Page 12 of Rescued by the Single Dad

She blew out a breath as she digested all the information. “Right.”

Her body was on fire. She tried to push the blankets off, but every one of her muscles seemed to seize all at once. Panic filled her.

Clint’s blue eyes grew worried. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m hot. I’m like burning up.”

He nodded and pulled an electric blanket out from under her feet. But that wasn’t enough. She fought the aches in her body and shoved all the blankets off at once.

In addition to the white T-shirt that was way too big for her, she was also in gray sweatpants that were way too big and white socks.

“How much of last night do you remember?” Clint asked her as she slowly sat up, then pulled the socks off her feet.

“Ouch!” the little girl said. “Your feet are all cut up.”

“Shit, right,” Clint said. “I was supposed to bandage those up after your bath. I’m sorry. I completely forgot.” He reached for the ointment tube and some bandages from the coffee table, then sat down on the edge of it and brought her feet into his lap. “These already look better.”

The little girl and Brooke both watched him as he gently applied the ointment, then secured the bandages to the bottoms of her feet.

“You’ve got some on your knees and shins, too,” he said. “Talia, can you run to the first aid kit and bring me more Band-Aids, please? The kit is open on the kitchen table.”

The little girl nodded, then skipped to the kitchen.

“How many people were on the yacht?” Clint asked.

Brooke shrugged. “Probably close to a hundred, if you include the staff. It was a big boat. We were celebrating the release of my latest film. The producer borrowed the yacht from his Greek shipping buddy. They even had press there.”

“And did you have any enemies on the boat? Anyone who you think might want you dead?”

With her eyes fixed on Talia returning with a fist full of bandages, she shook her head. “The only person I can even think of who would do it, was supposed to be there, but then bailed at the last minute.”

“Who was that?”

“Do what, Brooke?” Talia interjected.

Clint and Brooke’s eyes locked.

He cleared his throat and glanced at his daughter. “Sweetie, can you double-check that I didn't leave the water running in the bathroom sink? I think I can hear it dripping.”

“I don’t hear anything,” Talia replied, giving her dad a confused look.

“Just go check, please,” he insisted.

Talia rolled her eyes and shrugged, then skipped off to the bathroom down the hall.

Clint focused back on Brooke. “Who?”

“Flynn Howard.”

“The actor?”

She nodded. “We were a thing. Until a month ago, when I caught him with an extra in his trailer. He’s been in hot water a few times recently with the press and fans over the way he’s reacted to people asking for autographs. Then there was that incident with the seventeen-year-old girl and the dick pic he sent to her DMs—he swore he’d thought she said she was twenty. After that, the press hounded him. He punched a photographer outside the building of The Today Show two months ago and tossed his beer in the face of a hostess at a restaurant.”

“And you only ended it a month ago?” His brows were hiked and she could feel his judgment. Why didn’t she end things with Flynn sooner?

“I ended things with him after the dick pic incident, which coincided with his cheating. However, me ending things with him sullied his image even more, and he was not happy about it. He said that I should have stood by him during all of it. When in reality, I was with him far longer than I should have been and stood by him through more than I should have. I just ... I’m a pushover.”

Clint finished bandaging her feet, then carefully slid the legs of her pants up just past her knees to reveal skinned and bloodied knees and shins. She winced a little when he dabbed on the ointment with the cotton swab, but for the most part he was very gentle.

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