Twin Blessings and Toward Home: Twin Blessings / Toward Home

“What was Plan B?”

Brittany giggled. “Same as Plan A.”

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

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

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

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

Chapter Three

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

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

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

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

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

A concept Logan could entirely sympathize with.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bingo.

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

The girls giggled.

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

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

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

“We didn’t even need to sneak.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Will we see you before we go?”

“When are you leaving?” Sandra asked.

“In a couple of days.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Choose the battles you want to win.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So what did he have to lose?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Sure.”

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

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

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

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

“And if I don’t like your methods?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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