Page 19 of Rescued by the Single Dad

“Earl Grey?”

“Sounds perfect.”

He tossed in the tea bag, then poured the hot water, bringing the mug over to her along with the two different kinds of milk they had in the fridge—cow and almond.

Brooke opted for the cow milk and poured a little bit into her mug before wrapping both hands around the mug like the life preserver she sorely needed last night. Clint could practically feel the heat of the tea seeping into his own bones. Brooke’s look was so transformative. Even though the bath upstairs probably helped, he knew what it was like to be borderline hypothermic, and that was a chill that didn’t just go away with a soak in a warm tub.

“Dig in,” Bennett said. “Pancakes are always best when they’re warm and fresh.”

With a cute grunt, Talia leaned forward and tried to lift the entire plate of pancakes. It wobbled precariously in her hands, but she offered them to Brooke. “You first.”

With a bigger smile, Brooke used the fork on top of the pancakes to spear one and place it on her plate. “Thank you, Talia.”

Talia beamed, then placed the plate of pancakes back down and used her fingers to grab one for herself.

“Syrup?” Emme asked, lifting up the glass bottle of maple syrup.

“I’m more of a whipped cream and fruit person myself,” Brooke said.

“Me, too,” Aya cheered, reaching for a pancake. “I like to cover my pancake with so much whipped cream you can’t even see it.”

“Only way to do it,” Brooke replied.

Clint grabbed the bowl of homemade whipped cream and handed it to Brooke. She was modest in her dollops but made up for it with a liberal ladling of the stewed strawberries. Pancakes with whipped cream and strawberries was Talia’s preferred birthday breakfast, so besides the pancakes themselves, everything else on the table was left over from yesterday.

Once everyone had a full plate, they dug in.

Brooke remained quiet as she daintily cut up her pancake and ate. She would sit up and smile to respond to questions from the children, then slouch back into her chair a moment later, no doubt pushed down by a sea of unanswerable questions swirling around in her mind.

Clint didn’t begrudge her silence. She didn’t know any of them, the world was probably learning of her fall that very moment, and someone out there wanted her dead—and assumed that she was. For anybody that would weigh heavily on their mind.

He cleared his throat and sipped his coffee before addressing her. “I’d like to help you however I can.”

“You’ve already helped so much.” Her voice was soft and slightly hoarse. “I’d be dead on that beach if you hadn’t found me.”

“I still can’t get over the fact that you swam in that water,” Bennett said.

Brooke lobbed a sarcastic huff of a laugh. “I swam for my high school and was state champion three years in a row. If I hadn’t been, I wouldn’t have survived. The current was strong, and the water was really cold.”

“So, what would you like to do, Brooke?” Bennett asked before sipping his coffee. “I think going to the police is the best option.” He made sure to pin a look on Clint that said any other option was stupid.

Brooke shook her head. “I don’t.”

“Is there someone else we should call then?” Bennett asked, a little flustered at her response.

Clint’s chest puffed up ever so slightly that he was right and his brother—the know-it-all of the McEvoy family—was wrong.

Brooke shrugged. “I don’t know. I went over all of this in my head in the shower—”

Suddenly, a very vivid, very sexy image of Brooke in the shower popped into Clint’s brain. He shook his head to clear it. Not the time or place, bro. Not the time or place.

“Maybe it was a contract, you know?” Brooke went on.

“Like someone hired someone to kill you?” Bennett asked in disbelief.

“Maybe?” she said with another shrug. “Because I honestly can’t think of anybody—besides Flynn’s girlfriend, which is a stretch—who would want me dead. So ... maybe whoever wants me dead couldn’t get an invitation to the boat, but they hired someone who could. Like waitstaff or something.”

“It’s a possibility,” Clint mused.

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