Page 1 of Rescued by the Single Dad

CHAPTER ONE

“Go!” Jagger said, shoving Clint out his front door. “We both know you need this. Your problems won’t drink themselves away, and we both know your child sleeps like the dead. She’ll be fine. I’m here.”

Clint swayed a little on his front porch, his face moving side to side, between the past and reality, with the back-and-forth sloshing liquid in the half-empty bottle of Hardwood Distillery whiskey in his hand. He had started consuming away those problems an hour ago.

“Maybe you’ll find a mermaid you can tell your woes to. Or an otter.” Clint glared at Jagger but only for a second, since his youngest brother’s face turned sad. “I know days like today are hard.”

Clint made a noise in his throat to neither dismiss nor confirm what Jagger said.

It was Talia’s birthday. His daughter turned eight today, and just like for the last five years, her mother wasn’t there to watch her baby blow out her candles.

Or maybe she was ... if you believed in angels and spirits and that stuff.

She was watching over Talia as she swung the T-ball bat at her mermaid pinata, blew out her candles and opened all her presents.

But she wasn’t there to hug her daughter. To reminisce with Clint about the day they welcomed Talia—perfect, and covered in goo with a squishy face and curious eyes—into the world.

It’d been five years, and although it got easier, it was still hard as fuck.

And on days like today, Clint put on a brave face until his daughter went to bed, then he hit the bottle hard. Jagger always came and made sure Talia wasn’t in the house alone. Then Clint wandered down to the beach to wallow.

“It’s a full moon,” Jagger offered. “And warm for early May. Seems like a nice night to go drink until you pass out on the beach. Make sure you stay above the tide line, though.” He snorted softly, then stepped out onto the porch and rested a hand on Clint’s shoulder. “Just do what you gotta do, so you’re whole again tomorrow.”

Clint grunted, nodded, then spun around, taking the steps off the porch slower than normal.

It was just a ten-minute walk down to the beach from where he and his brothers had their houses all lined up in a row of five on the back of their family property.

The motion-sensor light for the brewery flicked on when he passed under the deck on stilts and made his way down into the sand.

They reserved the primo land with the unencumbered ocean view for the deck of their brewpub. Patrons could come and grab a pint or a flight of beer, snack on some pub grub and watch the boats out in the straight. Then behind the brewpub were six cabins that they rented out to tourists, and beyond the cabins stood a line of trees for privacy, followed by a little hill, with five houses all side-by-side. One for each of the McEvoy brothers and their children.

Except Jagger, the youngest. He had no kids. But he was a damn good uncle.

They each had a small backyard, and beyond that spanned a rolling hillside with tall grass and wildflowers. A place for the kids to roam free like the little wildlings they were. Chase grasshoppers, pick flowers and lay under the sun watching the clouds.

It was everything Clint ever wanted for his child.

His pace slowed, and he wobbled even more as his shoes sunk into the loose, dry sand. He had a favorite piece of driftwood that he liked to sit on when he came down to the beach to wallow and grieve. But they had some pretty wicked winter storms, so there was a good chance his log had drifted out to sea and found a new beach to call home. He’d have to find a new one.

Jagger was right. The moon was full and bright.

Not a cloud floated in the inky sky to block Clint’s only source of light as he left the safety of the sand and traversed his way onto the rocks. He continued along the tide line, where the kelp and driftwood nestled close to the overhanging trees. Resilient evergreens with harsh bends in the trunks that took a beating from the wind and sea each and every year yet never buckled hung over the rocks, creating a low canopy.

The madrona, or arbutus to someone from Canada, was his favorite tree. With branches that twisted and kinked toward the sky, and bark that peeled like cinnamon curls to reveal a bright, green, silky skin underneath. They had leaves, but they weren’t deciduous. And the berries were edible. It was something they were considering experimenting with at the brewery. Madrona berry ale. It remained in the workshopping stage, since they’d need a lot of berries, but he knew they could make it into something delicious.

Once he was out of sight of the brewpub, he found his log, or one similar enough that it didn’t matter, and sat down, tipping the bottle of whiskey up to his lips and taking a long, hard pull.

He rarely drank hard alcohol. He was a brewmaster, so he usually drank beer. But on days like today, he needed to flesh out a way to feel and yet also feel nothing, and whiskey seemed the fastest way to do that and slip away into memories of her.

Their marriage hadn’t been good for a while. All they did was fight.

It wasn’t that he didn’t love Jacqueline; it was that he wasn’t in love with her anymore. They had always been better friends than spouses or lovers. And she knew that, too. They just didn’t have a lot in common. He was a homebody, and she loved to socialize. She also grew to resent their quiet life on San Camanez Island and kept pressuring him to move to Seattle, where life could be busier and more exciting.

But he loved the island. It was where his business was, where his family was, and it was a safe place for their adventurous and spirited daughter. Talia and her cousins could run around without any shoes on and not worry about stepping on broken glass, a needle, or getting abducted from her front yard. They had property, privacy and most of all, community.

But Jacqueline grew up in the city and became almost immediately bored with island life.

They’d had a big fight right before she went on her girls’ trip with her three sisters in-laws. They were going down to Vegas for Remy’s thirtieth birthday. Clint fully supported the trip and thought maybe getting to the big city and off the island would be good for Jacqueline. That it would feed her need for busyness. But she saw his acceptance and excitement for her to go, as him happy that she was leaving.

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