Page 126 of The Beekeeper

“Because I’m scared of someone getting hurt because of me, and I don’t want that to happen.”

“The bees hurt me but I’m not scared of them,” she said defiantly.

“Because you are brave. Braver than your dad.” Who was a fucking coward when it came to thinking he deserved to be loved.

“Lots of things are scary, Daddy,” she said softly, setting the whisk on the counter and pushing the bowl to me. “But they don’t have to be.”

And with that, my almost-seven-year-old daughter grabbed a glass and headed for the front door, to walk out into a thunderstorm that would’ve sent her into a sobbing panic two months ago to catch rain drops to make a magic cake.

She was no longer afraid of the storm, leaving me to realize that I was the only one left of us who was.

What would I do if I wasn’t afraid?

I would fight like hell to find my way back to the woman I loved.

I knocked and then Paisley proceeded to bang on my brother’s door, one fist after another.

“Coming!” Wade shouted, but she still didn’t stop.

“Pais—” I tried to grab her wrists, but she wiggled out of my grasp and kept banging.

“Uncle Wade! It’s an emergency!”

“Shit,” I muttered. Bending, I hauled my daughter into my arms, her expression furious as she looked at me. “Pais, you can’t⁠—”

The door swung open, my brother looking disheveled and panicked. “What’s going on? Are you okay?” His stare swung from me to Pais. “Is everything okay? Is Mom okay?”

“Everyone’s fine. I’m sorry⁠—”

“No!” Paisley yelled. “We’re not fine.”

“Jesus—” I bit off another curse as she practically threw herself from my hold, forcing me to set her feet back on the ground. “Pais⁠—”

“We’re not okay, Uncle Wade. We’re not okay without Harper.”

My brother’s stare instantly softened and lifted from my daughter to me.

“You should come in,” Wade muttered, and I almost hesitated, sensing the amount of shit I was about to be in, but if it meant finding Harper, then so be it.

I didn’t even get the door shut behind us before Pais saw Lou and rushed over to her, blurting out everything that had happened in the last twelve hours. From ‘Daddy said he made a mistake. We never should’ve moved and left Harper.’ To ‘We went back to the farm but she wasn’t there and she wasn’t with the bees. We can’t find her. What if she left? We left. What if she left, Aunt Lou?’

I turned to my brother again who’d crossed his arms and was studying me like a suspect he already knew was guilty. And he wasn’t even a criminal lawyer.

“You don’t have to say it, I already know,” I rasped. “Another mistake to add to my rap sheet.”

His arms dropped. “Enough.” It wasn’t anger in his voice but pain. “You’re not a dictionary of mistakes, Blaze. You never were.”

“Easy for you to say when⁠—”

“When I had to grow up knowing that every good I did was another yoke around your neck?”

“Don’t.” I shook my head and looked for Frankie. I didn’t want to do this right now, I wanted to figure out how the hell I was going to get Harper back.

“Neither of us won with Dad, Blaze, because there was no prize,” Wade continued. “He needed a favorite and a failure, and that’s what he turned us into, but not anymore. We’re not kids anymore, and he’s not here.”

I shifted my weight, feeling some raw split in my chest like ice cracking as it started to thaw.

“You can’t find Harper and ask for forgiveness if you don’t think you’ll ever deserve it. If you don’t think you’ll ever be good enough.”