Carolyne Aarsen - Twin Blessings and Toward Home - Twin Blessings / Toward Home

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

“And if I don’t like your methods?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Could we go there?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“We’ll be ready.”

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

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

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

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

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

The girls groaned in sympathy.

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

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