Page 101 of The Holiday Heartbreaker

“What?”

“Nothing. It’s... I never leave McCloud’s. I mean, not that I never have. It’s just...”

“What?”

“I don’t actually think you want to hear this.”

“You don’t get to decide what I want to hear.”

“It doesn’t speak well of me.”

“I don’t care,” she said. “I didn’t think we were worried about things like that. I thought we just said things. Because whatever this is... It is what it is, right? And I can’t go on forever. You don’t need to impress me. The same as I don’t need to impress you. Unless the rules change, in which case I’m going to feel awfully embarrassed.”

The corner of his mouth hitched. Then he let out a breath.

“I go out of town sometimes to hit different Western bars. Hook up. Stuff like that. I guess, especially when I was in my twenties, you could call some of the stuff I did... A bender. Get drunk, hop beds, don’t remember what happened, don’t remember anyone’s name, barely even remember your own name. That kind of thing. But I can’t remember the last time I went somewhere just to be there. And I wasn’t drunk, and I wasn’t trying to forget something.”

Her chest felt sore.

“Really? That’s the only reason you’ve ever traveled?”

He was quiet for a beat. “Yes. The only reason. Mostly, I just work. Hard labor kind of exhausts the demons right out of you. There’s something cathartic about that. Ten-dollar word. I bet you didn’t think I knew that one. Just goes to show you, you can get a pretty good education in that little one-room schoolhouse.”

“I appreciate that,” she said.

She stole a French fry out of his basket. He took one out of hers.

“Today was fun,” he said.

It was such a simple admission. And one she had a feeling meant a lot.

“When was the last time you got to know anyone?”

“I can’t even remember. Not really getting to know them. Nothing real.” He cleared his throat. “Anyway. Don’t tell my brothers that I enjoyed the day in the cutesy little town, please? Because they will spend the rest of my life making me pay for that.”

“Scout’s honor,” she said.

For all of his beauty, for all of his easy manner, she sensed a profound sadness in Brody. She didn’t know why she hadn’t been insightful enough to see it right away. Because now... She couldn’t not see it. There was a heaviness that he carried, and it ate at her. And he had done so much for her. From cooking her breakfast to bringing her here. Carrying her bags. Giving her multiple orgasms. Restoring her confidence in herself. It... It hadn’t even occurred to her to do something for him. Because she was on a journey of self-discovery, and she was loving it. But Brody wasn’t an inanimate object that she could buy like a sweaterdress to symbolize a new lease on life. Brody was a man. And he was bringing his own baggage to this equation. And there were aspects of it that were new to him too. Maybe not the sex in the back of a pickup truck, but the talking. The connecting. Doing things just for the sake of doing them.

He worked. And he played his way to oblivion.

But she sensed that Brody McCloud had never just...lived. He’d never just existed. He’d never just sat and felt comfortable with who he was.

She had the feeling that he... That he might not like himself very much. When she looked at him, she saw the most amazing, beautiful, wonderful man she had ever known...

That is getting a little bit deep, Elizabeth.

Yeah. It was.

Maybe she needed to walk that back, but she knew it would end. She did.

So what was wrong with acknowledging that he was wonderful? He certainly wouldn’t do it.

She remembered his Christmas story. That heart-wrenching, horrible Christmas story. His father burning all of the gifts.

What must it have been like? To be the one who didn’t get that kind of abuse, but who must feel marked by it, all the same?

There were a lot of different kinds of abuse. She knew it well, not just because of her job as a therapist, but because of her time spent in foster care. She had met children who were neglected—like her. The kind of benign lack of care that could lead easily to death, even though it wasn’t a thoughtful, active cruelty. She had seen kids scarred by physical abuse. Kids that had been worn down by ugly words. And she knew... She knew that it all left a distinct pattern of scars. If not on your skin, beneath it. And that everybody healed from it differently. Or didn’t, as the case may be. She knew that Brody had scars. He might not wear them on his skin, but they were there.

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