“Uncle Logan lives in Idaho.
In Silver Bend.
We used to live with him.”

Thea’s spirits deflated as quickly as they’d risen. The twins rarely mentioned their uncle. He hadn’t called since she’d begun taking care of them. He hadn’t written to ask about the girls, hadn’t sent them birthday cards. If she had to guess, Thea would say Uncle Logan didn’t care what happened to his nieces.

“Please.” Hannah touched Thea’s hand with one finger before stepping back. The gesture said so much more than the reticent little girl ever would. The twins tolerated Thea’s hugs, but didn’t seek out physical contact.

Why on earth would this uncle in Idaho help them now?

Dear Reader,

We all start our lives in different places and situations. Some of us have the advantage of coming from a secure, loving home. Some of us have a less picture-perfect upbringing. Most of us turn out all right, either through love or our own determination.

Neither Logan McCall nor Thea Gayle was raised in the ideal family. Their families and the amount of love they gave have shaped who these two are. Logan is convinced his harsh upbringing makes him unworthy of having a family, while Thea is not sure she knows what a real family is. He’s heartless. She’s a kindhearted, lonely do-gooder. It will take a lot of determination to turn their unlikely attraction into a lasting love.

I enjoy hearing from readers—about this book or some of my others—either at my Web site (www.melindacurtis.net) or via regular mail (P.O. Box 150, Denair, CA 95316).

Melinda Curtis

The Family Man
Melinda Curtis

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To Judy Ashley, Sarah Palmero, Anna Stewart and Geri Wells

for listening to me ramble and giving me advice

about the Tin Man in the early stages.

To my family, for showing me what enduring love is all about.

CONTENTS

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

EPILOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

EVICTED. THEA couldn’t believe it.

“Can we go home now?” Hannah asked as she plucked a dandelion from the sparse grass at her feet. A gentle breeze lifted wisps of blond hair that escaped from her braid.

Hannah, one of Thea’s ten-year-old charges, was perched on the corner of a black suitcase so large she could have fit in it, had it not been stuffed with everything the girl owned. They hadn’t moved beyond the cracked sidewalk, edged with crabgrass, upon which the apartment complex landlord had left them fifteen minutes ago.

“We don’t have a home,” Tess announced in a wobbly voice. She stuck her little chin out, daring Thea or Hannah, her twin, to contradict her.

Swallowing a pang of despair, Thea stepped over her laptop computer and drew Tess to her. Not that the cramped, dark apartment had ever felt like home to Thea. This Seattle apartment was just one in a string of places she’d stayed since leaving home nine years ago. No, Thea hadn’t lived in a place she’d call home in a long time.

Next to Thea, Tess kept her body stiff, staunchly refusing to show any sign that she was comforted in any way. Tess had to be the brightest, most standoffish child Thea had ever come across. And despite Thea’s best efforts these past two months, she’d been unable to break through the barriers Tess and Hannah had erected around their hearts after their mother died.

“Home is where the heart is. You know, where you hang your hat and park your flip-flops.” Thea tried to keep the words light, knowing she failed. Their mom was dead and their dad had gone missing. And since Thea could relate to mothers leaving and dads not caring too much, how upbeat could she be? Still, she had to try. “There’s a better home for you out there. One with a…a backyard…and trees.”

Since she was a kid, Thea Gayle had tried to go through life looking for the silver lining and encouraging those around her to do the same. She wouldn’t let a few minor setbacks—like being evicted or not knowing where her employer was—get her down. At least, she hoped she wouldn’t.

Thea forced her gaze away from the mocking piles of chaos that surrounded the twins she’d been hired to care for. Three bulging suitcases, a laptop computer, several boxes of textbooks and notebooks, two pink scuffed backpacks and one box with the meager remnants of their pantry were scattered in disarray around the porch of what had formerly been their sparsely furnished apartment.

“A house.” Hannah made a wish, blew the white dandelion fronds into the air and shut her eyes tight, adding in a whisper, “A house with a staircase leading up to a magic room.”

“With lots of friends nearby,” Tess added, to Thea’s surprise.

“That’s the spirit.” Thea managed a weak smile before the trio descended back into a lost silence.

“You won’t leave us, will you?” Hannah turned her big blue eyes to Thea, her bottom lip quivering.

“No,” Thea hastened to reassure Hannah. She might only be their nanny, but she cared about them.

If only they’d let themselves care in return.

“This is all his fault,” huffed Tess, turning her back to Thea and crossing her skinny arms over her thin chest.

Assuming Tess referred to her father, Thea didn’t refute her words. The girl was right. If Wes Delaney had paid the rent, his cell-phone bill—or even paid Thea—in the past few months, they’d be on the other side of that apartment door right now. If Thea could turn back the clock, she’d never again complain about the peeling paint on the door or the walls so thin you could hear the couple next door fighting. She’d be sitting contentedly at the kitchen table, studying for her Ph.D. exams while the twins did their homework on either side of her.

Two months ago, Wes’s advertisement for a nanny/housekeeper had seemed a blessing. Working on her Ph.D. in textiles had taken Thea longer than she’d planned. She’d finished her coursework and was studying for her written and oral exams. Her savings had dipped dangerously low, so she’d taken the position with the Delaneys, which would have been fine if she’d been better at prioritizing the needs of the twins against progress on her studies. Now her exams were rapidly approaching and she was woefully unprepared.

And a lacking place to sleep.

Uncertainty, sour and unpleasant, clutched Thea’s heart. No place to live. Less money than ever. Running out of hope that she’d ever fulfill the promise she’d made to make something of herself. And with Wes gone to heaven knew where—he couldn’t be dead, could he?—what was she going to do with the twins?

As if aware of Thea’s rising panic, Tess walked down the front path to the curb where Thea’s yellow Volkswagen Beetle was parked. After a moment, Hannah followed her sister, stopping a careful distance from her twin. Neither spoke. Neither touched. But Thea had the distinct impression that they knew what the other was thinking.

What had the twins been like before their mother died? Thea closed her eyes as she tried to envision Tess’s small face with a joyous grin or scrunched up in tickle-induced laughter. She tried to imagine a more outgoing, confident Hannah. Or the two sisters holding hands as they walked home from school, giggling and sharing confidences as siblings were supposed to do.

Much as she tried, Thea couldn’t quite picture them that way. Having buried their mother six months ago and being raised—if you could call it that—by a malingering father, who didn’t seem very interested in his daughters the four or five days he was home every month, it was no wonder the girls were so withdrawn.

Turning them in to the police or some impersonal social agency was out of the question. They’d just be passed from one foster home to another. Tess would continue to refuse to eat more than kept her alive and Hannah would continue to eat to salve her pain. They may have been identical twins, but their grief had taken its toll on their bodies in different ways.

Unfortunately, Thea knew she couldn’t take care of them forever. As it was, she’d have trouble figuring out a way to keep them fed for more than a few days with less than one hundred dollars to her name.

“I want to go home.” Hannah turned back to Thea, fingering the hem of her yellow sundress. “To Idaho.”

“He won’t take us.” Tess shook her head without facing them. She shoved her hands into the back pockets of her jean shorts.

“Is that where your father is? In Idaho?” Thea asked, her spirits rising. Maybe this was just a huge misunderstanding. Wes could wire them some money and the landlord would let them back into the apartment. She’d spend more time studying and a little less time trying to coax the girls out of their shells.

Tess snorted.

Ignoring her sister, Hannah stepped around a box of Thea’s books, something uncharacteristically bright shining in her eyes. “Uncle Logan lives in Idaho. In Silver Bend. We used to live with him.”

Thea’s spirits deflated as quickly as they’d risen. The twins rarely mentioned their uncle. He hadn’t called since she’d been with them. He hadn’t written to ask about the girls, hadn’t sent them birthday cards. If she had to guess, Thea would say Uncle Logan didn’t care what happened to his nieces.

“Please.” Hannah touched Thea’s hand with one finger before stepping back. The gesture said so much more than the reticent little girl ever would. The twins tolerated Thea’s hugs, but didn’t seek out physical contact.

Why on earth would this uncle in Idaho help them now?

An ant crawled up the side of the box containing the bread, peanut butter and cereal. If Thea didn’t decide to do something soon, the ants would claim the last of their food.

Perhaps the twins’ uncle was the only person they could turn to.

Lifting her gaze to the blue spring sky above, Thea refused to think about the folders filled with notes at her feet, or her looming exams, or the balance on her credit card that was already too high to pay off.

And she would not think about the penalties for taking the girls without their father’s permission. She’d filed a missing persons report on Wes three weeks ago. As far as she was concerned, if Wes Delaney was alive, he’d abandoned his daughters.

“Let’s load the car.” Thea brushed the ant away, picked up the box of food and headed to her car.

She was taking the twins to Idaho.

“THEY’RE DECLARING this fire a runaway,” Golden announced, sliding on a patch of ice as he came down a slope on Hyndman Peak, east of Sun Valley, Idaho.

Logan McCall tensed, reliving his own tumble last year that had snapped his femur. Without thinking, he rubbed his thigh, which still gave him more than an occasional twinge of protest at the physical demands of his work. Then he realized he was drawing attention to his injury and stopped. He couldn’t afford to show any weakness. If you couldn’t keep up, you couldn’t be a Hot Shot.

With a quick sideways glance to see if anyone had noticed, Logan lifted his arm to wipe the sweat off his forehead with the long sleeve of his shirt. It might be less than forty degrees on this sunny spring day in the mountains, but the fire above him had warmed everything here to above ninety sweat-dripping degrees. The Hot Shot fire crew kept perspiration-soaked bandannas and shirtsleeves busy in between flinging dirt and snow on the flames at their feet. Their clothing may have been fire resistant, yet all that coverage didn’t keep them cool.

Logan’s body felt the fire’s heat from head to toe, but the flames could never warm his heart. He couldn’t get over that one regrettable choice he’d made five months ago.

“Did the fire jump the line somewhere else, Golden?” Logan asked his best friend as he flung snow at the flames with a shovel. He wished he could control the pain in his chest with the same straightforward manner he controlled a fire.

Golden nodded, clipping his radio onto the front strap of his pack. “Winds pushed it across the road to the east. It’s heading down the mountain to the ski resort.”

Some of the other Hot Shots stopped tossing dirt and snow at the flames above them to listen. The Silver Bend Hot Shot crew was working with two other fire crews on a prescribed burn above the Sun Valley ski resort. The Department of Forestry had decided they needed to set a controlled burn in a timber area that had been weakened by two years of drought and ravaged by bark beetles. Without water, the pines had been unable to produce enough sap to protect themselves against the hungry insect, which bored into the bark and ate the dry trees from the inside out. The large percentage of dead pines on this side of the mountain was a huge risk for wildfires later in the year. Some bureaucrat seemed to think that the snow and rock farther up the ridge would stop the fire from crossing over to the other side of the mountain.

But they hadn’t figured on winds changing direction and pushing the fire down the mountain, had they?

Gazing up the slope, Logan shaded his eyes against the glaring spring afternoon sun. He saw nothing but orange pine swaying in the wind—orange from the flames consuming dry branches or orange needles indicating the tree had succumbed to the beetle. Succumbed. Given up. Lost.

“Are we being reassigned to the east?” Spider asked. He was a wiry firefighter about Logan’s age. Seeing him in Hot Shot garb—a yellow button-down shirt and forest-green khakis—was always something of a shock. Off duty, Spider preferred the black color usually associated with the creepy crawly that was his namesake.

All the Hot Shots had nicknames—Jackson was Golden because he was lucky; Nick was Steve, short for Stephanapolis; Doc because he went to medical school during the winter; and The Queen, so dubbed because she was a redhead named Victoria. Logan’s nickname was Tin Man, a name he’d earned by being the most confirmed bachelor among his crew. They gave each other monikers to lighten the mood when battling the deadly flames.

Not to say that they weren’t businesslike on the fire line.

“Lots of ski bunnies down that slope at the ski lodge, Tin Man.” Chainsaw nudged Logan with his elbow, his namesake resting on his broad shoulders. He, Steve and a bulldozer had cleared a twenty-foot wide path through the trees that cut across their side of Hyndman Park. “We’ll look like heroes.”

Well, they might not always be businesslike, but they got the job done.

“Send my group out first, Golden, before Tin Man starts breakin’ hearts and makin’ all of mankind look bad.” Spider’s words were baiting, almost itching for a fight.

Logan looked away, heat burning in his gut near as hot as the fire above them. Since losing his twin sister six months ago, Logan’s temper rarely receded. He’d taken to avoiding his friends because he couldn’t escape the cloud that seemed to shadow him everywhere.

Golden shook his head. He was the superintendent of the Silver Bend Hot Shots based in Silver Bend, Idaho, and had the patience of a saint. Logan and Spider were his two assistant superintendents, each in command of a team of nine men and women.

Last year, Golden had volunteered to train firefighters in Russia, and while he was on leave, Logan had taken over the superintendent position. At the time, Spider had seemed to accept Logan’s advancement over him. Then, just after Golden returned from Russia, the team had fought a huge fire in Garden Valley, Idaho, and things had changed.

Logan had been baby-sitting some of NIFC’s Incident Command team when they’d been trapped by a fire on a steep slope. NIFC, short for National Interagency Fire Center, coordinated fire crews and resources in the United States when a fire outgrew the capabilities of a local fire district. The incident commander, Sirus Socrath, who went by the Hot Shot name of Socrates, had bounced down the slope toward the advancing flames like a rag doll, breaking his arm. Logan had slid after him in the hopes of saving him, only to take a tumble and break his own leg. They’d waited out most of the fire in a cave until Golden showed up and saved Logan’s ass, cracking his own ribs and noggin in the process.

While Logan and Golden were on the mend, Spider took over the team. Shortly thereafter, he’d started giving Logan nothing but his own dark brand of bullshit. Logan was finding it increasingly hard to ignore his friend’s digs, increasingly hard not to plant a fist in Spider’s grinning face.

“Our team is watching the line here.” Golden banished any hope of recreational action at the ski lodge, eliciting a series of muffled grumbles among the team. “They’re sending the Snakes,” he added, meaning the Snake River Hot Shot crew from Pocatello, Idaho.

The groans weren’t held back at this news. Three-quarters of the Hot Shots were single and under age thirty-five.

“Let’s do what the boss says,” Logan called out to his team even as the wind whistled past him from a new direction. “Spread out and make sure this beast doesn’t jump our line.”

“Come on, let’s go help the Snakes, Golden,” Spider was saying, disregarding Golden’s command—that they get back to their jobs. Then he turned to Logan with that infuriating grin of his. “To look at you, Tin Man, I wouldn’t think you’d be so heartless and give up so easily. It’s been a long winter for some of our crew.”

“Shove it, Spider,” Logan said through gritted teeth, trying to rein in his explosive temper even as it burned its way through his veins, trying to force his feet in the opposite direction, away from the challenge Spider continued to flaunt in his face.

Neither effort worked. His body shook with nearly uncontrollable energy.

“I’m just saying you’re colder than ever,” Spider continued, a mild smile on his face, as if he were making a joke Logan was too stupid to understand.

Before Logan realized what he was doing, he had Spider by the straps of his backpack and his face pressed almost into Spider’s. “I said, shove it!”

Hands yanked Logan back, away from Spider and his taunts. Then Golden dragged him farther down the road, away from the others. But the anger came with him.

“Damn it, Tin Man.” Jackson looked him square in the eye before lowering his voice. “Logan, what the hell happened to you? Your temper was never as bad as this.”

The anger was choking, making it impossible for Logan to form a reply. How he wished he could rid himself of it.

The person he’d been closest to in the world, his twin sister, Deb, had known how to ease his anger with a word. But she was gone. And Logan hadn’t been able to honor her request and be a guardian for her two girls. While Logan was lost in grief, Deb’s slimy husband had taken them and disappeared. It was probably for the best, considering Logan’s temper, lifestyle and upbringing.

Still, Logan had never imagined that doing the right thing would tear him apart.

“I’M SORRY, ma’am. There’s no answer.”

Thea thanked the operator and hung up the pay phone at the gas station on the outskirts of Boise. Things didn’t look good. Hannah was insisting that her uncle lived in Silver Bend, Idaho. There was a listing for Logan McCall; however, the guy never answered his phone. Thea had been trying to call him every four hours since they started on their trip. Now they were less than two hours away from Silver Bend and the twins’ uncle was nowhere to be found. Just like their father.

Which meant they’d come all this way for nothing.

“Thea! Thea, come quick!” It was Hannah, standing over by the gas station’s rusty garbage bin. She looked okay. Her white T-shirt was a little dirty, but…

Tess. Where was Tess? Thea’s heart stopped until she caught a glimpse of Tess’s head bobbing up in the Volkswagen. Nevertheless, Thea ran over to Hannah.

“What is it? What’s wrong?”

Hannah pointed at something between the garbage bin and the brick wall. “There.”

“Are you okay?” Thea struggled to catch her breath, more from the scare that something had happened to Tess or Hannah than the run.

Hannah bobbed her head. “There’s something back there. I think it’s a puppy. I think it’s stuck.” She’d stepped back and pointed behind the bin.

“Let me look.” Thea put her head near the wall and looked into the narrow gap. All she could see was a pile of greasy rags stuck between the brick wall and the bin’s corner wheel.

“Hannah, there’s nothing—”

Something whimpered beneath the rags, interrupting whatever protests Thea had been about to voice. Still, it could be a rat or something equally nasty back there.

“It’s a puppy, Thea,” Hannah repeated stubbornly. “I think it’s stuck.”

Ooohh-ooohh-ooohh. It was a weak dog’s cry for help.

There was no mistaking it now. Thea didn’t think rats whined like that when they heard people.

“All right, we’ll get it out.” But how? There was no way Thea or Hannah could wiggle their way into the narrow opening between the trash bin and the wall. Thea gripped the cool, rusted metal and tugged.

Nothing budged. Hannah set her feet against the wall and pushed the trash container.

The bin groaned forward, maybe an inch. The dog’s pleas for help became louder.

“What are you doing?” Tess had come over from the car, and stood with her arms crossed in familiar, obvious disapproval.

“We’re saving a puppy.” Hannah grunted with the effort of pushing and talking at the same time.

“We’ll be done that much faster if you help, Tess.” Thea stepped back and looked at the imprint of the metal bin on her hands. It figured that the trash bin was full and as heavy as an elephant.

Tess rolled her eyes and seemed about to refuse when the dog whimpered again. Then she, too, was pushing on the bin.

In the end, the gas-station cashier, a reed-thin teenage boy, came out to help them push, pull and tug the bin away from the wall enough so that Tess could slip back and pick up the bundle of rags.

“Be careful. It might not realize you’re rescuing it,” Thea cautioned. All she needed was for the dog to bite one of the twins to cap their string of bad luck.

Tess backed out of the gap and handed the bundle to Thea. It either had to be a puppy or a small dog, as it seemed no larger than a cat.

“Someone’s wrapped it like a mummy,” Thea noted as she knelt and carefully peeled away the rags from the dog in her lap. The more she unwrapped, the stronger the unpleasant smell of urine.

The dog was crooning to them now, a constant, weak complaint. He didn’t snarl or move to escape when the final layer was lifted. He just blinked up at them in the bright March sunlight.

“That’s harsh.” The gas-station cashier turned up his nose in disdain before returning to his duties.

Thea agreed, angling her head to the side in an effort to avoid the stench. Whoever had done this to the little dog had been unspeakably cruel.

Hannah reached down to pet him.

“Don’t,” Thea warned. “We don’t know if he’s going to bite.” Or if he had rabies. Plus, he was covered in a layer of pungent yellow pee, not all of it dry.

“What are we going to do?” Hannah asked.

Thea gazed down at the defeated little dog in her lap. “We’ll have the cashier call animal control or whoever takes abandoned animals around here. They’ll clean him up and find him a home.”

“No! It’s an orphan. Like us.” Hannah’s face crumpled as she began to cry.

And that’s how Thea found herself driving into Silver Bend with no place to go, a car full of her possessions, two abandoned girls and a clean, small white terrier with brown spots.

“STOP! STOP!” Hannah cried as they drove through town. “If Uncle Logan’s not at home, he’s at the Painted Pony.”

The little dog in her lap perked his ears. He was cute, once they’d washed him, and seemed to have the sweetest disposition, which made Thea wonder why anyone would have treated him so horribly.

Thea parked in the lot next to the Painted Pony restaurant. A life-size plastic painted horse waited for them on the wooden porch. But Hannah didn’t head to the front door. The little girl ran around to the back, dragging the terrier behind her with the braided leash Thea had made with scraps of material. The little dog kept his nose to the ground and frequently lifted his leg to try to mark his territory before being yanked farther along by Hannah.

“Hannah, where are you going?” Thea asked, hefting her straw purse onto her shoulder.

“Rufus has a dog run in the back,” Tess explained.

Thea tore her gaze away from Hannah, who was disappearing through a back gate, to look at Tess. “You know who runs this place?”

“Heidi’s grandma.” Tess leaned back against the dusty car and crossed her arms over her chest, jutting out her chin.

“Who’s Heidi?”

“A friend from school. When we lived here.” She shrugged.

“And she’s got a dog?”

“Yeah.”

Hannah returned, panting for breath. “Hurry, let’s see if they’re inside.”

“No one’s here, Han. None of their cars are here,” Tess said, and followed her sister.

“Whose cars?” Suddenly, Thea wondered if the twins had put something over on her. They seemed to be speaking in code. What were they talking about?

“The Hot Shots,” Hannah said over her shoulder, as if that explained everything.

“The hot who?”

Tess shot Thea a scornful look. “Hot Shots. They eat at the Painted Pony before they leave and when they get back.” Noting Thea’s blank stare, she added, “Uncle Logan is a Hot Shot. He fights forest fires.”

“Hurry.” Hannah jogged ahead in an ungainly way that Thea found endearing.

“So someone inside should know where your uncle is?”

“Yeah.” Tess’s steps slowed.

Thea didn’t understand why Tess didn’t seem happy at the thought that they were close to finding her uncle.

As soon as Thea stepped inside the Painted Pony, she felt oddly at ease. Most of the place was taken up with black-and-white linoleum tiles, faded Formica tables and booths with worn green bench seats. There was a sturdy-looking bar, a jukebox on the far wall near a pool table and a small, scuffed dance floor.

Even the elderly woman with short gray hair, a weathered face and kind eyes who was hugging Hannah seemed graciously welcoming. Tess hesitated when the woman called her over, but finally submitted and received her embrace with much the same suffering expression as she did when Thea hugged her.

“I’m Mary Socrath. I own the Pony.” The woman extended her hand as she came toward Thea, her expression curious. “We haven’t seen these two angels in quite some time.”

Before Thea could shake her hand, Hannah asked in her soft, polite voice, “Where’s Uncle Logan?”

“I thought I saw you two dart in,” observed a tall, slender woman coming in the door behind Thea with a gait as stilted as a pigeon’s.

“Birdie, come in and meet…” Mary looked expectantly at Thea.

“Thea. Have you seen—”

“Where’s Uncle Logan?” Hannah interrupted Thea.

Ignoring both Thea and Hannah, the thin woman stepped closer. “What brings you to Silver Bend, Thea?”

“Introduce yourself, Birdie,” Mary gently chastised, then did it for her. “Birdie runs the general store across the street.”

Thea’s head started to ache. Two days ago finding Logan McCall had seemed like the logical thing to do. And now?

“Thea’s our nanny. We’re looking for Uncle Logan.” Hannah’s voice trembled.

“Oh, not Wes’s wife, eh?” An old man pushed his way past Birdie, flashing Thea a grin beneath his bulbous nose. He extended a plump, gnarled hand. “Smiley Peterson, town barber.”

After shaking his hand, Thea retreated to Hannah and draped her arm protectively across her shoulders, wishing everyone would just slow down. With a huffing noise, Tess slumped into an empty booth, perhaps realizing that the townspeople seemed more interested in Thea than in helping them find Logan.

“We’re looking for Logan McCall,” Thea clarified, trying to hold on to her resolve to remain strong for the girls when she only wanted to sink into the booth next to Tess and cry. “He still lives in town, doesn’t he?”

“Yes, he does.” Birdie smiled, and Thea thought they were getting somewhere until she added, “Are you here long, dear?”

“I want my uncle Logan,” Hannah wailed, unable to contain herself any longer.

Everyone in the room seemed to freeze. The third-degree questioning blissfully stopped. Thea led Hannah to the booth Tess had claimed and had her sit down. Hannah cried hysterically, testing Thea’s resolve to hold herself together.

“Please, give her a little room,” Thea pleaded, pressing a napkin into Hannah’s hand. The locals’ onslaught, combined with Hannah’s tears, put Thea off balance.

“I’ll get her something to drink,” Mary said.

“You aren’t saving these chocolate-chip cookies for anyone, are you, Mary?” Birdie asked, even as she plucked several cookies from under a covered dish.

Smiley patted Hannah on the top of her head. “The boys are up in Sun Valley fighting a fire. Heard on the radio that it jumped out of bounds, but that the Hot Shots contained it.”

Hannah blew her nose, then accepted a cookie. Tess pushed the cookie Birdie offered to the middle of the table, where Thea was sure it would remain untouched.

“When is he coming home?” Thea prodded.

“I’d say another day or so,” Birdie chirped.

“Oh, my.” Thea felt her heart sink to the tips of her toes. Another day or so. That could be a week. A week!

“You can probably get a room over at the motel,” Smiley suggested.

No. They couldn’t. Thea didn’t have to take out her wallet to know they couldn’t spend one more night in a hotel. One night had been enough to drain her funds significantly.

“Dad’s gone and we don’t have any money,” Tess announced, causing Thea’s cheeks to heat with embarrassment and another ripple of activity among Mary, Birdie and Smiley.

“I’ll make lunch for everyone,” Mary offered before disappearing.

“Where’s that father of yours?” Birdie’s expression hardened with disapproval.

“Ought to be shot, that man,” Smiley grumbled.

Later, after Hannah polished off a cheeseburger with fries and Tess picked at a similar plate, Mary pulled Thea aside. “I’ve called Lexie, my daughter-in-law. She’s got a key to Logan’s place. She’ll be here after school lets out to take you over. Don’t worry about a thing. Logan will put things right.”

“THIS IS BEAUTIFUL.” Thea followed Lexie Garrett’s SUV up Uncle Logan’s steep gravel driveway, staring at the dark green pine trees, huge rocks and the occasional patch of snow as if she’d never seen a forest before.

Tess didn’t say a word. Slumped in the back seat, she had a knot the size of a football in her tummy. At least when Mrs. Garrett and her daughter, Heidi, had shown up at the Pony they were in a hurry to get baby Henry to the doctor, so they hadn’t gotten out of their SUV and tried to talk to them. Tess had been worrying about what she was going to say to Heidi since they’d left Seattle.

Tess couldn’t pretend she was still Heidi’s friend, just as she couldn’t pretend with Hannah that everything was okay. Every once in a while, Tess would wake up and feel almost normal. And then she’d remember that her mom was dead and there was no one that loved her, least of all Uncle Logan.

Her eyes filled with tears, which she quickly blinked away.

Tess wanted her mom back. No one knew her favorite cereal was Cocoa Puffs or that she liked red more than pink. Her mom had always made Tess smile. Now she didn’t have anything to smile about.

Tess wanted to go back to the way things were before, when she was just another kid. She used to like lots of things, like watching TV, kicking a ball and making friends. She didn’t do any of those things anymore.

Which made Tess think again about Heidi. They used to laugh together a lot in school and at each other’s houses. Now Tess couldn’t laugh, hadn’t laughed in months. So, what would she say when she saw Heidi?

They continued up Uncle Logan’s driveway. Whizzer put his front paws on the passenger window and scratched. Hannah put the window down an inch and helped hold him up so he could get air. The little dog breathed in deeply several times, pressing his wet nose to the window and wagging his tail as he dreamed of peeing on all those trees. At least, that’s what Tess imagined he was thinking. The darn dog peed on everything. He’d even tried to go on her right after they washed him in the sink in the gas station bathroom.

“This is where your uncle lives?” Thea asked as she shut off the engine. She had her head down so that she could see the huge two-story house in front of them through the windshield. “It’s got trees, and a mountain for a backyard…and friends.”

Tess used to think Uncle Logan’s house was a castle or a mansion. She’d loved pretending that she was a princess or a movie star who lived there with lots of servants. She didn’t have those silly dreams anymore. Bad things didn’t happen to princesses.

“This is where my mom died.” Tess bit her lip, wanting to stay in Thea’s small back seat forever. She didn’t want to be here.

Mrs. Garrett and Heidi climbed out of the SUV. Thea, Hannah and Whizzer jumped out of the Volkswagen. Tess couldn’t move.

“I’ll introduce you to Glen,” Mrs. Garrett said to Thea. “She’s a sweet thing.”

Tess had almost forgotten Aunt Glen was staying with Uncle Logan. She was old. Really old. Tess had heard Uncle Logan complain to her mom last summer that Aunt Glen didn’t have all her bulbs screwed in. It took Tess a couple of days to figure out that Uncle Logan thought Aunt Glen had gone crazy, which was fine with Tess because that meant Tess didn’t have to pretend nothing was wrong when she was around Aunt Glen.

“I check in on Glen a couple of times a day when the guys are on assignment. I’ll feel better that someone’s here with her all the time,” Mrs. Garrett was saying. “I’m sorry we can’t stay. Henry’s got a doctor’s appointment down the mountain in less than an hour, but you’ll be fine. We’ll come by tomorrow morning to check up on you.”

“Hi.” Heidi stepped into the Volkswagen’s open car door. Tess hadn’t seen her walk up.

She managed a strangled “Hi” back, which was followed by a painful silence.

Heidi wasn’t looking at Tess and Tess didn’t dare look Heidi in the eye. She wished she could just disappear under the quilts on the seat next to her, but that would be more embarrassing than not knowing what to say. Hannah had gone inside with the adults, so she was no help. Whizzer was busy running around and peeing on every bush he could see. And so Tess was left trapped in the back seat, unable to move or say a word.

Then Mrs. Garrett raced down the steps, saving Tess from further embarrassment. “Heidi, come on. You can catch up with the twins later.”

“See you,” Heidi called as she left.

Tess slumped over onto the quilts, buried her face in them and tried to stop the tears.

CHAPTER TWO

THE VIEW WAS SPECTACULAR, with snow-covered peaks standing out in sharp contrast against the smoke-softened sunset. One of the things Logan loved about being a Hot Shot was being close to nature. Only he could no longer enjoy it. Logan sat on an icy tree root with his back against the trunk, looking out over the Sun Valley base camp as it settled down for the night.

He had a birthday coming up soon. A birthday he’d be celebrating alone. He’d never been alone. Deb had even been born first. Growing up, she’d been the strong one when things got ugly with their father at home, which was often.

No kid should have to live through what Logan and Deb had. The harsh words. The fear. The bruises.

Shouts of laughter rippled through base camp. A group of firefighters from several different crews had gathered amidst the low tents that dotted the meadow’s snowy landscape. The wind was really blowing now, and this far from the fire line, it stole the breath right out of Logan’s lungs. His watch showed the temperature as twenty-nine degrees. Standing up and moving around would be smart. Too bad Logan wasn’t smart. As hot as he’d been the past few days on the fire line, he was an ice cube now. Which suited him just fine.

He stared back down at camp. For tactical purposes, NIFC had brought in portable toilets, a large canvas tent for Incident Command, and Jose’s Taco Truck, which had the best tacos in the Northwest, or so their signs proclaimed. Base camp provided firefighters with some of the amenities they didn’t have nearby. Camps didn’t get much more minimalist than this one, though.

Golden leaned his shoulder against a pine tree a few feet away from Logan, following the direction of his gaze. “Only the finest cuisine for our firefighters.”

“Breakfast burritos aren’t so bad.” At least the food was hot.

Golden rubbed his stomach as if it was empty. “It takes a lot of tacos to fill a man’s belly at the end of the day.”

Logan couldn’t argue with that. He shrugged deeper into his down jacket and thought longingly of a hot shower. Smoke and sweat had combined to form a sticky layer on Logan’s skin. NIFC hadn’t deemed the Sun Valley burn of a long enough duration to pay a vendor for portable shower stalls.

“How are you doing, Logan?”

Uh-oh. Logan shifted on the root. Even though they were best friends, Jackson and Logan tended to call each other by their Hot Shot names unless it was a social occasion or they felt the need to speak on a personal level, as Golden did now. And as he’d done over the past few days when Logan had lost his temper.

“I’m fine, Jackson.” Which was so far from the truth that the words nearly echoed in the hollow area once occupied by Logan’s heart.

“Don’t bullshit a bullshitter.”

Logan sucked on his cheek to keep from saying anything.

“I need you out there one hundred percent. What I don’t need is you and Aiden going head-to-head every time I give an order. It’s not good for safety or team morale.”

Jackson knelt down until he could look Logan in the eye. “This is going to be a tough year on the crews as it is. Two other states set early controlled burns that blew over the line. We were fortunate that we contained ours with less than a ten-acre loss. California and Colorado weren’t so lucky.”

Logan perked up. He could talk about work. Work was his savior. “They lose anything other than tree husks? Was anyone injured? Did any structures get burned?”

“No. We were lucky this time. But public opinion is against us, budgets are tight and I don’t want any mistakes on my team.” His jaw had that firm set to it that warned, “Mess with me and you’ll be in for a world of hurt.”

Relieved that the crews were okay, Logan gave a jerky nod to indicate he understood, that he would try harder to toe the line. Then he waited for Jackson to go away.

He didn’t.

“I know that losing Deb hit you hard, but you have to snap out of this.”

“Is that an order?” Something bitter climbed up Logan’s throat. He told himself it was just bad tacos, not the fact that his best friend since high school was disappointed in him. “Or am I missing something?”

Jackson shook his head. “You know what I miss? I miss my right-hand man. I miss my friend. There are a lot of us that miss you, buddy. You might want to think about that while you’re checking out that sunset.”

Logan would like nothing more than to do just that.

Only thing was, he didn’t know how to find that person Jackson referred to—the man he used to be.

STANDING IN LOGAN’S driveway later, Thea breathed deeply. The green scent of fir and pine filled the air. The dark green and brown colors set against the dusting of snow on the ground were calming. This part of Idaho was breathtakingly beautiful, so different from the skyscrapers of Seattle.

She could forget her goals up here, set aside the dream of earning a degree that would put her at the top of her field as her mother had done. Here she could listen to her little inner voice, the one that occasionally piped up at the oddest times with a twenty-seven-year-old’s desire for a family, a white picket fence and PTA meetings.

She let herself stare at Logan’s house just a little longer before she went back inside. It was a perfect house, straight off a Christmas card. The big log home was blanketed in snow, with smoke curling out of the two-story brick chimney. Part of Thea longed for the storybook life that had to go along with living in such a house. But she’d promised her mother when she was ten—right before her mother left—that she’d make something of herself.

Thea retreated to the kitchen and sank into a spindle-backed chair that felt unsteady enough to be an antique, her notes in piles next to her laptop, her study plan tacked to the wall. She needed to be reviewing her advanced technology notes. She should have reviewed them two days ago. She swung her foot, causing a ripple from the bells she’d attached to her shoes. According to her grandmother, vibrant noise was supposed to keep her spirits up, because the light notes reminded her to believe in sunshine and happily-ever-afters, of dreams being achieved. The sound didn’t help. She couldn’t focus on her studies.

The kitchen table was adorned with a deep brown crocheted doily. The hardwood floor was dark wood, as were the cabinets, and the countertop was brown tile with brown grout. Brown. Dark. Corners. Even the coffeemaker was made of black plastic.

The effect of the room was downright depressing, not at all the homey atmosphere the exterior of the house promised. Thea needed to dive into her notes, but she couldn’t concentrate in this gloomy environment. She pushed back her chair.

“Brown,” she muttered as she moved into the shadowy living room. Brown hardwood floors, brown velour couches—brown, brown, brown, brown, brown. Not a bit of other color in the place. The same neatness and lack of knickknacks in the kitchen pervaded this room—nothing to indicate anything about the man who lived here, his family, his roots. No photos of smiling relatives and friends or mementos of any kind. With the blinds closed in every room, it was more sterile than the furnished apartment she and the twins had been evicted from. And, despite the neatness of the place, everything was coated with a layer of dust.

The house had seemed so promising from the outside. Thea wandered dejectedly down the dimly lit hallway toward the bathroom.

“Deb, is that you?” an elderly, shaky voice called out as Thea passed another dark room.

“It’s me, Thea.” Thea poked her head in the bedroom. Glen, Logan’s maiden aunt, a gray-haired beauty, was sitting in bed knitting something with dark brown yarn.

The coffee mug Thea had filled earlier and a half-eaten piece of apple pie rested on the nightstand.

“Do I know you, dear?” Glen asked in a tremulous voice that sounded close to an elderly Katharine Hepburn.

“I’m taking care of the twins until Logan comes back.”

Lexie had warned Thea that Glen’s short-term memory was unreliable. She might have said nonexistent. Glen didn’t seem to remember Thea at all.

“Now, my boy Logan, he’s a man you can rely on. Cares about folks, he does.” Glen’s blue eyes were dull, faded, and a bit lost. She sighed. “Have I ever told you that I raised Logan and Deb after my sister died?” Glen gestured to her bureau of dark wood. Several pictures blanketed in thick dust were displayed there. It was the first place in the house that Thea had seen pictures.

“No, you haven’t.” Thea stepped nearer for a closer look, carefully brushing away the dust on an old, square-framed picture of two similar-looking young women leaning close, with seventies beehive hairdos and psychedelic orange and lime-green dresses.

“That’s me and my sister, Meg.” Glen shuffled out of bed and stood next to Thea. She smelled of soiled clothing and sweet coffee. This close, Thea could see her complexion had the tawny hue of unwashed skin. “And this is Deb and Logan.”

Thea closed her eyes for a moment to collect herself as anger at the old woman’s neglect threatened to overwhelm her. Lexie, with her own family and responsibilities, couldn’t be blamed, but the absent Logan McCall could. Already, Thea was thinking about what needed to be done—linens washed, everything dusted, swept and vacuumed, and Glen needed a bath, along with a complete brushing of her hair and teeth.

Thea drew in a steadying breath before peering at the photo Glen indicated. Logan wore a tuxedo and Deb a princess-style wedding dress. Two impeccably groomed blond heads leaned close together, both sporting picture-perfect smiles. Their expressions were so alike…

“They’re twins,” Thea said, noting the resemblance.

“Yep,” Glen confirmed. “Runs in our family thicker than the plague. Meg was my twin.” Her hand stroked the picture of the two women, seeming to tremble more with each breath she took.

Thea took Glen’s arm in case she collapsed. “Are you all right?”

The old woman nodded with a sniff. “Doc says my asthma medication gives me the shakes. Can’t complain. Well, I could complain, but what good would it do me?” She returned to the bed.

Glen’s face seemed deathly pale in the shadowy bedroom. Thea thought Glen could use more than some occasional light. Giving in to impulse, Thea spun the plastic handle on the blinds to let sunshine stream through the window.

Glen frowned. “Logan doesn’t like them open.”

“Why not?” Thea couldn’t understand why Logan would want to keep this sweet old lady in the dark.

“Sometimes it’s easier not to look.” Glen waved a hand at the bureau again. “Those blond beauties in the back are Deb’s little girls—Tess and Hannah.”

When it seemed Glen was waiting for a reaction to the girls, Thea obligingly leaned in for a closer look. The twins were younger, sporting bright bathing suits and smiles. Everything about the girls in the picture sparkled with energy and happiness. Thea longed to see them that way again.

Glen settled back against the pillows. “They light up this house.”

It was comforting to know that the girls had been happy here. Thea hoped they would be again. “I’ll leave you to your crocheting and go check on the girls.”

“I may as well go with you, just in case their room’s not as clean as it should be. I wouldn’t want the girls to get into trouble.” Glen scooted back off the bed. She turned the handle on the blinds to bring the room back to shadows. “Logan prefers the house dark,” she explained again as she shuffled ahead of Thea down the hall.

“It’s neat as a pin,” Glen announced with apparent relief as she paused in the doorway.

Peeking around the door frame into the dimly lit bedroom, Thea had to agree. Like the girls’ room in Seattle, there were no stray shoes, no scattered scrunchies for that long blond hair, no half-dressed Barbies with hair that was frizzed from being carried about in backpacks, cars and pillowcases. The room was as impersonal as the rest of the house, from the quilted pink bedspreads to the white dressers each holding a lamp and a small clock radio.

Thea noticed untouched toys stacked neatly in the closet. Now Hannah sat on the floor playing quietly with Whizzer, while Tess lay on her bed staring at the ceiling.

Thea had hoped the girls would thrive in their uncle’s fairy-tale house. But now her heart filled with doubt.

How could she leave them here?

“WHO TAUGHT YOU HOW to make Barbie clothes?” Hannah asked, leaning over Thea’s shoulder while she sat in one of the dull living-room chairs creating a new wardrobe for the two Barbie dolls she’d found in the twins’ closet. “Did your mom teach you?”

Thea paused midstitch, staring into the fire. Her mom hadn’t been supportive of Thea learning any homemaking arts.

“My grandmother taught me. I’ve loved sewing since I was a kid.” Thea remembered her mother looking at her handiwork and saying how those neat stitches meant she’d be a wonderful surgeon one day. All Thea had wanted was for her mom to say her baby doll quilt was beautiful. Thea shied away from the memory. Her mother had never understood Thea, not that she’d had more than ten years to figure her daughter out. The painful memory had Thea reaching for a change of attitude.

“I once met a man who created Barbie ball gowns for a living,” Thea said, glancing at Hannah to gauge her interest in the story. The twins never watched television, which made for long nights. Thea had learned to rely on her knack for telling odd stories to engage the twins and help pass the time.

“A man?” Tess blurted. She sat in the corner of the dark couch, her limbs pulled up tight, her small forehead creased in disbelief.

Glen looked up from her crochet project. Thea had yet to figure out what the older woman was making. It was long and brown, every stitch making it longer and browner.

“A man,” Thea confirmed, wondering briefly when they’d see the elusive Uncle Logan and if he’d be good for the girls.

“Why would a man want to sew?” Hannah reached across Thea’s lap to finger the small red dress, until she saw Thea watching her. With a quick glance at Tess, Hannah drew her hand away, tucking it behind her back.

“People should pick jobs that make them happy,” Thea said, pretending to be intent on finishing Barbie’s hem, while trying to ignore the rising panic that she should be studying if she ever wanted to pass her exams. She couldn’t even propose a dissertation topic until she received a passing grade on both her written and oral exams. She shook her foot, eliciting a soft jingle. “What do you want to be when you grow up, Hannah?”

Hannah shrugged, looking at Tess, then stared at the fire. Thea was convinced that the two shared an unspoken bond. Neither would get over her grief without the other. And Tess wasn’t done grieving.

“I always wanted to be one of those secret agents, with the slinky dress, spiked heels and a real kick-ass gun,” Glen spoke up, rearranging her yarn chain in her lap. “Only Eldred came along and I didn’t think I could leave Silver Bend.”

Assuming Eldred had been Glen’s beau, Thea smiled. “It’s nice to dream big. How about you, Tess? Any plans for the future?”

Instead of answering, Tess got up and left the room.

AS HE DROVE HOME toward Silver Bend, Logan McCall ignored the streaks of golden light peeking over the horizon. A new day may be dawning, but it would be the same gray, colorless day that he’d faced yesterday and the day before that.

He drove in silence up the long, steep grade before he reached Silver Bend, passing the ramshackle, abandoned house where his parents had died. Where his father had killed his mother.

In that house, he’d learned how low a man could sink when ruled by a hot temper regularly fueled by alcohol. In that house, he’d learned that the only person he could depend on was his twin sister, Deb. Together, they’d survived the verbal abuse and physical beatings. When they’d left, Logan vowed he’d never have a family of his own.

Deb, lucky enough not to have the gene that carried their father’s destructive temper, had lived an almost normal life, married and produced two girls Logan adored, only to die much too soon. Burdened with his father’s shameful legacy—a fiery temper—Logan couldn’t trust himself to honor Deb’s request and be the girls’ guardian.

What if he lost his temper or did something stupid? Like go on a drunken binge. Or get so blitzed he wouldn’t know who he was hitting or why.

Logan wiped a hand over his face.

No. He didn’t know how to be a father. It was best that Tess and Hannah were being raised by someone else. Even if Wes wasn’t the best father around—he sure as hell hadn’t been the best husband—he had to be better at it than Logan.

So he continued to his house and the life that was emptier than he’d ever dreamed possible.

“ARE WE THE FIRST VISITORS from Silver Bend this morning?” Lexie stood on the front porch with plump little Henry propped on one hip. Her smile was dazzling, but as genuine as her little boy’s. Lexie’s brown hair was pulled back into a mother’s utilitarian ponytail. “We just dropped Heidi off at school, so I thought we’d come by to check on you. Did you make it through the night okay?”

“We were fine.” Thea let them in, taking the blue quilted diaper bag from Lexie. “Am I going to get more visitors today? The casseroles yesterday were…interesting.” They wouldn’t need to cook for a week—if she could get the girls to eat them.

“Small town. Half the population over fifty.” Lexie rolled her eyes. “Oh-ho, are you going to get visitors. Each one will dust off the old family recipe.” She shuddered, then sank onto the couch and settled Henry on her lap.

“It doesn’t sound so bad.” Cities were so impersonal. Even at her university, you could pass by hundreds of students without anyone ever looking you in the eye, much less be concerned about you.

“She doesn’t suspect, does she, Hot Shot?” Lexie played with one of Henry’s chubby fists. “They’ll know where she was born by dinnertime.”

Thea was reminded of the relentless questioning from the trio in the Painted Pony.

“So, if you have any secrets you want to keep, practice your poker face and changing the subject.” Lexie continued, “Not that we aren’t fond of them all, it’s just that…well, we love it when there’s a big political scandal to keep them busy.”

“Thanks, I think.” Thea sat on the opposite end of the brown couch, catching sight of Tess lingering in the hallway as she did so. “How old is Henry?”

“Nearly eight months.” Lexie blew a raspberry in his fist, and he giggled. “We nearly lost him when he was born. But you’re a fighter like your dad, aren’t you, Hot Shot?”

“And your husband is a…uh…Hot Shot, too?” Thea was becoming incredibly curious about Logan and his Hot Shot job.

Lexie nodded. “Firefighting runs in Jackson’s veins. He’d be miserable if he couldn’t fight fires.”

Henry sneezed. Lexie efficiently wiped his nose with a tissue, dodging the chubby hand that batted hers away.

“I’m a Hot Shot, too,” Lexie blurted. After a moment of uncharacteristic hesitation, she pulled a jar out of her diaper bag and handed it to Thea.

“Hot Shot Marinade.” Thea read the colorful label. “How cool. Are you a saleswoman?”

“I am Hot Shot Sauces. I’m head cook, bottler and salesman.” Lexie drew Henry closer, eliciting a squawk out of the boy. She laughed self-consciously. “He’s right, I’m taking myself too seriously. It’s just that I’ve never done anything except be a wife and mother.”

It took Thea a moment to sort all Lexie’s achievements—wife, mother, businesswoman. “Don’t put yourself down. I’m even a bit envious. You have it all.” Even though they seemed about the same age, Thea had years of study and work ahead of her before kids were a possibility. In her eyes, Lexie had set the bar as high as Thea’s mother had. Still… “Isn’t it hard? Glen said something last night about Hot Shots being gone a lot. And running a business when you have two kids…”

“Sure, it’s hard. Forget seeing any Hot Shot in the summer for more than twenty-four hours at a time. It’s pretty steady nine-to-five work in town from November to March.” She laughed. “I mean, they’re in town if they’re part of the permanent staff, like Jackson and Logan. But I’ve tried living without him, and it just wasn’t what I wanted.” Lexie grinned. “What can I say? I love the lug.”

Thea found herself grinning back, even though her heart gave a small, envious pang. What would it be like to have a love that strong? “You must be brilliant as well as lucky in love.”

“Your time will come. If you stick around, you can have your pick of the other Hot Shots.” Lexie bounced Henry gently. “Not that it’s easy to catch one. Most of them don’t know the meaning of the phrase settle down. Or, they’re stuck in a rut.”

“A rut?”

“That’s a nice way of saying some of them have yet to grow up. Some got dumped and have sworn off women. Others don’t realize they weren’t put on this earth to sleep with as many women as they can.” She sighed. “Then there’s Logan. He’s always been a ladies’ man, but he can’t seem to get past his grief or his anger over losing Deb. He had a temper before, but now he’s got the shortest fuse known to man.”

Cognizant of Tess eavesdropping in the hallway, Thea lowered her voice. “He’ll be fine with the girls, won’t he?”

Lexie looked Thea directly in the eyes. “He’d do anything for those girls.”

There was an odd sound in the hallway, followed by retreating footsteps.

“I’m so glad you’re here, Thea. I know Logan’s going to need help with Hannah and Tess.”

“Whoa. Wait.” Thea shook her head. “I’m not staying. I’m getting my Ph.D. I brought the girls here because Wes is AWOL and they had nowhere else to turn.”

“They’ll still have nowhere to turn. Fire season is starting. You can’t just leave them.” Lexie’s expression dimmed.

Thea thought about the untouched pile of textbooks and notes in the kitchen, about the physical condition and mental state of Glen, about the bare interior of the house, and two little girls with broken hearts. In her mind’s eye, she saw her mother leaving for good, but not before she wrenched a promise from Thea to reach for the stars and refuse to settle.

“Well,” Lexie said finally. “Things have a way of working out, don’t they?”

THE RED CAUGHT HIS EYE first as Logan rounded the bend toward his driveway.

Red giving way to a slender pair of legs.

Then the other colors hit him. Yellow, blue, orange. The spectrum of the rainbow glinted against the light dusting of snow on the ground and the yellow Volkswagen in his driveway.

By the time Logan got out of the truck, it had registered that a woman did indeed belong to the car. A woman with killer legs and a dog.

Said dog was little and white with brown spots and short fur. At the moment, he was lifting his leg over the shrubs edging Logan’s porch.

“Good morning. Are you Logan McCall?” The woman’s voice was melodious, as colorful as the red denim skirt she wore topped with a bright orange T-shirt. Totally inappropriate attire for early spring in the mountains.

Not that he didn’t appreciate the view. He just didn’t appreciate the invasion of his privacy.

Logan pushed his sunglasses higher up on his nose and emitted a gruff reply. “Yeah, I’m McCall.” Thoughts of coming home to silence, a hot shower and twelve hours of sleep faded. Why was this woman here?

“It’s a beautiful day, isn’t it? Not a cloud in the sky.” She laughed a little self-consciously and shifted her feet.

Logan stared at the woman’s bright red sneakers. She’d laced her shoes with little silver bells so that her feet tinkled every time she moved.

He made the mistake of looking her in the face for the first time. She had warm brown eyes that crinkled when she smiled. Somehow, he’d known she’d have the kind of expression that made you want to smile back. No one could drive a Volkswagen like that and not be cheerful.

Something was wrong. He could feel it. Women like this didn’t show up on his doorstep unless… “Where’s Aunt Glen?”

“She’s inside with the girls.” The woman had a way of standing still that made it seem as if she were moving. Maybe she did move. A thin layer of snow crunched softly beneath those red shoes. There was something about her that was…intriguing.

As if he’d heard a car coming, Logan looked down the driveway, taking his time before asking, “What girls?” Part of him wanted to believe she had a carload of women in his house, but he suspected that wasn’t the case.

The dog trotted over to sniff Logan’s mud-caked Black Diamond fire boots.

“Whizzer, no,” she warned the dog.

Logan bent down and petted the friendly dog. Ignoring the woman’s bare, slender ankles that led up to shapely, fine legs, he craned his neck around until he could see the Volkswagen’s license plate. Washington. Last time he’d seen Wes, his truck had sported Washington plates. His hand stilled as the dog danced away.

“That explains a lot of things,” he observed as the anger pooled in his belly, welcome in its ability to obliterate all other feeling. His nieces were inside, which meant that Wes was close by. “Where’s Wes?”

“I don’t know.” The joy seemed to have gone out of her tone. Even the bells on her feet were silent. “I haven’t heard from him in over a month.”

Logan snorted in disbelief. From where he knelt on the ground, he could look up and see her over the top of his sunglasses. She didn’t seem so bright and sunny now. In fact, her eyes darted around as if she was starting to panic. Maybe she was going to cry.

The last thing he wanted to witness was a female display of emotion—from Wes’s girlfriend, no less. When Deb died, he’d locked his own emotions away so their intensity wouldn’t break him.

But instead of bursting into tears, the woman cried out and sprang forward. “Whizzer, no!”

At the sound of spray hitting something behind him, Logan leaped up and away, with only a brief twinge in his leg. His reflexes were sharp after having dodged many an angry bee fighting fires in the mountains. Bees didn’t like fire and they wanted desperately to take their anger out on someone. Snakes, at least, seemed to have the sense to dart out of the way when they heard twenty firefighters moving toward them.

“Whizzer, no,” she reprimanded the prancing dog before turning those deep brown eyes his way. “I’m so sorry. He didn’t get you, did he?”

Logan just stared at the woman, unwilling to embarrass himself by looking for wet spots on his backside. If the little rodent had pissed on him, he couldn’t feel it yet through his grubby pants and boots.

Rather than back off from his stare, the woman closed the gap between them with a soft ripple of bells, grasped him firmly by the shoulders, turned him around and checked him out.

At least, Logan assumed she was checking out his ass. That’s what most women did. And most of the time, he didn’t mind. Not a bit.

But that was before Deb became sick and died. Before Logan became the legal guardian of his nieces. Before Deb’s lowlife, trucking husband had disappeared with the twins because Logan wouldn’t stop him. Before Logan had sunk into despair because he’d let the most important people in his life down.

The woman turned him one way and another, her touch commanding yet distinctly tender. “He didn’t get you.” Her hands fell away as she stepped back.

Logan blew out the breath he’d been holding. He hadn’t been on the receiving end of an attractive woman’s touch since…last summer. He suppressed a groan. He didn’t even want to think about it.

Logan was selective. Ample assets, that’s what he liked. Lots of blond hair—didn’t even matter if it was natural blond—and full, red, pouty lips that whispered with the promise of a night or two of fun. But this woman…

She was thin, small breasted, with chestnut hair that tumbled past her shoulder blades and dimples that only made those crinkly smiling eyes that much more appealing. He could see the freckles dusting her nose because she wasn’t wearing any makeup, not even lipstick. She was the kind of woman who stayed home and baked apple pies to spoil her man upon his return.

She wasn’t his type at all.

“Where’s Wes?” he repeated irritably, thinking that she wasn’t Wes’s type, either.

“I told you, I don’t know.” She hugged herself against the chill. It was nippy out, yet she only wore that thin T-shirt—bright orange with a yellow sun—and an indigo-blue jean jacket over that almost knee-length red denim skirt. Dressed like that, she had to be from California or Arizona originally. Add the Volkswagen Beetle and she had to be a second-generation hippie.

“Wes stopped paying the bills and we got evicted,” she added. She looked at him tentatively, as if waiting for him to bite her head off.

Logan swore. He’d known it was wrong to let the twins go, but he’d been unconvinced that he was the better alternative. “Are they okay?”

“See for yourself.” She spun away with her bells jingling, striking his nerves as she walked toward the house.

“Whizzer, come on.” She opened the front door as if she, not Logan, lived there.

Whizzer jumped up onto the porch with superdog-like agility.

“Are you coming?” She hesitated in the doorway. Sunlight glinted off the silver threads in her red skirt and the bells on her feet. One shoe continued to jingle.

Whizzer stood on the porch panting, as if peeing were an Olympic sport in which he was competing and which required a lot of effort.

Logan almost smiled at the lighthearted picture they made until he remembered she was Wes’s girl, which meant her friendly, upbeat manner was probably just an act.

“They’ve been waiting to see you,” she added when he didn’t budge.

Logan scratched his grimy neck, more than willing to bet they had. The girls probably blamed him for every crappy thing that had happened to them since their mom died. And they had every right to. If anything bad had happened to them while they were in Wes’s care, it was Logan’s fault.

Guilt and frustration pulsed in his veins. Suddenly, Logan couldn’t face Tess and Hannah.

THEA WAS INCREDIBLY RELIEVED to have food for the girls, a roof over their heads, and to have found the twins’ uncle. Or she had been relieved until Logan stood staring at her as if she’d just landed from planet Mars and might be dangerous.

“My name’s Thea Gayle. I’ve been watching the girls,” she managed to say, assuming he was waiting for her to introduce herself. She thrust her free hand in his direction, then pumped his hand vigorously, until she realized how nicely his large hand felt wrapped around hers—callused, warm, comfortable. His friendly grip was at odds with the melancholy expression in his eyes that said stay away, keep your distance, don’t want any.

Against the play of light and green shadows of fir trees, Logan McCall looked magnificent as he hesitated on the porch. Like a young Robert Redford, with soot-streaked angular features and eyes as blue as the cloudless sky above him.

They stared at each other across an awkward bit of silence while Thea struggled for something to say, which was unusual for her. She was seldom at a loss for words. Stories to ease the mood usually came easily to her lips. It had to be those eyes of his, so blue, so sad.

They stepped into the house. The clock ticked on the living-room mantel. Thea could hear Aunt Glen talking to Tess and Hannah in the kitchen. Whizzer circled the hardwood floor behind her before plopping down with a big grunt.

Thea shrugged apologetically, grateful for any break in the tension. “We had quite a time finding you. It seemed like the whole town took us in.”

The gorgeously grim-looking firefighter stared down at her with distant eyes. It was clear that he’d come directly from a fire. He wore a yellow button-down shirt in need of a washing, dark green khakis and grimy work boots. Her fingers itched to touch the Nomex fabric his clothes were made of. It was fire resistant, an advance that she’d explored in a section of her textile studies.

As they continued to stare at each other, Logan’s golden eyebrows hovered low over those attractive peepers, as if he couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing. She bet women far and wide fell at his feet begging to be lost in the deep blue of his gaze, which was compelling despite his obvious reluctance to smile.

He was the kind of guy who didn’t need anything or anybody. Here was a man who could pick and choose which women he spent time with. And she’d bet Whizzer’s kibble that he was choosy, all right. He was the type who didn’t give her a second glance, with her plain features, plain coloring and plain body. Heck, he didn’t think enough of her to speak to her.

Or it was as Lexie had implied. Logan was too burdened with grief to care about much of anything.

Thea sighed, telling herself it was a good thing that Logan didn’t think much of her, even better that he didn’t need her. She’d fulfilled her obligation to the twins. She had to get back to Seattle and her study schedule.

She slid her cold hands in the pockets of her jean jacket and retreated farther into the house. Thea was so intent on keeping her distance from the man that she missed his question.

“Did Wes treat them right?” he repeated, words heavy with scorn as he pushed his sunglasses back up his nose. “Did you?”

Thea sucked in a breath, torn between an unusual feeling of loyalty toward her employer—even though he’d turned out to be a deadbeat—the need to tell the truth—that Wes was so neglectful it was hard to call him a dad—and indignation that he’d think she’d mistreat the twins.

“If it’s money you want, you’ve come to the wrong place.” Logan spread his hands, palms up, his gaze burning with hurt and accusation. “I’m just a poor Hot Shot.”

There was that temper Lexie had warned her about. Be smart and say as little as possible, she counseled herself. Don’t make a joke of it. Logan McCall didn’t want anything to do with optimism. If anything would work with him, it would be sarcasm, something Thea avoided.

Only, all that intensity directed at her from those blue eyes was disconcerting. And her mouth engaged itself before she had time to heed her own advice.

“A hot-who? Is that like some sort of male stripper?” At his startled expression, Thea continued, rolling her eyes dramatically. “Because I’ve only met one male stripper. His name was Cowboy Temptation, but I don’t think he was a real cowboy. I mean, he wore a holster with pop guns.”

Logan’s jaw worked. “I’m a Hot Shot.” He emphasized each word carefully, then added, “A wildland firefighter.”

Too shell-shocked at herself to answer intelligibly, Thea could only echo, “Wildland?”

“My team fights forest fires. I’m not a city firefighter.”

She smiled as if she’d missed his irritation, as if she didn’t know there wasn’t a city anywhere close to here. Thea wasn’t going to kid herself. Logan, with that icy, wounded reserve of his, wasn’t going to help her get back to Seattle. In fact, she didn’t think she or the twins would be welcome in his house at all.

“Oh, I get it,” she said, playing the dumb brunette because he might be the kind of hero who wanted to come to the aid of a helpless woman. “You put out fires in parks, like Yellowstone.”

“Close enough.” The firefighter chewed on the inside of his cheek.

Thea’s conscience tsk-tsked her. He’d been showing all the signs of a man shadowed with grief. Now she’d upset him even more with her “don’t worry about little old me, my IQ hovers safely below yours” routine. He didn’t know if she was ditzy, kidding or seriously intellectually challenged. That tended to yank the carpet out from under a guy.

“You really shouldn’t do that,” she found herself saying as she studied him.

“What?”

Because she was a touchy-feely person, Thea came forward, and stroked his jaw with her forefinger. His skin was stubbled and rough to the touch. Of its own accord, as if entranced by the texture of his cheek, her finger continued to trail over his skin.

The Hot Shot froze.

Mortified, Thea snatched her hand back, oh so aware that her finger had started to stray toward his lips. She never reacted to men this way, as if she were a brazen woman of the world. For crying out loud, she was Thea Gayle, dateless Ph.D. candidate. Everybody knew that. Happy, harmless, lonely Thea Gayle. Well, that last lonely bit was her descriptor, but in the dating world, she was definitely not a player.

She shoved her hands back into her pockets to keep them occupied, out of trouble and away from the firefighter. Her face felt warm. “You shouldn’t chew on your cheek. It must be painful for one thing, but it can’t be healthy.”

He must think she was an idiot. She was a talker by nature and babbled to ease awkward situations. Usually, her babbling didn’t bother her, but this time Thea longed to escape. Only, she couldn’t leave the girls until she was sure Logan would care for them better than Wes had, and not turn them out.

He wouldn’t turn them out, would he?

She peeked at the man through her lashes. He opened his mouth, about to say something, then snapped it shut and shook his head. His jaw worked, as if he was trying not to bite the inside of his cheek again.

“What do your friends call you?” she managed to say, trying once more to put him at ease.

“Logan McCall.” There was the barest trace of a tease in his voice, as though he was reluctant to admit her question amused him.

That teasing note meant a lot to Thea. It meant he wasn’t heartless. The girls would be fine. “You don’t have a nickname or something? Lo? Mac?”

After a telltale pause, he denied it. “Nope.”

Thea grinned, grinning wider when his mouth turned ever so slightly up at the corners in an almost smile.

From the kitchen, she heard Glen’s tremulous voice.

“Oh, I almost forgot them.” Thea grabbed Logan’s arm and tugged. “They can’t wait to see you.”

Well, that wasn’t quite true. Still, Thea wanted to believe in happily-ever-afters, even if she knew firsthand they rarely existed. She could hope for Logan and the girls. The sooner she got this reunion over with and smoothed things out for them, the sooner she’d be able to get back to her own life.

The thought was unexpectedly distressing.

“I THOUGHT I HEARD VOICES.” Aunt Glen pushed open the swinging kitchen door with one sticklike arm, smiling when she saw Logan. Much as Logan had tried to keep meat on Aunt Glen’s bones this winter, she was skinny as a rail. “Back so soon, Logan?”

Moving past Thea, Logan swept his fragile aunt into a careful hug. “Can I get you anything? Coffee? Something to eat?”

“Not a thing, dear.”

Logan released her, more than a little annoyed by the arrival of his nieces and Wes’s ditzy girlfriend. She’d thought a Hot Shot was a stripper? The sooner Logan found out what was going on and sent her on her way, the better.

Glen’s voice stopped Logan in the doorway. “Well, perhaps you could make a fresh pot of coffee. Deb drank the last of it before she went on her walk.”

Logan gripped the kitchen door frame. Aunt Glen spoke of his sister in the present tense. Glen was slipping further and further into her own reality, just when Logan needed her to hang on to his.

“I’ll make some.” Thea slipped into the kitchen.

Aunt Glen seemed to sway as Thea passed her. Afraid she might fall, Logan put his arm around her back and, with one hand on each of her elbows, guided the frail old woman to the couch.

“You treat me like I’m old,” she said, setting her mouth in a tight line.

“No, I treat you like the lady you are.”

Glen’s expression eased. “When I was younger, no one treated me like a lady. I was a broad and proud of it.”

“You’ve always been both to me.” She’d always been there, trying to shield Deb and Logan from the horror that was their childhood. She’d taken them in when their parents died, and tried to give them a normal life.

“What a sweet little dog,” Glen said, reaching down to pet Whizzer. “Is he yours?”

The kitchen door creaked behind him and Logan turned.

“Uncle Logan?” Hannah took a tentative step forward.

Logan’s eyes watered as he saw his sister in her daughters’ faces. Tess had her chin jutted out in Deb’s stubborn manner and Hannah’s lip trembled just like Deb’s did before she cried. But they’d changed, too. Hannah had filled out a bit and Tess looked almost anorexic.

Part of Logan wanted to hug them, part of him burned with guilt over letting his sister down and not fighting to keep them in his home, and part of him wanted to shatter with the physical reminder that his sister was gone.

“I need to take a shower.” Logan escaped to the back of the house rather than face his nieces and admit—again—that he wasn’t the man he needed to be.

CHAPTER THREE

AFTER HIS SHOWER, Logan pushed through the kitchen door in search of caffeine. Thea stood at the counter wiping down a coffee cup, humming a tune and moving her body almost imperceptibly to some beat only she could hear. The coffeepot was gurgling with life, but it was Thea’s energy that held Logan spellbound.

Colors. Bells. A woman’s voice.

How long had it been since he’d felt happy enough to go out dancing? Never mind that he’d spent much of the last eight months recuperating from his broken leg. When was the last time joy of any sort had surged through his blood and energized his body?

Logan yanked at the neck of his T-shirt, which suddenly seemed to be choking him. His sister had died in this house. Her two daughters had witnessed Deb growing weaker by the day. There was nothing to celebrate here. How dare this woman—this stranger who had replaced Deb in Wes’s life—come into his kitchen and bop around as if she hadn’t a care in the world.

The kitchen door creaked softly as it settled into place.

Thea started and turned, stopping when she saw Logan staring at her. She gave him a half shrug and a half smile as though he should understand that she couldn’t help herself.

But she did stop moving.

“Are you through?” he asked between gritted teeth.

She blinked those milk-chocolate eyes of hers. If he was expecting a fight, he wasn’t going to get it.

Logan struggled with his temper. Lately, anything could light his fuse. He’d been yearning for a good fight, and had even considered hitting a bar down the mountain in the hopes of finding trouble. Lately? Who was he kidding? He’d battled his temper since the day he was born.

With more than ten years as a Hot Shot, Logan had been in his share of brawls—mostly after long days on a fire when he was too keyed up and exhausted to sleep. The Sun Valley fire, with Spider riding his ass every day, had been tough. Coming home to his nieces had been tougher.

“Coffee’s ready. Milk or sugar?”

Logan didn’t have to look at Thea to see the smile on her face. Cheerfulness filled her voice.

“Half a cup with both,” he managed to say, biting back his irritation.

“One sweet cow, coming up.” She’d already found the milk and sugar. In no time, she’d fixed his coffee. “Would you like a slice of apple pie? Mary brought it by yesterday.”

“No, thanks,” Logan mumbled as he took the cup. He tried sitting, but he was too strung out to relax. His body demanded movement or total release. Besides, the kitchen table was cluttered with books and papers. He paced the kitchen. “Where is everybody?”

“Outside with Whizzer.” She pushed back the curtains over the kitchen windows to let in more light, filling the room with tinkling bells and rays of dust-ridden sunshine.

The command “Don’t,” died in his throat as the suddenly too-bright room dazzled him. He blinked and squinted. “I thought Wes hated dogs.”

“We rescued him along the way. He’s a sweetheart if you don’t make him nervous. And he has a tendency to mark things, which is how we came up with his name. I’m hoping that with a little love and stability, he’ll settle down.”

Without much sleep and without his sunglasses, the light was almost too much to bear. “I suppose strangers make him nervous,” he said, recalling how the terrier had tried to mark him.

“And new places, loud noises and too much excitement.” She added in a dramatic whisper, “I’d keep your voice down if I were you.”

Was she teasing him?

She couldn’t be. But she did seem to be flirting.

The idea that Thea was treating him as if he was an old friend or her big brother, when she didn’t even know him, didn’t seem possible. Or flattering. He was the Tin Man, damn it.

“Aunt Glen seemed to like Whizzer.” She probably likes you. The thought rose unbidden and unwelcome. For whatever reason, Thea was with Wes and, therefore, not to be trusted. “What did you ever see in Wes?” Logan demanded, hoping her answer would put the kibosh on whatever it was about her that intrigued him.

“A place to live and a steady paycheck.” She sounded almost relieved to be talking about it.

The thought of Thea sleeping with Wes turned his stomach. Wes must have really put one over on her.

Thea smiled, but it was an apologetic smile. “Maybe I wasn’t clear before. I’m the girls’ nanny. I took the job because I’m working on my Ph.D. in textiles.” She gestured to the mess of books on the table. “Wes is my employer. Although Wes hasn’t paid me since I started, hasn’t been home in more than four weeks and his cell phone is disconnected.” She blurted it all in a rush and then blushed, as if embarrassed to admit the extent of their problems.

Which were really Logan’s problems.

The good news was she wasn’t shacking up with Wes. It was just her legs and Logan’s lack of sex that had his mind in the gutter. But…Logan sank into a kitchen chair as the meaning of her words sank in.

Heaven help him. With Wes out of the picture, Logan had no choice but to take the girls.

“Why didn’t you call me sooner?” he asked when he managed to speak.

She smiled apologetically. “Believe me, I would have loved to have called you sooner. The twins didn’t tell me much about you until we got evicted. I kept us going as long as I could.” She hesitated. “Listen, I’m working on my Ph.D. and the exams are looming. I’ve got to take the tests starting in May, but it looks like you’re in a bind.” She laughed self-consciously. “If you wanted me to stay on, I wouldn’t turn you down.”

Invite all that noise and color to stay? “No, thanks.”

Logan shot up out of his chair. Swift steps took him to the window next to Thea. He wrenched the curtains closed.

“I don’t allow sunlight in here.” It reminded him of his sister’s sunny disposition—strikingly similar to Thea’s. “Or anywhere in the house.”

“I thought they were only closed when you were gone.” The dimples disappeared.

“No.” This close, he could smell Thea’s sweet perfume. He’d bet the fragrance had an optimistic name like Joy or Happy. He crossed to the other side of the kitchen.

“How do you know how to dress for the day if you can’t see outside?”

The question came out of the blue and had Logan’s usually quick tongue stalling on words for a couple of seconds. “I just wear jeans,” he finally answered, tugging the neck of his shirt.

“But—”

“Look, lady…Thea…deciding what to wear isn’t that big of a deal for me every morning.” His words were crisply delivered with just enough bite in them to have most people backing off. “We’ll do fine without you.”

Thea blinked, but didn’t retreat. “I would think that putting your clothes on right-side in or wrong-side out would be a big deal.”

Logan sucked on the inside of his cheek in an attempt to ignore the desire to yell. This woman was obviously a few volts shy of a full charge.

“Your T-shirt is on inside out,” she clarified. “And backward.”

That explained why his T-shirt seemed to be choking him. The heat of humiliation flushed uncomfortably under Logan’s skin, followed by a quick bolt of anger. He resisted the urge to tug the neck of his shirt again.

“Sometimes a little bit of light helps avoid embarrassment later.” Her smile was gentle, not triumphant, which was maddening considering he was itching for a good fight.

“I am not embarrassed.” To prove it, he stripped the shirt off in front of her, snapped it right-side out and pulled it back on. Then he stared at her and sucked on the inside of his cheek, waiting for her to lose her temper.

“Well—” she smiled easily as if they weren’t two strangers who’d just almost argued about something as inane as sunlight and inside-out shirts. “—about me staying…”

LOGAN MCCALL WAS out-of-her-league gorgeous.

Thea had been trying to make him laugh, or at least loosen him up so that he’d realize how much Tess and Hannah needed her here because he didn’t seem to want them. And then he’d gone and done that angry striptease and her mouth had gone dry.

He’d just ripped off his T-shirt to reveal a sculpted chest straight out of a magazine. Forget the Robert Redford comparison. The famous actor had never achieved such hard planes of muscle that tapered downward with a sprinkling of golden hair. And Thea had never come close to dating someone with such solid-looking arms, either.

With a physique like that, Logan must be the firefighter that carried damsels in distress out of windows or down ten flights of stairs without breaking a sweat. He had hero written all over that body. Why he acted more like a hermit living in a cave on a deserted island was beyond her.

Unfortunately, being a brooding hunk didn’t score points for Logan in the caregiver department, nor did the dark, sterile, incredibly uncluttered house. Thea sensed he cared for the twins. If he could just get past his grief, everything would be okay. But it had been more than half a year, and he appeared to be in a worse emotional state than Tess and Hannah. Leave them here with Logan, who could barely care for Glen? Thea’s conscience wouldn’t allow it.

“At this point, I’ll work for room and board, and gas money to get back to Seattle in May,” Thea offered.

She watched Logan pace the limits of the kitchen, wondering if she was pushing him over the edge or if he’d been dangling there these past few months. She hoped it wasn’t the latter.

Logan scowled at her. “You can’t stay.”

“Why not?”

“Because…because…” He looked stricken. “I don’t even know you.”

“But the girls do. I know they need family right now.” Thea’s throat clenched with the admission. “But they need some stability, too.”

“You can’t…I can’t…” He was all doom and gloom. He blew out a breath. “Look, I don’t think it would be good for Tess and Hannah if you stayed.” He wouldn’t look at her. “You’ve got those tests to study for and a life to get back to.”

“I understand. You’re all they have. Your sister would want you to take them,” Thea said because she did understand—she wasn’t wanted here. Still, she racked her brains for an argument he’d accept. She wouldn’t just walk away from the girls.

Logan’s keeping Tess and Hannah was almost as bad as Wes having them. And Logan wasn’t warm and fuzzy with the twins. Their reunion hadn’t been a happy one. Thea had listened on the other side of the kitchen door after the girls went into the living room. He’d been great with Glen, but he hadn’t lasted two minutes with his nieces.

Thea squared her shoulders and gave her foot a little shake, setting off her bells, trying to think happy thoughts. Logan wasn’t hopeless. He could learn how to be a dad. He’d get over his grief in time. And the temper? Well, he was a firefighter, wasn’t he? His temper couldn’t be that bad or they wouldn’t keep him on that Hot Shot crew.

“I’m sure you’ll be able to find a baby-sitter fairly quickly. Someone’s going to jump at a twenty-four-hour-a-day, seven-days-a-week job.” She curbed her smile.

“I’ve got Glen,” he said stubbornly.

Despite herself, Thea blurted, “Glen needs a baby-sitter of her own.”

It took Logan a moment to nod. “She’s been a little out of it lately, but she’s been grieving. She raised Deb and me.”

“You can’t be serious.” Thea had a vision of the fairy-tale house burning down. Logan needed a little less attitude and a lot more reality.

“She’s good with the girls,” he argued, as if that trumped whatever argument she might have. He set his jaw and did that thing with his cheek.

“I don’t doubt she loves Tess and Hannah. But I doubt a woman who can’t take care of herself—even the basics of bathing and going to the bathroom—will be able to take care of them.”

Logan drew back. “She does that.”

Laying a hand on Logan’s arm, Thea shook her head. “I’ve been making a shopping list. I put adult diapers on the list.”

He backed away, rubbing his biceps where she’d touched him as if burned. “Glen has been taking care of herself for years. She’s perfectly capable—”

“How do you know?” Irritated that he couldn’t see what was happening to Glen, Thea propped her fists on her hips.

“I ask…” His expression wavered. “When I hugged her—”

Thea met Logan’s gaze. The truth was going to hurt. “I helped her take a bath last night. Her clothes were stained and crusty, as if she’d been in them for days.”

Logan opened his mouth, closed it and then looked at her as if she’d boxed him into an unpleasant corner.

The fact that he planned to leave Glen in charge of Tess and Hannah only strengthened her resolve to stay. If she had to be blunt and rattle his beliefs, she would. The twins had been in her care for two months. She was responsible for them.

After a moment, he said, “I just don’t think this will work.”

The urge to shout some sense into him became almost palpable. Thea fought it. “Trust me, Glen can’t do this alone. Whoever helps you will be shopping, driving, cooking, cleaning and doing laundry, plus keeping the girls up with their schoolwork and watching out for Glen. It’s a full-time job.”

He sucked on his cheek, his eyes a well of unresolved sadness. For whatever reason, he didn’t want her.

The knowledge stung. It was as if she’d been unwanted and lacking her whole life, and this was the last straw.

“You’re going to make me beg, aren’t you?” Thea said half jokingly as she blinked back tears of regret for Glen, the twins and herself.

For a fleeting moment, he smiled.

Oh, my. Something warm and intimate fluttered in Thea’s belly.

He gave her a rueful look, innocent and heartrending at the same time.

“How about a compromise? I’ll ask the twins if they want me to stay. If they don’t, I’ll help you find a sitter and be out of your hair with no more than a small loan for gas money.”

“And if they do want you to stay?”

“I’m your new sitter until things settle down.” Thea tried to keep her voice from trembling. Staying wouldn’t help her studies or fulfill her promise to her mother. Yet, Thea knew in her heart that she’d fight to stay because it was the right thing to do.

“I’ve got another idea.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “I’m sure Glen’s going to come through. Since you seem so attached to the girls, I’ll let you stay a few days just to ease your mind.”

Thea didn’t understand why Logan was so reluctant to agree to her plan. Maybe her assessment of him as the hero who charged to the rescue had been in error. If so, she had just a few days to prove Tess and Hannah’s recalcitrant hero wrong.

“WHY IS SHE STILL HERE?” Tess wondered about Thea aloud. Tess didn’t understand why Thea hadn’t gone home. Sprawled across her bed, Tess stared at the ceiling while Hannah played with Whizzer on the floor between their two beds, talking to him as if he were a baby. “I know she wants to leave.”

“Maybe she doesn’t have anywhere to go,” Hannah answered.

Tess rolled over and faced the wall. “Who asked you?”

Uncle Logan didn’t seem to like Thea much. He frowned at Thea the way he frowned at Tess and Hannah. Well, mostly Tess.

Mrs. Garrett had told Thea that Uncle Logan would do anything for Tess and Hannah. Tess knew that wasn’t true. Uncle Logan was always grouchy and silent around them now. Nothing like the fun man who used to spoil them. Tess didn’t like him and didn’t know why anyone else would, either.

So why was Thea here?

“I hope Uncle Logan lets her leave Whizzer.” Hannah continued to talk baby talk to the dog.

Someone knocked on their bedroom door. Whizzer pranced over to it and scratched at the wood with his short little legs.

“I bet that’s her,” Tess whispered, rolling over. Something not so good happened in her stomach.

The door opened slowly on its creaky hinges and Thea poked her head in, those bells she always wore jingling. “I think we need to take Whizzer outside. He can’t hold it very long.”

“I’ll do it.” Hannah popped up.

“Just a second, Hannah. I have something to ask the two of you.”

Tess’s tummy clenched again. There was only one reason that adults wanted to talk to kids—bad news.

“Your uncle Logan invited me to stay for a few days. Before I say yes, I wanted to make sure it was okay with you girls. If you don’t want me to stay, you just say the word.”

Hannah picked up Whizzer. “Are you going to be Uncle Logan’s girlfriend?”

Thea opened her eyes really wide and shook her head quickly. “No.”

“Why would you want to stay here?” Tess asked. If Tess had her choice, she’d go stay with the Garretts…as long as it was okay with Heidi. Her mouth went dry. Well, maybe not the Garretts since she and Heidi weren’t talking. But she’d go anywhere there was a real family with a mom and a dad.

Tucking her hair behind her ear, Thea smiled. Thea’s smile made Tess’s stomach ease, but didn’t make the pain go away.

“I made a promise to take care of you. A promise is a very important thing. But I think you need to say yes.” Thea looked around. “I’ll be doing a lot of studying, but maybe we could sew something for your room.”

The way Thea talked had Tess wondering. Did Uncle Logan want her to stay?

“My mom used to sew,” Hannah said, wiping her nose. “She made us dresses once.”

Tess remembered. Her mother had sewn matching blue dresses with pink ribbons that the twins had worn on the first day of school in the third grade. That was when it was really cool to be Hannah’s twin. Now Tess wouldn’t wear the same color shirt Hannah was wearing, much less the same dress.

Thea’s smile faded and her voice got real soft. “I bet your mom did a lot of special things with you.”

Suddenly, Tess could barely fill her lungs with air. Her face started to feel numb and tingly. “Why are you being nice to us?”

Thea started to say something, but Tess drew in a shaky breath and cut her off. “You don’t have to be nice to us anymore. Ask Uncle Logan. We’re not nice.” That’s why no one wanted them.

“Hmm. Your aunt Glen thinks you’re nice.” Thea didn’t correct her or try to be too cheerful the way the teachers did at school when Tess talked back at them. She just looked…serious.

It would have been better if Thea had given her a fake smile or argued with her. Hannah was sniffing, crouched on the floor at her feet. Tess struggled not to cry.

“Tess, I’ve taken care of you for two months and I’ve never seen you do anything mean. I don’t think you realize what a special girl you are, how special you both are. You worked together to save Whizzer, didn’t you?”

When the door closed behind Thea and Whizzer, Tess wiped her nose, listening to Hannah cry. She couldn’t make herself reach down and touch her sister for fear she’d start crying herself and never stop. She ached with loneliness.

Why did Mom have to die?

THEA SAT on the front-porch step watching Whizzer make a frenzied circuit around the sun-dappled yard, but she was seeing something else. Her mind replayed memories of her own past—lying on her bed in a dark room and wondering how she’d make it through the next day without her mother. What would she have done if her father hadn’t wanted to take care of her? At ten, she’d been running the household, striving for perfection in the hopes that her father wouldn’t find fault with and abandon her, too. At ten, Tess and Hannah had gone in the opposite direction, withdrawing into shells so tight they might never open.

“Whizzer must be marking his territory against the raccoons,” Logan commented as he lowered himself onto the step next to her.

Lost in thought, Thea hadn’t heard Logan come outside. She hugged her knees tight as she attempted to push the painful childhood memories to the far corners of her mind, along with the strange flutter she got in her stomach from looking at Logan. Being attracted to him was almost more disconcerting than her memories. He’d already made it very clear he didn’t want her around.

“Should I be afraid of letting Whizzer out at night? He won’t get eaten or anything?” She’d only had the dog for a few days, but he now had a permanent place in her heart.

“Might.” He shrugged. “Cats need to be kept in at night, too. Not because of the raccoons, but because of coyotes and wolves.”

“Wolves.” Thea shivered.

“We’re out in the middle of the woods. This is their turf, not ours.” Anyone else would have smiled when they reminded Thea that she was in the midst of a forest. Not Logan. With the sun on the other side of the house, his face was cast in late-afternoon shadows.

She should have been put off by the closed, withdrawn expression he wore to cloak his grief. Instead, Thea’s heart went out to him once more. His distant demeanor was very hard on his nieces. It wouldn’t help them deal with the death of the most important person in their lives, or the apparent abandonment of their father. Thea had gone through counseling to deal with her own sense of loss and knew that Logan needed to talk about what had happened in order to move on. And if he didn’t move forward in the grieving process, he couldn’t help the girls.

In his isolated mountain home, Logan was clearly not working through his grief, hiding in the silence and darkness he so obviously craved. For some reason, Thea couldn’t shake the thought that Logan needed people to heal. The three of them—Logan, Tess and Hannah—stood a chance if he’d just open up.

“It seems a little lonely up here. No sirens. No music from your neighbor’s apartment. No garbage trucks lumbering by,” Thea said to fill the silence.

He looked at her shoes, before admitting, “Some call it peaceful.”

If it was peace he wanted, he wasn’t getting it from Thea. For two months, the twins had put up with her questions and stories. Maybe her efforts to draw them out weren’t successful, but Thea wasn’t going to stop trying.

“I once met a woman who couldn’t stand silence. She carried a Walkman everywhere she went, with just one earphone plugged in.” There. That ought to get a reaction out of him. Thea couldn’t resist staring at Logan.

Logan looked shell-shocked, and then he deadpanned, “What did she listen to? Religion? Talk radio?”

“Rap music.” Thea allowed herself a small smile at the memory of her grandmother. “She was a black belt and said it kept her on her toes.”

He rolled his eyes. “So, you’re saying silence is overrated?”

“For some people.”

“You, for instance. You’re never silent or still. Why is that?”

This was definitely going in a direction she wanted to avoid. She was who she was, and she didn’t want to explain herself to him. By rights, he shouldn’t want to pursue the subject, either. His house was silent as a tomb. “Were you close to Deb?”

Logan chewed on his cheek, making her wonder if he was going to answer. “Yeah,” he finally admitted.

“Was losing Deb…was it sudden?” The twins rarely spoke of her.

“We knew.” Two words spoken incredibly slowly, an indicator of his tremendous grief.

As he stood, Thea watched Logan erect barriers around himself as clearly as if they’d been made of brick. He was shutting her out.

“And Wes? Were he and Deb—”

“They were separated. He was never here. He never called.” Logan’s words were more guarded than usual. “When he showed up in November and wanted to take the girls, I knew it was wrong, but I couldn’t seem to stop him.”

Frowning, Thea rubbed her hands over her eyes. How horrible that must have been for Tess and Hannah, being passed along and cared for by two men who didn’t express their emotions easily. Thea’s father, a police detective, had been much the same.

“Are you staying or not?” There was no invitation in his tone.

“The girls warned me I wouldn’t like it here,” Thea hedged, filled with second thoughts. She didn’t really want to tiptoe through this family’s grief if it meant dredging up all of her own baggage. And yet, how could she not?

“Why did they warn you?” Logan hung his head and answered his own question. “Never mind. It was Tess, wasn’t it?”

Thea rushed to explain. “Tess was more curious as to why I’d want to stay than telling me I couldn’t.”

“I don’t know why you’d want to stay, either. I don’t know what I was thinking even offering to let you stay a few days. I would have run in the opposite direction if I were in your shoes.”

“Then why did you ask me?”

HE HESITATED. Why indeed?

Logan’s muscles bunched. Any more pressure and he just knew he’d crack. Deb. The twins. His leg. His entire body vibrated with the need for a release. Thea placed a hand on his arm. Her fingers were cool against his skin. Despite himself, the tension in Logan’s muscles eased.

“Do you want to tell me more about Deb?”

Looking into Thea’s solemn gaze, Logan wanted desperately to say no. Anything he said was just going to make him look weak. He had his rules, which was how he kept it all together.

Don’t talk about Deb. Don’t think about Deb.

With effort, he made his head move in something that might have resembled a stiff shake.

“I know it sounds like a cliché, but sometimes it helps to talk about it. Especially to a stranger.”

Logan’s lungs wouldn’t fill with air. Sister Mary Sunshine was here to fix him?

He swore.

At her.

Thea’s cheeks filled with color. “I shouldn’t have pried. I’m sorry.”

“You’re sorry.” His muscles tensed again.

“I was just trying to help. It’s like you’re wearing this sign that says go away, and yet underneath it you’ve written don’t go—”

“Like hell I did.”

“And I’m such a sucker for strays.” Her bells echoed on the porch, mocking his indignation.

What right did Thea have to be upset? Logan’s body began to shake. “I’m not asking for help and there’s no sign on me, clear?”

“Perfectly.”

“I could have sent you on your way first thing.” He should have brawled with Spider in Sun Valley. At least then he’d have taken the edge off.

“I appreciate it.”

She was almost infuriatingly polite. Logan flexed his fingers.

“Did you also try to fix Wes?”

Thea blinked, barely pausing. “No.”

She was cooler under fire than Logan would have thought for someone emitting all that color and noise. “So, based on a few hours with me, you’ve decided I need some therapy?”

“I think you need to talk about your feelings.” She straightened, looking aside. Her cheeks turned pink. “Yes.”

“And Wes didn’t.”

“No.” Her gaze rose to the stairs at his booted feet.

“Did you know that Wes can’t keep his wallet or his dick in his pants? He’s always broke and sleeping around. And you didn’t see any signs on him?”

She paled, looking at a point near his knee. “No.”

His throat threatened to close, but he forced the words out anyway. “Did you know that Wes Delaney is a heartless, selfish, son of a bitch who doesn’t care for his girls and didn’t care for my sister?”

“No.”

“Did you know that he left the day Deb was diagnosed with cancer, took all the money out of their bank account and disappeared? Leaving them no choice but to move in with me?”

“Or that when he showed up months later and took the girls that I didn’t raise a hand to stop him?” Logan leaned forward and raised his voice. “Knowing what I do about him, I still let them go. I’m just as low as him. Signs? I’ll tell you what you can do with your signs.”

“Is that true? About the girls?” Thea didn’t back down, but she wasn’t in his face, either—surprising, because most women didn’t let the door hit them on the way out after he unleashed just a hint of his temper.

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