Page 55 of The Beekeeper

“I don’t know,” I said.

“Do you have a guess?”

“No, ma’am.” I kept my voice level—bracing for what I knew was going to come next as though she’d loaded a gun and aimed it at my head.

Devereaux slid a sly glance over to Angela, but I wouldn’t follow it. I didn’t trust myself.

And then she pulled the trigger.

“Do you think, Mr. Stevens, it was because Ms. Eckhardt knew, as the child’s mother, that you were not fit to be a father or have a role in your daughter’s life?”

“I hate lawyers,” I said and tipped my head back against the headrest in my brother’s car. “Present company excluded.”

“Thanks,” Wade grumbled.

Everything but my damn dick size had gone under the microscope in the courtroom earlier, and judging by the way Devereaux kept looking at me, she was searching for a way to make that part of discovery, too.

“You did good in there,” he said as we pulled onto the highway, heading back toward Maine.

The farther we got from the city, the more I felt like I could breathe. Like I’d been underwater all morning in family court and now finally I was coming up for air.

“Did I?” I sighed. “It felt like nothing I said was good enough.”

“It was, but it was also their job to make you feel like it wasn’t,” Wade assured me. “I think the judge was happy to hear about your new residence.”

“Angela certainly wasn’t,” I huffed. It was the silver lining—watching her irritation grow as I detailed our move, the reasons for it, and the benefits. “I wish I could convince Megan’s parents to make a statement.”

They hadn’t trusted me at first, not on learning who their granddaughter’s infamous father really was. But they’d had a front-row seat to the one-eighty I’d pulled on my life over the last eighteen months. The rehab. The way I’d slowly courted Paisley’s trust. They’d watched every second and ounce of effort I’d put into turning myself into a man who could be the father Pais deserved.

They believed Pais belonged with me, but to step in and tell the court the truth…they’d already lost one child. Even if Angela was only a figment in their lives, they wouldn’t risk losing her, too.

“I think the judge will see, especially when I question Angela, that a name in a will isn’t a right. She hasn’t been a part of Paisley’s life either and she certainly had more of an opportunity than you did,” Wade replied.

We had to wait a whole week before we’d be back in court, the tables turned for him and the judge to question Angela. She’d only seen Paisley less than a dozen times since Paisley had been born; in my mind, her petition never should’ve even made it this far. The only reason she cared, the only reason she wanted custody was for money.

Angela lived in San Diego and had only visited her sister, her niece, and her parents on holidays, and not even all of them. When I’d first talked to Megan’s parents, wondering if it would be best for Paisley to live with them, I’d learned Megan’s mom had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s a year ago and her dad with Parkinson’s a year before that; they were in no condition to be guardians for a child. I’d also learned that even after both her parents’ diagnoses, Angela hadn’t come around to help, leaving everything to Megan.

No, Angela had only appeared once she’d learned I was Paisley’s dad and realized there would be child support money on the line. And I was looking forward to Wade making all of this crystal clear in court.

I checked my watch; we were getting back a little earlier than planned. “Do you mind dropping me off at the farm first?” I asked, tugging a hand through my hair. “I need to…decompress before I see Paisley.”

Maybe it was wrong—selfish—to keep what was going on from Pais, but she’d already been through so damn much, I couldn’t tell her there was a chance she might lose me, too. Especially to a woman she didn’t even remember.

“Yeah, of course. Lou is still over at her mom’s house with her sister and her kids anyway.”

“Thanks.” I heaved out another breath and let my head drift to the window.

As we drove on, my thoughts on the judge and the lawyer and Angela and the case started to unravel like loose threads revealing underneath a deeper frustration we were heading toward: Harper.

Moving in with her was supposed to make things easier, but now I felt like I was frustrated no matter where I went. Out here, it was mental strain; in the house, with her, it was physical. Like a perpetual game of dodgeball except it wasn’t a ball I was avoiding but the way I craved her.

Fuck that stupid fucking blackout and that insane fucking kiss. I’d done a grotesque number of drugs in my former life, and none of them even came close to giving me the same kind of high I’d gotten from just a single taste of her.

“Everything else okay?” Wade broke the silence as we got closer to Stonebar Harbor.

“Yeah,” I answered like I was reading from a script.

“How are things going with Harper?”