Page 6 of The Troublemaker

“That ought to do it,” she said.

“Thanks. Hey, Doc,” he said and he lifted his head up so that they were practically sharing the same air.

His face was so close to hers; close enough she could see the bristles of his stubble, the blue of his eyes, that they were a darker ring of blue around the outside, and lighter toward the center.

What is happening?

Her throat felt scratchy, and her heart felt...sore.

“Yes?” It came out a near whisper.

“I need a favor.”

“What?”

“I need you to reform me.”

CHAPTER TWO

IFYOUNEEDEDyour car fixed, you went to a mechanic. If you needed surgery, you went to a doctor. If you needed to figure out how to be a better man, correct your crooked ways and otherwise redeem your mortal soul, you went to the Pope.

Or Charity Wyatt.

It made all the logical sense in the world as far as he was concerned.

Charity had been his bright and shining light for as long as he could remember. Well... Ever since that day he had come upon her in the woods, when he’d been broken and bleeding from his father’s latest beating. That was how it had been, always, until Gus had run their old man off for good.

Gus, his oldest brother, who had nearly died trying to save Lachlan, who their father had been most certainly about to kill, and he wasn’t being hyperbolic.

The McCloud family was a mess, and they always had been.

That was the thing. His brothers had always been messes. They hadn’t had a chance when it came right down to it. How could they? They had never seen a functional relationship a day in their lives. Their father had been abusive, their mother had run away to escape it and hadn’t been able, or willing—didn’t really matter which—to take her children with her.

That had left them in the house of horrors, at risk and with no way out.

So yeah. They were messes. At least, they had been. And then... Something insane had happened. His brother Tag had found Nelly. Then Hunter had fallen for Elsie Garrett, literally the girl next door. After that, Angus McCloud, the meanest and most messed up of them all, had gone and married Alaina Sullivan, yet another girl next door. She had been pregnant, basically making Gus an instant father. Then after that, Brody had taken up with a single mother, which made him an instant father, and suddenly everyone was happy, and the furthest thing from traumatized.

Marriage.

It hadn’t helped their father one bit, not with the possessive, toxic feelings in his parents’ marriage.

It was different for his brothers. It hadhealedhis brothers. They’d found women who’d...soothed them somehow. He would never have believed it if he hadn’t seen it with his own eyes.

Marriage had done what years of distance, hard work and drinking hadn’t managed to do.

It made them happy.

There was, he’d decided,love. Which was the toxic, awful thing he’d never wanted.

Then there wasloveas his brothers had found it. Something that seemed a lot like a partnership to him. Something that didn’t hook into your demons and pull the worst out of you, but smoothed it over and made you better.

He had decided that was the only way forward for him. But one thing he did know—he needed to change.

He was haunted. By his past. By his fear that someday the monster that lived in his father would awaken in him, too.

He knew his brothers figured their dad hated them. Hated their mom.

The problem was Lachlan knew different.

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