Twin Blessings and Toward Home: Twin Blessings / Toward Home

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Logan nodded, pretending to understand.

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

“I got foiled by the foil.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Do you do other work besides this?”

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

“For homes?”

“No. Churches.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“What did you do on Hornby Island?”

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

“Did you make a living at it?”

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

“Do you enjoy it?”

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

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

She dismissed the questions and their nugget of truth.

“I like it,” she admitted. “Usually.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He wouldn’t understand, she thought.

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

“You’re good at it.”

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

“Why not?”

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

“Meaning?”

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

Logan held her gaze, his expression unreadable.

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

“No, it isn’t,” she answered with a little more force than the comment required.

“What would be your ideal job, then?”

Sandra looked away, pulling the corner of her lower lip between her teeth. She wasn’t sure. She had spent so much time figuring out what she didn’t want to do that she hadn’t formulated a clear plan of what she did want. The past few years had been a whirl of trying and discarding.

“I’m sure your girlfriend Karen is the kind of person who has her life all figured out. I’m not like that.”

Logan tipped his eyebrows. “She’s not my girlfriend.”

Why did that simple statement ease a small measure of the loneliness that had gripped her on Sunday?

“I…I’m not sure what my ideal job would be,” Sandra said quickly, looking away. “I haven’t found it yet.”

“That’s too bad, Sandra. I think you have a lot of potential.”

Then, taking a final sip of his lemonade, he got up. He set his cup down, hooked his thumbs in the tops of his pants pockets, one corner of his mouth caught between his teeth. He looked as if he wanted to say something else. “Thanks for the lemonade.” He tilted her a halfhearted grin and went to the back room to get the girls.

Sandra hugged herself, watching him go, wondering why she had said what she did. It was as if she was determined to keep him at arm’s length.

And she should. He’s an architect, she reminded herself. A secure, solid, hardworking architect who lives for schedules and routine.

A man who took good care of the women in his life—his nieces, his mother.

A man who probably would never do to Karen what Henri had done to her, she thought with a faint feeling of remorse.

And in spite of his comment about Karen, a man who would be out of her life once they all went back to Calgary, she reminded herself. She and Logan moved in different circles. Only for this moment had their lives intersected.

The girls gave her noisy goodbyes as they left. Logan ushered them out the door. In the doorway he turned to face her. “Thanks for working with them tonight.” Still holding on to the door, his eyes met hers.

Once again, Sandra had that peculiar feeling of an intangible allurement that tightened between them, drawing her toward him.

She looked away and nodded. Her only reply.

The door closed, and Sandra was alone again. As she heard the girls’ excited chatter and Logan’s deep voice fading away, it was as if the house had grown smaller, emptier.

Restless, Sandra got up, went to the stereo and turned it up. Unfamiliar music spilled out of the speakers. Bethany’s CD, Sandra remembered. She was about to turn it down but was stopped by the music. Upbeat and catchy. She found herself tapping her fingers against her leg in time to the beat.

The singer sang the words with an absoluteness that Sandra would once have dismissed as narrow-minded, but the sincerity in her voice kept Sandra from turning the song off.

In the lyrics of the song Sandra heard a call back to the faith of her youth, a call to come and worship Jesus as Lord, a challenge that one day every tongue would confess God, every knee would bow.

Sandra felt a shiver of apprehension followed by a pressing of guilt and sorrow as the music swelled, built in intensity, the singer drawing Sandra in.

She felt a touch of God’s hand. Just like she did when she was outside, when she looked into the heavens and knew for certainty that the vastness and the order she saw there didn’t come through happenstance.

She hit the power button and turned the music off. Standing alone in the empty room, Sandra closed her eyes as the now familiar loneliness washed over her.

Home, she thought. She wished she could go home.

But that was out of the question.

“He hasn’t kissed her yet,” Brittany whispered to her sister, setting the plates on the table.

Bethany spun around, still holding the utensils she had pulled out of the drawer. “How do you know?”

Brittany glanced over her shoulder and tiptoed to the door. But Uncle Logan was still in the shower.

“I watched them last night. They were just sitting and talking.” She shook her head in disgust. “This is taking forever.”

Bethany carefully set the knives beside the plates Brittany had laid out. “We just have to wait, I guess.”

“I wish I knew if that Karen was going to come back.”

Bethany shuddered. “She really likes Uncle Logan. I wish she’d leave him alone.”

“Well, I don’t think he likes her much. He never even held her hand when they were walking.”

“So we have to keep getting Sandra and Uncle Logan together,” said Bethany with a sigh. “We don’t have much longer.”

“Good morning, girls,” Logan said from the doorway, toweling his wet hair. “You’re up bright and early.”

Brittany threw Bethany a guilty look, wondering if Uncle Logan had heard what they said. She looked at him, smiling, hoping he didn’t. “Just thought we’d get up early so we can do some schoolwork.”

Logan paused, holding the towel, looking at Brittany as if he didn’t quite believe her. “You’re doing homework in the morning?”

Brittany nodded. “Sandra gave us a contest. She said if we get our work done by tonight, she was going to take us out to look at the meteor shower.” She stopped. “Oops. I wasn’t supposed to tell you.”

“You weren’t?” Logan hung on to his towel, his dark eyes flicking over one, then the other twin. “Why not?”

“I think it was a secret,” Brittany said, biting her lip.

Logan nodded once, then left.

“Do you think he was mad?” Bethany asked, her eyes wide. “He sounded mad.”

Brittany shrugged. “I hope not. Otherwise Sandra might get in trouble with him again.”

Logan stood by the window watching as Sandra came up the road to the cabin, her knapsack slung over one shoulder, her hands shoved in the pockets of her faded blue jeans. She wore her hair back, tied in a heavy braid that hung over one shoulder.

She looked much younger than he knew her to be. More like an older sister of his nieces than their tutor.

Mentally he compared her to Karen, whose clothing was always up to date, polished.

Once he had envisioned Karen as a potential wife, the perfect complement to an up-and-coming architect.

But after seeing Karen on Sunday and spending time with her again, he knew that even though she seemed more than willing to come back to him, he wasn’t ready to take her. Nothing in his circumstances had changed. He still had the girls, and she still wasn’t comfortable around them.

Whereas Sandra had an ease and naturalness that he admired, in spite of questionable characteristics that he didn’t. Like keeping tonight’s excursion a big secret from him.

As Sandra came up the wooden sidewalk to the cabin, Logan stepped away from the window hoping she hadn’t seen him. When she knocked on the door, he was already there, opening it for her.

She looked taken aback at the sight of him, then recovered. “Hey, there. How are you?” she asked, stepping past him. “The girls ready for another day of education?”

Logan nodded, wondering how he was going to approach her. It seemed that just as one thing was resolved between them, something else came up.

He decided to go straight to it.

“Brittany told me about your plans to see the meteor shower tonight.”

Sandra nodded, shrugging her knapsack off her shoulder. “That’s right.”

“She said that you had asked her not to tell me. I’d like to know why you don’t think I need to be consulted about this.”

Sandra let the knapsack drop with a muffled thud and looked directly at him, all traces of good humor vanished. “Is this going to go on until I’m done, Logan Napier?” she asked, her voice chilled. “This constant questioning and mistrusting and wondering if I’m good enough?” She began pulling books out of her backpack, her movements jerky with anger. “I’m taking my job with them very seriously.” She slammed a book on the table. “I’m not some heathen that is determined to turn your nieces astray. They’re learning things and I’m doing a good job.” Another book joined the first with a heavy thump. She threw a fistful of pencils on the table.

Logan watched her sudden spill of anger, heard the indignation in her voice. It seemed out of proportion to what he had asked her, and for a moment he wondered what was behind her anger. He forced his mind to the topic at hand.

“You have to admit, Sandra, I have a right to know what’s happening,” he said quietly, leaning against the door. “All I ask is that you let me know.”

Sandra’s gaze flew to his, her dark eyes snapping with suppressed indignation. She blinked, then looked at the books on the table. “I’m sorry,” she said, straightening them, tidying the pencils. She took a slow breath, pulling her hands over her face as if to erase the anger he had seen etched there a moment ago. “I told Brittany not to say anything so that I could ask you. I wasn’t trying to hide anything from you. I was going to ask you last night, but I forgot.”

She stood by the table, looking straight ahead, avoiding his gaze. “I’m sorry that you thought that of me.”

Logan felt a flicker of guilt mixed with sympathy for her and wondered once again at the mystery that eddied around her. He walked to her side and gently laid his hand on her shoulder, feeling the warmth of her skin through the thin T-shirt she wore. “I’m sorry, too, Sandra,” he said. “I guess I just jumped to the wrong conclusion.”

“You seem to do that often.” She looked at him, her chin up.

“I know.” Logan squeezed her shoulder. He told himself it was his way of apologizing, but he enjoyed the brief contact too much for that. He had to resist the urge to let his hand linger, to toy with the hank of hair that lay inches from his hand.

He stepped back, momentarily shaken by his feelings.

“So when do you plan on doing this?” he asked, hoping his voice sounded normal.

“I thought we could go out tonight.” Sandra angled him a quick look over her shoulder. Their eyes held a moment, and Logan found himself unable to break the brief contact.

“I was going to walk to the hill behind your cabin. There’s a better place farther along, but it’s not within walking distance.” She returned his smile, and Logan felt a faint twist in his midsection.

He nodded, picking up on her vaguely worded hint.

“In other words, you need a vehicle.”

She nodded, then to his surprise said, “But you can come along if you want.”

“That would be nice,” he said, their gazes still locked.

Then she looked away, breaking the insidious connection, leaving Logan to wonder if she was as shaken at the contact as he had been.

Chapter Seven

“Why did you ask him to come?” Sandra muttered to herself, hunching her shoulders deeper in the light jacket she had thrown on. She strode down the darkened streets to the Napier cabin. “He’s pushy and he’ll only criticize what you do.” But even as she tried to list all the reasons she shouldn’t have asked Logan along, she knew there were deeper reasons. Reasons she didn’t want to delve too far into for fear of making them too real.

She was becoming attracted to Logan Napier.

Sandra stopped, biting her lip as she considered her position. She could cancel. She could turn around and change her mind. It was, after all, one-thirty in the morning. Surely they wouldn’t mind missing out.

But Sandra had promised the girls this event as a reward for all their hard work during the week, and they were looking forward to it with an amazing amount of enthusiasm. She didn’t think girls the age of Bethany and Brittany would be interested in meteor showers. Asking Logan along had been a silly impulse. This morning, when he had put his hand on her shoulder, it was as if every nerve in her body swung like a compass needle toward his touch.