Page 68 of The Holiday Heartbreaker

Brody frowned. “Which means?”

“I’m just saying I think you have a special thing with her.”

“By that special thing, do you mean I want to bang her?”

“Do you?”

“Already did, bro.” He regretted that. Dammit, he regretted that. Cheapening today.

He regretted it hard-core, that he had taken what had happened between himself and Elizabeth and used it to distance Hunter. To be flippant.

Hunter made a disgusted sound. “For God’s sake, Brody. She has a kid.”

“I know. I like the kid.”

Hunter’s eyes widened. “Oh. So, is this like...more than sex?”

“It was not more than sex. It was sex. That’s it. I like her, I respect her. It’s not mutually exclusive to the sex. It doesn’t mean I’m never going to talk to her again. But now the sex is done. So... I’m good.”

Hunter chuckled. “Just real good. Never need to do it again.”

Brody nodded. “Never again.”

“Great. Because she is a huge asset to the ranch, so if you could not chase her off, that would be awesome.”

“I don’t chase women off with sex. I’m good at it.”

“How many beers have you had?”

“Three.”

He wasn’t drunk on beer. He was a little bit slurred from beer, but he was drunk on Elizabeth. But he didn’t need Hunter to know that. And in fact, he wanted to stop talking about her. Because it was making him feel weird. Was making his chest feel too tight.

“Just... We can talk about things. I guess that was the whole point. Of the comment that didn’t actually have a point until you forced there to be a point,” Hunter said.

“Yeah. Sure.”

“You’re such a dick,” Hunter said, shaking his head.

“So are you.”

“You want to come back inside?”

“Yeah. I need more cookies.”

“No more beer,” Hunter warned.

“I will have a beer if I want,” Brody said.

And he checked his phone ten more times over the next couple of poker games. And she still didn’t call.

CHAPTER TWELVE

THEY HAD A new crop of clients coming Monday, but it was the weekend, so Elizabeth was off, and it had snowed again, which meant that Benny was outside tromping around in the snow, and she actually had a little bit of quiet time.

She fielded a text from Carter, who acted put out by about the fact that Benny couldn’t just come over this weekend.

“Were you actually going to take him?” She asked out loud, only to herself, as she typed instead: We’ll figure something out.

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