Praise for Carolyne Aarsen and her novels

“Twin Blessings is another delightful romance by Carolyne Aarsen sure to bring a smile to your lips.”

—Romantic Times BOOKreviews

“Ms. Aarsen’s refreshing characters learn to forgive, love and hope in this pleasing tale.”

—Romantic Times BOOKreviews on The Cowboy’s Bride

“Carolyne Aarsen writes with tender empathy and a true understanding of the struggles her characters endure in A Family-Style Christmas.”

—Romantic Times BOOKreviews

“A spunky heroine keeps the story fun while a warm romance brews at just the right temperature. You’ll be glad to read Finally a Family.”

—Romantic Times BOOKreviews

Twin Blessings
&
Toward Home
Carolyne Aarsen

CONTENTS

TWIN BLESSINGS

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Epilogue

TOWARD HOME

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Epilogue

CAROLYNE AARSEN

and her husband, Richard, live on a small ranch in Northern Alberta, where they have raised four children and numerous foster children, and are still raising cattle. Carolyne crafts her stories in her office with a large west-facing window through which she can watch the changing seasons while struggling to make her words obey.

Twin Blessings

When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him and the son of man that you care for him?

—Psalms 8:3–4

To Richard and my kids.

Always helpful and supportive.

Always enthusiastic and encouraging.

Chapter One

The sun was directly overhead.

Logan’s vehicle was headed south. Down the highway toward Cypress Hills—oasis on the Alberta prairie and vacation home of Logan Napier’s grandfather and parents.

Logan Napier should have been happy. No, Logan Napier should have been euphoric.

Usually the drive through the wide-open grasslands of the prairies put a smile on his face. The tawny landscape, deceptively smooth, soothed away the jagged edges of city living. The quiet highways never ceased to work their peace on him, erasing the tension of driving in Calgary’s busy traffic.

Usually, Logan Napier drove one-handed, leaning back, letting the warm wind and the open space work its magic as he drove with the top of his convertible down.

Today, however, his hands clenched the steering wheel of a minivan, his eyes glaring through his sunglasses at the road ahead. In his estimation a single man moving up in the world shouldn’t be driving a minivan. Nor should a single man be contemplating seven different punishments for ten-year-old twin nieces. And his mother.

All three were supposed to be neatly ensconced in the cabin in the hills. He was supposed to be coming up for a two-week holiday, spending his time drawing up plans for a house for Mr. Jonserad of Jonserad Holdings. If he was successful, it had the potential to bring more work from Jonserad’s company to his architecture partnership.

Instead his mother had just called. She was leaving for Alaska in a day. Then the tutor called telling him that she was quitting because she wasn’t getting the support she needed from Logan’s mother. Each phone call put another glitch in his well-laid plans.

He hadn’t planned on this, he brooded, squinting against the heat waves that shimmered from the pavement as he rounded a bend. Logan hit the on button of the tape deck and was immediately assaulted by the rhythmic chanting of yet another boy band, which did nothing for his ill humor. Every area of his life had been invaded by his nieces from the first day they came into his home, orphaned when their parents died in a boating accident.

Grimacing, Logan ejected the tape and fiddled with the dials. How was he supposed to work on this very important project with the girls around, unsupervised and running free?

How were they supposed to move on to the next grade if they didn’t have a tutor to work with them? And where was he supposed to find someone on such short notice? It had taken him a number of weeks to find one who was willing to go with the girls to Cypress Hills and to follow the studies their previous teacher had set out.

Glancing down, Logan gave the dial another quick twist. Finally some decent music drifted out of the speakers. He adjusted the tuner then glanced up.

He was heading directly toward a woman standing on the side of the road.

Logan yanked on the steering wheel. The tires squealed on the warm pavement as the van swung around her.

He slammed on the brakes. The van rocked to a halt, and Logan pulled his shaking hands over his face.

He took a slow breath and sent up a heartfelt prayer, thankful that nothing more serious had happened. He got out of the van in time to see the woman bearing down on him, a knapsack flung over one shoulder.

Her long brown hair streamed behind her, her eyes narrowed.

“You could have killed me,” she called, throwing her hands in the air.

“I’m sorry,” he said, walking toward her. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. You missed me.” She stopped in front of him, her hands on her hips, her dark eyes assessing him even as he did her.

She was of medium height. Thick brown hair hung in a heavy swath over one shoulder. Her deep brown eyes were framed by eyebrows that winged ever so slightly, giving her a mischievous look. Her tank top revealed tanned arms, her khaki shorts long, tanned legs. Bare feet in sandals. Attractive in a homegrown way.

“What were you doing?” she asked.

Logan blinked, realizing he was studying her a little too long. Chalk it up to loneliness, he thought. And he must be lonely if he was eyeing hitchhikers. “Just trying to find a radio station,” he said finally.

She shook her head, lifting her hair from the back of her neck. “Checking the latest stock quotations?”

In spite of the fact that he knew he hadn’t been paying attention and had almost missed her, Logan still bristled at her tone. “Why were you on the side of the road?” he returned.

A few vehicles whizzed by, swirling warm air around the two of them.

“Thumbing for a ride.” She let her hair drop, tilted her head and looked past him. “I suppose you’ll have to give me one now, since you’ve almost killed me and then made me miss a few potentials.”

She didn’t look much older than twenty and about as responsible as his nieces. He wasn’t in the mood to have her as a passenger, but he did feel he owed her a ride.

“I didn’t almost kill you,” he said, defending himself. “But I am sorry about the scare.”

“So do I get a ride?”

Logan hesitated. He felt he should, though he never picked up hitchhikers as a rule.

“I won’t kill you, if that’s what you’re worried about.” Her lips curved into a smirk. “And I won’t take your wife and kids hostage or try to sue you for taking five years off my life.”

“I don’t have a wife and kids.”

“But you have a minivan.”

Logan frowned at her smirk and decided to let the comment pass. He wasn’t in the mood to defend the necessity of his vehicle to a complete stranger, not with the sun’s heat pressing all around. “Look, I’m sorry again about what I did. But I’m running late. If you want a ride, I’m leaving now.”

He didn’t look to see if she had followed him, but she had the passenger door open the same time he had his open.

“Nice and cool in here,” she said, pulling off her knapsack. She dropped it on the floor in front of her and looked around. “So, what’s a guy like you need a minivan for?” she asked, as Logan clicked his seat belt shut.

“What do you mean, a guy like me?” Logan frowned as he slipped on his sunglasses and checked his side mirror.

“Near as I can see, I figure you for an accountant,” she said, glancing around the interior of the van. “Laptop in the seat, briefcase beside it. All nice and orderly. Someone like you should be driving a sedan, not a van.”

“Do you usually analyze the people who pick you up?” Logan asked as he pulled onto the road, regretting his momentary lapse that put him in this predicament. He had things on his mind and didn’t feel like listening to meaningless chatter.

“I need to. I hear too many scary stories about disappearing women.”

“So why take the chance?” He glanced at her, and in spite of his impression of her, he was struck once again by her straightforward good looks.

“Sense of adventure. The lure of the open road.” She shrugged. “That and the free ride.”

“Of course.”

“Okay, I detect a faint note of derision in your voice,” she said with a light laugh. “If you’re an accountant, I would imagine that there isn’t a column in your life for freeloaders.”

Logan didn’t deign to answer that one.

She waited, then with a shrug bent over and pulled a bottle of water out of her knapsack. Twisting off the top, she offered some to him. “Some free water as payment for my free ride?”

He shook his head.

The woman took a sip and backhanded her mouth. Out of the corner of his eye he could see her scrutiny.

“To further answer your previous question about taking chances,” she continued. “I have to admit that I don’t see you as a threat.”

Logan only nodded, unwilling to encourage her. He didn’t really want to talk. He preferred to concentrate on his most recent problem.

“You’ve got the briefcase, which could be hiding a murder weapon,” she said, as if unaware of his silence, “but I’m sure if I were to open it, it would be full of paper. Probably the financial section of the newspaper, folded open to the stock market. Let’s see, what else,” she mused aloud, still studying him. “A calculator, some sort of computerized personal organizer, a variety of pens and pencils, a package of chewing gum, a manual of one type or another and business cards, of course. Lots of business cards. Murderers don’t usually carry that kind of thing. But my biggest clue that you’re not a murderer is this.” She held up the tape that had fallen out of the tape deck. “I don’t think boy bands singing ‘oh baby, baby, you are a little baby, you baby’ is what a would-be murderer would listen to.” She stopped finally, turning the tape over in her hands. “Of course, listening to it might drive you to murder.”

In spite of the minor annoyance of her chatter, Logan couldn’t stop the faint grin teasing his mouth at her last statement.

“Ah, Mr. Phlegmatic does have a faint sense of humor,” she said, lifting her bare feet to the seat and clasping her arms around her knees.

“This Mr. Phlegmatic would prefer it if you buckled up,” he said finally.

“And Mr. P. talks,” she said with a saucy grin. But to his surprise she lowered her feet and obediently buckled up. “So what do you do when you’re not running over women on the side of the road?”

Logan shook his head in exasperation. “Look, I already apologized for that,” he said with a measure of asperity. “I don’t make a habit of that anymore than I make a habit of picking up hitchhikers.”

“Well, for that I’m grateful. And of course, very grateful that I don’t have to worry about not reaching my destination.”

“And where, ultimately, is that?” he asked.

“The next stop on this road,” the woman said with a laugh. “The Hills.”

“That’s where I’m headed, too.”

“That’s just excellent.” She beamed at him, and Logan felt a faint stirring of reaction to her infectious enthusiasm.

He pulled himself up short. This woman was definitely not his type, no matter how attractive she might be. He put his reaction down to a melancholy that had been his companion since he and Karen had broken up.

A gentle ache turned through him as he thought of Karen. When Logan was awarded sole guardianship of his nieces, Karen had decided that the responsibility was more than she could handle. So she broke up with Logan. At the time he didn’t know if it was his pride or his feelings that hurt more. He still wasn’t sure.

“So what’s your name?” he asked, relegating that subject to the closed file.

“Sandra Bachman. Pleased to make your acquaintance, Mr. P.”

Logan decided to leave it at that. He wasn’t as comfortable handing out his name. Not to a total stranger.

She smiled at him and looked at the countryside. “Do you come here often?”

Logan glanced sidelong at her, realizing that she wasn’t going to be quiet. Ignoring her didn’t work, so he really had not choice but to respond to her. “Not as often as I’d like,” he admitted. “I work in Calgary.”

“As an accountant?”

“No. Architect.”

“Ooh. All those nice straight lines.”

Logan ignored her slightly sarcastic remark. “So what do you do?”

Sandra lay her head back against the headrest of the car. “Whatever comes to mind. Wherever I happen to be.” She tossed him another mischievous glance. “I’ve been a short-order cook on Vancouver Island, a waitress in California, a receptionist in Minnesota. I’ve worked on a road crew and tried planting trees.” She wrinkled her nose. “Too hard. The only constant in my life has been my stained glass work.”

“As in church windows?”

“Sometimes. Though I don’t often see the finished project.”

“Why not?”

“Been there, done that and bought the T-shirt. Not my style.”

Sandra Bachman sounded exactly like his mother—always moving and resistant to organized religion.

“Do you go to church?” she asked.

“Yes, I do,” he said hoping that his conviction came through the three words. “I attend regularly.”

“Out of need or custom?”

He shook his head as he smiled. “Need is probably uppermost.”

“A good man.” Again the slightly sarcastic tone. In spite of his faint animosity toward her, he couldn’t help but wonder what caused it.

“Going to church doesn’t make anyone good anymore than living in a garage makes someone a mechanic,” he retorted.

She laughed again, a throaty sound full of humor. “Good point, Mr. P.”

She tilted her head to one side, twisting her hair around her hand. “You have a cabin in Elkwater?”

Logan nodded, checking his speed. “It’s my grandfather’s.”

“So you’re on holiday.”

“Not really.”

“Okay, you sound defensive.”

“You sound nosy.”

Sandra laughed. “You’re not the first one to tell me that.” She gave her hair another twist. “So if you’re not on holiday, why are you going to a holiday place?”

“I have to meet my mother.” And try and talk some sense into her, Logan thought. If he could convince his mother to stay, he might win a reprieve.

“So she’s holidaying.”

Logan glanced at Sandra, slightly annoyed at her steady probing. “My mother has her own strange and irresponsible plans,” he said.

His passenger angled him a mischievous glance, unfazed by his abrupt comments. “I sense tension between your mother’s choice of lifestyle and yours.”

“That’s putting it kindly. My mother has a hard time with responsibility.”

“Surely you’re being a little hard on her? After all, she raised you, didn’t she?”

Logan held her dancing eyes, momentarily unable to look away, catching a glimmer of her enthusiasm. She tilted her head again, as if studying him, her smile fading.

Her expression became serious as the contact lengthened.

She really was quite pretty, Logan thought. Possessed an infectious charm.

He caught himself and looked at the road, derailing that particular train of thought. This young woman was as far from what he was looking for as his mother was.

“So why are you so defensive about your mother?”

“Why do you care? I’ll probably never see you again.”

She lifted her shoulder in a negligent shrug. “Just making conversation. We don’t need to talk about your mother,” Sandra continued, biting her lip as if considering a safe topic. “We could talk about life, that one great miracle.”

“Big topic.”

“Depends on how you break it down.” She twirled a loose strand of hair around her finger. “What do you want from life?”

Logan wasn’t going to answer, but he hadn’t spent time with an attractive woman since Karen. He found himself saying, “Normal. I yearn for absolutely normal.” He wasn’t usually this loquacious with a complete stranger and wondered what it was about her that had drawn that admission from him.

“Normal isn’t really normal, you know,” Sandra replied, braiding her hair into a thick, dark braid. Her dark eyes held his a brief moment. “Sometimes normal makes you crazy.”

Logan gave her a quick look. “Now you sound defensive.”

“Nope. Just telling the truth.” She dropped the braid, and it lay like a thick rope over her tanned shoulders. “So what’s your plan to get your normal life?”

“That’s an easy one. I’m picking up my nieces, who are staying with my mother, who wants to scoot off to Alaska for some strange reason. Then I’m taking my nieces back home to Calgary. And that’s as close to normal as I’m going to get.”

The woman’s smile slipped, and she looked straight ahead. “Nieces?” she asked quietly. “As in two?”

“A matched set,” Logan replied. “Twin girls that have been a mixed blessing to me.”

She tossed him a quick glance, then looked away, as if retreating. She folded her hands on her lap, lay her head against the backrest and closed her eyes. The conversation had come to an end.

Logan wondered what caused the sudden change this time. Wondered why it bothered him. Wondered why he should care.

He had enough on his mind. He concentrated on the road, watching the enticing oasis of Cypress Hills grow larger, bringing Logan closer to his destination and decisions.

Finally the road made one final turn and then skirted the lake for which the town of Elkwater was named. Sandra sat up as Logan slowed down by the town limits.

“Just drop me off at the service station,” Sandra said.

He pulled up in front of the confectionary and gas station and before he could get out, Sandra had grabbed her backpack and was out of the van.

“Thanks for the ride, Mr. P.,” she said with a quick grin. “I just might see you around.”

Logan nodded, feeling suddenly self-conscious at all that he had told her, a complete stranger. He wasn’t usually that forthcoming. “You’re welcome,” he said automatically. She flashed him another bright smile then jogged across the street.

Logan slowly put the car in gear, still watching Sandra as she greeted a group of people standing by the gas pumps, talking. She stopped.

Logan couldn’t hear what she was saying but could tell from her gestures that she was relating her adventures of the day. They laughed, she laughed and for a moment Logan was gripped by the same feeling he had when she had first smiled at him.

He pulled away, shaking his head at his own lapse, putting it down to his frustration and, if he were to be honest, a measure of loneliness. Sandra Bachman was a strange, wild young woman, and he’d probably never see her again.

A few minutes later he pulled in beside a small blue car parked in front of a large A-frame house with a commanding view of Elkwater Lake.

“Oh, Logan, my darling. There you are.” Florence Napier stood on the porch of the house, her arms held out toward her only son.

As he stepped out of the car to greet his mother, Logan forced a smile to his lips at his mother’s effusive welcome. It always struck him as false, considering that when he and his sister were growing up, Florence Napier seldom paid them as much attention as she did her current project.

“Come and give us a kiss,” she cried. Today she wore a long dress made of unbleached cotton, covered with a loosely woven vest. Her long gray hair hung loose, tangling in her feathered earrings.

Her artistic pose, Logan thought as he dutifully made his way up the wooden steps to give her a perfunctory hug.

“I’m so glad you came so quickly, Logan. I was just packing up to leave.” Florence tucked Logan’s arm under hers and led him into the house. “I got an unexpected call from my friend Larissa. You remember her? We took a charcoal class together when we lived in Portland. Anyhow, she’s up in Anchorage and absolutely begged me to join her. She wants to do some painting. Of course I couldn’t miss this opportunity. We’re hoping to check out Whitehorse and possibly Yellowknife, since we’re up there anyway.”

Logan didn’t care to hear about his mother’s itinerary. He knew from his youth how hectic it would be. He had more important things to deal with. “Where are Brittany and Bethany?”

Florence wrinkled her nose. “Upstairs. Pouting. I told them you would be taking them home since that dyspeptic tutor you hired decided to quit.” Florence shrugged, signifying her inability to understand the tutor’s sudden flight.

“Diane has left already?” Logan had to ask, was hoping and praying it wasn’t true.

Florence’s shoulders lifted in an exaggerated sigh. “Yes. Two days ago. I’ve never seen a woman so lugubrious.”

Logan pulled his arm free from his mother, glaring at her, his frustration and anger coming to the fore. “I talked to her when she phoned me. She told me that you never backed her decisions.”

Florence looked at him, her fingertips pressed to her chest. “Logan. That woman’s goal was to turn my granddaughters into clones of herself.”

“Considering that she came very well qualified, that might not have done Bethany and Brittany any harm.”

Logan’s mother tut-tutted. “Logan, be reasonable. They’re young. It’s July. They shouldn’t have to do schoolwork. I moved you and your sister all over the country, and it never did you any harm.”

“Not by your standards,” Logan retorted. For a moment he was clearly reminded of Sandra.

Lord, give me strength, give me patience, he prayed. Right now would be nice. “They were also both earning a 45% average in school,” Logan said, struggling to keep his tone even. “It was only by begging and agreeing to hire a tutor to work with them over the summer that they won’t have to repeat grade five. If they don’t finish the work the teacher sent out and if they don’t pass the tests she’s going to give them at the end of the summer, they will repeat grade five.”

A quick wave of Florence’s hand relegated his heated remarks to oblivion. At least in her estimation. “My goodness, Logan. You put too much emphasis on formal education.” Then she smiled at him. “But don’t worry. I’m fully cognizant of your plans and I’ve already had the good luck and foresight to find a tutor for the girls. Imagine. She lives right here in Elkwater.”

“Really? And what are her qualifications?” Logan was almost afraid to ask.

“She has a Bachelor of Education from a well-respected eastern university. With—” she raised an index finger as if to drive her point home “—a major in history.”

“And what is this paragon’s name?”

“Sandra. Sandra Bachman.”

So now what are you going to do? Sandra thought, dropping her knapsack on her tiny kitchen table. She pushed her hair from her face and blew out her breath in a gusty sigh.

She was pretty sure the man who had just dropped her off was the same Uncle Logan that Bethany and Brittany were always talking about. After all, what were the chances of two men having twin nieces living in Elkwater?

From the way the girls spoke of him she had pictured the mysterious uncle to be a portly gentleman, about sixty years old, with no sense of humor.

The real Uncle Logan was a much different story. Tall, thick dark hair that held a soft wave, eyebrows that could frown anyone into the next dimension, hazel eyes fringed with lashes that put hers to shame. His straight mouth and square jaw offset his feminine features big time.

The real Uncle Logan was a dangerous package, she thought. Dangerously good-looking, if one’s tastes ran to clean-cut corporate citizens like accountants. Architects, she corrected. She knew from the girls that Uncle Logan was an architect. She bet he had a closet full of suits at home.

Sandra shuddered at the thought. Her tastes never ran in that direction. If anything, they went in the complete opposite direction of anyone remotely like her father, the epitome of conventional and normal that Logan wanted so badly.

Suppressing a sigh, Sandra slipped into the tiny bedroom and quickly changed into the clothes she had planned to wear for her third and what could possibly be final day on the job. She was tempted to stay away, knowing that losing her job was inevitable, given the way Logan was talking in the car on the way up here, but she had made a deal with Florence Napier. And Sandra held the faint hope that Florence might come through for her.

The walk to the Napier cabin only took ten minutes, but with each step Sandra wondered at the implications for her future. She needed this job to pay for the shipment of glass that would only be delivered cash on delivery. Trouble was she only had enough cash for a few groceries and not near enough for the glass.

At one time she’d been a praying person, but she didn’t think God could be bothered with something as minor as a desperate need for money to pay bills.

As she rounded the corner, she saw Logan’s van parked beside Florence’s car, and her step faltered as she remembered what the girls had told her about Uncle Logan.

A tough disciplinarian who made them go to church every Sunday whether they wanted to or not. A man who kept them to a strict and rigid schedule.

A shiver of apprehension trailed down Sandra’s neck at the thought of facing Logan again. This time as her potential boss. A boss she had smart mouthed on the way here. Why had she done it? she thought.

Because he was just like her father, she reminded herself. Though Sandra knew she would never dare be as flippant with Josh Bachman as she was with the formidable Logan Napier.

The front door of the cabin opened, and Florence stepped out carrying a garment bag. She lifted her head at the same moment Sandra stepped forward.

“Oh, Sandra. Hello, darling. We’ve been waiting for you.” Florence set the garment bag on the hood of her little car and flowed toward Sandra, enveloping her in a hug. “The girls were wondering if you were even coming today.”

“I’m sorry.” Sandra made a futile gesture in the direction of Medicine Hat. “My car. I brought it in for a routine oil change but they found more trouble with it.”

“Goodness, how did you get here?”

Sandra caught her lip between her teeth as she glanced at Logan’s minivan. “I hitchhiked.”

“That’s my girl,” Florence said approvingly. “Innovative and not scared to accept a challenge.” Florence smiled, but Sandra sensed a measure of hesitation.

“So, where are the girls?” Sandra didn’t know her status, but she figured it was better to simply act as if she still had a job.

Florence laid an arm over Sandra’s shoulders, drawing her a short distance away from the house. “There’s been a small complication, Sandra,” Florence said, lowering her voice. “The girls’ uncle came here. Unexpectedly.” Florence laughed as if dismissing this minor problem.

Sandra gave her a weak smile in return. “And what does that mean?” As if she didn’t know. Staid Uncle Logan would hardly approve of a smart-mouthed hitchhiking tutor, regardless of her reasons.

“I think we’re okay, but you will have to talk to him.”

“Haven’t you talked to him yet? Haven’t you told him that you hired me? We had an agreement.”

Florence tossed a furtive glance over her shoulder, and that insignificant gesture told Sandra precisely how much influence Florence had with Uncle Logan.

None.

Florence looked at Sandra, her hand resting on Sandra’s shoulder. “It would probably be best if you spoke with him. Told him your credentials, that kind of thing.”

Sandra looked at Florence, whose gaze flittered away. “Okay. I will. Where is he?”

“He’s in the house. He’s unpacking, so I think that means he’ll be staying at least tonight.” Florence turned, giving Sandra a light push in the direction of the house. “You go talk to him. You’ll do fine.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Sandra muttered as she faced the house. She took a deep breath and walked purposefully toward the cabin. Up the stairs, her footsteps echoing on the wood, and then she was standing at the door.

She knocked, hesitant at first, then angry with her indecisiveness, knocking harder the second time.

The door opened almost immediately, making Sandra wonder if he had been watching to see if she would come to the house.

Logan stood framed by the open door. He looked as conservative as he had when he picked her up. Khaki pants, a cotton button-down shirt. All he was missing was a pair of glasses and a pocket protector.

“Hi,” she said with a forced jocularity. “You know who I am. Now you know what I am.”

Logan wasn’t smiling, however. “Come on in, Sandra. We need to talk.”

Sandra knew that though she may have weaseled a smile out of him this afternoon, she probably wouldn’t now.

Chapter Two

As Sandra walked past him, Logan caught his mother’s concerned look. But Florence stayed where she was.

He wasn’t surprised that his mother didn’t come rushing in to support the person she had hired. Confrontation wasn’t Florence’s style.

Logan closed the door quietly and turned to face Sandra. She wore a dress with short sleeves. Demure and much more suited to a teacher than the shorts and tank top she had on this afternoon. She had tied up her hair earlier into some kind of braid, finishing the picture.

“Are the girls around?” Sandra asked, her hands clasped in front of her.

“They’re upstairs, I think. They haven’t dared to come down yet.” Logan rested his hands on his hips as he studied her. She was as pretty as before, but definitely not the type of girl he wanted teaching his flighty nieces. They needed an older, stronger influence.

“Do I pass?” she asked suddenly, her brown eyes narrowed.

Logan held her gaze. “I’m sorry to tell you this, Sandra, but you don’t have a job. The girls and I are heading back to Calgary tomorrow.”

“I thought they were staying here for the summer.”

“They were.” Logan put emphasis on the last word. “But their antics and those of my mother have proved to me that they are better off in Calgary where I can keep a close eye on them.” It wasn’t what he wanted at all, but he certainly wasn’t going to leave them with someone like her.

“Your mother hired me to teach the girls for the rest of the summer. We had an agreement.”

Logan heard the contentious tone in her voice but wasn’t moved by it. “I’m the legal guardian of these girls, and I’m the one who has to make decisions that I think are best for them. Not my mother.”

“And you wouldn’t consider letting the girls stay and having me tutor them?”

Logan shook his head. His nieces had spent enough of their life living around unsuitable people when their parents were alive, carting them around from boat race to boat race. It had taken him a couple of months just to get them into a normal household routine, let alone a schoolwork one. The last thing he wanted was for all his careful and loving work to be undone by someone whose character he knew precious little of. A woman whose first impression was hardly stellar.

“So you’re dismissing me out of hand.” Her voice rose ever so slightly. “Without even considering my credentials as a teacher.”

“What references do you have? Have you ever worked as a teacher since you graduated?”

“No, I haven’t.”

“So what have you done?”

Sandra said nothing, and Logan couldn’t help but remember her casual comments about work as they had driven here.

“I’m sorry, Sandra,” he said. “I have to make a judgment call in this situation.”

“Does this have anything to do with the fact that I was hitchhiking this afternoon?”

Logan didn’t know what to say. Should he tell an untruth or be bluntly honest?

She laughed shortly. “I can’t believe this. I’m perfectly qualified….” She let the sentence slide off.

Logan’s shoulders lifted in a sigh as he shoved his hands in the pockets of his pants. “I didn’t interview you, Sandra. I had chosen another eminently qualified tutor…”

“I have a Bachelor of Education degree,” Sandra stated. “With a major in history and a minor in English. Nothing wrong with that, I’m sure.”

Logan bristled at her tone. “I have my nieces’ well-being to consider, besides their education.”

Sandra held his steady gaze, then her eyes drifted away. “I see.” She darted another angry look his way. “Then I’ll be on my way.” She strode past him and out of the house.

Logan watched her go, fighting a moment’s panic. It would solve so many things if he were to let the girls stay with Sandra. He was in the middle of a hugely important project and he needed all the free time he could get.

But common sense made him keep his mouth shut. Common sense and an innate concern for his nieces. They needed stability and a firm hand. Something that had been sorely lacking in their life.

And, when he was younger, his own.

Logan spent his teen years moving from school to school, dragged across the country by parents searching for the elusive perfect job.

Education wasn’t taken seriously in this branch of the Napier family, and as a consequence Logan and his sister Linda’s schooling suffered. Always behind academically, Logan dedicated every spare moment to catching up, to striving to get out of the rut his parents seemed willing to flow along in. Then, when Logan was in high school, his father died and Florence Napier was forced to settle down for a while.

During this time Logan pulled himself out of the endless routine of constant movement. He applied himself to finishing high school and going to college. Six years ago he graduated with his degree and was much happier than he had ever been during his aimless childhood.

However, Linda, the twins’ mother, had been caught up in the same ceaseless wandering, hooking up and marrying a man who raced speedboats for thrills and the occasional cash prize. An aquatic cowboy who didn’t know where his own parents were. Brittany and Bethany were headed in the same direction until a tragic accident claimed Logan’s sister and her husband’s life. To his mother’s surprise Logan had been named not only guardian but also executor of the small estate the girls had inherited.

Bethany and Brittany’s arrival changed everything in Logan’s life, but he was determined to do right by them. To take care of them. To make sure that any influence in their life was positive and stable.

A young woman like Sandra Bachman was not the kind of person he wanted tutoring these impressionable young girls.

With a sigh and another quick prayer, he turned to the next task at hand.

“Okay, girls. You can stop listening in and come down.”

Two heads popped above the blanket draped over the balustrade of the loft. Both blond, both cute, both looking slightly chastened.

Brittany, the bolder of the two, bounced down the stairs as only a young girl could and landed in front of him, her hands tucked in the pockets of her very baggy white pants. Bethany followed a few paces behind, looking a little more subdued than her counterpart.

Brittany lifted her shoulders, looking genuinely puzzled. “So I guess you came here earlier than you figured. Are you sure you don’t want to stay for a while?”

Logan shook his head slowly, as if for emphasis. “I have a special project I need to work on. You know work? The thing that keeps you in those ridiculous clothes?” He pressed his lips together, frustrated at the anger that had surged to the fore. But today had not been a good day, and right now he was all out of magical patience.

Brittany slowly tilted her head as if searching for some kind of answer.

Logan didn’t wait for her to find it. “You and Bethany had better hustle yourselves back upstairs and start packing. We’re leaving for Calgary tomorrow.”

“What?” The word spilled out of both girls’ mouths at the same time.

“We can’t go now…You promised…You said we’d stay here all summer.” Their sentences tumbled over and through each other.

“We’ve only been here a couple of weeks,” Bethany wailed.

Logan glanced at the more docile of the pair, and he felt the hard edges of his anger blur. “Sorry, hon. You guys had your chance and you blew it. We’re going back.”

“We didn’t know it was a test,” Brittany cried, her blue eyes glistening.

“It wasn’t a test,” Logan growled, trying manfully to face down the tears that spilled down both their cheeks. “I don’t want to stay here, your grandmother has decided to chase some dream, and you chased off your last tutor, so you have to come back with me.”

“But why can’t Sandra teach us?” Bethany sniffed, wiping away her tears with the back of her hand. She sat down on the lowest step, still sniffling.

Logan sighed, plowing his hand through his hair. He could feel himself wavering and knew he shouldn’t. He could deal with upstart contractors and rude co-workers, but his nieces’ tears always unmanned him.

“Because I don’t think she is capable. That’s why.”

“But we had hoped to stay. We haven’t been here since Mom and Dad…” Brittany’s voice broke, and she sat beside her sister, pressing her hands against her face, unable to finish.

Logan’s heart melted completely. It had been eighteen months since the girls’ parents were killed. This summer was the first time they had come back to this place where they and their parents would often stop by on their way to the next destination. It was one of the few constants in their childhood.

It had been difficult enough for him to lose his sister. He couldn’t imagine how hard it was for them to lose both parents. And now he was going to take them away from the one place they had fond memories of.

He sat on the step between the girls and put his arms awkwardly around their narrow shoulders. “Oh, sweeties,” he said, stroking their arms, wishing he knew exactly what to say. Brittany leaned against him, sniffing loudly.

“Can we stay just for a little while?” Brittany murmured.

Logan considered his options as he drew her close. He had counted on staying here and working for a couple of weeks anyhow. It would take at least a couple of days to find another tutor, even if he did leave tomorrow. Which meant he would be stuck with two cranky girls in a condo in Calgary.

Hold your ground, he reminded himself. Don’t let them think all they have to do is cry and they can get their way.

But while the rational part of his mind argued the point, his shirt was getting damp from his nieces’ tears. Tears that he knew were genuine.

“I suppose we could stay here for a little while.” He relented, ignoring a riffle of panic. He had three weeks to brainstorm an idea for a house, do a drawing and create blueprints, then another week to build a model of the idea.

The biggest hitch in all of this was that he didn’t have an idea.

You don’t have time for this, the sane part of his mind said.

“For a little while? Really?” Bethany lifted her head as a tear slid silently down her cheek.

Logan sighed, bent over and dropped a light kiss on her head. “Yes, really.”

He was rewarded with a feeble smile.

“Thank you, Uncle Logan,” Bethany said, wiping her cheeks as she sat up.

“But I need your help.” He tried to sound stern. “No fooling around. Just do what I ask.”

“So that means no schoolwork?” Brittany asked.

Logan sighed. “No. It means I’ll have to help you with it until we get back to Calgary. I’m going to start looking for a tutor right away.”

Brittany’s face fell. “And what about Sandra?”

“I told you already, she is not teaching you. And I’m not going to talk about it while we’re here.”

He almost missed the glint in Bethany’s eye as she glanced at her sister. But as she looked at him, her blue eyes guileless as ever, he figured he must have imagined it.

“And there’s no way I could get an advance from you?” Sandra bit her lip as she heard what she knew she would. The restaurant would absolutely not give her a dime until she delivered twenty lamps as promised. She knew that, but thought she would give it a try. “Thanks, then. No, there’s no problem. I have other resources,” she lied. She hung up the phone.

“I’m not going to worry, I’m not going to worry,” Sandra muttered as she grabbed her sweater and slipped it over her shoulders. Trouble was, try as she might, she couldn’t stifle the panic that fluttered in her chest.

After months of work and inexpert marketing, she had gotten the first break with her stained glass work. A restaurant in Calgary had ordered twenty lamp-shades. If they liked her work, she had a good chance to make more for some of their other locations.

Trouble was she was desperately short of money. The unexpected move here from Saltspring Island in British Columbia had cut into her meager savings. She had one month’s rent paid on the cabin, and Cora, her friend and roommate, was nowhere to be found.

Working for Florence Napier had been the blessing she had been looking for.

And now that was over, too. Her broken-down car wouldn’t even allow her to work in Medicine Hat.

Sandra took a deep breath, then another, hoping the mad flutters in her heart would settle once she started on her usual evening walk.

Outside, the sun’s penetrating warmth had softened and a faint breeze wafted off the lake.

Sandra paused, letting the evening quiet soothe her.

Except it didn’t.

She buttoned her sweater and started down the street toward the boardwalk that edged the beach and followed the lake. Her steady tread on the boards echoed hollowly, creating a familiar rhythm.

What to do, what to do, what to do.

Phone home?

The thought slipped insidiously through her subconscious. She let it drift a moment, then pushed it ruthlessly aside.

Phone home and hear how useless she was? Phone home and hear, “Why don’t you do anything constructive with that education degree I paid so much money for?”

Sandra shivered, even though it was warm. Conforming was the way things happened in her home. Conform and you get to come along on promised trips. Conform and your education will be paid for. Conform and Father would deign to talk to you. Sandra conformed, trying in vain to live up to the expectations of a father who was never satisfied. She got her degree, and as soon as she could, she fled. All the way to Vancouver Island.

Five years and a hundred experiences later, Sandra’s flight from conformity had washed her up here, in Cypress Hills, a four-hour drive from where she started, flat broke with a roommate who had flittered off again.

The evening breeze picked up a little, riffling the water and teasing her hair. Sandra sucked in another breath and squared her shoulders. She wasn’t going to give up. Not yet.

She ambled along the boardwalk, her arms wrapped around herself. Life was still good, she thought, raising her face to the unbearable blue of the Alberta sky. She was still alive and still free, and no one could put a price on that.

“Hey, Sandra.”

Sandra lowered her head, wondering who had called her. She looked around and saw Bethany and Brittany sitting on a bench, swinging their legs.

“Hey, yourself.” She walked over, happy to see these two very rambunctious girls. “You out on the town tonight?”

Brittany glanced at Bethany, then at Sandra. “Yup. Uncle Logan is buying us an ice cream.”

“Then I’d better leave you alone.” The last thing Sandra wanted was to come face to face with Logan only half a day after being fired by him.

“Here you are, girls.” Logan’s deep voice sounded behind her, and Sandra whirled.

Logan looked up and halted, his expression unreadable. “Hello, Sandra,” he said, his steady gaze flicking to his nieces and then to her.

“Don’t worry,” she said crisply. “I haven’t had a chance to really corrupt them yet.”

Logan said nothing as he handed the cones to the girls. “Why don’t you take a walk, Bethany? Brittany?”

The girls giggled and scampered down the beach toward the water.

“I don’t think we have anything more to say to each other, Mr. Napier,” Sandra said, wrapping her sweater around her. She forced herself to meet his hazel eyes and not to be moved by his casual good looks. A man who wore khaki pants to the beach, whose hair never looked messy, who drove a minivan was exactly the kind of guy her father would love. A conformist. Stifling.

Logan’s gaze was steady as he slipped his hands into his back pockets. “I’m sorry that you lost the job—”

“You made me lose the job, Mr. Napier.”

“Fair enough. I’m just sorry that it didn’t work out.”

“It didn’t work out because you chose not to let it,” Sandra snapped. “You’ve got your own ideas about who and what I am—”

“I got my ideas from what you told me.”

“And based on that you know who I am?”

“Based on what you told me, I’m making a guess.” Logan rocked slightly on his heels, still watching her with that unnerving gaze. “I don’t think I’m too far off. I have my nieces to think of.”

Sandra tried not to get defensive, but she couldn’t help it. Everything about him seemed to condemn her out of hand. “Implying that I’m not going to contribute to their well-being.”

“Why does this matter so much to you?”

Sandra wasn’t sure. It was more than needing the job. Maybe it was because Logan personified the very thing she had been running from, and his judgment stung her pride. Maybe it was because even after spending a couple of days with Brittany and Bethany she was getting attached to the two girls who had lost so much.

Or maybe it was panic at the idea that she had tried to live her life on her own and losing even this small job proved to her the magnitude of her failure.

But Logan didn’t need to have one more thing to judge her by. Didn’t need to know precisely how close to the bone she was living right now.

“It doesn’t matter,” she said quietly, turning away. She took a few steps down the boardwalk, then heard Logan call her.

She didn’t want to turn but couldn’t stop herself.

“Yes?” she asked, forcing a casual tone to her voice.

“Nothing,” he said, lifting his hand as if in surrender. “I’m sorry.”

Sandra just nodded and walked on.

“So now what are we going to do?” whispered Brittany as she and Bethany huddled beside each other on the floor of their bedroom. Their lights were out. Below them, they could hear the faint tapping of Uncle Logan’s computer keys.

“I thought for sure he would like her,” Bethany said wistfully. “And now we have to leave.”

Brittany flapped her hand. “So, we’ll just have to go ahead with Plan B, I guess.”

“What was Plan B?”

Brittany giggled. “Same as Plan A.”

“But Plan A was to get Mrs. McKee to leave.”

“I was just kidding. But we have to get him and Sandra together again. Just think how cool it would be to have her living with us. I mean Uncle Logan’s nice, but…” Brittany shrugged, lifting her hands as if to say, “You know what I mean.”

And Bethany did. “He’s just not a lot of fun.”

“And I’m not going to give up,” Brittany insisted. “Not this quick.”

Chapter Three

Logan got up from his computer, stretching his arms above his head. It was a nuisance working with this tiny screen when he was used to a much larger monitor at work, but in a pinch it sufficed.

He cocked an ear, listening, but it sounded like the girls had finally drifted off to sleep.

Logan sighed. He had spent most of the day on the phone and still hadn’t found a tutor for the girls. No teacher was willing to work for the summer, and no organization had any tutors available.

He saved his work then rubbed his weary eyes. He hadn’t gotten as much done as he had hoped between phone calls and trying to concentrate over the girls’ chatter. He couldn’t catch the concept he aimed for. The Jonserads’ vague ideas of light and space were difficult to translate onto a computer screen or paper. It was just a house, but the project was significant. Pass this test and other buildings put up by Jonserad Holdings would be his to design.

Condos, office buildings and gated complexes for senior citizens who didn’t want to have to face uninvited children.

A concept Logan could entirely sympathize with.

Logan rubbed the kinks out of his neck and dropped into his recliner. With a sigh he glanced at the clock. Midnight. He knew he should go to bed. Later, he thought. I just want to close my eyes for a few seconds.

A muffled thump jerked him awake. He sat up, confused and disoriented. The clock struck one.

“Must have fallen asleep,” he muttered. Yawning, he got up and stepped into his shoes, not bothering to tie them. He trudged up the stairs to check on his nieces, the tips of the laces ticking on the floor.

Carefully, so as not to wake them, he eased the door open and squinted in the half gloom at the beds.

He frowned at the lumpy outlines of his nieces. They looked odd. A faint breeze riffling through the open window caught his attention. Then he saw the chair. He pulled back the blanket on one of the beds and found rolled-up towels.

Logan stifled an angry sound and spun around. He ran out the door, stepped on a shoelace and promptly hit the hard floor chest first.

Groaning, angry and frustrated, he took the time to tie his laces, then jumped to his feet and took off. His ribs hurt, but his anger fueled him.

Sandra lay back on the prickly grass, pulling the blanket just a little closer around her. The utter quiet was broken by the occasional wail of a coyote in the night, answered in time by another. From horizon to horizon, stars were flung across the velvet black of the sky. Over the crest of the hill behind her lay Elkwater, its few lights faint competition for the glory overhead.

“I see you, Cygna,” Sandra whispered, reaching up to trace the cross of the constellation. From there she moved to the brightest stars. “And you, Deneb and Vega and Altair.” She let her hand drop and smiled as her eyes drifted over the sky, unable to take in its sheer vastness.

“When I consider the heavens, the works of Thy hands, the moon and the stars which Thou has ordained…” Sandra spoke the words of the Psalms aloud and shivered at how easily they came back to her. She had spent the past few years avoiding the God Who had made all this. Austere, judgmental and demanding.

She had last heard that quote from Brittany and Bethany the night they had sat out here looking at the stars. Sandra was working on astronomy with them, and what better way to study than to actually see it. So, with Florence Napier’s blessing, she had taken the girls out late at night to look at the stars.

Bethany and Brittany. Sandra’s satisfaction broke as she thought of the girls and, right on the heels of that, of their uncle. His offhand dismissal of her had touched an old wound. One initially opened by her father. She sighed, wondering what it was going to take to finally rid herself of the constant presence of her father’s disapproval.

“Hey, Sandra.” The sound of young voices drifted to her and she sat up, looking around.

Then she saw the vague outline of two girls running up the hill. They materialized beside her and dropped down to the grass, panting.

“What are you girls doing here?” she asked, looking past them. She expected to see Logan looming out of the dark. “You’re supposed to be in bed.”

Brittany shrugged her comment off as she caught her breath. “We need to talk to you. Uncle Logan wants us to go to Calgary with him.”

“I know that. He told me. And I don’t suppose Uncle Logan knows you’re here?” Sandra asked.

In the dim light she saw the girls exchange a quick glance.

Bingo.

“Listen, your uncle already has his own opinion of me, and it isn’t what I’d call supportive.” Sandra put an arm around each of them. “So if he finds you here, my feeling is he’s going to be a little underwhelmed by the whole situation.”

The girls giggled.

“Don’t worry about Uncle Logan,” Brittany said airily, waving a hand as if dismissing her six-foot-two-inch relative.

Sandra didn’t think Logan could be gotten rid of that easily. “It’s not a good idea to sneak out at night. What if he checks your beds and you’re gone? He’d worry.”

Brittany and Bethany exchanged another quick glance as if puzzled over this phenomenon. “Our mom and dad never worried when we snuck out at night,” Brittany said.

“We didn’t even need to sneak.”

“Well, I think Uncle Logan is a little different.”

Brittany sighed. “He’s different, all right. He can barely cook.”

“He’s learning,” Bethany replied in her uncle’s defense. “He makes real good pancakes and sausages.”

“Sausages aren’t hard. Even our mom could make them,” Brittany retorted.

“They’re hard. You can burn them real quick if you’re not careful,” Bethany answered, leaning forward to see her sister better. “Uncle Logan doesn’t burn them much.”

Sandra tried to picture Logan standing in front of a stove, cooking. The thought made her smile, as did Bethany’s defense of him.

Brittany turned to Sandra again. “Can’t you help us stay? Could you hide us or something?”

Sandra almost laughed at that. “No. I will not hide you, although I will miss you.”

“Will we see you before we go?”

“When are you leaving?” Sandra asked.

“In a couple of days.”

“I’ll probably be on the beach a few times. But I’ll be moving on once my car is fixed. I can’t stay around here if I don’t have a job.” Sandra felt a clutch of panic at the thought. A prayer hovered on the periphery of her mind. A cry for help and peace. She shook her head as if to dismiss it. God was a father, after all. Distant, reserved and judging.

She got up and pulled the girls to their feet, giving them each a quick hug. “We’ll see each other soon. But now I want you to get back to the house.”

They hugged her, their arms clinging. And again Sandra wondered at their upbringing that they grew so quickly attached to someone they barely knew.

“Go. Now.” Sandra gave them a little push and watched as they walked down the hill, going a different way than they had come.

“Bethany, Brittany.” Logan’s voice, muffled by distance, drifted toward them from another direction.

The girls glanced at Sandra who fluttered an urgent hand at them, then they turned and ran down the shortcut.

“Bethany, Brittany, I know you’re up there,” Logan called, coming closer.

Sandra winced at the tone of his voice, wrapping her blanket around herself. “He does not sound amused,” she whispered, bracing herself as she turned to face him.

Logan’s heavy step faltered when he saw who stood on the hill.

“Hey, how’s it going?” she asked, adopting a breezy attitude as Logan made it to the top of the hill.

He stood in front of her. Loomed would be a better word, she thought, looking at him in the vague light.

Don’t step back. Don’t show fear, she reminded herself.

“It’s not going good. Where are my nieces?”

Sandra’s spine automatically stiffened at his autocratic and accusing tone. “And why do you suppose I would know where they are?”

Logan’s hands were planted on his hips, his feet slightly spread, as if he were ready to do battle. Sandra stifled a mixture of fear and admiration at the sight. “Because I’m pretty sure they snuck out to meet you.”

It was his tone more than what he said that sparked her temper. That and the remembrance of how he looked down his nose at her the day she had come to teach the girls. The day he had picked her up on the road. “Oh, really?” she asked, her voice hard. “And I suppose I encouraged that?”

He said nothing, and each beat of silence made Sandra fume even as his scrutiny made her feel uncomfortable. His silence and his pose reminded her of intimidating sessions with her father as she struggled to explain herself to him once again. To explain how once again she had failed the great Professor Bachman.

But she was a big girl now. And men like Logan—men like her father—didn’t bother her as easily as they used to.

“Your nieces aren’t here,” she said and turned away from him. The conversation was over.

“I saw their bedroom window open,” Logan said, his voice quieter. “I saw a chair under the window.”

“Which means what?” she asked, turning to face him. “I’m sure if you were to go down to your house right now you’d find them in bed.”

Logan seemed to consider this. “If I talk to them I’ll get the truth out of them,” he said confidently. “I always do.”

“You might. If you push.” Sandra wasn’t about to either enlighten or lie to him. But some part of her felt sorry for the girls and the confusion of moving from their parents’ home to an uncle they had known only briefly. She tried to choose her words, advocating for two girls who, underneath their flighty natures, felt lost and afraid of the future. “I know that if you push children, you can end up pushing them into a lie.” She shrugged. “Sometimes you have to choose the battles you want to win.”

“You’re not defending my nieces, are you?” Logan asked.

In the darkness Sandra couldn’t tell from his expression if she had imagined the faint note of humor in his voice.

She lifted one shoulder. “Not really. I just know they really like being here in Cypress Hills. The freedom and the memories, I guess.”

“The memories I’ll grant them. But they’ve had enough freedom in their life.”

Sandra sighed at the harsh note. “Their parents loved them. Surely that speaks for something.”

“It was a strange kind of love, as far as I’m concerned.”

Sandra couldn’t help but bristle at his comment, memories from her own upbringing clouding her judgment. “What’s better? Pushing and forcing your will on them? It’s like trying to hold water, Logan. The harder you squeeze, the less control you have.”

“You don’t understand,” he said simply.

“I do, though. I understand far too well.”

Logan’s eyes seemed to glitter in the dark, and Sandra knew she had overstepped her bounds. But she wasn’t going to let him bully her.

“Be careful with them, Logan,” she added quietly, sorrow tinging her voice. “They may be spunky, but they’re also just young girls.”

Logan was quiet a moment. Then without another word he stepped back, turned and strode down the hill before Sandra could say anything more.

She watched him go, frustrated and confused by him all at the same time. He was bossy, and yet his concern for his nieces touched a part of her that she hadn’t paid attention to in a while.

With each step Logan took away from Sandra, his confusion grew. He knew for a fact the girls had been with her. She hadn’t said anything, though, and he suspected she was protecting the girls from his wrath.

In spite of his irritation with her, he had to smile. She was concerned about the twins, he gave her that much. He wasn’t surprised that Brittany and Bethany were so taken with her. She had a fun sense of humor.

But he had to think of the girls, he reminded himself.

For a moment he yearned for the time when he didn’t have the responsibility of two young girls. Young girls were scary enough to take care of outside of the house. Inside, it was chaos and confusion.

He hated chaos and confusion. Had lived with it all his life.

He didn’t know what he was going to do if he found the girls in their beds as Sandra had intimated. He couldn’t very well accuse them of something he hadn’t any true proof of, even if he was the adult in the situation.

Give me wisdom, Lord, he prayed as he had most every day since the girls had dropped into his life. Give me courage and strength and patience. I don’t always know what to do.

In spite of his confusion, he couldn’t help but smile at Sandra’s assessment of the situation.

Choose the battles you want to win.

The advice was sound, and he figured it could save him a lot of headaches.

“C’mon, Bethy, it’s not that hard. Look, you have to line the numbers up and multiply them.” Logan stifled the urge to grab the pencil out of his niece’s hand and do the problem himself.

“I can’t do it, Uncle Logan. Not when you yell.” Bethany frowned at him, chewing on her pencil. “Sandra never got that mad at us.”

“Just try it the way I showed you,” he said, glancing at Brittany, who quickly looked at her own work. He got up to check it, hoping she at least had understood him.

“No, honey. Look…” He pulled the paper toward him. “You have to make sure that you carry the numbers when there’s more than one digit.” He showed her and pushed the paper back.

Brittany looked at him, frowning. “What do you mean carry the numbers? Sandra did it better.”

“And I suppose she walked on water, too,” he muttered.

Logan recognized he wasn’t a patient teacher, but he also knew he wasn’t too difficult to understand. He knew exactly where his two innocent nieces were leading him. Down the garden path directly to Sandra Bachman’s door. Trouble was, after the past few days, he was wondering if maybe he shouldn’t just give in.

Yesterday morning, for a few bright and shining moments, he had felt in charge. The girls had come downstairs as if waiting for him to jump on them. Instead he had said nothing, and they seemed confused. They also seemed wary and docile. Logan had felt pretty good.

But the moment of triumph lasted only as long as it took him to get them started on their work.

He was behind on his own work and clinging by his fingernails to the end of his proverbial rope. He still hadn’t found a tutor, and each moment he spent with the girls kept him away from his project.

He sighed, looking at the girls as if hoping for one last chance. But they only held his steady gaze, their soft blue eyes unblinking.

So what did he have to lose?

He remembered his condemnation of Sandra and wondered what her reaction to him would be.

Was he being wise? His opinion of her hadn’t really changed.

But her comments on how to discipline the girls had lingered. In spite of some of her strange opinions and in spite of her lifestyle, she seemed to have an intuition and basic understanding of how to deal with his nieces. She did have a degree, after all. She couldn’t be as flighty as she seemed.

If he hired Sandra it could buy him some time. Time to find a tutor, time to finish his project. It would only be temporary, he reminded himself.

“Okay, let’s get this over and done with,” he grumbled, walking to the phone. “What’s her phone number?”

Brittany and Bethany rattled it off in unison while Logan punched in the numbers, praying that this was the right decision.

He just didn’t have a lot of options left to him.

Sandra knocked on the door of the Napier cabin, smoothed her skirt with her hands, adjusted her shirt and then got mad at herself for doing so. She wasn’t going to be nervous, she told herself. Logan was just an uptight person who had changed his mind. Nothing personal.

But when Logan opened the door, she stiffened. She couldn’t help feeling defensive, remembering comments he had made the night he had gone looking for his nieces. When he had called her a couple of minutes ago, her first impulse had been to tell him that she was no longer available.

But pride was something only people with money could afford. So she accepted. They laid out the terms and rate of pay, and now she was here, facing a slightly disheveled Logan Napier.

He stood in the doorway, looking at her in that assessing way of his. “Thanks for coming so quickly,” he said. “I appreciate it.”

A smart answer died as Sandra gave him a closer look.

His dark hair looked like he had been running his fingers through it, and today he wore jeans and a T-shirt. Not quite as put together as when she had first met him. In fact, he looked worn out. In spite of their moments of antagonism, Sandra felt a gentle softening toward him.

“The girls are in the kitchen, trying to figure out how to cross multiply,” he added with a heavy sigh.

Sandra frowned. “They know how to do that.”

“I thought so, too.” Logan smiled a mirthless smile. “But it seems to have slipped their minds since you stopped working with them. Amazing coincidence.”

“Must be the air,” she said with a careful lift of her eyebrows, acknowledging his attempt at reconciliation.

“Must be.” Logan stepped back, allowing her to enter. “Just come with me a moment. We need to go over a few things before you start.”

Sandra swallowed, toying with the idea of asking him for an advance. As she followed him through the cabin, she decided against it. She didn’t need to reinforce his idea that she was a freeloader. She’d have to get along as best she could until she’d worked for at least a week, she thought, following him into his office.

“I need to emphasize that this job is only temporary,” he said with a piercing look. “You shouldn’t have too much trouble with that.”

“Just like every other job I’ve held,” Sandra couldn’t help but add.

Logan didn’t even blink. He looked her straight in the eye. “Then this should work out just fine for you.”

Sandra felt a shiver of animosity. But she knew she couldn’t indulge in her usual antics. Like it or not, Logan was her boss, and her situation here was tenuous.

She swallowed her pride and nodded. “I better get to it, then,” she said quietly.

“I’m going to be working in the bedroom down here. If you need anything.” He looked at the papers he was organizing on his drafting table.

Feeling dismissed, Sandra bit her lip and walked out of the room, angry that she had ever seen him as helpless. About as helpless as a grizzly, she thought.

Then she walked into the kitchen to be greeted with shouts of happiness and hugs from the girls. It helped to negate some of her anger at Logan. But not totally dissipate it.

Logan pulled out another sheet of paper, his frustration growing. He had an idea in his head of how he wanted the Jonserad house to look. He could close his eyes and just about picture it, but always when he put pencil to paper, the thoughts wouldn’t translate.

He stretched his neck and glanced out the window. He saw a family walking down the road. Mom and Dad were carrying a picnic hamper between them, beach towels slung over their shoulders. Two young boys ran ahead, carrying inflatable beach toys. Off for a day of sun and water, he thought with a slight pang of jealousy.

But he had work to do, and so did the girls. They had spent enough of their childhood running around carefree. They really needed to work.

And so did he, if he wanted the project, he reminded himself.

As he picked up another pencil, he heard the sound of muffled laughter. Then Sandra’s laugh pealed out, stifled to a giggle. What humor could they possibly find in doing math?

It sounded as though they had moved from the kitchen to the main room. What were they doing there? He got up to check when things got very quiet.

The girls were sprawled on the living room floor. Brittany was chewing on a pencil while she frowned at a problem she worked on, and Sandra lay on the floor between them, quietly explaining something to Bethany. Her hair hung like a shimmering curtain over her shoulder. With an impatient gesture she pushed it back, exposing the fine line of her jaw, her smiling mouth.

Logan caught himself staring at her. Attractive or no, he wasn’t too sure about her teaching arrangements. “Shouldn’t you girls be sitting at a table?” Logan asked.

“I suggested that we move to a place that’s a little more comfortable,” Sandra said, sitting up.

Logan frowned at her quick reply. “I can’t see that you’ll get much done laying all over the floor.”

Bethany’s and Brittany’s heads shot up, and Sandra motioned to the girls to go back to their work as she got up.

“Can I talk to you a moment, Mr. Napier?” she asked.

“Sure.”

Sandra walked past Logan to his office. Momentarily taken aback, he couldn’t help but follow.

Once inside the room, Sandra turned to face him. “I understand your concern about the girls and I appreciate that. But I think I need to establish something right from the beginning. This job may be temporary.” She paused, glancing at him through narrowed eyes. “But I’m their teacher and I’ll decide on the teaching methods.”

Logan scowled, uncomfortable with how quickly she took charge. “I guess I need to make something clear, too, Miss Bachman. I’m their guardian and I’m the one who hired you,” he countered.

Sandra crossed her arms as if ready to face him down. “That’s correct. But you came to me, I didn’t come to you. You recognized that I have abilities and training, and in order for me to do my job, I need you to just let me do it.”

“And if I don’t like your methods?”

“Then I guess you’ll be teaching them on your own.” Her deep brown eyes held his. She tipped her head ever so slightly. “Just like you were doing when you called me.”

Logan swallowed, fighting down the urge to tell this snippy woman that she could leave. He’d been in charge of his nieces for a year and a half without any outside help, thank you very much. He didn’t appreciate being told to back off and let someone else take over.

However, as she had so diplomatically pointed out, teaching the girls on his own wasn’t working, and he didn’t have any alternative available to him.

He couldn’t give up so easily. Not with her. “That sounds like a threat, Sandra Bachman.”

She shook her head, smiling lightly. “No threat, Logan Napier. Just setting out boundaries.”

Logan had to regain some ground. He forced himself to smile. “Just so you realize, these girls need to go back to formal schooling in September. They won’t be able to lay on the floor in their classroom.”

Sandra’s smile stiffened. “Formal school.” She laughed lightly. “It never ceases to amaze me that curiosity and adventure manage to survive formal education.”

Logan wondered if he imagined the caustic note in her voice. “That’s an interesting comment, coming from you,” he said, testing her. “Formal education gave you a degree, even though you don’t seem to be doing much with it.”

Sandra straightened, her eyes narrowed, and Logan knew he had stepped over an invisible boundary. “I’m teaching your nieces with it, Mr. Napier,” she said. “And I had better get back to it.” She tossed him a look that clearly told him the subject was closed, and with a swish of her skirt, she left.

Logan felt momentarily taken aback at her abrupt exit. He hoped he had made his point with her, though he wasn’t sure how he came out of that little skirmish. Sandra was a puzzle, that much he knew.

And a puzzle she would stay, he thought. As long as she was teaching his girls, he would keep his eye on her, but her private life would remain private as far as he was concerned.

He went to his computer and dropped into the chair. As he struggled with a plan that was finally coming together, he couldn’t help but pause once in a while, listening to the husky tones of Sandra’s voice as she patiently explained the vagaries of mathematics.

Later he heard Sandra telling the girls what she wanted them to work on that evening. He got up and wandered into the living room, ostensibly to establish his so-called parental involvement.

“Work on the rest of chapter four in your math books,” she said, writing on a piece of paper. “And I want you to go over some of the history material.”

“But history is so boring,” Brittany said with a pout. “Especially this stuff.”

“History is just a story that you have to discover,” Sandra said.

Logan could see from Brittany’s expression that she wasn’t convinced.

“Hey, a lot of the history you are studying happened right here.” Sandra chucked Brittany lightly under the chin. “In Cypress Hills.”

“Really?” Brittany didn’t sound like she believed Sandra.

“Fort Walsh was an important place in the late eighteen hundreds. And it’s part of Cypress Hills Park,” Sandra explained. “On the Saskatchewan side.”

“Could we go there?”

“That would be a good idea, but I have no way of bringing you there.” Sandra lifted her hands as if in surrender. “Sorry.”

The girls turned as one to Uncle Logan. He recognized the gleam in their eyes and knew what was coming.

“You could give us the van, Uncle Logan,” Brittany said with an ingenuous smile.

Logan shook his head. “Now why did I know you were going to say that?”

Brittany shrugged, a delicate movement that would one day drive some young boy crazy. “I don’t know.”

He wasn’t going to look at Sandra but couldn’t stop himself. She held his gaze, her own slightly mocking.

“I don’t have time to bring you,” he said.

“Uncle Logan,” Brittany said. “You have to.”

“I think your uncle Logan is too busy working to come with us, Brittany,” Sandra said with a lift of her chin.

Logan couldn’t help but pick up the challenging note in her voice.

“Not all of us have the luxury of doing what we want, Miss Bachman.”

“Oh, yes, we do. It’s all in what we choose to give up to do what we want. You’ve chosen to sit inside and work instead of enjoying the wonderful outdoors.”

“I’ve chosen to try to make a living,” he said with a short laugh.

Sandra held his gaze for a split second, then looked away, a faint grin teasing her mouth. “If that’s what you want to call it.”

Logan was about to defend himself, to explain how necessary this project was, when a faint niggling doubt wormed its way into his subconscious. He remembered seeing the family going to the beach this morning. He thought of the project he wasn’t having much luck putting together. Maybe some time off with the girls would be good for him.

And, he reasoned, he could keep an eye on Sandra Bachman. After all, the girls were his responsibility, and she had only been teaching them for a short time.

Brittany sensed his hesitation and jumped on it. “So, are you going to come with us, Uncle Logan?”

“Please, Uncle Logan?” Bethany added her entreaty.

He looked at the two girls and wondered if there was ever going to come a time that he wouldn’t give in to them.

“I could do that,” he said, careful to make it look as if his capitulation came at a price. “If Ms. Bachman doesn’t mind,” he added as a concession to Sandra.

“Seeing as how Ms. Bachman doesn’t own a set of working wheels, Ms. Bachman doesn’t mind at all,” Sandra said, finally looking up from the paper she held. “As long as Mr. Napier is willing to work with me.”

Logan recognized the challenge and rose to it. “I believe in being diplomatic, Ms. Bachman.”

She smiled. “Ah, yes. Diplomacy. The art of letting people have your own way.”

Logan couldn’t help the smile that tugged on his mouth at her snappy answer and decided to let it go. He sensed that he would be the loser in a verbal battle with Sandra.

“So set a time and we’ll be ready to leave,” he said.

“First thing tomorrow morning,” Sandra replied. “I’d like to go before it gets too hot.”

“We’ll be ready.”

As the innocuous words were tossed back and forth, Logan stifled the faint dart of pleasure at the idea of spending time with Sandra. He was only coming along to supervise. That was all.

Chapter Four

“So how did you like a taste of Whoop Up Country?” Sandra asked as they left the stockaded fort known as Farwell’s Trading Post.

“Hot,” Bethany said, fanning herself with a brochure.

“Can you imagine what it was like in those days when no one had air-conditioning?” Sandra asked with a laugh. She lifted her hair from her damp neck, wishing she had worn it up.

“You girls would have roasted in those long dresses they had to wear in those days,” Logan added.

The girls groaned in sympathy.

“Men didn’t have it a whole lot better,” Sandra added, glancing at Logan’s short-sleeved shirt. “You look a lot cooler than Farwell, owner of the trading post. Or how about those poor Mounties in their red serge. Hot, hot, hot.”

Heat waves shimmered from the ground, attesting to how warm it really was. The short grass crunched under their feet as they walked toward the tour bus.

“I can’t imagine how the grass even grows here, it’s so warm.” Brittany poked the ground with her toe.

“This grass is very high in protein,” Sandra explained. “The buffalo survived quite nicely on it. That’s how Fort Benton, in Montana, got started. It was a fur and buffalo robe trading post stuck in the middle of buffalo country. From Fort Benton, traders for both furs and whiskey ended up taking the Whoop Up Trail into Canada where there was nothing but trouble. No law, no rules. People did what they wanted.”

“So how did that stop?” Bethany asked.

Sandra paused, looking at the hills. So peaceful, it was hard to believe that at one time the fear-filled cries of Lakota Indians rang through these hills. As she retold the story of the Cypress Hills Massacre, she tried to inject a feeling of humanity—putting a human face to the story—into what was often mere facts and history. She could feel the girls looking first at her, then at the hills. Even Logan listened intently as she spoke.

The silence that followed her story told her she had done her job.

“After the massacre the Canadian government sent the Northwest Mounted Police, later known as the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, to this area. They started out from Manitoba and ended up in Fort Benton to replenish their supplies and get some information on the massacre. When they came to the place Fort Macleod is now, the whiskey traders had taken off. Knew the Mounties were coming.” Sandra winked at Brittany, relieving the heavy atmosphere her sad story had created. “Knew the Mounties always get their man.”

She answered a few more questions the girls had, trying each time to work in some pertinent information. She knew that history told was one thing but history experienced meant much more.

She also knew that history, even when told in an entertaining manner, was only interesting for a short period of time.

“I guess we should head back to the main fort now,” she said, noticing the shuttle bus pulling into the parking lot.

Bethany and Brittany hurried toward it.

“Hey, girls. Slow down,” Logan called, but the girls didn’t hear. Or pretended not to.

“Relax, Uncle Logan,” Sandra said with a grin at how protective he was. “They’re not going anywhere we aren’t.”

“Maybe, but it’s still too hot to run.”

Sandra frowned. “My goodness, Logan, they won’t melt. From what they told me, they’ve been in warmer climates than this.”

Logan’s gaze sliced sideways, then back. “They told you about their parents?”

“Just a little.”

She waited to hear something, anything, more, but he didn’t offer any information. Merely stepped aside so Sandra could get on the bus.

Without looking at Logan, Sandra walked to an empty seat directly behind the girls and sat down. To her surprise, Logan sat beside her.

Brittany and Bethany glanced back and immediately moved to the front, but Logan stayed where he was.

She wanted to ask him more about the girls’ parents but didn’t think that he would be very forthcoming.

But with each lurch of the bus, Sandra grew more self-conscious, more aware of him sitting silently beside her. He said nothing, did nothing, but Sandra felt every time his elbow brushed hers, each time a hole in the road threw her against him.

She pulled herself closer to the side of the bus and away from him, turning to stare out the window.

The bus stopped, and the girls were the first ones out. By the time Logan and Sandra got out, the girls were waiting for them, full of good cheer. “Can we have some ice cream, Uncle Logan?” Bethany asked, tipping her head coyly. “Pretty please?”

Logan was already digging in his pocket. He pulled out a bill. He glanced sidelong at Sandra, his dark brows pulled together in a light frown. “These girls have an insatiable appetite for ice cream. Do you want one?”

Sandra shook her head. “No, thanks.”

“I’ll wait out here for you then,” Logan said, handing the bill to the girls. “And I expect to see the change.”

Brittany and Bethany flashed him demure smiles, shared a grin and ran into the building.

Without looking at Logan, Sandra turned and walked up the hill overlooking the valley, then sat down, determined to put some space between her and Logan.

But to her surprise, Logan followed her and sat beside her. She pulled her knees up, wrapping her arms around them. She resented the awkwardness he created in her, and she tried not to let it show.

The best defense is offense, she thought.

“So, you aren’t chafing to get back to your work,” she said, her heightened reaction to him giving her voice an unexpected bite.

Logan leaned back, resting his weight on his elbows. He looked over the valley below them. He seemed surprisingly at ease.

“I can do this,” he said, tucking his chin on his chest. “Even though I do need to get back to work.”

“Ah, yes. Uncle Logan the upwardly mobile man.” Sandra couldn’t stop the little gibe. It seemed better to put him on the defensive rather than to look at him and notice the faint wave to his hair, how it curled over his ears.

The way his sudden smile eased the harsh line of his features.

“Do you ever run out of smart remarks?” he asked.

“I think life is too serious to be taken seriously,” she replied.

Logan let out a short laugh. But he didn’t answer her question.

Note to self, she thought, biting her lip. No more smart comments. At least not to Logan Napier.

She wasn’t usually this flip. Usually she could carry on a normal, intelligent conversation, but Logan’s calm self-possession touched a nerve.

At any rate, she had better learn to put a curb on her tongue if she wanted to stay in Logan’s good graces and keep this job.

She looked over the sweep of the valley. The hills here were softened, smoothed by the wind that swept across the open plains of Montana and Saskatchewan and sifted around this oasis in the prairie. She sighed lightly, waiting for the utter peace of the place to slowly soothe the tension she felt sitting beside Logan. But try as she might, she couldn’t ignore his strong presence.

And he seemed content to just sit, saying nothing.

Once again, his silence unnerved her. In spite of her resolution, she sought to find something, anything to ease the discomfort he created.

“So how long have the girls been living with you?” she asked, resting her chin on her knees.

Logan plucked a blade of grass, twirling it between his fingers. “About a year and a half.”

“Did they come right after their parents died?”

Logan nodded, still looking away.

“That must have been difficult,” she said quietly.

“It was. At first. I think kids grieve differently than adults do. They dive in deep and hard, but they come out of it quicker. Their sadness is different….” Logan stopped, twirling the grass faster.

“Different than what?” Sandra prompted.

He looked at her then. “Different than adults, I was going to say.”

“Their mother was your sister, wasn’t she?” Sandra asked, holding his steady gaze, wondering at their relationship.

“She was my only sibling. Flighty. Strange. But still my sister.”

For a moment Sandra envied him even that. “How did you get along?”

Logan pushed himself to a sitting position. “Pretty good. When I was younger we depended heavily on each other. We switched schools so many times the only person we knew in school was each other.”

“Your parents traveled that much?”

Logan laughed, but it held no humor. “Endlessly. Every few months we would pack up and be gone again. My father died a while ago, but my mother still travels a lot.”

Sandra sighed, thinking of her upbringing. “Sounds kind of neat.”

“I’m sure to you it would,” Logan said dryly. He got up, held her gaze a moment, then looked down the hill.

“Here come the girls,” he said, brushing off his pants.

And once again Sandra felt as if she had been weighed and found wanting.

And once again it bothered her.

Chapter Five

Logan watched as the girls dawdled up the hill toward them. He was about to call to them when they suddenly turned and ran to the visitors’ center. He started off after them.

“What are they doing?” he heard Sandra ask as she caught up to him.

Logan knew all too well what they were up to and decided it would be better if everything was out in the open.

“My dear nieces can’t stand the idea that I don’t currently have a girlfriend,” he said dryly, glancing at her. “They’re avoiding us because they have grand visions of playing matchmaker.”

Sandra laughed.

To his chagrin, Logan felt deflated at her reaction. “What can I say,” he said, wishing he had her quick, glib tongue. “They’re young.”

“Some day they’ll grow up, Logan Napier.”

Logan sighed. “I pray for it daily.”

“Do you?”

He turned, looking fully at her. “Yes. I do.”

Sandra’s gaze flicked sideways then back. “I remember you said that you go to church.”

“Why does that always come out with a faint note of mockery?” he asked as he reached the sidewalk at the bottom of the hill.

“Like I told you before, I’m not a church person.”

“Why not?” He stopped, turning to face her. He wanted to know more about this part of her life. After all, she was teaching his nieces.

“It’s full of hypocrites,” she said airily.

“That’s the oldest excuse in the book.”

Sandra’s dark brown eyes met his, unable to conceal the sparkle that lit at his challenge. “What book?”

“Pardon me?” Logan asked.

“What book is that the oldest excuse in? Is there a book somewhere full of excuses? And if there is, how do you know it’s the oldest one? What if it’s the newest?” Sandra threw out the questions one after the other, a smile curving her lips.

In spite of his exasperation with her, Logan laughed. “I’m not even going to start a battle of words with you,” he said. “But I will challenge your hypocrite comment. You have to admit that using that excuse is pretty lame. There are hypocrites in every organization. Where there are people, there are failings.”

Sandra cocked her head as if thinking. “Okay. I’ll concede that point. Begrudgingly,” she added, pointing a finger at him. “Don’t want to let you off too easy.”

“So why don’t you go to church?” Logan asked.

“I believe in God, Logan. Just in case that’s what you’re really wondering. I just don’t believe that church fills any need of mine. I prefer to worship God in nature.”

Logan felt a stab of disappointment. He didn’t know what he had hoped for, but her answer brushed away some faint hope he had harbored. A hope that didn’t really have anything to do with his nieces’ well-being. “But nature doesn’t tell you of the need for redemption, Sandra,” he replied quietly.

Sandra’s answer was a dismissive shrug.

Right then the girls came out of the building, pretending surprise to see Logan and Sandra.

“Let’s look at the rest of the site,” Sandra said, forestalling any recriminations or feeble explanations.

The girls followed Sandra while Logan lagged behind, listening as she explained the history of Fort Walsh.

“Later, in the nineteen forties, the RCMP purchased this site and set up Remount Ranch to breed and raise their horses. They also raised and trained the horses for the Musical Ride here.”

“I’ve heard of the Musical Ride,” Logan said. “But what exactly is it?”

“A riding display developed from traditional cavalry drills. It’s very impressive. I believe 32 horses and riders are involved.”

“We saw that,” Bethany offered. “In Texas. At a rodeo. It was awesome. Those black horses. And the riders in those neat red coats.”

Logan wasn’t surprised at that. Linda and her husband traveled enough different places, they were bound to have crossed paths at one time or another with the RCMP’s Musical Ride.

The rest of the tour went fast. To her credit, Sandra could tell when the girls’ interest waned, and would quickly move on to the next place. They walked through barracks and living quarters, then took a picture by the flagpole in the center of the fort. Logan operated the camera, smiling as Bethany and Brittany crowded right up beside Sandra.

He looked through the lens and adjusted the zoom lens, bringing the little group in closer. Sandra looked up, smiling, and Logan couldn’t suppress the tug of attraction. Sandra’s open smile suffused her entire being and made him want to laugh along with her.

He snapped the picture, recognizing Sandra’s beauty and at the same time realizing that any man would be attracted to her. And that was all he felt, he reminded himself. Just a basic recognition of her appeal. He didn’t have the time or the inclination to take anything further from there. Not with someone like Sandra.

The drive back was quiet. Both girls slept in the back seat, which meant, Logan thought with a sigh, that they would be awake and giddy for most of the evening. Looked like he wasn’t going to get much done tonight.

Sandra didn’t say much. Just looked ahead, her expression serious. Logan couldn’t help but glance at her once in a while, wondering what she was thinking.

Logan wondered if his comment about church had made the usually loquacious Sandra Bachman retreat into silence. He doubted it. Someone as self-possessed as Sandra wasn’t the kind of person to be intimidated by someone else’s opinion.

But her silence made him feel uncomfortable. As they neared Elkwater, she picked up her knapsack, fiddling with the zippers and buckles.

“Just drop me off at the gas station,” she said as he made the long turn into the town.

“Tell me where you live and I’ll drop you off,” Logan said.

“No. Please. I want to go for a walk. Maybe even a swim,” she said with a forced laugh, pushing her hair from her face.

Logan slowed and stopped at the gas station as she had requested. “Are you sure you don’t want me to bring you to your house?” he asked once again, feeling most unchivalrous.

“No. Thanks. I really want to walk.” She glanced at the girls, who were still sleeping, their cheeks flushed with the heat and the sun. “Say goodbye to the girls. Tell them I’ll see them on Monday.”

Logan nodded, bending over as Sandra got out of the van. She paused, holding on to the door, and glanced at him. “Thanks for driving us to the fort,” she said. “I had a good time.”

“You’re welcome. I learned a lot today,” he said with a quick grin. “Thanks for that.”

“Nice to be able to put my expensive education to some use,” she returned. “Have a good evening.” She turned and walked away, her skirt swaying.

Logan knew he should drive away. Knew he shouldn’t be watching Sandra, shouldn’t be allowing his basic attraction to her good looks take over his common sense.

But he had enjoyed the day with her, and even though part of him disapproved, he had to laugh at her quick tongue, her pert responses. Once again he smiled at some of the things she had said.

Then he glanced at the girls, dismayed to see Brittany awake and looking at him with frank interest.

“What are we waiting for, Uncle Logan?” she asked, her voice radiating innocence.

“Traffic,” he replied, deadpan. Then, without a second glance, he drove to their house.

Sandra pulled out her last sheet of ruby glass, setting it carefully on the light table. With a felt pen she marked the places she would cut, working with the striations and the patterns inherent in the glass.

She smiled as she envisioned how the completed lamp would look, how the light would play through it.

So far she had enough glass for one lamp and a few pieces left over for a second. She had hoped to pick up her glass shipment, still sitting in a warehouse in Medicine Hat. But she would have to wait until she got her first tutoring paycheck. It surprised her that Logan was willing to pay her more than Florence had offered. Of course, he could probably afford it, she reasoned.

She didn’t know how long the job would last, but so far she calculated that if she worked one more day, she would have enough money to pay for the glass. Three more days would pay for her car, and four more days would earn a few more groceries that would last until the lamps were finished.

A small thrill of excitement fluttered through her at the thought of completing the lamp and what the job represented. Money earned on her own and maybe, perhaps, the beginning of a new career.

For now, it looked as if she would be able to prove her father wrong, after all. Her life was finally coming to a place of her own choosing.

She pulled out the patterns for the petals of the flowers, and as she laid them on the glass, she happened to look out the window.

If she angled her head slightly, she could see the front door of the church in Elkwater. She had never attended. As she had told Logan, her preferred place of worship was up on a hill, away from other people. Alone and away from the harsh expectations she’d grown up with.

But today she caught herself looking at the church more than once as she worked. Wondered what kind of people went. Wondered if they sang any of the traditional songs that were sung in her church.

She hadn’t been to church since she left home five years ago. She had thrown off the stifling expectations of her father, and church attendance was one of them.

She’d been in Elkwater for four months, and only in the last two had she started eyeing the church.

And that was mostly because Cora, her good friend and fellow traveler, had left again.

If anyone could talk her out of going, Cora could, Sandra thought, looking at the glass she was preparing to cut. She and Cora had been through a lot together. California, Minnesota and at the end, Hornby Island and Henri Desault.

Sandra shivered. Henri was too vivid a memory still. She wouldn’t be in the financial pickle she was in if it wasn’t for Henri and his smooth talking. A consummate salesman, she thought, curling her lip in disgust. She set the pattern on the glass, tracing it with quick, decisive strokes as if trying to eradicate the memory.

She had spent time with Henri. Had dated him and thought she’d found someone who cared about her. Who accepted her without expectations. Then one day she let him see the stained glass work she did in her spare time. Time she’d eked away from the mindless day jobs she needed to pay for her supplies. She’d planned on selling her work when she had enough inventory built up. The money was going to finance her working full time on her own.

Henri knew a place to sell her stuff and promised her more money than she could get peddling at craft fairs and local markets.

She had fallen for his charm, his smooth talk, and in no time, seven of her best pieces of work had been taken and sold. She had trusted him to return. Trusted him to give her the money.

She hadn’t seen a penny from Henri. Nor had she seen Henri again.

At that low point in her life, Cora came up with the brain wave of moving to Alberta.

Sandra had fought the move. Anywhere in Alberta was too close to Calgary and home. But the thought of staying alone was even more depressing.

So she gamely packed up her little car with the few things she and Cora owned. They worked their way through the Fraser Valley, then across Alberta to Medicine Hat. There they found an ad for a small furnished house for rent in the town of Elkwater. It had an extra room for Sandra to set up a studio of sorts. Sandra sold a few pieces, and through that got the order for the lamps.

Now Cora was gone, with a promise that as soon as she returned, they would head south to California. But the longer Cora stayed away, the less sure Sandra was of leaving. In fact, it seemed that in the past six months, Sandra’s dissatisfaction with her life had grown.

She missed belonging somewhere. And whether she wanted to admit it or not, she missed belonging to someone.

She glanced out the window. A movement at the church made Sandra pay closer attention. The doors opened and a few people walked out.

She wasn’t going to watch, she thought.

But she couldn’t stop herself from looking. Bethany and Brittany bounced out of the church, their facial expressions exaggerated as they chatted with each other. Sandra smiled and kept looking, wondering.

And there he was. Behind them, hands in the pockets of his eternal khaki pants, came their uncle Logan.

He was smiling, looking relaxed, at peace.

Sandra felt a mixture of envy and a lift of pleasure as she watched him. He was good-looking, she had to concede. He had the potential to be a lot of fun, if only he’d drop the fussy, protective-uncle shtick he insisted on maintaining.

He paused, looking back to say something to a young woman who caught up to him. She wore a beige shift. Neat. Elegant. Uptight, Sandra thought a bit cattily.

Logan’s smile grew as he spoke to the woman. He lifted his hand and touched her shoulder lightly. It was almost avuncular, but for the first time in many years, Sandra felt a distinct dig of jealousy at the gesture. Around Sandra, Logan was either uptight, thinking she might lead his nieces astray, or he was scowling, thinking she might lead his nieces astray.

He was worse than some of the parents she had met while student teaching.

Yet she couldn’t keep her eyes off him as he talked to the woman.

She wondered who she was. Friend? Girlfriend who had come up for a visit?

Sandra took a deep breath, as if cleansing away the coil of strange emotions, and concentrated on tracing exactly twelve petals on the glass. She made a mistake and rubbed it out with a tissue then glanced out the window again.

But Logan, the woman and the girls were gone.

She felt momentarily bereft. Left out. She didn’t belong to that little group. She was here in her rented house. They were out there, heading to Logan’s spacious cabin.

This was enough, she told herself.

She capped her pen, dropped it on her worktable and headed to the beach, open spaces and other people.

“I’d love to go for a walk.” As Karen stood, she addressed the girls, who were laying on the floor, playing a board game. “Are you coming, Brittany and Bethany?”

Logan saw them exchange a quick look, and it wasn’t kind. He knew they would say no. They had never really liked Karen.

“We’d love to,” Brittany said, getting up. “Wouldn’t we Bethany?”

Bethany nodded, smiling at her uncle, who looked at both his nieces, his eyes narrowed. Why the sudden change of heart?

“We’ll clean the game up after, Uncle Logan,” Brittany said, smiling at him.

They were up to something. He knew it. He angled his body away from Karen. He shot them both a warning look that he knew Karen wouldn’t see.

They quickly glanced down, and he knew the message was sent and understood. Behave.

He turned to Karen with a forced smile. “Shall we go?”

The afternoon sun warmed Logan’s shoulders as they walked in silence to the lake.

Logan was still trying to absorb the shock he had felt when Karen showed up unexpectedly on his doorstep this morning.

She had been passing through, she had said. Stayed overnight in Medicine Hat. Logan’s partner told her where he was. She thought, since she was in the neighborhood, maybe she would stop in and see how Logan and the girls were doing.

Brittany and Bethany stayed close by as they walked, as if unwilling to give Karen and Logan the space they always gave him and Sandra.

“Your partner, Ian, tells me that you’ve got an important project due,” Karen said, breaking the silence.

Logan nodded. “I’m submitting it on spec. A few other architects are submitting plans, as well. If the client likes what I’ve done, we have a good chance at more work.” He bit his lip, thinking of the project that just wouldn’t obey. He’d never had this hard a time coming up with ideas. Nor had so much been riding on one project, he reminded himself.

“I heard it was the Jonserads that you might be doing this work for.” Karen angled him a questioning glance. “They’re a pretty big company. Family business.”

Logan nodded. He didn’t need the reminder.

“My parents know the Jonserads,” she added coyly. “If you want, I could put in a good word for you.”

Logan stiffened at the suggestion. All his life he had worked for everything he had. Nothing had come easily. He had managed without anyone’s help, and he was proud of that.

“Thanks for that, Karen. But I would just as soon earn the job based on my own merit.” He smiled at her to ease the harshness of his words. But he could tell from the suddenly brittle smile that she was hurt.

“The girls seem to be settling down,” Karen said with forced brightness as she wrapped her sweater around herself.

Thankfully Brittany and Bethany had gone a little ahead, talking and laughing.

“It’s taken a bit of doing, but it’s coming along.” Logan slipped his hands in his pockets, squinting against the glare of the sun off the lake. He wondered again why Karen had come.

They arrived at the boardwalk that led partway around the lake. Karen’s steps slowed. She was letting the girls get even farther ahead.

“I know my coming here is a surprise,” she said quietly, looking straight ahead. “I’m sure you thought, after I broke up with you, that you’d never see me again.”

Logan said nothing, letting her do all the talking. Their break had caused him a measure of pain, but in retrospect, he realized that his pride had hurt more than his feelings.

“This is a little awkward for me.” She sighed and stopped, turning to face him, lifting her exquisite face to his. Her short blond hair framed her features perfectly, emphasizing her delicate cheekbones, the fine line of her chin. Logan recognized her beauty almost as an afterthought. Which surprised him, considering that at one time he’d been attracted to her.

“I realized how much I missed you, Logan,” she continued, her soft green eyes holding his. “When the girls came, I made a rash decision. I see that now.”

“It was a while ago, Karen,” he gently reminded her. Eighteen months, to be precise, he thought.

“I know. That’s what makes this so awkward.” She smiled at him, tentatively reaching out to him. “I tried to date other guys. I thought I could forget you.” She shrugged her dainty shoulders, wrapped by her finely knit cardigan. “I couldn’t.”

Logan nodded, wondering how to extricate himself from this situation. Karen might have been yearning to try again, but he had no inclination to renew the relationship. Not with his work and his nieces occupying most of his time.

Where were those girls when he needed them?

As if on cue, he heard Brittany call, “Uncle Logan, look who we found.”

He glanced up with a grin of relief that faded when he saw their reluctant escort.

Sandra Bachman.

Brittany had one of her hands, Bethany the other, and they were pulling her along the boardwalk.

The girls stopped in front of Karen and Logan, looking at Sandra like they had just snagged a prize.

“She was coming this way already,” Bethany said, bestowing an angelic smile on Logan.

“I was just heading home, actually,” Sandra said. The soft breeze coming off the lake teased her loose hair, made her long flowing skirt sway. She looked soft, deceptively gentle. Logan couldn’t look away.

Her dark eyes flicked over Karen, then to Logan, one eyebrow quirking when she noticed his regard.

Covering up, Logan turned to Karen. “I should introduce you to the girls’ tutor, Sandra Bachman. Sandra, this is…Karen.”

Karen seemed to catch his momentary hesitation over her official title, but recovered and put on a polite smile, extending her hand to Sandra.

“Nice to meet you,” Karen said smoothly.

Sandra shook her hand, her gaze assessing. “Likewise,” she said, one corner of her mouth curling into a smile.

Logan braced himself for one of Sandra’s comments, but she said nothing more.

“So the girls must keep you quite busy,” Karen said.

Sandra glanced at each of the girls. “They’re a challenge that I try to rise to every day. But I think we’re making some progress.”

Karen murmured a vague response, then looked at Logan, as if expecting him to end this conversation.

But Logan knew what faced him if he was alone with Karen again. He didn’t feel inclined to reopen the topic of Karen and her feelings on their relationship.

“Out for some exercise?” he asked Sandra, slipping his hands in his pockets, projecting the image of someone with nothing better to do than chat up his nieces’ tutor.

“No, just a walk,” Sandra replied with a sparkle in her eye. “I get enough exercise just pushing my luck.”

Logan couldn’t help his answering grin. “And here I thought you were the kind of person who would spend hours in aerobic classes.”

Sandra waved that comment away. “I’d sooner spend my money on chocolate fudge sundaes than pay someone to put me through pain.”

“If you’ve experienced pain while doing aerobics, that could be the fault of your instructor,” Karen informed her.

Logan glanced sidelong at Karen, feeling a faint flush of shame at how completely he had ignored her.

“Could be,” Sandra agreed, her grin fading as she looked at Karen. “Or it could be that I just wasn’t doing things right.” Sandra took an abrupt step back, and Logan recognized the first movement toward departure. The quick glance at her watch was the second.

He didn’t want her to go.

“It’s been nice meeting you, Karen,” she said, formal. Polite.

Karen smiled in return.

But the girls weren’t happy. “We just got here. You can’t go now, Sandra,” Brittany wailed.

Sandra laid a hand on each of their shoulders, still grinning. “I have two legs, and in spite of not taking aerobics, I can walk quite well. No ‘can’t’ about it.”

“Then you shouldn’t go,” Bethany corrected, grabbing Sandra’s hand.

“And shouldn’t is a moral imperative, Bethany.” Sandra tapped Bethany’s nose. “I’m on my day off, so I’m not under any obligation to follow it.”

Logan couldn’t help but smile at the word games Sandra so easily indulged in. But it was better for all concerned, himself included, if they kept their relationship arm’s-length.

“Let’s go, Bethy, Brit,” Logan said, hastening the separation. “We shouldn’t waste Sandra’s time.”

In spite of his reflections, he couldn’t help another glance in her direction and was disconcerted to see her looking at him, as well, her expression serious.

Then, with a quick wave and a toss of her head, Sandra was striding down the boardwalk toward the beach, her hair and skirt swinging in time with her steps.

“So, that’s the new tutor,” Karen said, a prim note in her voice. “She seems very…vivacious.”

Logan’s only acknowledgment of Karen’s statement was a curt nod. As he glanced at Karen, he couldn’t help comparing the two women. Sandra’s dark eyes, dark hair and wide smile. Karen’s light hair, clear eyes and composed manner.

Shaking his head, he pushed the thoughts aside. Karen had come to church. Sandra hadn’t. That should be comparison enough for him.

Karen stayed until late afternoon. She coerced the girls into a board game, talked with Logan about friends they had in common.

But when she drove away and he came into the cabin, he felt worn out and was thankful to be alone again.

“You’re not going back to her, are you?” Brittany asked as soon as he stepped into the house. She lay on the couch, Bethany on the recliner. Both had their eyes fixed on their uncle.

Logan looked at his more outspoken niece, weighing his words. “That’s not for you to say, Brittany,” he replied firmly, recognizing the need to set personal boundaries. “Karen is a good person, and at one time we had a strong relationship.”

“Why did she come back?”

“She just came for a visit.” Logan wasn’t going to delve into the real reason. Given the girls’ antagonism toward his former girlfriend and their not so subtle cheerleading for Sandra, he figured the less they knew, the better.

Brittany gave her uncle a knowing look. “I bet she wants you back.”

Logan was taken aback at Brittany’s perceptiveness.

“I’ve seen the way she looks at you,” Brittany said smugly. “What do you think, Bethany?”

Bethany gave a hesitant shrug. “I don’t know.”

Brittany snorted. “Of course, you don’t know. She liked you.” Brittany looked at her uncle. “I think she wants you back.”

“And I think you’ve said enough, Brittany,” Logan chided, walking past her to the kitchen. “Seeing as how you’re so full of advice, you can help me make supper tonight.”

But as they ate, the girls’ words reinforced what he already knew. Karen was sweet, kind and shared the same faith.

She just didn’t hold the appeal she once had. Her soft green eyes and her pale blondness seemed pallid.

Pallid compared to Sandra’s heavy brown hair and dancing eyes.

Chapter Six

Logan added a few more flourishes to his drawing and stood to have a better look.

His first impulse was to throw it in the garbage.

His second was to rip it up.

Then throw it in the garbage.

He wasn’t exactly sure why he didn’t like it, just that it looked like every other house in Calgary right now. Boxy and choppy with cluttered rooflines.

“Uncle Logan, we’re done with the dishes.” Bethany stood in the doorway of his office looking especially demure.

He nodded absently.

“Can me and Brittany ask you a favor?”

Logan frowned and turned, giving his niece his full attention. “Since when do you girls ask if you can ask?”

Bethany lifted her hands and shoulders at the same time, signaling complete incomprehension.

“So, what is it?”

“Well, it’s Grandma’s birthday pretty soon, and me and Brit want to make her a present to give to her. We wanted to give her something real special and we had a good idea.”

“And what’s the point of all this?” Logan asked, stifling a yawn.

“Well…” Bethany hesitated, pressing her fingers together as if in supplication. “We thought it would be fun to make a stained glass sun catcher. Sandra said she would help us.”

Logan shouldn’t have been surprised. Since Sunday, the girls had been jockeying to visit Sandra each evening, and each evening he firmly said no.

“It would make a real cool present for her,” Bethany added.

“You girls just don’t quit, do you?” he said, shaking his head.

Bethany looked the picture of innocence, and once again Logan went through all the reasons they shouldn’t go to Sandra’s. She was their tutor, not their friend, and it was important to teach them the difference. She was much older than them and probably not a whole lot wiser, in spite of her degree. He didn’t like them hanging around with her. Period.

Although the last was becoming harder to justify. He had given her the responsibility of teaching his nieces, and in spite of their differing over her methods, the girls were understanding their work.

Brittany joined Bethany. Reinforcements, he thought wryly. “Come to add your two cents?” he asked her, his hands on his hips.

“We thought it would be a good idea to go,” Brittany said, ignoring his rhetorical question. “This way you could have some more time alone to work on your project.” Her eyes skittered to the drawing on his board, and her face fell. “Are you done?”

Logan didn’t even bother to give the rendering another second of his attention. He sighed. “No, I’m not. I thought I was, but I don’t like it.”

Brittany walked to the drawing and held it up. “It looks okay,” she said. “But not your best work.”

Logan bit back the quick smile at Brittany’s authoritative tone. She glanced at him, perfectly serious. “Looks like it’s back to the drawing board.”

“I guess.”

“So you’ll want some more quiet time,” she added.

Logan couldn’t stop his smile. “You’re more than just a pretty face, Brittany,” he said, his voice full of admiration. He knew exactly where she was headed.

“Maybe we should visit Sandra and she can help us with Grandma’s birthday present so you’ll have the house to yourself for a while.”

Logan held their innocent gazes and against his will he had to admit that he was beat. He raised his hands as if in surrender. “Okay, okay,” he said with a suppressed sigh. He crossed his arms over his chest and looked first at one, then the other. “I will bring you girls there and come and pick you up at exactly nine o’clock. Sharp. No excuses.”

“Okay,” they said in unison.

“Can we go now?” Bethany asked.

Once he had caved in, he couldn’t think of a reason.

Logan glanced at his watch. Eight-eighteen. Still too early to go and get the girls. When he had dropped them off at Sandra’s place, she’d been cool and reserved. Just as she’d been when she came to work with the girls during the day. They spent as much time outside as possible, as if avoiding him. They went for short walks into the hills and came back giggling and laughing. When, out of curiosity, he asked her what she was doing, she told him, but her tone was defensive. He didn’t like it.

Sighing, he picked up his pencil, made a few halfhearted doodles and glared at the result. This project was slowly losing its appeal, even though he couldn’t put it out of his head. Sure, it would be nice to get the Jonserads as clients, but this project was starting to consume him. He found no joy in it. And, he reminded himself, it wasn’t even a sure thing.

He got up from his makeshift drawing board and wandered to the living room.

He tried to analyze the peculiar restlessness that had gripped him since Sunday. He was sure it wasn’t Karen. When she left he had felt relief more than anything. But she was a reminder to him of what he had once had. A girlfriend. Someone who cared that he was spending his entire holiday on a project when he really should be sitting at the beach with his nieces.

She was also a reminder of his one-time freedom and the chance to make choices for himself. No responsibilities other than his own.

Since the girls had come into his life, he felt a keen pressure to provide for them, to make sure that they had food and clothes and that their schoolwork was done. To supervise them and to seek out their best interests.

He thought of Sandra again and begrudgingly realized that with her the girls were enthusiastic and did their work. He wondered what they were doing right now.

A quick glance at his watch showed him that precisely sixty seconds had passed. He dropped into his recliner and, pushing the papers he had been reading aside, he reached for his Bible. Yesterday was the last time he had read it, and in his current frame of mind, he needed the comfort he knew he would find there.

Leafing through the pages, he found the Psalm he had often read to the girls when they first came. Psalm sixty-eight. “Sing to God, sing praise to His name, extol Him who rides on the clouds—His name is the Lord—and rejoice before Him. A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in His holy dwelling. God sets the lonely in families, He leads forth the prisoners with singing.”

Logan smiled as he read the familiar words. When the girls came to his home, they were lonely, grieving and afraid. They knew him, but just in passing, and now they were living with him.

Bethany and Brittany had been comforted by the words and comforted by the faith they were slowly discovering each day.

A faith he tried to nurture wherever possible. He had found a Christian school they could attend. He took them to church, got them involved in the youth group. Each day he tried, in his own inadequate way, to show them God’s love.

So how did someone like Sandra fit into their lives? She didn’t go to church, though she professed a faith in God. How wise was it to let her teach girls who were still struggling in their own faith?

Logan’s second thoughts made him close the Bible and get up. It didn’t matter what time he had told the girls he was going to pick them up, he was leaving now.

The streets of Elkwater were quiet as he made his way to Sandra’s place. From a distance he heard the insistent boom of a stereo. Probably some teenagers whooping it up on the campground, he figured. He felt sorry for the campers. At least he didn’t have to contend with that, because they owned their own cabin.

The lights were on in Sandra’s house, and he realized that the music he had thought was coming from the campground was coming from Sandra’s stereo.

He knocked on the door, knowing it was futile over the noise. So he let himself in.

When he had dropped the girls off, Sandra had been sitting outside reading, so he hadn’t gone in. He stepped into the house, curiously glancing around at the array of mismatched furniture, the books piled on every available table. It was neat, sort of, yet with a lived-in and comfortable feeling. The lighting in this part of the house was warm, created by the jeweled glow of two stained glass lamps—a tall standing lamp hovering behind a well-worn chair and a table lamp across the room. Sandra’s creations, he presumed.

“Hello,” he called, staying in the entrance. The music was coming from a room off the living room. He waited, then Bethany popped her head around the corner.

“Oh, hi, Uncle Logan,” she called.

“Don’t sound so excited to see me,” he returned with a grin.

The music was turned down, and Sandra appeared behind Bethany, glancing at her watch.

“I know. I’m early,” he said. “I just thought I’d see what the girls were up to.”

“Checking on me?” Sandra asked with a petulant tilt of her eyebrows.

“Nope, just bored.”

Sandra angled her head toward the room they had come out of. “Come in, then, and see what they’ve been doing.”

Logan forced a smile, wondering again why she was so cool in his presence. Wondering why he didn’t like it.

He followed Sandra into a brightly lit room, watching as she walked to the stereo and turned it down more.

“Sorry about that. The girls brought some CDs. I told them they could play them while we worked.” She shoved her hands in the back pockets of her jeans, tossing her hair behind her shoulders. “It’s Christian music, in case you were wondering.”

Logan felt the defensiveness in her attitude. He was at a loss as to what caused it. “That’s fine,” he said quietly.

The girls were bent over a table, pretending not to watch Logan and Sandra. Logan walked to them, glancing over their shoulders. All he saw was an array of pieces of glass, some edged with what looked like thin strips of copper. “So what is this?”

Brittany looked at Sandra. “I’ll make lemonade and you tell Uncle Logan what we’re doing. You know it better anyway.” She turned to her sister. “C’mon, Bethy, lets go.”

The two girls fled. Logan shrugged in Sandra’s direction, hoping she understood what the girls were up to. “I guess it’s up to you,” he said with a forced smile.

Sandra blew out her breath and walked to his side, keeping her distance, as if reluctant to come too close. “They’re making a sun catcher. Here’s the pattern.” She pointed out a stylized black-and-white sketch of an iris in an oval frame. “They have to trace the pattern pieces on the glass and then cut them with this cutter.” She held up a small, pencil-shaped object. “After grinding the edges they have to foil each piece. Then dab kester on it to get rid of the finish. After that they solder it together.”

Logan nodded, pretending to understand.

Sandra glanced his way, and their gazes meshed. She curled one corner of her mouth, showing the first semblance of a smile since Sunday. “You don’t have a clue what I’m talking about, do you?”

“I got foiled by the foil.”

She held his gaze, and her smile grew. “I see.”

So once again she explained the process, showing him how the individual pieces of glass were wrapped in foil that was sticky on one side. “You have to make sure you go all around and that you give enough foil on each side of the glass,” she explained, showing him.

Logan stepped a little closer, ostensibly to see what she was showing him. But as he did, he caught the faint scent of her perfume—light, fresh and lingering. It caught him unexpectedly. Made him pause and breathe a little more deeply.

“Once all the pieces are wrapped, you have to lay it out in the same shape as the pattern,” she continued, oblivious to the reaction she had elicited in him. “This is when you need the kester, a type of acid, to get rid of the finish on the foil so that the solder can stick to it. I don’t have the soldering iron plugged in because we’re not ready yet.” She reached across the table, picked up a small project she had been working on and set it in front of Logan without looking at him.

He glanced at her hands, stained and marked with small white scars. From handling glass, he presumed. Hands that carefully handled the piece she held.

“This is what it should look like when it’s done. The solder should lie in a nice, neat bead on both sides of the work. It gives the same effect as lead but without the weight.”

“Can I?” Logan reached out for the sun catcher she was holding, and with a shrug Sandra handed it to him. Their fingers brushed each other, sending a peculiar riffle up his arm at the contact.

He forced his attention to what he held, astonished at how small some of the pieces of glass were, how intricately she had cut them and put them all together. When he held it up to the light, it was as if it came to life.

“This is amazing. I’m guessing you did the lamps in the living room, as well.”

She nodded, stepping back from him, taking that beguiling scent with her.

“Do you do other work besides this?”

“I’ve done some windows. But I use lead for them. A slightly different process.”

“For homes?”

“No. Churches.”

Logan couldn’t resist. “Oh. For those hypocrites,” he teased.

She held his gaze, smiling. “It’s all for the glory of God,” she returned.

Logan didn’t look away. Didn’t want to. He felt his smile fade as he tried to delve into her deep brown eyes, tried to find something solid, something serious behind her flippant facade.

“And do you think He’s glorified?” he asked quietly.

Sandra looked away, then shrugged. “I guess you’ll have to ask Him sometime,” she said.

Logan recognized the retreat and decided to leave it at that. “Do you support yourself doing this?”

Sandra rolled her shoulders in answer. “I don’t have high needs. But I’ve got a contract with a restaurant in Calgary to supply them with some lamps. I’m pretty pleased about that.”

“Have you started on them yet?” He laid the piece down and glanced at her again.

She shook her head. “I’ve been busy with the girls….” She let the sentence drift off as she retreated one more step. “I should see how they’re doing.”

Logan watched her go, wondering once again at her sudden reticence.

“Tastes just about right,” Sandra said, taking a sip of the lemonade the girls offered her. “Why don’t you get your uncle Logan and tell him that it’s ready?”

Bethany ran out of the small kitchen as Brittany set out four cups. “Do you have any cookies?” Brittany asked as she filled the cups. “They would go really nice with lemonade.”

“No. Sorry.” Sandra flashed her an apologetic grin. “I’m a little low on cookies right now.” Low on groceries, period. Thanks to Cora, who consumed gallons of lemonade, she at least had lemonade crystals.

She bit her lip as she stirred the lemonade, wondering if she could work up enough courage to ask Logan for an advance.

And what would he think of her if he found out how tight things actually were for her? These days, her idea of a seven-course meal was stopping outside the restaurant in town and taking a deep sniff.

Luckily utilities were included with the cottage rent, which had been paid in advance, or the roof over her head might have been iffy, as well. Logan’s low opinion of her would sink if he knew the particulars of her financial situation.

She had tried to tell herself that what he thought of her didn’t matter. But after meeting Karen—after seeing a perfectly put together woman who probably phoned home once a week, who attended church with Logan and the girls, who probably never had an unsuitable boyfriend—Sandra had spent the past few days feeling less confident than normal.

Which was annoying, of course. Self-confidence wasn’t something Sandra usually lacked.

She looked up as Logan and the girls came into the kitchen.

“Why are you still stirring that?” Bethany asked.

“It takes a lot of stirring,” Sandra said quickly to cover up. “I’m hoping to carbonate it.” She grinned, then put out the four cups and motioned for everyone to sit down.

“Can we go back and work on the sun catcher?” Brittany picked up her cup and tugged on her sister’s arm with her free hand.

Sandra glanced at Logan, who was sitting down. His face didn’t change expression.

“I think you girls can stay here with us,” he commented, taking a sip of his lemonade.

“Well, we want to get it done.” Brittany gave Bethany’s arm another tug. Without looking at Logan, they left.

Sandra gave Logan a forced grin. “Well, here we are. Alone again.” Goodness, she thought. If that didn’t sound like a proposition. She felt like smacking herself on the forehead.

“Sorry about that.” Logan scratched his forehead with his index finger as if trying to puzzle out his nieces. “Tact isn’t a word that comes to mind when one thinks of Brittany and Bethany.” He sighed lightly. “I’d like to think that they might be a little less subtle, but I guess I misplaced that part of the training manual.”

Sandra couldn’t help but smile at his deprecating humor. “You’ve done well with them. In spite of missing parts of the course.”

Logan looked at her as if puzzled by her compliment. “Thanks, I think.”

His moment of vulnerability was surprisingly captivating. In spite of her resolve to keep her distance from this man, she found she wanted to reassure him. “Really, Logan. They’re nice girls, and I know they think very highly of you.”

Logan’s deep hazel eyes met and held hers. His face relaxed, a shifting of his features, and Sandra felt herself drawn to him. Unable to look away.

“That’s good to know,” he said, taking a sip of his lemonade and setting the cup down. “There are many times that I feel like all I’m doing is damage control. Just trying to catch up. That’s life, I guess.”

“Life is hard. You get the test first, the lessons later,” Sandra mused, quirking him a grin.

He angled his head, as if to look at her from a different perspective. “You always have a quick comeback, don’t you?”

“Mind like a steel trap,” she quipped, uncomfortable with his scrutiny. “Except it’s rusty and illegal in most parts of the country.”

Logan didn’t respond, merely leaned his elbows on the table as he continued to look at her. “So what makes you tick, Sandra Bachman?” He held up his hand as if to stop her. “Okay, that was giving you a wide-open opportunity. Let me try that again with a more specific question. How did you get here? To Elkwater?”

Sandra wondered at his sudden interest. Wondered what he would say were she to tell him the facts of her life. Facts that would only reinforce his opinion of her.

She looked at her cup, ran her thumbnail along an old scratch in the plastic and decided to be honest. His opinion couldn’t get much lower, she figured. “I came here from Vancouver Island. Actually, Hornby Island. Cora, the woman I rent this house with, and I met up there. We both decided we’d had enough of the life there and wandered around until we stumbled on this place.”

“What did you do on Hornby Island?”

“Stained glass work. Like I’m doing now.”

“Did you make a living at it?”

Sandra pressed her thumbnail a little harder into the scratch, biting her lip. “Sort of.”

“Do you enjoy it?”

Sandra hesitated. She had. At one time. It was something new and interesting. And totally different from what her father would approve of.

The thought plucked at her with nervous fingers. Was that her only reason for doing it? To make her father angry?

She dismissed the questions and their nugget of truth.

“I like it,” she admitted. “Usually.”

“Just like? Is there anything you love doing?”

Sandra frowned at him. “What is this? Part of my ongoing interview?”

“Maybe,” Logan admitted. “But I’m also curious.”

He caught her eye as he leaned forward, as if inviting her confidence.

Sandra felt an ache grow. In spite of their earlier antagonism, she sensed his interest and wondered again about Karen.

“I like doing a lot of things,” Sandra admitted, not moving from her position.

“Why didn’t you ever use your teaching degree?”

Sandra glanced at him. Logan’s mouth curled at one corner in a smile that created a dimple in his cheek.

She tried to find the words to explain the heavy weight of responsibility that dogged her all through school, through college. The feeling that no matter how hard she tried, she never measured up. Would Logan, with his easygoing upbringing, even have the faintest notion of how debilitating the unceasing expectations of her parents could be?

She thought of Florence Napier, remembered comments Logan made about his upbringing and what he wanted for his nieces. She remembered Florence’s laissez-faire attitude.

He wouldn’t understand, she thought.

“Teaching wasn’t what I really wanted to do,” she said, settling on a mundane answer as she leaned back in her chair.

“You’re good at it.”

“Thanks. But two girls as opposed to a whole classroom of kids…” She shrugged. “Not my style, I’m afraid.”

“Why not?”

Sandra felt herself stiffen at the tone of his question. “Not everyone is cut out for that kind of thing.”

“Meaning?”

“Routine. Schedule. The same thing every day.”

Logan held her gaze, his expression unreadable.

“That’s not your style,” he replied quietly.

“No, it isn’t,” she answered with a little more force than the comment required.

“What would be your ideal job, then?”

Sandra looked away, pulling the corner of her lower lip between her teeth. She wasn’t sure. She had spent so much time figuring out what she didn’t want to do that she hadn’t formulated a clear plan of what she did want. The past few years had been a whirl of trying and discarding.

“I’m sure your girlfriend Karen is the kind of person who has her life all figured out. I’m not like that.”

Logan tipped his eyebrows. “She’s not my girlfriend.”

Why did that simple statement ease a small measure of the loneliness that had gripped her on Sunday?

“I…I’m not sure what my ideal job would be,” Sandra said quickly, looking away. “I haven’t found it yet.”

“That’s too bad, Sandra. I think you have a lot of potential.”

Then, taking a final sip of his lemonade, he got up. He set his cup down, hooked his thumbs in the tops of his pants pockets, one corner of his mouth caught between his teeth. He looked as if he wanted to say something else. “Thanks for the lemonade.” He tilted her a halfhearted grin and went to the back room to get the girls.

Sandra hugged herself, watching him go, wondering why she had said what she did. It was as if she was determined to keep him at arm’s length.

And she should. He’s an architect, she reminded herself. A secure, solid, hardworking architect who lives for schedules and routine.

A man who took good care of the women in his life—his nieces, his mother.

A man who probably would never do to Karen what Henri had done to her, she thought with a faint feeling of remorse.

And in spite of his comment about Karen, a man who would be out of her life once they all went back to Calgary, she reminded herself. She and Logan moved in different circles. Only for this moment had their lives intersected.

The girls gave her noisy goodbyes as they left. Logan ushered them out the door. In the doorway he turned to face her. “Thanks for working with them tonight.” Still holding on to the door, his eyes met hers.

Once again, Sandra had that peculiar feeling of an intangible allurement that tightened between them, drawing her toward him.

She looked away and nodded. Her only reply.

The door closed, and Sandra was alone again. As she heard the girls’ excited chatter and Logan’s deep voice fading away, it was as if the house had grown smaller, emptier.

Restless, Sandra got up, went to the stereo and turned it up. Unfamiliar music spilled out of the speakers. Bethany’s CD, Sandra remembered. She was about to turn it down but was stopped by the music. Upbeat and catchy. She found herself tapping her fingers against her leg in time to the beat.

The singer sang the words with an absoluteness that Sandra would once have dismissed as narrow-minded, but the sincerity in her voice kept Sandra from turning the song off.

In the lyrics of the song Sandra heard a call back to the faith of her youth, a call to come and worship Jesus as Lord, a challenge that one day every tongue would confess God, every knee would bow.

Sandra felt a shiver of apprehension followed by a pressing of guilt and sorrow as the music swelled, built in intensity, the singer drawing Sandra in.

She felt a touch of God’s hand. Just like she did when she was outside, when she looked into the heavens and knew for certainty that the vastness and the order she saw there didn’t come through happenstance.

She hit the power button and turned the music off. Standing alone in the empty room, Sandra closed her eyes as the now familiar loneliness washed over her.

Home, she thought. She wished she could go home.

But that was out of the question.

“He hasn’t kissed her yet,” Brittany whispered to her sister, setting the plates on the table.

Bethany spun around, still holding the utensils she had pulled out of the drawer. “How do you know?”

Brittany glanced over her shoulder and tiptoed to the door. But Uncle Logan was still in the shower.

“I watched them last night. They were just sitting and talking.” She shook her head in disgust. “This is taking forever.”

Bethany carefully set the knives beside the plates Brittany had laid out. “We just have to wait, I guess.”

“I wish I knew if that Karen was going to come back.”

Bethany shuddered. “She really likes Uncle Logan. I wish she’d leave him alone.”

“Well, I don’t think he likes her much. He never even held her hand when they were walking.”

“So we have to keep getting Sandra and Uncle Logan together,” said Bethany with a sigh. “We don’t have much longer.”

“Good morning, girls,” Logan said from the doorway, toweling his wet hair. “You’re up bright and early.”

Brittany threw Bethany a guilty look, wondering if Uncle Logan had heard what they said. She looked at him, smiling, hoping he didn’t. “Just thought we’d get up early so we can do some schoolwork.”

Logan paused, holding the towel, looking at Brittany as if he didn’t quite believe her. “You’re doing homework in the morning?”

Brittany nodded. “Sandra gave us a contest. She said if we get our work done by tonight, she was going to take us out to look at the meteor shower.” She stopped. “Oops. I wasn’t supposed to tell you.”

“You weren’t?” Logan hung on to his towel, his dark eyes flicking over one, then the other twin. “Why not?”

“I think it was a secret,” Brittany said, biting her lip.

Logan nodded once, then left.

“Do you think he was mad?” Bethany asked, her eyes wide. “He sounded mad.”

Brittany shrugged. “I hope not. Otherwise Sandra might get in trouble with him again.”

Logan stood by the window watching as Sandra came up the road to the cabin, her knapsack slung over one shoulder, her hands shoved in the pockets of her faded blue jeans. She wore her hair back, tied in a heavy braid that hung over one shoulder.

She looked much younger than he knew her to be. More like an older sister of his nieces than their tutor.

Mentally he compared her to Karen, whose clothing was always up to date, polished.

Once he had envisioned Karen as a potential wife, the perfect complement to an up-and-coming architect.

But after seeing Karen on Sunday and spending time with her again, he knew that even though she seemed more than willing to come back to him, he wasn’t ready to take her. Nothing in his circumstances had changed. He still had the girls, and she still wasn’t comfortable around them.

Whereas Sandra had an ease and naturalness that he admired, in spite of questionable characteristics that he didn’t. Like keeping tonight’s excursion a big secret from him.

As Sandra came up the wooden sidewalk to the cabin, Logan stepped away from the window hoping she hadn’t seen him. When she knocked on the door, he was already there, opening it for her.

She looked taken aback at the sight of him, then recovered. “Hey, there. How are you?” she asked, stepping past him. “The girls ready for another day of education?”

Logan nodded, wondering how he was going to approach her. It seemed that just as one thing was resolved between them, something else came up.

He decided to go straight to it.

“Brittany told me about your plans to see the meteor shower tonight.”

Sandra nodded, shrugging her knapsack off her shoulder. “That’s right.”

“She said that you had asked her not to tell me. I’d like to know why you don’t think I need to be consulted about this.”

Sandra let the knapsack drop with a muffled thud and looked directly at him, all traces of good humor vanished. “Is this going to go on until I’m done, Logan Napier?” she asked, her voice chilled. “This constant questioning and mistrusting and wondering if I’m good enough?” She began pulling books out of her backpack, her movements jerky with anger. “I’m taking my job with them very seriously.” She slammed a book on the table. “I’m not some heathen that is determined to turn your nieces astray. They’re learning things and I’m doing a good job.” Another book joined the first with a heavy thump. She threw a fistful of pencils on the table.

Logan watched her sudden spill of anger, heard the indignation in her voice. It seemed out of proportion to what he had asked her, and for a moment he wondered what was behind her anger. He forced his mind to the topic at hand.

“You have to admit, Sandra, I have a right to know what’s happening,” he said quietly, leaning against the door. “All I ask is that you let me know.”

Sandra’s gaze flew to his, her dark eyes snapping with suppressed indignation. She blinked, then looked at the books on the table. “I’m sorry,” she said, straightening them, tidying the pencils. She took a slow breath, pulling her hands over her face as if to erase the anger he had seen etched there a moment ago. “I told Brittany not to say anything so that I could ask you. I wasn’t trying to hide anything from you. I was going to ask you last night, but I forgot.”

She stood by the table, looking straight ahead, avoiding his gaze. “I’m sorry that you thought that of me.”

Logan felt a flicker of guilt mixed with sympathy for her and wondered once again at the mystery that eddied around her. He walked to her side and gently laid his hand on her shoulder, feeling the warmth of her skin through the thin T-shirt she wore. “I’m sorry, too, Sandra,” he said. “I guess I just jumped to the wrong conclusion.”

“You seem to do that often.” She looked at him, her chin up.

“I know.” Logan squeezed her shoulder. He told himself it was his way of apologizing, but he enjoyed the brief contact too much for that. He had to resist the urge to let his hand linger, to toy with the hank of hair that lay inches from his hand.

He stepped back, momentarily shaken by his feelings.

“So when do you plan on doing this?” he asked, hoping his voice sounded normal.

“I thought we could go out tonight.” Sandra angled him a quick look over her shoulder. Their eyes held a moment, and Logan found himself unable to break the brief contact.

“I was going to walk to the hill behind your cabin. There’s a better place farther along, but it’s not within walking distance.” She returned his smile, and Logan felt a faint twist in his midsection.

He nodded, picking up on her vaguely worded hint.

“In other words, you need a vehicle.”

She nodded, then to his surprise said, “But you can come along if you want.”

“That would be nice,” he said, their gazes still locked.

Then she looked away, breaking the insidious connection, leaving Logan to wonder if she was as shaken at the contact as he had been.

Chapter Seven

“Why did you ask him to come?” Sandra muttered to herself, hunching her shoulders deeper in the light jacket she had thrown on. She strode down the darkened streets to the Napier cabin. “He’s pushy and he’ll only criticize what you do.” But even as she tried to list all the reasons she shouldn’t have asked Logan along, she knew there were deeper reasons. Reasons she didn’t want to delve too far into for fear of making them too real.

She was becoming attracted to Logan Napier.

Sandra stopped, biting her lip as she considered her position. She could cancel. She could turn around and change her mind. It was, after all, one-thirty in the morning. Surely they wouldn’t mind missing out.

But Sandra had promised the girls this event as a reward for all their hard work during the week, and they were looking forward to it with an amazing amount of enthusiasm. She didn’t think girls the age of Bethany and Brittany would be interested in meteor showers. Asking Logan along had been a silly impulse. This morning, when he had put his hand on her shoulder, it was as if every nerve in her body swung like a compass needle toward his touch.

She couldn’t imagine why one simple gesture from a guy like Logan could turn her knees to jelly.

But it had, and afterward, when she could analyze it, she knew that spending time with him was just playing with fire. He wasn’t her type—he’d drive her crazy in a week. And if she fell in love with him…

“Whoa, whoa, now you’re really jumping the gun,” she said. She shook her head as if to dislodge even the faintest mote of the previous idea.

Sandra bit her lip, still hesitating. Then, laughing at her foolishness, she walked on. Logan was here temporarily. Once he was gone, her life could go back to, well, whatever it should be.

She bounded up the steps and knocked on the door of the darkened house. No answer. A quick glance at her watch told her that she was right on time.

Just as she was about to knock again, the door opened, and the light in the cabin was turned on, throwing out rectangles of golden yellow on the lawn.

Framed by the door, backlit by the light in the cabin, stood Logan.

His hair was unkempt, and whiskers stubbled his firm jaw, accenting the slight indentation in its center. His eyes were bleary with sleep. He was dressed, however, in a wrinkled T-shirt and jeans. No khaki pants tonight.

“Hi there,” he said, his voice still husky from disuse. Sandra felt a peculiar little thrill at the sound.

“I’m not early, am I?” she said quickly.

Logan yawned, scratching his chin. His fingers rasped over his whiskers. “Nope.” He glanced at Sandra, blinking. “How do you manage to look so perky at this ridiculous time of night?”

Sandra shrugged, warmed at the offhand compliment. “I don’t need much sleep.”

Logan yawned again. “Lucky you. Well, come in. The girls are just getting ready.”

Sandra stepped inside. Logan closed the door behind her and ambled toward the kitchen.

He stumbled, muttered something under his breath and stood for a moment, glaring at the offending table.

Sandra stifled a laugh at the sight and was rewarded with a bleary look from Logan.

“Sorry,” she said, with a quick shrug of her shoulders.

“I somehow doubt that,” he replied. But his grin belied the gruffness of his voice.

“We’re ready to go,” Brittany called, stepping out of the kitchen.

“So am I,” Sandra said. “Now we just have to get your uncle Logan ready.”

She glanced pointedly at Logan’s bare feet. He stared at her as if he didn’t understand, then looked down. “Oops. Sorry.” He yawned again, trudged to his bedroom and came back a few minutes later holding his shoes.

Rubbing his eyes, he sat in the nearest chair, dropped his shoes on the floor and stared into space.

Sandra waited for him to put his shoes on. But he didn’t move.

“Logan?” she asked, taking a step nearer. She glanced at the girls, who merely lifted their shoulders in puzzlement.

“Hey, let’s get going.” She reached out, grasped his shoulder and gave it a little shake.

He blinked, then, looking at her, smiled. It was a smile with no reservation, a smile that held no hint of his usual asperity. “Hi, Sandra,” he said, his voice husky, lowered to an intimate level. Then, to her surprise, he lifted his hand, resting it on hers. His hand was large, engulfing hers, his fingers warm as they lightly caressed her own.

Sandra swallowed as her heart rate jumped. She pulled her hand back as if burned. “Logan? Are you awake?”

He blinked, frowned, then blinked again, and Sandra realized with a beat of disappointment that he hadn’t been.

“What’s up?” he asked, looking around, puzzled, completely unaware of what had just happened.

“It’s time to go,” Sandra said stiffly, grasping her knapsack strap with both hands.

“Okay.” He nodded and slipped on his shoes. As he bent to tie them, Sandra looked away, directly into the smirking faces of the twins.

“Well, girls,” she said briskly, covering her confusion, “get your things together and we’ll leave.”

“We have everything, Sandra,” Bethany said, still grinning.

“Good. That’s good.” Sandra took a step back as Logan stood up and blinked. He looked at her as if seeing her for the first time. A frown wrinkled his forehead then he shook his head lightly and turned away.

“I’ll go start the van,” he said, slipping on a denim jacket.

Sandra nodded. She avoided meeting his eyes, wondering if he had truly forgotten what he had done.

The drive through the hills would have been silent if it had depended on Logan or Sandra to make conversation. Fortunately the girls had more than enough to talk about. They asked Sandra questions about what they were going to see, even though they knew.

“I can’t guarantee we’re going to see a lot of meteor activity,” Sandra said as Logan parked the van at the top of the hill on a graveled turnout. “But from what I know, this is an ideal time.”

“One-thirty in the morning is anything but ideal,” Logan muttered, getting out of the van.

“Hey, you didn’t have to come.” Sandra angled him a quick glance.

In the reflected glow of the van’s headlights, Sandra caught his eye, and she once again remembered the feel of his hand on hers. She looked away.

“C’mon, girls, get the stuff we’ll need and then we can get this show on the road,” she said.

Sandra pulled her sweater closer around her. The daytime temperatures were hot, but in the open prairie, the middle of the night was always cool.

“Where do you want us to be?” Logan asked, carrying the blanket that Sandra had taken along.

“I’d like to go just beyond the gravel. The hill is open to the south, and I’d like to face that direction.” Sandra led the way, the beams from the van illuminating her path through the brush.

They came to an open hillside, protected from a faint breeze by the trees that fanned out on either side.

“Perfect,” Sandra said with satisfaction. “Okay, girls. Lay out your bags right here.”

“I’ll go and shut off the van’s headlights,” Logan offered, handing Sandra the blanket. Her eyes were still semiblinded by the van’s lights, so she couldn’t see his expression. He waited a moment, then turned and left.

“Here, girls, help me lay out this blanket,” she said to the girls, pulling herself into the moment. Concentrate, concentrate, she thought.

She wished she hadn’t asked him along. It was going to be an awkward event.

“We remembered our flashlights and pens and paper,” Bethany offered as they laid the blanket out.

“Good for you. I’m hoping we’ll see a lot of meteors right now.”

A rustle in the bushes brought her senses to alert, then she realized it was Logan coming back from the van, and she felt even more tense.

Her eyes were slowly becoming adjusted to the dark, and she felt a sense of déjà vu. Remembered another time he had materialized out of the darkness.

Sandra turned quickly to the girls and sat on one edge of the blanket, indicating that they were to sit beside her.

“What is the name of the meteor shower we’re going to watch?” she asked, putting on her teacher’s voice as she tried not to notice Logan sitting down just a few feet away.

“The Phoenicids,” both girls replied.

“Good. So why are we up this early in the morning to watch them?”

“Because the moon is gone now,” Bethany said, stifling a yawn. “And the sky is as dark as it is going to be.”

“And what is the moon called?”

Silence greeted that question.

“The moon,” Brittany said, puzzled.

“A gibbous moon. Another word for the shape of the moon.” Sandra pulled out her book of star charts as she spoke. “And what’s another reason we’re up at this ridiculous time?”

Silence again.

Sandra was disappointed that they hadn’t remembered what she had shown them this afternoon. It didn’t speak well for her training, and some perverse part of her was trying to show Logan what a good teacher she was.

Then Brittany rescued her. “I think I remember. Is it because we’re facing the same way the earth is traveling in the orbit?” Sandra could hear the question in her voice. “You said something about snow and snowflakes and driving.”

“Very good.” Sandra felt a surge of relief. “If we’re facing in any other direction, it’s like looking out of the back window of a van during a snowstorm. You’ll see some meteors, but not as much as if you’re in the front of the van. Right now we’re heading into the meteor shower, like a van into a snowstorm.” She went on to show the girls where in the sky was the best place to look. Flashlights came out, and they bent over the book.

“Uncle Logan, come and see, too,” Brittany ordered. And Uncle Logan obediently got up from his side of the blanket and looked over Sandra’s shoulder.

She tried to concentrate on what she was showing the girls, but all her senses were alert to his presence behind her.

Luckily it was dark, and the girls were bent over the book, pointing out the constellations.

“Okay, get out your pens and paper and be sure to notice where you see meteors, how long you see them and keep a note of the time between them.”

The flashlights were shut off, and the little group was plunged into darkness.

Slowly, as Sandra’s night vision righted itself, she could better make out the figures of the girls lying down on the blanket beside her and Logan, who sat behind them.

She hugged her knees, looking at the sky. She knew she was going to get a sore neck if she stayed in this position, but she was certainly not going to lie down. Not with Logan so close behind her.

“There’s one,” Brittany said, pointing up.

“Mark it down,” Sandra prompted. “But try to write without the flashlight so your eyes don’t have to get used to the dark again.”

She heard their pens scratching on the paper.

“So how did you know when the shower was coming?” Logan asked from behind her.

“Earth intersects these meteoroid swarms at about the same relative time and place each year,” Sandra said confidently, clutching her knees. She was on familiar territory here.

“And where does the name come from?”

“When we cross one of these swarms, the meteors seem to come from a common point of origin, known as a radiant. This regular shower is named after the constellation from which it seems to originate.”

He was quiet again. Then he got up and stretched out on the other side of Brittany. Sandra ruthlessly suppressed a twinge of disappointment. Crazy. That’s what it was.

Or maybe just plain loneliness, another voice said.

Sandra pressed her chin against her knees, staring at the stars that went directly to the horizon, meeting the faint outline of the hills that sloped away from them. Sitting outside under the stars always made her feel vulnerable and philosophical.

The lines of her life had, of late, not fallen in pleasant places. She thought that her hard-won freedom would have given her a sense of satisfaction. Instead it was as if each move was a move away from something rather than a move toward something.

She glanced past the girls at Logan, who lay on the blanket, his hand under his head. He seemed to know what he wanted and how to go about getting it. In spite of his interference, or maybe because of it, she realized that he was a concerned uncle. She wondered how many of the men she had met in her life would willingly take in two young girls, thereby risking their own freedom.

She sighed lightly, her gaze falling on the girls who were watching her watching Logan.

She looked away.

“How many have you seen, Bethany?” she asked, disconcerted that they had caught her staring at their uncle.

“Four already.”

“Good for you.” She lay back, watching the sky, reminding herself of the reason she was here. The girls first and foremost.

“The stars sure are peaceful,” Logan said quietly. “Unchanging. Always the same. Amazing.”

A few moments before, Sandra might have agreed with him, but her reactions to him left her feeling edgy.

“Actually they aren’t,” she contradicted. “Out there are colliding neutron stars, gamma ray bursts, black holes. All kinds of noise and confusion.”

“What’s a gamma ray?” Bethany asked.

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