Page 104 of The Beekeeper

Pais clapped her hands. “I’m so excited.” And then she skipped to the dining table and went back to her coloring book on the table.

“I don’t know how you did it,” I said under my breath, wondering how the little girl in front of me was the same little girl who used to cry so hard at thunderstorms, the blood vessels around her eyes would burst.

“Make the cake?” Harper asked as I helped her carry the dirty mixing bowls to the sink.

“Made her not afraid,” I said like she didn’t know what I meant—like she didn’t want anyone to make it out to be as big of a deal as it was. “Look at her,” I murmured, watching Pais draw at the table, not oblivious to the thunder, but excited for it. Every boom pulled her eyes back to the oven like she knew the sound was injecting even more sweetness into her treat.

“Someone once asked me what I would do if I wasn’t afraid,” she repeated the question I’d asked her that one day, waiting until my eyes found hers before she continued, “The unknown can be scary, but it could also be magic.”

Magic.

My heart thudded, and I watched her pull in a short breath through her lips.

“Daddy,” Pais called, severing the moment between Harper and me. “Come look at my pictures.”

“Be right there, pumpkin,” I said, setting the dirty bowl in my hands into the sink and using the movement to put my head next to hers, my lips finding the shell of her ear. She shivered as I whispered there, “Thank you.”

For the next thirty minutes, Pais regaled me with the story she was writing about a little bee finding her first hive. The whole time, I started to wonder what the next step would mean for my daughter. Once everything was settled and we moved out…my throat tightened with worry as I saw for the first time, not only how deeply ingrained Harper was in me, but just how much she’d come to mean to my daughter, too.

The timer went off, and Pais almost knocked over her chair in her eagerness to reach the oven.

“Let Harper do it,” I cautioned, but she was already stepping back.

Harper opened the oven and the scent of molten chocolate hazelnut sugar wafted through the air.

“It worked!” Paisley exclaimed. “We caught the thunder!”

“You did,” Harper corrected, her smile so damn beautiful and broad. “You mixed in all the thunder, Pais. It’s all because of you.”

But was it? The question haunted me for the next hour as we dug into the thunder cake and let Paisley tell us all about the sea snails she’d learned about earlier with Aurora until the sugar crash hit and suddenly, she could hardly keep her eyes open.

“Let’s go, pumpkin. Time for bed,” I said, and I didn’t even get a mumble of protest as I picked her up from her chair.

I should’ve said good night to Harper then—should’ve at least given the illusion that I might not come down to her tonight. Even after I put Pais to bed, I stopped at the top of the staircase, willing myself not to go down. I could still stop this. What did it matter that I hadn’t said good night, the wordless implication that I would see her later? I could leave her waiting. Be more of an asshole again. Resurrect those defenses until I knew what was going to happen—what my future held. I shouldn’t let this continue.

I shouldn’t keep stringing her into this unknown with me.

But what would I do if I wasn’t afraid of that unknown?

My foot hit the top step, and then the one beneath it, and then one beneath that. This. This was what I would do. Savor her magic.

Chapter 25

Blaze

“Wade?” I called, striding through my brother’s house, my heart creating a maelstrom in my chest.

He stepped out of his office just as I reached the door, my mind so frantic I almost crashed into him with a curse. “Blaze⁠—”

“What happened? Why did the clerk’s office call you?” I demanded, the questions tearing from my mouth like cracks of a whip. “They said we wouldn’t know until next week. Do they need something else? I can’t keep doing this—I can’t keep being strung along here wondering whether or not they’re going to take Paisley⁠—”

“They’re not.”

The axis of the earth tilted underneath me.

“What?” I reached for the wall to steady myself.

“The court denied Angela’s petition with prejudice,” he said, taking my shoulders and anchoring me.