Page 93 of Rescued by the Single Dad

Brooke’s mouth twitched. Talia giggled.

“It’s really bad,” his daughter finally said. “And I thought Petal and Blossom were weird names.”

“Are those kids in your class, too?” Brooke asked.

Talia nodded. “Twins. They’re my friends. They’re not mean like Barnacle. And they have two moms and no dad.”

“It’s a hippy island,” Clint said, blandly. “The class list looks more like a bunch of items you’d see on a nature walk than birth announcements in the newspaper.”

“Oof, you really aged yourself with that,” Brooke teased. “It’s been years since I’ve seen a birth announcement ... or a newspaper.”

He grinned at her. “Maybe.”

“Petal, Blossom, Lavender, Barnacle, Fern, Sage, Sunshine, Zephyr—that means wind, I think—” Talia listed all the kids in her class with weird names, counting them on her fingers. And this was just her class. The school was a smorgasbord of parents who had to be smoking something when they picked their kid’s name. “Bramble, Blade, Holly—that’s not too weird, but it’s still a plant—Ocean, Breeze, Cumin.” Her nose wrinkled as she paused to think. Then her eyes widened. “Oh yeah, and Dock.”

“Dock?” Brooke asked. “Like the shortened version of doctor. D-O-C?”

“No, like a boat dock. D-O-C-K,” Talia said, spelling it out.

“Location of conception, I believe,” Clint murmured, hoping Talia didn’t ask what conception meant—she was already curious about big words beginning with C thanks to that damn spelling quiz.

Brooke shut her eyes and shook her head. “Hippy island indeed. Cumin the Human,” she muttered that last bit. “I suppose it’s better than Paprika.”

“Is it, though?” Clint asked with a chuckle.

She shrugged and finished her second cookie.

“Emme had a Fennel in her class last year, but she moved. And Silas had a Chanterelle in his class last year. She’s being homeschooled now, though,” Talia went on, shaking her head. “I’m not going to name my kids dumb things. Plants like lilies and roses are fine, but Barnacle?” She wrinkled her button nose, then shook her head some more. “Nope. No way.”

Brooke and Clint’s gazes locked, and all the humor from a moment ago evaporated into the ether, leaving nothing but heat and longing. She could feel it, too. He knew she could. She knew he’d heard her with Talia upstairs. Comforting his daughter.

The grinding noise of Talia’s chair against the floor severed the intense moment between them, and he cringed at the grating sound. “I need to put some new pads on the bottom of that chair,” he said, watching his happy-go-lucky child, who still had red-rimmed eyes, take her dishes to the dishwasher.

“I’m glad I only have a month left of school,” Talia said. She spun around to face Brooke. “Do you want my Mother’s Day gift? It’s just a painting that we’re making. We can write whatever we want on it. We don’t have to write Happy Mother’s Day. I could write, "Thanks for not drowning.”

Brooke had just taken a sip of her milk, but spat it across the table when Talia said that. She flicked her gaze up to Clint, a mix of horror and amusement in her eyes.

“Uh ...” Clint said, running to the kitchen and grabbing a tea towel.

Talia giggled at the mess Brooke made.

He handed the towel to Brooke, who started to clean up her mess. “We can come up with something better to write than that, don’t you think?” Clint postured.

“And as much as I’m honored you thought of me, sweetheart, maybe you could give it to your dad? He’s mom and dad to you, right?” Brooke offered, wiping the milk off the table and herself.

Talia was already on another train of thought and just shrugged. “Sure. Talking about you not drowning might make my teacher wonder who I was talking about, anyway. And you being alive is a secret.” She glanced at Clint. “Can I go over to Aya and Emme’s?”

“Yes,” he said, grateful for the reprieve of his precocious, says-whatever-is-in-her-head eight-year-old.

“Thanks.” She skipped away and was out the door a moment later.

“I should probably change my shirt,” Brooke murmured, standing up from the table.

Watching a bra-less Brooke wipe herself off, Clint snapped. “That reminds me. There’s a big box at the front door. Your items have arrived.”

Excitement flashed in her green eyes.

He left her there in the kitchen and went to grab the package. It was heavy.

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