Page 43 of The Holiday Heartbreaker

“That’s exactly what I need. To become a little bit more me. I’ve just been so afraid for so long it’s taken all of these pieces of myself away.”

“I’ve never been afraid. Not of my ex-husband. I can only imagine what you’re going through as far as that’s concerned. But I relate to being overwhelmed by possibilities and options.”

“So what would you fix for dinner? If you could have anything,” Loralee asked.

“I...” She found herself thinking of Benny’s favorite. And had a difficult time thinking of her own. Then she thought of a pasta dish that she’d had at a restaurant years ago. Pasta that had been swirled in a Parmesan cheese wheel, with ham and peas in it. Benny would hate everything about it. But she had loved it.

“Pasta. With Parmesan.”

“That does sound good,” Loralee said.

“Yeah.”

“Maybe you should fix that for yourself for dinner,” Loralee said.

“Maybe I will.”

Except she knew she wouldn’t. In fact, she had just a little bit of time to go and hit the grocery store, and if they had them, she was going to get dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets because Benny would like them.

And it was more important that she got something that Benny liked than making herself something that he wouldn’t enjoy.

After Loralee left, she went to get the horses and put them back in their stables, so that she could feed them, and that was when Brody showed up.

“Gus’s orders,” he said.

“I don’t need help.” She was feeling raw, and she kind of wanted to be alone.

“You say that every time.”

“Yeah. Well. It’s true. I don’t need help.”

“And what would you say to your patient if she told you the same thing?”

“I’m not a patient.” Except after that conversation, she was beginning to wonder.

But her circumstances were different.

All things considered, she was pretty well-adjusted.

He took the horses into the stall alongside her, and then went into an empty stall and grabbed a couple flakes of hay, chucking them into the enclosures.

“Did Benny get off okay for his second day of school?”

And that just about did her in. Because Carter hadn’t texted her to ask about Benny’s first couple of days of school. And this man had just asked. Like it was intuitive and easy. Like it was obvious that Benny was something she would want to talk about, because her whole world was oriented around him.

“Yes,” she said, her throat tight.

“Good.”

“Thank you. For taking Benny to see the cave yesterday.”

“No problem. He’s a good kid.”

She knew that. She didn’t need his opinion on the subject. But, she would be lying if she said that it didn’t make her feel warm that he’d said it. “He is,” she said. “For all that he’s been through. He seems to be pretty well-adjusted.”

“What do you mean, what he’s been through?”

And there was something suddenly dangerous on his face, and she thought about what he had said about his own childhood. The things he’d said that happened to his brother.

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