She knocked, hesitant at first, then angry with her indecisiveness, knocking harder the second time.
The door opened almost immediately, making Sandra wonder if he had been watching to see if she would come to the house.
Logan stood framed by the open door. He looked as conservative as he had when he picked her up. Khaki pants, a cotton button-down shirt. All he was missing was a pair of glasses and a pocket protector.
“Hi,” she said with a forced jocularity. “You know who I am. Now you know what I am.”
Logan wasn’t smiling, however. “Come on in, Sandra. We need to talk.”
Sandra knew that though she may have weaseled a smile out of him this afternoon, she probably wouldn’t now.
Chapter Two
As Sandra walked past him, Logan caught his mother’s concerned look. But Florence stayed where she was.
He wasn’t surprised that his mother didn’t come rushing in to support the person she had hired. Confrontation wasn’t Florence’s style.
Logan closed the door quietly and turned to face Sandra. She wore a dress with short sleeves. Demure and much more suited to a teacher than the shorts and tank top she had on this afternoon. She had tied up her hair earlier into some kind of braid, finishing the picture.
“Are the girls around?” Sandra asked, her hands clasped in front of her.
“They’re upstairs, I think. They haven’t dared to come down yet.” Logan rested his hands on his hips as he studied her. She was as pretty as before, but definitely not the type of girl he wanted teaching his flighty nieces. They needed an older, stronger influence.
“Do I pass?” she asked suddenly, her brown eyes narrowed.
Logan held her gaze. “I’m sorry to tell you this, Sandra, but you don’t have a job. The girls and I are heading back to Calgary tomorrow.”
“I thought they were staying here for the summer.”
“They were.” Logan put emphasis on the last word. “But their antics and those of my mother have proved to me that they are better off in Calgary where I can keep a close eye on them.” It wasn’t what he wanted at all, but he certainly wasn’t going to leave them with someone like her.
“Your mother hired me to teach the girls for the rest of the summer. We had an agreement.”
Logan heard the contentious tone in her voice but wasn’t moved by it. “I’m the legal guardian of these girls, and I’m the one who has to make decisions that I think are best for them. Not my mother.”
“And you wouldn’t consider letting the girls stay and having me tutor them?”
Logan shook his head. His nieces had spent enough of their life living around unsuitable people when their parents were alive, carting them around from boat race to boat race. It had taken him a couple of months just to get them into a normal household routine, let alone a schoolwork one. The last thing he wanted was for all his careful and loving work to be undone by someone whose character he knew precious little of. A woman whose first impression was hardly stellar.
“So you’re dismissing me out of hand.” Her voice rose ever so slightly. “Without even considering my credentials as a teacher.”
“What references do you have? Have you ever worked as a teacher since you graduated?”
“No, I haven’t.”
“So what have you done?”
Sandra said nothing, and Logan couldn’t help but remember her casual comments about work as they had driven here.
“I’m sorry, Sandra,” he said. “I have to make a judgment call in this situation.”
“Does this have anything to do with the fact that I was hitchhiking this afternoon?”
Logan didn’t know what to say. Should he tell an untruth or be bluntly honest?
She laughed shortly. “I can’t believe this. I’m perfectly qualified….” She let the sentence slide off.
Logan’s shoulders lifted in a sigh as he shoved his hands in the pockets of his pants. “I didn’t interview you, Sandra. I had chosen another eminently qualified tutor…”
“I have a Bachelor of Education degree,” Sandra stated. “With a major in history and a minor in English. Nothing wrong with that, I’m sure.”
Logan bristled at her tone. “I have my nieces’ well-being to consider, besides their education.”
Sandra held his steady gaze, then her eyes drifted away. “I see.” She darted another angry look his way. “Then I’ll be on my way.” She strode past him and out of the house.
Logan watched her go, fighting a moment’s panic. It would solve so many things if he were to let the girls stay with Sandra. He was in the middle of a hugely important project and he needed all the free time he could get.
But common sense made him keep his mouth shut. Common sense and an innate concern for his nieces. They needed stability and a firm hand. Something that had been sorely lacking in their life.
And, when he was younger, his own.
Logan spent his teen years moving from school to school, dragged across the country by parents searching for the elusive perfect job.
Education wasn’t taken seriously in this branch of the Napier family, and as a consequence Logan and his sister Linda’s schooling suffered. Always behind academically, Logan dedicated every spare moment to catching up, to striving to get out of the rut his parents seemed willing to flow along in. Then, when Logan was in high school, his father died and Florence Napier was forced to settle down for a while.
During this time Logan pulled himself out of the endless routine of constant movement. He applied himself to finishing high school and going to college. Six years ago he graduated with his degree and was much happier than he had ever been during his aimless childhood.
However, Linda, the twins’ mother, had been caught up in the same ceaseless wandering, hooking up and marrying a man who raced speedboats for thrills and the occasional cash prize. An aquatic cowboy who didn’t know where his own parents were. Brittany and Bethany were headed in the same direction until a tragic accident claimed Logan’s sister and her husband’s life. To his mother’s surprise Logan had been named not only guardian but also executor of the small estate the girls had inherited.
Bethany and Brittany’s arrival changed everything in Logan’s life, but he was determined to do right by them. To take care of them. To make sure that any influence in their life was positive and stable.
A young woman like Sandra Bachman was not the kind of person he wanted tutoring these impressionable young girls.
With a sigh and another quick prayer, he turned to the next task at hand.
“Okay, girls. You can stop listening in and come down.”
Two heads popped above the blanket draped over the balustrade of the loft. Both blond, both cute, both looking slightly chastened.
Brittany, the bolder of the two, bounced down the stairs as only a young girl could and landed in front of him, her hands tucked in the pockets of her very baggy white pants. Bethany followed a few paces behind, looking a little more subdued than her counterpart.
Brittany lifted her shoulders, looking genuinely puzzled. “So I guess you came here earlier than you figured. Are you sure you don’t want to stay for a while?”
Logan shook his head slowly, as if for emphasis. “I have a special project I need to work on. You know work? The thing that keeps you in those ridiculous clothes?” He pressed his lips together, frustrated at the anger that had surged to the fore. But today