Page 7 of Smitten with the Single Dad

“He attacked you?”

She nodded.

Gripping her carefully by the elbow, he steered her toward the front door of the pub, opened it and snagged Dominic’s gaze.

They were brothers, so no words needed to be said to get Dom out from behind the bar and taking big, purposeful strides toward Wyatt. “What’s wrong?” Dom asked, joining them just outside the front door to the pub in the parking lot. His gaze widened when he took in the woman’s state. “Shit.”

“Where is he?” Wyatt asked again. “You said the beach?”

The woman nodded.

“Dom, stay with her. I’m going to go find that piece of shit.”

Dom nodded while Wyatt took off down toward the beach to go see what kind of waste of skin, dick cheese, fuckface waited for him.

He didn’t make it all the way to the beach though, before he nearly stepped on the lump of wheezing douchebaggery, gasping for air in the sand just below the pub deck.

The man’s eyes were wide with fear as he stared up at Wyatt, pleading for help.

“Fuck,” Wyatt grumbled before calling out for Dom.

Dom came running, the woman wasn’t with him though. “What?”

“He can’t breathe,” Wyatt said, turning on the flashlight app on his phone.

“Fuck,” Dom gritted out. “Okay, you do what you can to help him, and I’ll call Justine to come down. But I don’t want to leave her alone up there. She’s really freaking scared.”

Wyatt glared down at the man who was starting to turn blue—or at least it looked like he was turning blue under the light of the moon. “What did you do to her, you pathetic piece of shit?”

The man’s eyes were still full of terror and he clutched at his throat.

Wyatt dropped to his knees in the sand and tilted the man’s chin up to help open his airway. He felt around his neck, not entirely sure what he was searchingfor. Sure, he had first aid, but he wasn’t a fucking doctor, or even a paramedic. His triage skills were better suited to his kids and their endless bumps and bruises. A Spiderman Band-Aid, a popsicle, and it was like the road rash never even happened.

But this shit stain in the sand needed more than a fucking Spiderman Band-Aid.

Chest compressions wouldn’t even work, not if his windpipe was crushed. The guy would need a fucking cricothyrotomy or a cric and no way was Wyatt the man for the job.

More gravel crunched nearby, followed by heavy breathing. Then Bennett and Justine appeared.

Justine was a cardiothoracic surgeon who was now one of the general practitioners on the island. She did a bit of everything, relying heavily on her residency rotations through the ER and family medicine since there weren’t too many people seeking open-heart surgery on the sleepy little hippy island of San Camanez.

“What happened?” Bennett asked, taking in the scene.

“He attacked the woman that’s with Dom. I think she crushed his windpipe.”

Justine paused for just a second before her oath to save even the troglodytes of the earth kicked back in and she dropped to her knees in the sand beside the predator, opening up her physician’s bag.

Wyatt didn’t give two shits what happened to the guy now.

He was in Justine’s hands.

If he lived, he’d rot in a prison cell. If he died … well, there was a special place in hell for men who hit women and children.

Wyatt took off back to where Dom stood in the parking lot with the woman. She held a wet, white washcloth against the cut on her cheek. “What’s your name?” he asked her gently.

“Vica,” she replied, her voice soft, almost hoarse.

“Can we call someone for you, Vica?” he asked.

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