Page 52 of Rescued by the Single Dad

Her heart hurt.

Was he just like all the other men in her life? Had he already lost interest? That had to be a new record. With a hard, heavy lump in her throat, she fought back the threatening tears.

Why did she repel men?

What was it about her that made them just … leave?

With a tight chest and a burning sensation behind her eyes, she picked up the tablet from the coffee table. Crap. It was only ten in the morning.

What the hell was she going to do all day alone in the house and unable to walk?

She’d never been a big television watcher. She read books when she could, but she didn’t have a lot of free time. Time to take advantage of your sudden free schedule and do some of those things.

Yeah, maybe ...

Grumbling at the complex puzzle that was Clint, she grabbed the remote and flicked on the television. He’d shown her how to cast from the tablet, so after a bit of fiddling around, she had an episode of Elementary playing.

She’d met Jonny Lee Miller at a party once. He was very friendly and down-to-earth.

She watched four episodes of Elementary before she needed to pee.

It wasn’t that far to the powder room, but she’d have to crawl, and her knees and shins were still pretty scratched up. During the second episode of Elementary, she dried her feet and dressed them herself, but her cuts and scrapes on her knees no longer needed bandages—or at least she didn’t think they did.

Slowly, she slid down to the floor on all fours. Her bladder screamed for release. She’d managed to straddle Clint and put pressure on her knees and shins, so she shouldn’t have any trouble crawling—or so she thought.

But the couch was forgiving. The floor was not, and within ten feet of crawling, she’d managed to open up one cut on her knee and was leaving bloody splotches on the floor.

Great!

But she could do this.

She wasn’t an invalid. She wasn’t a damsel in distress.

She was Brooke fucking Barker, and she’d managed to survive frigid waters and swimming over a mile to get to land. She could survive getting to the bathroom.

Then, like a lightbulb switched on in her brain, she smiled and sat up, and proceeded to shuffle like a toddler on her butt, using her hands and not-cut-up parts of her heels to push her forward.

“Ah-ha!” she exclaimed, so proud of herself as she crossed the gulf between the couch and the bathroom door.

She reached the door just as she thought she was going to create a puddle like a puppy on the hardwood. Then she hoisted herself up using the bathroom vanity and got herself onto the toilet.

“In your face, Clint McEvoy,” she murmured as she relieved herself.

Once she finished, she did the same snazzy maneuver to get herself back to the couch.

She was nearly there when the front door opened. “Brooke?”

The voice was deep and raspy and sounded a lot like Clint’s, but she knew that it wasn’t him.

Jagger appeared around the corner a second later. His lips dipped into a frown when he found her on the floor. Then, like a gallant bearded Prince Charming, he swooped in and picked her up. “Did you fall?”

She shook her head. “No, I just returned from the bathroom.”

The creases between his brows softened as he put her down on the couch. “Oh. I came to check to see if you needed help to the bathroom.”

Sadness created a fist around her heart. “Did Clint send you?”

He nodded. “Yeah. And he sent me with lunch for you, too.” He grabbed the cardboard to-go container from the console table near the front door and brought it to her. “He said you don’t eat red meat, so he ordered you the grilled Cajun chicken sandwich with our house-made beer-soaked French fries with fermented and ground dried black garlic.”

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