Page 115 of The Beekeeper

“It’s fine, I don’t need to see it.”

“The upstairs bedrooms?” The precocious young real estate agent folded her arms and cocked her hips. “You should at least see what you want to buy.” I was about to protest when she added, “Your daughter is going to want to know what her room is going to be like.”

True.

I exhaled and grumbled. “Fine.”

I followed her upstairs. “I’ve just been looking for a long time, so I guess I don’t need to see much to know when something is what I need.”

“Well we’ll breeze through these bedrooms and then we’ll get out of here and get down to the nitty-gritty.”

Not even thirty minutes later, we’d finished the showing and reconvened at a café in Stonebar. We both grabbed coffees, and I listened, almost vacantly as she went through the details. Asking price. Inspections. Closing cost. Things I should care about—should be paying attention to, but I couldn’t because all I could think about was getting back home—fuck. To the farm.

“That’s fine,” I interrupted her, and she blinked at me. I wasn’t trying to be rude, but I was slipping so damn far off this ledge with Harper and the…life we’d fallen into together over the last few months, that I needed to reel myself back out of it and fast before everything got too tangled.

“Which part?”

“All of it.”

Her jaw dropped and she quickly composed herself. “Okay, but I think I could get them down a little bit⁠—”

“It doesn’t matter. Tell him I’ll pay the asking price.”

“Oh…okay.” She shifted in her seat. This was obviously the first time she’d encountered a situation like this. “Okay, I can do that. I’ll let them know this afternoon.”

“Thanks.” I managed a half-assed smile and then drained the rest of my coffee. “I should get back.”

“Of course.” She stood as I did and extended her hand. Just as I went to shake it, someone bumped into her from behind and sent her crashing into me. “Sorry,” she apologized as I steadied her, her regret echoed by the woman who’d backed into her as she’d been trying to turn her walker.

“Thanks for your help,” I said, shaking her hand this time.

“I’ll be in touch.”

I walked away from the conversation with everything that I wanted—a house that was permanent and private and close by family for Pais and me, and in spite of that, it felt like there was a gaping hole in the center of my chest. Almost like, I’d had to amputate a piece of myself in order to get this deal—the piece that was irrevocably riveted to Harper.

“I have to check on the queen!”

“Pais, wait—” I huffed, watching her take off toward the hive.

I’d picked Pais up from camp and debated the whole way home about telling her about the house. In the end, I’d run out of time and decided it would be better to tell Harper first. This way, we’d be on the same page for Paisley’s response. Not because I was hoping this might be the thing that would make her want to revisit us.

Slowly, I followed my daughter’s path to the hives. Made sense to check if Harper was there first.

The sound of her laughter warned me that she was. Our eyes found each other as soon as I cleared the trees, and my heart slammed into my chest.

Was I really doing this?

Leaving her?

Pais tugged on her arm and drew her focus—and mine. I walked over to them, unable to hear what they were talking about before Pais skipped off into the wildflower field.

“Hey,” Harper greeted me, her cheeks flushing as my eyes ran over her, catching on her tee that had the words ‘Queen Bee’ written on it in a flourish. My little queen. My jaw ratcheted tighter as I curled and then released my fingers, trying to shake off the urge to reach for her and haul her into my arms.

“Hi,” I clipped. “Where’d Pais go?”

She scanned over her shoulder. “She was out in the field checking the shells…” One of Paisley’s new favorite things to do was to check on the “bee homes” she’d procured and decorated from the beach. “Are you okay?”

I stiffened, hating that she could tell when I wasn’t. Like there was no act good enough to hide my feelings from her.