Page 130 of Challenged by the Single Dad

“Better not have dented my new truck,” Wyatt said.

“I think it was just a big stick or something,” Clint mused.

They turned a corner and Wyatt had to slow right down. The amount of debris—and not all of it small leaves, cones, and needles—littered the street. The last thing they needed was a flat tire or damaged axel because they were driving recklessly in a storm.

“I can’t go any faster,” Wyatt said, obviously feeling Dom’s anxiety and need to get to Chloe. “If we hit something, we’re toast.

Dom understood, but that did nothing to comfort him. Nothing to soothe the panic taking over every cell of his body.

How far away were they from Hawke’s now? Could he get there on foot?

Maybe he just needed to run.

Almost as quickly as that thought entered his brain, Clint’s hand flew over the front seat. “Tree!” he hollered.

Wyatt managed to slam on the breaks just in time, even then, they slid a few feet on the slippery road.

Dom’s dread quadrupled in size. A giant fir tree had toppled, falling clear across the road and blocking both lanes. They couldn’t even skirt around on the shoulder because it plunged into a deep ditch on both sides.

He said nothing to his brothers, just flung open the passenger side door and started running, leaping over the fallen tree and not looking back.

He had no headlamp, nothing.

He wasn’t even in proper running shoes, and was dressed in all dark clothes, but he didn’t fucking care. He was a Marine. He’d run for longer wearing worse, and in worse weather.

He also didn’t have to stick to the road now. He could take the trails that wove through the woods all over the island, connecting major roads and commercial spots. Easy for those who came to the island without a vehicle and wanted to explore as much as they could. A lot of cyclists used them.

It was tough to spot the trail opening on the side of the road in the dark, but he still had a little light from Wyatt’s headlights to guide him. Eventually, he found it and careened off the road and onto the trail. If his sense of direction prevailed, he had to stay on the main trail and not take any of the offshoots, and that would get him straight to Hawke’s.

He picked up speed. At least under the trees, the rain wasn’t pelting his face like icy bullets the way it had been on the road. But now, he was at the mercy of the tree gods, and he sent a silent prayer to them that they didn’t chuck a giant branch at him, or lay one in his path for him to trip over.

Chloe was in danger. His baby was in danger. And he’d run on a broken leg to them if he had to.

Unsure of how long he’d been running, and unable to see anything besides the shadows of trees, his lungs burned and his feet ached in his Blundstones. The boots were great for many things, but sprinting long distances wasn’t one of them. But he kept running. Adrenaline shot through his system like lightning, helping him ignore the pain, ignore the muscle fatigue, and the dread that coiled like a snake around his insides, squeezing the life out of him.

His hands were soaked and ached from the cold as he clutched his phone in his fist, the call between him and Chloe still connected. He couldn’t hear anything right now, and he didn’t want to risk dropping his phone—it had a black case—by putting it to his ear while running, but he hoped she knew he was still on the line. That he was coming to get her.

The creak and groan of the trees above didn’t even make him pause. He had no time to worry about whatcouldhappen to him. He was focused on what was hopefullynothappening to Chloe.

He knew something bad was going to happen to her working there. He’d been so afraid of listening to his Spidey sense since the whole debacle with Nadine and Ginny, and he really should have trusted his gut with this. But he—and even Chloe—wrote it off as jealousy. That he didn’t like her working that close to Hawke. And maybe part of it was jealousy, but another big part was that she was far away from him, and it would take time for him to get to her, for him to reach her and protect her.

He’d been too far away from Remy to save her. She’d been on the mainland, and he was on the island with his brothers and Silas. Maybe if he’d been the one driving, he could have avoided the accident? He could have swerved in time. He could have protected them all. Or at the very least, he could have held Remy as she passed, told her how much he loved her and that he’d do his very best to keep her memory alive for Silas.

Guilt and adrenaline, fear and panic, formed a cocktail of insanity inside him. Growling, he ducked his head and picked up speed, focused on the darkness in front of him. He had tunnel vision now and his only objective was to get to Chloe.

Dom’s money had been on Orrin returning and wreaking havoc. Not that weasel Joey Jefferies. Where the fuck was he even staying? Abe kicked him out and nobody had seen him since. Did he come back to the island just to … what? Damage Hawke’s property? Was Chloe his actual target? Or was she just there and he figured what the hell? He’d fuck with her too?

A loud crash to the left of him made him jump, but it was only a branch falling through other branches and landing with a hard, wetthudon the ground. The vibration of it hitting the earth rattled all the way through his bones, but he ignored it. He just pushed on, until finally, a soft glowing light up ahead made relief damn near buckle his knees.

It was the porch light for the hostel.

He was there.

He pushed the NOS button and picked up speed, sprinting even faster to the finish line and out of the trail onto the gravel driveway. Splashing in the puddles, he took the porch steps two at a time and reached for the handle to open it.

The door didn’t move.

It was locked.

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