Page 18 of The Holiday Heartbreaker

“Of course not,” Brody said. “School sucks.”

Benny’s eyes went round. “I didn’t think adults were allowed to say stuff like that.”

“That’s the thing about being an adult,” Brody said. “You can say whatever you want.”

He looked over at her, and he didn’t wink. But she felt as if he had. Philosophically. And she didn’t know why she found that so confronting.

“Well, now that everybody’s acquainted,” Gus said, “let’s go over the incoming guests. There are going to be three of them, which is good, because it’s a nice, slow start. We have Daniel Wheeler and his mother Sarah. The therapy is for Daniel, but Sarah will be here overseeing. Daniel is autistic, and he was recently adopted by Sarah and her husband. The adjustment period, and dealing with some of the trauma that he experienced in foster care has been really difficult. Then, we have Loralee Summers. She was in an abusive marriage and she’s been suffering from PTSD. She’s hoping that time out here, time with the horses, and doing some physical work will help. And we also have Peyton Smith and her dad, Austen. Peyton has muscular dystrophy, and her dad is hoping that this will be a positive experience for her. A chance for her to get out of her wheelchair and get some different exercise from the normal. So it’s a whole spread of different therapies.”

“Great,” Elizabeth said. “I assume you’ve all started the online training program.”

Everybody nodded. “Do you have anything you’re feeling the most or least comfortable handling?” This was easy, slipping into the role of coordinator. She had been observing a successful program and participating in it for a few years now, and this felt natural. It was much smaller than the operation that she’d been part of in Portland, but now she was in charge, so it was different.

“I feel pretty confident in making sure that Peyton is safe on her horse,” Elsie, Hunter’s fiancée, said. “I did a lot of reading on the specifics of how to help with that. And since I’ll have her dad there, I think it will be pretty easy to gauge her comfort level.”

“That sounds great, Elsie. You can go ahead and start the week with Peyton, but I want a few different therapists to work with her.”

“I’d like to try to help with Daniel,” Gus said. “I don’t have a whole lot of experience with kids. I don’t know a ton about autism. But I do know what it’s like to feel abandoned. And I know what it’s like to have the adults in your life to have not taken care of you. I know what it’s like to have to rebuild trust.”

“Good. So you and I can consult a little bit more about that before Monday, if it would be helpful.”

Daniel’s story was the one that cut closest to Elizabeth’s heart. She was good at separating her own issues from therapy—she wouldn’t be good at her job if she didn’t. But that didn’t mean it didn’t get to her sometimes.

“I’m happy to start the week off with Loralee,” she said. She might not have been abused by her husband, but she knew a little bit about what it meant to start a new life. She had also worked with abuse victims before, so it wasn’t an entirely new experience for her.

“Great,” Gus said. “And in the meantime, I guess we all keep brushing up on the online courses.”

“Yes. Finish those, and once you log a certain number of actual hours working with patients, you can get your certifications. But as long as you get that online piece done, it will make the rest of it go a lot smoother. Plus you won’t feel totally like you’re going in blind.”

“Excellent. Coffee?”

Benny was looking bored and irritated in the corner of the barn. Shuffling pieces of hay around with his shoe.

“Hot chocolate?” Brody asked, directing that toward Benny.

Who looked a little bit brighter at the offer. “Sure.”

“And I’ll take that coffee,” Elizabeth said. “Thank you.” She directed that at Brody.

She could be polite to him. She didn’t have to be standoffish just because he made her insides feel strange. That wasn’t his fault.

And she reminded herself yet again that it could all be in her head. Could all be one-sided. And if she started acting weird just because she had some feelings and he picked up on them... Well, that was so horrifying she couldn’t bear to think of it.

She was handed a Styrofoam cup with steaming hot coffee in it, and the little pot of creamer. And Brody handed a frothy hot chocolate to Benny.

“You ready to get this tour on the road?”

“I guess,” Benny said.

“Remember,” he said. “I’m a pirate cowboy, so it’s not going to be too bad.”

Behind Brody, there came a guffaw of laughter. “A pirate cowboy? You’re barely a cowboy, Brody.”

“Hey,” Brody said back to his brother Lachlan. “Don’t damage my street cred.”

“Yeah. You’re well-known out here on the mean streets in Pyrite Falls. The cows tremble, but you have to be careful not to get in the middle of a gang war between the sheep and the goats.” That jab came from his brother Tag.

“I have,” Brody said. “It was ugly. Come on,” he said, directing that at her and Benny. “Let’s go.”

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