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
