Page 24 of Rescued by the Single Dad

Then he and Bennett left and as soon as that door clicked shut, she exhaled in relief.

“Are you married?” Emerson asked. “Is your husband going to be worried about you? Does he think you’re dead, too?”

Brooke closed her eyes for half a second to let the heat leave her cheeks. She shook her head, blinked open her eyes and faced Emerson. “No, I’m not married.”

“Boyfriend?” Aya asked.

“No.”

“Dog?” Talia asked with what seemed like desperation. “Goldfish?”

Brooke forced out a chuckle to keep herself from crying . “No. No dog. No goldfish. I’ve always wanted a dog, though. I did have a boyfriend, but he was allergic to dogs. But we broke up, so I planned to get a dog as soon as I finished up the tour for my latest movie premier.”

“Why’d you break up?” Aya asked.

Oh, little girls were so curious. Full of questions and with big wide doll eyes, rosy cheeks and a charm about them that pulled Brooke in like a butterfly to a honeysuckle.

“We just weren’t right for each other,” she replied, sticking to the truth, but not supplying the facts. “We wanted different things.”

Like, he wanted to sleep with other people and ruin his image, while I DIDN’T.

“Like you wanted a dog, and he didn’t?” Talia asked.

“Like that, yeah.” Brooke reached around Talia’s head and grabbed the second hair elastic from her hand, then secured it around the tail of the braid. She flipped the braid over Talia’s shoulder. “All done. Aya, you’re up.”

Talia and Aya switched places, but then Talia got up from her spot on the floor and sat next to Brooke, leaning her head against Brooke’s shoulder. It was weird that this little girl was so affectionate with someone she’d just met, but also wonderful at the same time.

Brooke loved kids. She’d always wanted a big family and had envisioned herself just like this on more than one occasion. With a daughter, braiding her hair and talking about boys and life and everything in between.

The kids were fairly candid about what tragically happened to their mothers.

She knew life wasn’t fair. But sometimes it just plain sucked.

“Well, I’m glad you don’t have a husband or boyfriend missing you,” Talia said, snuggling in closer. “Or a dog missing you. That would be sad. But I hope you get your dog when you tell the world you’re alive again.”

Brooke glanced down at the little girl, who now had her head against Brooke’s arm and her hand on Brooke’s thigh. “Me, too, Talia. Me, too.”

Clint and Bennett made their way down the hill to the brewery.

“Others are already there,” Bennett said.

Clint nodded, but glanced back at his house, which was the last in the row of almost identical houses on the ridge. “You think they’ll be okay?”

“Who? The kids or Brooke?”

“Both.”

Bennett snorted. “You and I have the easiest children of the bunch. They’ll be fine. And Brooke is a grown woman. Wyatt can’t leave Griffin and Jake alone, and Dom can’t leave Silas. Not unless they’re with their girl cousins who somehow keep them in check and from breaking bones and putting holes in walls.”

“They’re also younger,” Clint pointed out, the gravel crunching under his Blundstone boots as they crossed the parking lot. Bennett heaved on the handle of the big wooden door.

“Yeah, but they’re also boys. And you remember what we were like as kids. Mom took forever to leave us alone. I think you were like fourteen before she finally trusted the five of us to stay alone and that was for about an hour, so she could get her hair done.”

Making a noise of agreement in his throat, Clint nodded and headed toward the back of the brewpub, past the bar and tables, through the kitchen and into his “office,” which was where the magic happened. Where the beer was made.

Silas and Griffin who were both six, sat on the couch in the far corner of the brewery, each of them with a Nintendo Switch in their hands, while Jake, eight, and on the shier and quieter side—but could still get up to mischief—was on the floor reading a book, his back against the couch.

Dominic, Wyatt and Jagger sat on bar stools, each of them with a Yeti stainless steel to-go coffee cup in their hands and tired eyes.

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