The Holiday Heartbreaker

Also In this Series:

• 

  Her First Christmas Cowboy

  October 1, 2021
  #.5
  

• 

  The Cowboy She Loves to Hate

  December 1, 2021
  #1.5
  

• 

  Unbridled Cowboy

  May 24, 2022
  #1
  (Sawyer Garrett's Book)
  

• 

  Merry Christmas Cowboy

  October 25, 2022
  #2
  (Violet Donnelly's Book)
  

• 

  Cowboy Wild

  February 21, 2023
  #3
  (Elsie and Hunter's Book)
  

• 

  Her Cowboy Prince Charming

  September 1, 2022
  (Novella released in print in Merry Christmas Cowboy)
  

• 

  Her Wayward Cowboy

  January 1, 2023
  (Novella to be released in print with Cowboy Wild)
  

• 

  The Rough Rider

  July 25, 2023
  #4
  (Gus's Book)
  

• 

  The Troublemaker

  November 28, 2023
  #6
  

• 

  The Rival

  April 23, 2024
  #7
  

• 

  A Summer to Claim Her Cowboy

  October 15, 2023
  (This is a novella in the Four Corners Series)
  

• 

  Wild Night Cowboy

  August 1, 2023
  (This novella is available in print in The Holiday Heartbreaker)
  

• 

  The Hometown Legend

  July 23, 2024
  

• 

  Hero for the Holidays

  October 22, 2024
  (Landry and Fia's Book)
  

Excerpt

CHAPTER ONE

“Is that a fox?”

“I think it’s a bear,” Elizabeth said, knowing that she sounded as distracted as she was, her eyes flickering from the sign her son was commenting on, then back to the highway.

It wasn’t a real bear, obviously, just a rusted-out metal representation of one, one of the many that they had seen on the long drive out to Pyrite Falls.

It was cold, and she knew that the temperature outside might be above freezing, but that didn’t mean there weren’t slick patches in the shade on the road.

It wasn’t her first time out here, but it was her first time bringing Benny. He wasn’t happy about the move, and she knew that it was because he didn’t like change. He was upset that he was leaving his grandma, and she understood that. But she wasn’t upset to put some distance between herself and her former mother-in-law.

There had been a lot of promises about how their relationship wouldn’t deteriorate after Elizabeth’s marriage ended.

After all, Elizabeth hadn’t chosen to end it.

Elizabeth hadn’t wanted Carter to start a new life with a different woman, to have children with her. Act like Benny was a leftover from a life that he had never really wanted to begin with.

It wasn’t that her mother-in-law was awful to her. Or like they’d had a fight. It was just…easier. Easier for her mother-in-law to just visit her son’s new wife and children, and to let her relationship with Elizabeth grow distant.

To trade in afternoons spent over tea at Elizabeth’s kitchen table for dinner with Carter and Ashley.

She had Benny over to her house still, of course. Usually when Carter and the other kids were there.

She was trying to foster a relationship between Carter and Benny, that was what she’d said, and Elizabeth knew it was true. When his mother didn’t get involved, Carter missed more weekends with Benny than he managed to make.

The twins have soccer. Benny would get bored.

Ashley has a dressage clinic. Benny won’t want to sit through that.

But when his mom brought Benny over, he was always delighted. There was usually a cookout and games in their huge backyard and time spent at the stables, riding the horses.

Stables that had been hers.

But were Ashley’s now, for her sweet little children to learn to ride horses in while Benny’s bedroom-window view was a parking lot.

Carter was always so nice on those weekends. As if it wasn’t his mother who had arranged visits. As if it wasn’t Elizabeth who supported them. And then, of course, he had been furious when she had announced that she was moving three hours away. As if he saw Benny all time. As if he was father of the year and she was cruelly ripping his son away from him.

And so close to the holidays!

Because of course. Of course.

Benny was sad. Even though she’d told him it would be so much different than living in the little apartment they were in now. No, they wouldn’t have a community pool, but there would be space to run, and there was a creek, she was told.

Of course the idea of letting him swim in a creek made her nervous and anxious.

But her son deserved more. And the truth of it was she was going to have to work to give him more. Because God knew Carter wasn’t going to do it. At least, he wasn’t going to give him what he should get.

And maybe… Maybe she deserved more. Deserved to find the life that she would’ve had if she had never fallen in love when she was fourteen years old. If she hadn’t followed it to the conclusion of marriage and having a child before she was strictly ready.

Carter had always been in a hurry. She’d never been certain what he was running toward, but she’d gotten caught up in it. Until he’d gone on to someone else.

Left her behind. Struggling to pay her bills, struggling to remember who she’d been before. If she’d ever even known who she was on her own.

She’d been Carter’s girlfriend, Carter’s wife, Carter’s ex-wife.

Who was she when he didn’t define her?

Maybe she deserved to find out.

She kept her eyes on the two-lane road ahead of her, trying not to get distracted by the scenery. The town itself was nothing to behold. A little strip of buildings made of timber that blended in to the trees. But the sight of them signified that they were close to Four Corners Ranch, which was where they would be living.

Specifically McCloud’s Landing.

Four Corners itself was a ranching collective that functioned like one large ranch, but it was actually four, run by the four founding families.

The McClouds had been equestrian focused since the founding of the ranch in the late 1800s, and now they were expanding to offer equine therapy.

She’d met all of the McCloud brothers, who were handsome, intense, and a whole thing.

Gus, the oldest, and the one she’d had the most dealings with, was now happily married to a woman she’d met briefly on her last visit. Tag and Hunter were married too, and she harbored hopes of finding a friend among at least one of the wives. Lachlan and Brody McCloud were both single.

Lachlan didn’t bother her in the least.

Brody, on the other hand…

There was something about him. Something that made her feel prickly and uncomfortable. Worse, she during her every interaction with him, she had the sense he knew it.

She didn’t like it.

“We’re here,” she said, happy to distract both Benny and herself. The sign that proudly proclaimed the dirt road they were turning on to be the main-entry point for Four Corners Ranch had horses on it, and Benny didn’t seem overly impressed by that.

It was her greatest sorrow that her son did not seem even half as enthused about horses as she was.

But then, he hadn’t been able to have a lot of exposure to them.

Carter had left when Benny was two, and it had changed their lives dramatically. They had gone from living in a lovely house on the outskirts of town, with ten acres and several horses, to only being able to afford an apartment.

While Carter had kept the house.

And her horses. They would always be her horses, because in her mind nothing living was property in the sense of who bought them or was awarded them by a judge. And she didn’t think of them as hers in that way.

As something she owned.

They were hers, in her heart. Because she loved them and always would.

But he’d taken those like they were assets.

He had eventually moved his girlfriend in, and she’d been pregnant already. They’d married, and started a family. Right over the top of Elizabeth’s life.

Right over the top of their life.

Like she and Carter had never been there at all.

Ashley’d had twin boys, which always felt like an insult to Elizabeth. Like she’d been doubly efficient when giving him children too.

Two to Elizabeth’s one, in a single pregnancy.

And now there was a girl, and another baby on the way.

The worst part about Carter was when he’d told her, he hadn’t been cruel. He’d looked at her with that familiar, handsome face and said he’d made a mistake. But that the mistake had opened his eyes to problems he’d been ignoring in their lives, in him.

His fault, his mistakes.

It’s not your fault, Elizabeth. It’s me.

Like that was supposed to make her feel better? They’d been married. Everything was supposed to be about them. But this was all him, which meant there was nothing she could do to change it or fix it.

He’d been the one to lead her, she’d always felt that. But suddenly in this story he told her about them that wasn’t true at all. In this story he’d made no real choices, he’d made it sound like they’d drifted together, then drifted apart.

He’d been on a path he didn’t feel like he’d chosen. He hadn’t understood what love was until he met Ashley. He had married Elizabeth because it had seemed logical. They’d been in love since high school, you married your high school sweetheart.

He’d never really known how happy he could be, not until he met Ashley.

Well, she called absolute bull crap on that. They’d been happy. They had been.

And it wasn’t fair for him to say all of that when… In the end, she…related to his words. That was what hurt so much.

He wasn’t wrong.

He had acted wrongly. But when it came to assessing the state of their marriage, he wasn’t wrong.

She had married him because he’d been there. He’d been the only guy she’d ever dated, ever been with, ever kissed. He’d asked her to marry him, and she hadn’t been able to imagine a life without him – not because their love was so intense – because she could hardly remember not being with him.

She hadn’t loved him passionately, but she’d loved their life.

She’d spent the last six years trying to figure out what her world looked like now, and it had taken her all this time to get brave enough to really change things.

They had built a life and now the life was gone. It didn’t seem right or fair. It wasn’t because she was still in love with him.

It was because he’d left her without the skills to figure out what the hell she was supposed to do.

But she was over that. Done living in wreckage.

And he could be as mad as he wanted to be, but it wouldn’t change a damned thing.

He’d claimed a new life for himself. Wasn’t she allowed to do the same?

“I hate it,” Benny said.

“You haven’t even seen it. The house is really cute. I saw it a few months ago when we were first planning the move.” Of course, it hadn’t been livable yet, but the bones had been nice.

It had taken time to get everything in order, it had taken time to get the custody arrangement adjusted so that the move could be approved.

It was frustrating, because she knew that Carter didn’t actually care. How could he? He was an absentee dad when he lived nearby. He was just pretending that he cared, and that he had never been so outraged, because he intended—of course—to spend endless quality time with his son at the drop of a hat.

All of that had somehow gotten in her mother-in-law’s head, and eventually she’d made comments in front of Benny, who had taken his grandmother’s opinion on everything to heart. She found it all enraging.

Because of that she was stuck with a sulky eight-year-old boy who felt like she was the enemy because every other adult around him treated her as such.

“I miss my friends.”

That did make her feel guilty.

“I know,” she said. “But there’s a better life for us here. You get to go to school in a one-room schoolhouse.”

“That seems weird.”

“It’s an adventure. It’s like Little House on the Prairie.”

“I hated those books,” he said, sullen.

That made her heart kick hard. She had read him those books when he was little. He hadn’t seemed to hate them.

Not then.

But maybe she had lost him even more than she’d realized. Maybe occasional visits to Carter and the Xbox, PlayStation and everything else at that house had won.

She was the real parent. The one who made him go to bed on time, brush his teeth and do his homework. The one who had to discipline him. Carter got to step in on weekends and give him fun, only fun.

She had a small apartment and books.

Carter had everything.

Who could blame Benny for being more into his dad than he was her? When he went to see Carter it was like being on vacation.

She was just his real, boring life.

“They’re good books,” she said. “And this is an adventure.”

“As long as there’s Wi-Fi.”

“There’s Wi-Fi,” she said, rolling her eyes. “I think even the one-room schoolhouse has Wi-Fi.”

“I’m bored.”

She tightened her grip on the steering wheel. “We’re almost there.”

She gritted her teeth as they continued on down the dirt road, and she wished that she were even half as patient as she pretended she was on the outside. She was an expert at keeping her emotions to herself. She was fantastic at keeping a placid expression while she listened to all manner of nonsense being spoken directly to her face.

She did it professionally, as a therapist, but that wasn’t personal.

She didn’t know when she had gotten quite so good at applying it to her personal life. When the skill had first eventuated, it was difficult to say. But she had honed the skill during her divorce, and even more in recent years.

She was now absolutely fantastic at it.

It took several minutes to get from the main road back onto the narrower one that took them to McCloud’s Landing. There was a small sign made of planks of wood with the name McCloud hand carved into it.

“That looks like pirates,” Benny said, looking suddenly intrigued.

“Well, maybe they are pirates,” she said.

She could see Brody McCloud as a pirate. He was… Well, he was a rogue.

She didn’t know that much about rogues, but she could recognize one when she saw him. Or maybe he just gave off such a vibe that it was easy enough even for women like her – with no real experience of dating and men – to see it.

“Well, that would be cool.”

“Super cool,” she echoed, with absolutely no conviction behind the words.

The road began to climb a mountainside, and she knew that the back portion of the property was flat, perfect for horses, but the area where all the houses were nestled was protected by this mountain and by a river, right below.

She knew that if nothing else, Benny would be temporarily impressed by the scenery. For one moment, he quieted, and she took that as a win. Because there could be no complaints over this place. The tall pine trees reaching up toward the fathomless blue sky and the rushing white water below. She had been driven to the cabin once by Gus when she had come out to visit, and shown around, and she had made great mental note of exactly where it was so that she could find it again without having to ask for help.

She recognized a particular mossy rock, a bend in the road, and a change in the river. It was still where the cabins were. A watering hole that would be nice for swimming.

Though, she might have to make sure that that he had a life jacket on at all times when he was anywhere near the water.

He would hate her for that. Maybe hate was a strong word. Maybe she was just channeling how she felt the teenage years would likely go.

She didn’t have high hopes that she would be any sort of hero.

No. Of course it would be his distant father. Because he didn’t have to do the hard days. He didn’t have to do school routine on homework. He got to blow everything off on the weekends when he actually did take Benny and do whatever he wanted.

She put that out of her mind. Things were different now. Now, if Carter held to it, Benny would spend a month in the summer there, rather than visiting on the weekends. He would also spend some school breaks with Carter, and while it would be hard to be away from him for long stretches of time she did feel like it would force Carter to actually plan and be present with him.

“Look how much space there is,” she said.

Of course, she would have to figure out a way to feel comfortable letting him explore that space, and she had a feeling that would be easier said than done.

She hadn’t had a consistent model for what it meant to be a family, to be a mother, and having Benny was her chance for that. She’d wanted something better for him. The nuclear family she’d never had and…

Well, she hadn’t been able to give him that.

Consequently, she probably hovered over him more than she should.

She breathed a sigh of relief when the little house came into view. It was rustic, but neat, and Gus had told her that there would be some updates made before she and Benny moved in, which were now presumably there.

But her relief was cut short when she saw a blue truck parked in the driveway.

She had been here for months, and she knew exactly whose truck it was.

It wasn’t Gus who had come to greet her, or any of the other myriad McClouds who it might have been. Of course not.

It was Brody.

*

The pretty little ice queen was right on time, but Brody wouldn’t expect anything different. Not from her. She had been officious and sniffy from the moment he’d first met her.

He had the strong urge to ask her why she was so damned uptight.

He also had the strong urge to undo the neat, low ponytail that she kept her blond hair in.

He could see, even as she pulled up to where he was standing, that her hair was styled in that same fashion now. He wondered at that. At the commitment to being quite so sedate.

Her car came to a stop, and she looked through the windshield, right at him.

He felt it.

That was the problem. The urge to undo that ponytail was a very grown up version of wanting to pull her pigtails.

Of course, the attraction that he felt for Elizabeth Colfax was clearly not reciprocated, and if it was, it wasn’t reciprocated happily.

She had been prickly and dismissive of him from the get-go.

Him, specifically. She seemed much friendlier to each and every one of his brothers. But yeah, friendly was not a word you would use to describe the way that she treated him.

She turned the engine off and got out of the car.

Her blond hair was sleek and shiny, her face colored by only the slightest bit of makeup, a hint of blush, a pale pink lip gloss. She was wearing a navy blue top and white pants. She was dressed a good twenty years older than she actually was.

A single string of pearls completed the look.

They made him think dirty, dirty thoughts.

“Nice to see you,” he said.

She smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “Yes. Nice to see you too.”

The back door of the car opened, and a little boy tumbled out. Blond, just like her.

For a moment, he felt disoriented. He hadn’t realized she had a kid. Did that mean she had a husband? Because that sure put a damper on some of his fantasies.

Well, depending on how happily married she was.

But no. He wasn’t a homewrecker. Wasn’t his style.

There was no point to go in for any drama when a man could just as easily go in for a no-strings-attached, simple affair that didn’t hurt anyone.

“Who is this?” he asked, smiling, because he was good at that. He was a charming son of a bitch. It was his best quality.

“This is Benny,” she said, her answering smile tight.

He stressed her out.

“Hi, Benny,” he said.

The kid looked up at him, and he noticed that his eyes were the same blue as Elizabeth’s. “Hi. Are you a pirate?”

Standing there in his T-shirt, jeans and cowboy hat, it had never occurred to Brody that he might be confused for a pirate.

“No,” he said. “At least, not on Saturdays.”

“Why not on Saturdays?” Elizabeth asked, her nose wrinkling slightly.

Why was that adorable?

“Because today is Saturday and I’m obviously dressed as a cowboy.”

“Oh,” she said. “I guess that…that makes sense.”

The woman could hardly take a joke. He shouldn’t find her hot.

“You’re a cowboy?” Benny asked, clearly interested.

“Yes. This is a ranch, or did you not realize?”

“My mom just said something about horses.” He shrugged. “Horses are boring.”

“Horses are boring,” he repeated.

Brody had never been so offended in his life. And by a half-grown piglet. “Horses are the furthest thing from boring, kid. Horses are the Wild West.”

“Not the way my mom does it. She just rides in a circle.”

“I do not just ride in a circle,” she said.

He’d seen her ride. In those heaven-sent English-style riding breeches. The way this woman rode wasn’t boring, not at all.

“The reason what your mom does looks boring is that she makes it look easy. You don’t see all the work that goes into it because that’s what it’s like when someone is an expert.”

“She’s an expert?” The kid looked skeptical.

“The best there is, or we wouldn’t have hired her to work here. You know why?” The kid shook his head. “There are going to be some people who have injuries. And not just injuries to their bodies, things that have frightened them or hurt them inside. In places you can’t see. Horses help heal those things.”

Benny frowned. “How?”

“Because horses understand you. Without you needing to talk. Without you needing to do anything at all. And sometimes all a person needs is to be understood.” He realized that Elizabeth was staring at him. He returned her gaze. “Don’t you think?”

“Yes,” she said, as if it surprised her. “I do.”

He straightened. “Gus asked me to show you around the place.”

That wasn’t strictly true. He’d volunteered to do it. Because he liked the look of her. Though, Gus had given him a stern warning with that scarred-up face of his. And Brody’d done what he did best, and ignored it.

Anyway, Gus was a lot tamer now that he had his little woman. Who would’ve ever thought?

Gus and Alaina. Together. Like that.

Certainly not something Brody would ever have picked out.

But the man was the proudest husband and father-to-be anywhere, and Brody couldn’t begrudge his brother that happiness. Especially not when he’d spent so many of years being the most miserable son of a gun Brody had ever known.

“Come on in, I’ll show you around. Didn’t realize you were coming with a kid in tow.”

He waited to see if she would say there was a husband coming too.

“Gus knew,” she said.

Well, he hadn’t, and he didn’t know why it felt notable. Or why it mattered.

You know. It’s because you think she’s hot, and now she’s off–limits.

“Well, he didn’t mention it. That’s all.” He’d suspect that Gus had left it out to throw him off on purpose, but his older brother wasn’t like that.

Gus could be a dick, but he was straight up.

“Unless you were involved in the preparation of the cottage, I can’t imagine that it would be your concern.”

“Well,” he said. “This way.”

She walked on ahead of him, and Benny had already trotted up to the porch.

“You got any bags?” he asked.

“A couple.”

“Got a moving truck coming or anything?”

She shook her head. “We basically did everything we could to downsize before coming. But we lived in a pretty small apartment, so there wasn’t a whole lot.”

It was strange, the idea of this woman living in a small apartment. She felt like money to him. There was that rich simplicity to the way that she dressed, a style that didn’t take trends into account at all. Then, there was the sort of haughty manner with which she conducted herself, the way she acted like she was too good for the likes of him.

And the way he kind of liked it.

Because it made him want to take her down a peg or ten, and he knew exactly how to do it.

He hadn’t really thought that he would get off on the fantasy of the uptight girl. But she made him want to undo every button on one of her twin sets. See if he could get her to mess up that sleek hair.

Well, fantasizing about undressing a woman while her kid was standing right there was a low, even for him.

He went to the car and grabbed the duffel bags, and a small suitcase that he found, and hefted them up before following her to the porch. “My brother’s wife, Nelly, did a little bit of landscaping for you. She thought you’d like it.”

He indicated the fresh flowerpots on the porch.

“I do,” she said. “It’s nice.”

“You don’t live here, do you?” Benny asked, his eyes suddenly going round.

“I live on the ranch.”

“You’re not my mom’s new husband or anything, are you?”

He couldn’t help it, a guffaw of laughter escaped his lips. Elizabeth’s mouth dropped open. She was not laughing.

“No, Benny. What would’ve given you that idea?”

“Tim at school said that his mom has new husbands in the house all the time. I thought maybe you were going to do that.”

She looked genuinely confused. “I’ve never done that. Why would I start now?”

“We’ve never moved before either.” Kid logic.

“Not since you can remember,” she said, her voice tight. “I moved here for a job not a… There is no husband.”

“I’m just a pirate cowboy, kiddo. Sorry.” Then Brody cleared his throat and pushed the door open, revealing the clean and newly renovated cabin.

“Oh,” she said. “This is… Well, it’s…It’s just so much…I don’t know what I expected, but this exceeds it.”

“We have a little bit of an advantage now because we married into the Sullivan clan and the Garrett family, which brought a bit more support for the venture. So… We were able to significantly upgrade some of the living quarters.”

“It’s beautiful,” she said.

And for just one moment, he thought he saw her eyes go glassy with tears. But she blinked, and was back to smooth, porcelain perfection.

“I imagine you don’t need me to show you around every room.”

“I might need you to show me how some of these appliances work.”

Benny had raced away down the hall, and he let out a holler.

“What?” Elizabeth asked, hurrying down the hall, and Brody followed her.

“Look at my room!”

The room was a little-boy’s paradise, and he had to wonder which one of his brothers had been responsible for that. Brody hadn’t even realized.

He’d been busy, he supposed. Doing whatever outdoor-labor task Gus asked him, and additionally, heading to the bars and getting drunk whenever possible.

There were bunk beds with lanterns hanging on them, and the bottom bed was done up to look like an outdoor tent. The entire room was like camping. There were glow stars on the ceiling, and a light on the floor that glowed like a fire.

“I told you that you’d like it,” she said.

The little boy’s face went flat. “Well, I don’t think I’ll like it for forever.”

He suddenly felt sympathy for Elizabeth. Because he recognized when a kid was trying to make their parent miserable. “Hey,” he said. “Don’t talk to your mom that way. She’s doing her best. And from what I can see, her best is pretty damned good.”

“That’s a cuss word,” the kid said.

“Yes,” Brody said, realizing he did not know how to talk to kids. “It is. But it’s true. And if you really think it’s boring here, then you just wait. Tomorrow, I’ll show you and your mom everything.”

“Everything?” Benny asked.

“Hell yeah. I mean… Heck yeah. Tomorrow I’m going to show you why horses are exciting, and why you’re going to love it here.”

“A real cowboy,” Benny said, looking at his mom. “A real cowboy is going to show us around.”

When he looked back at Brody, Brody didn’t need to have any experience with kids to realize that he had gotten himself into a bit of a hero-worship situation. And when he looked back at the kid’s mother, and saw the cool fire banked in her blue gaze, he realized that when it came to her…

Well, it was anything but.

“As long as it’s okay,” he added.

“Of course,” she answered, her expression frosty. And hell, even he realized that he’d walked her into a situation where she couldn’t refuse.

“Great. I’ll let you all get settled. And I’ll see you tomorrow.”

 

Buy Now

Print:

eBook:

Browse

• Available Books
• Coming Soon

Series

• Brides of Innocence
• Copper Ridge: All Books
• Copper Ridge: Desire
• Copper Ridge: Novellas
• Copper Ridge: The Donnellys
• Copper Ridge: The Garretts
• Copper Ridge: The Wests
• Deacons of Bourbon Street
• Fifth Avenue
• Four Corners Ranch
• Gold Valley
• Gold Valley Vineyards
• Harlequin Presents
• Heirs Before Vows
• Jasper Creek
• Montana Born Brides
• Once Upon a Seduction
• Princes of Petras
• Silver Creek
• The Call of Duty
• The Carson's of Lone Rock
• The Forbidden Series

Type

• Accidental Pregnancy
• Anthology
• Best Friend's Little Sister
• Best Friend's Older Brother
• Billionaires
• Christmas Books
• Cosmo Red Hot Reads
• Cowboys
• Domestic Suspense
• eBooks
• Enemies to Lovers
• Fake Relationship
• Forbidden Love
• Friends to Lovers
• Mail Order Bride
• Marriage of Convenience
• Office Romance
• Older woman
• Reissues
• Related Books by Other Authors
• Reunion Romance
• Royalty
• Secret Baby
• Single Dad
• Single Mom
• UK Editions
• Virgin Hero
• Virgin Heroine
• Widower/Widow
• Women's Fiction