She was sitting on the couch, gaze cast downward, her hands clasped together so tightly in her lap that the knuckles had turned white.
I quickly made introductions. “Maisie, these are my friends, Arizona and Austin. Guys, this is Maisie.”
Still avoiding eye contact, Maisie waved shyly. “Hi.”
Taking a seat on the coffee table opposite my daughter, Arizona asked, “Do you feel unsafe, Maisie?”
My back went ramrod straight, and I barked, “What the hell kind of question is that?”
She cut me a glare. “Do you want my help or not?”
A displeased rumble vibrated through my chest, but grudgingly, I zipped my lips.
“Maisie?” Arizona prompted.
The girl’s lashes lifted to reveal brown eyes the exact same shade as mine. “I’m okay.”
“Good. I’m glad to hear it. Do you mind hanging out with Austin for a few minutes while I talk to Levi in private?”
Maisie peeked at the teenage boy standing beside me and gave a tiny nod. “Sure.”
Arizona stood, taking off toward the kitchen and expecting me to follow.
“Uh, yeah.” I hitched a thumb over my shoulder. “We’ll be right over there if you two need anything.”
A sense of déjà vu washed over me when Austin rolled his eyes and sassed, “We’re not babies.”
Maisie snorted. “That’s what I told him.”
For the first time since she’d shown up at my door, a laugh escaped me. “I have a feeling you’ll get along just fine.” Then I hightailed it in the direction Arizona had gone.
The second I rounded the corner into the kitchen, she hissed, “What the fuck, Levi?”
I groaned into my hands. “I know. It’s really bad.”
There was a heavy sigh. “So, what? She just showed up here? By herself and was, like, ‘surprise’?”
“Pretty much.”
“Okay.” Arizona drew the word out slowly, and I could almost hear the gears turning inside her head. “First thing we need to do is contact her mother, let her know where her daughter is.”
I cringed. “Yeah, about that . . .”
Blue eyes narrowed into dangerously thin slits. “I’m almost afraid to ask.”
“She was adopted. Her parents died in an accident last year, and she doesn’t know who her bio mom is.”
Arizona blinked at me for a full minute before she gave a quick shake of her head. “Somehow she managed to find you but not her birth mother?”
“Genetic matching service,” I explained. “My DNA was on file; the mother’s wasn’t.”
She hummed. “Suppose that makes sense. And you don’t have any inkling as to who her mom might be? I mean, you did sleep with the woman at some point.”
I shrugged. “No clue.”
That answer was clearly unacceptable, because Arizona strode to the edge of the room and peeked around the partition separating the kitchen from the living room. “Maisie, honey?”
“Yeah?” the girl called back in reply.
