informed him. "He told me how you disappeared when you were 17. Something about it didn't seem right to me. Call it the private investigator in me, but I had to find out what really happened."

"How much do you know?" Brandon tried to gauge what Tyler was playing at.

"Hmm, quite a bit Snow Alder." Tyler said his cover name Brandon used for his job.

"What do you want?" Brandon said with his defenses up.

"I know what really led to you being out of your brother's life. In fact, a few weeks before he was injured, I tried to convince him to talk to you. I felt that he needed to clear up his past before embarking on his future. He wasn't happy with me snooping into his private life. I think, in some ways, I led to his death. I had him thinking about things that troubled him, and caused him to do irrational things. I wanted to tell you I was sorry."

"If he was like I remember, he'd do stupid things just because." Brandon felt bad that Tyler honestly thought that he'd caused his brother's death. He blamed the person who shot him, not the man who was injured beside him. "Tell me more about this fiancé he left behind."

"Cait? Why the interest in her?" Tyler was sizing Brandon up as possible competion for his friend's girl. His near-death experience had him wanting to take chances that he'd avoided in the past. That included not trying to get Cait back when he'd had the chance before leaving for the Marines. Now that he wasn't leaving again, he felt that he needed to try his luck at seeing if they could make each other happy.

"Yeah, she seems like an odd choice for my brother. He'd seemed to be shallow back in the day."

"He was smitten with her from the first day they met. She has that way of making everyone take notice of her."

"That's true. If I hadn't been paying attention to her, I might not have noticed the change in her, and she would have died."

"I'm happy you were there to watch out for her. The evil doc here didn't want to let me out yet. How long is she going to be in the hospital?"

"She said something about being able to go home today." Brandon planned to keep an eye on her until he was certain she would be okay.

"The reading of the will is going to be later today and I know this is a weird request, but can you take me there?" Tyler knew that Cait was going to be devastated to find out how bad Jeremy had left their finances. "Some secrets are going to be brought to light, and I'm not sure how everyone is going to take it."

"I wasn't formally invited to the will reading."

"I gathered as much. Cait might need your help after she finds out about what Jeremy was doing behind her back,"

"Don't tell me my stupid brother was cheating on her with another woman." Brandon would go to the underworld and beat his brother if that was the case.

"Not with another person, but with gambling." Tyler figured he needed to let Brandon know what he was getting into.

"What do you mean he was gambling? Was it slots or tables?" Brandon felt like he was being brought back into the past.

"Tables. Seemed he was always going to or leaving a game. He did his best to not do it when we were stateside, but somehow he always seemed to find the ones on base." Tyler was shocked at the level of trouble his friend had found.

"Do you know how much debt he was in?"

"Not an exact amount. I wouldn't loan him money, I just paid the mortgage for their house, so Cait wouldn't be kicked out. I've been doing it for the last 6 months at least."

"Damn, do you know if he had a bookie?" Brandon was already going through the mental steps of finding out how far down the rabbit hole his brother had slipped.

"No, you might have to go through his phone to find that information. He'd been anxious when I explained I wouldn't be continuing to pay his mortgage."

"Not a lot know that our father was a degenerate gambler. Apparently, the bug bit my brother as well." Brandon avoided casinos and the like for fear of getting addicted. He'd seen the damage those places had done to his father and he vowed to never be like his father.

"If I'd known about that I'd have tried to get him help sooner. My aunt had a drug addiction and I saw the damage it did to my parents. Always having to hide things she could steal for her next fix. I don't think it was bad enough that he needed a bookie, but he was good at hiding his spending." Tyler was beginning to realize how little he really knew his friend.

"I'll start making inquiries and find out the level of debt he'd gotten. If he wasn't able to pay the mortgage, he must have owed a bit. I'm hoping that he wasn't involved with any bookies who are going to keep looking for money even though his mark is dead."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Means that some bookies will just move the debt to a living relative and force them to pay the debt of the deceased. Since the debtor is dead, some will jack the price up to an imaginary amount and the living relative will never stop paying, even though the debt was paid off."

"How come you know so much about that world?"

"Because I was an enforcer to Bulldog. Did that for a few years before I left."

"Is that why you left? I couldn't find anything about you before you were 23."

"That's because I had my entire life before that wiped." Brandon didn't want anything from his past to come up when he met the woman he planned to marry.