Okay that my convenient husband made me feel things last night I never thought were possible?
Or okay that my convenient husband confessed to having feelings for me for years—for the whole time I was his best friend’s girlfriend?
“It’s just been a…shocking twenty-four hours.”
“I can’t even imagine,” she said, driving cautiously. “I can’t believe Todd’s mom showed up at the apartment like that. What a psycho.”
Her appearance at the store felt like it had happened a decade ago rather than less than twenty-four hours ago. So much had happened between then and now. I couldn’t even find my anger with her on my radar right now.
“Yeah,” I murmured, unable to tear my eyes from the window as she stopped at the end of Max’s drive. And then I saw the holes in the ground where the For Sale sign had been.
“Is Todd really who you see yourself living in it with?”
Max had bought this house because of me. He wassellingthis house because of me.
Harper turned onto the road, letting me forget about that for a little while.
“How far is your farm from here?”
“Just a few minutes up the road.” She pointed her finger ahead. “It’s a lot closer to Max’s house than Stonebar.”
I responded with a wordless nod, watching the trees stagger past us, one after another after another, until they turned into a blur and my breathing started to steady. Slowly, I felt the tension start to drain from my body. Time kept marching on, and this, too, would pass.
“Do you think she’ll come back?”
“I have no idea, but if she does, at least I won’t be there.” I sighed and then reasoned. “I don’t think she will, though. Not after what Max said.”
The foreign sensation of a smile tugged up one side of my mouth, remembering how Max had put her in her place…and the look on her face when he’d done it.
“What did he say?”
My smile fell as I attempted to tamp down the warmth flooding my chest when I recalled his words.My wife.
“That she had no right to be there, and he’d press charges if she tried to harass us—me again.”
Harper snapped her eyes over and then back to the road. “Did he tell her you were married?”
My mouth opened and then shut as I opted for a nod as an answer. Better not to say too much now that everything with Max was so…complicated.
“Finally.” She turned off the road onto a gravel drive, the car rocking over the unsteady ground.
My neck swiveled. “What do you meanfinally?”
“Oh, Daisy.” Harper slowed in front of a good-sized shed, older but with a fresh coat of navy paint and the Harper’s Honey logo sprayed in warm yellow on the wall.
Harper put the car in park and fanned a pained smile in my direction. “I’ve known for a long time how Max felt about you.”
Well, that made one of usI wanted to tell her, but something stopped me.Had she been the only one? Or had I just ignored what I didn’t want to see…what I didn’t want to feel?
Harper was out of the car before I could say anything else.
“Welcome to Harper’s Hives.” She beamed, handing me a beekeeping suit to put on and then ducking back into the shed to grab a suit for herself.
“Are you sure this is going to fit over my stomach?” I asked, sliding one foot and then the other into the legs.
“It should. It’s a men’s large.”
That explained why the arms and legs were too long, but at least the zipper went up easily over my front.
