Page 108 of The Holiday Heartbreaker

“I told you. Lachlan’s friend bakes cookies.”

“This is Charity, right? The cute vet?”

He frowned. “I mean, I guess. Cute in the way that a doll is or something.”

“She’s cute,” Elizabeth said. “And she isn’t making cookies for you. She’s making them for Lachlan.”

“She makes them for all of us.”

Elizabeth shook her head. “Trust me. They’re for him.”

“What...? You mean, like... She’s making them for him?”

“Yes, Brody,” she said, speaking very slowly. “Because she likes him.”

“Because they’re friends.”

She rolled her eyes. “I think she likes him.”

“They aren’t in fourth grade,” he said. “And she’s engaged.”

“What?” Elizabeth looked genuinely shocked by that.

“I know. I know.” Brody shook his head. “It’s...the weirdest thing to me, but they’re friends. Though it’s like... I don’t know, more somehow, but not in the way I always thought. She protects him, like a feral creature. I thought she was going to take a chunk out of me at the bar.”

“What happened with you and Lachlan last night?”

“It was stupid,” he said.

“It couldn’t have been that stupid. He knew that you were upset, and he came to see me this morning.”

“He was probably looking for me.”

“You know, I don’t think he was. I think he knew that you wouldn’t be at my place.” She didn’t even bother to pretend to be irritated that Lachlan clearly knew that they were sleeping together. She had a feeling that Brody and Lachlan couldn’t keep much from each other, even if they tried.

It was funny. They were the last two McCloud brothers who were single. And she had a feeling their experience of their childhood couldn’t have been more different. But they were both wounded by it.

“He was mad at me. About... He just brought up some stuff from the past. Stuff about my dad. About me not...”

“Did he say something to you about you not getting hit?”

His expression went hard. Any goodwill she had felt for Lachlan a moment ago was gone.

“He isn’t wrong,” Brody said.

“No, Brody, he is. He doesn’t get to tell you how your childhood should have made you feel. Any more than anyone gets to tell me how mine should have made me feel. People have always treated me like I was damaged. And I have issues, I do. But people cared about me. Enough adults showed up and showed me that there were good people in the world, and that made all the difference to me. Did you have that? Did you have one person show up and show you that you are worthy?”

He looked lost. Right in that moment. Like the lost boy he must have been back then, and everything in her ached.

His throat worked, and he looked away from her.

“My dad,” he said.

That stunned her speechless. She just stood there, holding her own mug of cider and staring.

He looked back at her, and there was something defiant in his expression now.

“Yeah. My dad showed me that I was worth something. My dad taught me how to ride a horse. Taught me how to lasso a calf. Taught me how to shoot and skin a deer and pound a nail. So yeah. Lachlan and I had different experiences. I had a different experience.”

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