Page 9 of Rescued by the Single Dad

“Hard to hide her from the rest of the family forever. And Talia is a blabbermouth.”

“Oh yeah, how are you going to explain her to Talia?”

Clint had absolutely no idea.

Jagger noticed Clint's cluelessness and weary exhale. His smile in response was full of sympathy, which Clint appreciated.

“Text me if you need anything.”

“Will do.”

His brother left, and Clint closed the door. He never locked his door. It was San Camanez Island. Nobody ever locked their door. Everyone on the island was a friend. And even the tourists when they came seemed to understand that the island was a place of peace and the locals would boot them back to where they came from if they messed with the harmonious balance of things.

Fatigue pulled on his eyelids like two anchors, but he didn’t want to fall asleep with Brooke upstairs in the tub. So, like an idiot, he made himself some coffee and sat at the kitchen table, thinking he’d be less likely to fall asleep on a wooden chair than he was on the couch.

It was nearly two o’clock in the morning when he heard the tub start to drain upstairs and his bedroom door opened.

He raced as fast as his tired legs could carry him because he didn’t want to force Brooke to walk on her cut-up feet. He met her at the top of the stairs. His clothes swallowed her up. They were at least six sizes too big. It was kind of adorable. She’d braided her long, wet blonde hair down her back and had scrubbed her face free of makeup. Her cheeks were rosy, which was good. It meant warmth had returned to her face. But her eyes were also puffy from crying.

“Where would you like to go?” he asked her.

Her smile was warm but uncertain. “Back to the living room?”

“Sure thing.” Then, before she could protest, he scooped her up. She wrapped her arms around his neck, and he easily carried her down the stairs and set her on the couch. Then he bounded back up to his room, where all the blankets were piled on his bed. He grabbed most of them and carried them back to her. He tucked her in and made her some tea.

“You’re being very sweet,” she whispered, cupping the warm mug in both hands and resting it on her bent knees. “You don’t even know me.”

“Are you rude to strangers?” he asked.

She offered a cute, but cautious smile. “No, I guess not.”

“You’ve been through a lot, so just let me know what you need.”

“I know what you need,” she said, giving him a knowing and sympathetic look. “Sleep.”

“I’m fine,” he said, slumping into the love seat across from her on the couch.

“So am I. I took my temperature when I got out of the bath, and I’m at ninety-eight-point-six already, so no need to worry about me falling asleep and dying on your sofa.” She sipped her tea. “Sleep, Clint. I’ll be okay.”

He nodded and yawned. “Okay, but ... I’ll just doze for like ten minutes right here.”

“Whatever you need to make yourself not worry.”

Her voice was like honey, and it soothed him as he closed his eyes and let the whiskey, adrenaline and grief of his night whip into a cocktail of exhaustion inside of him.

He was out in seconds, giving his weird dreams free rein in his head.

Dreams about a blonde Hollywood It-girl growing fins, then riding an orca around in a bottle of whiskey that had wheels and raced through traffic like a cop car during a high-speed chase. Then the bottle crashed into a concrete barricade on the road and the It-girl—who now had a mermaid tail—begged him to help her.

And he did.

He promised her in his dream that he would help her any way he could.

No matter how much it hurt in the end to let her go.

CHAPTER TWO

She remembered seeing a light and swimming toward it. Rocks, hewn by the sea and dressed in barnacles, scraped and cut up the bottoms of her feet when she finally touched the ocean floor, then she flung herself, shivering, and crawled through the surf with bones and muscles made of ice, onto the rocks, tearing up her knees and shins before she fell unconscious.

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