Kitabı oku: «Twin Blessings and Toward Home: Twin Blessings / Toward Home», sayfa 2

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 had not been a good day, and right now he was all out of magical patience.

Brittany slowly tilted her head as if searching for some kind of answer.

Logan didn’t wait for her to find it. “You and Bethany had better hustle yourselves back upstairs and start packing. We’re leaving for Calgary tomorrow.”

“What?” The word spilled out of both girls’ mouths at the same time.

“We can’t go now…You promised…You said we’d stay here all summer.” Their sentences tumbled over and through each other.

“We’ve only been here a couple of weeks,” Bethany wailed.

Logan glanced at the more docile of the pair, and he felt the hard edges of his anger blur. “Sorry, hon. You guys had your chance and you blew it. We’re going back.”

“We didn’t know it was a test,” Brittany cried, her blue eyes glistening.

“It wasn’t a test,” Logan growled, trying manfully to face down the tears that spilled down both their cheeks. “I don’t want to stay here, your grandmother has decided to chase some dream, and you chased off your last tutor, so you have to come back with me.”

“But why can’t Sandra teach us?” Bethany sniffed, wiping away her tears with the back of her hand. She sat down on the lowest step, still sniffling.

Logan sighed, plowing his hand through his hair. He could feel himself wavering and knew he shouldn’t. He could deal with upstart contractors and rude co-workers, but his nieces’ tears always unmanned him.

“Because I don’t think she is capable. That’s why.”

“But we had hoped to stay. We haven’t been here since Mom and Dad…” Brittany’s voice broke, and she sat beside her sister, pressing her hands against her face, unable to finish.

Logan’s heart melted completely. It had been eighteen months since the girls’ parents were killed. This summer was the first time they had come back to this place where they and their parents would often stop by on their way to the next destination. It was one of the few constants in their childhood.

It had been difficult enough for him to lose his sister. He couldn’t imagine how hard it was for them to lose both parents. And now he was going to take them away from the one place they had fond memories of.

He sat on the step between the girls and put his arms awkwardly around their narrow shoulders. “Oh, sweeties,” he said, stroking their arms, wishing he knew exactly what to say. Brittany leaned against him, sniffing loudly.

“Can we stay just for a little while?” Brittany murmured.

Logan considered his options as he drew her close. He had counted on staying here and working for a couple of weeks anyhow. It would take at least a couple of days to find another tutor, even if he did leave tomorrow. Which meant he would be stuck with two cranky girls in a condo in Calgary.

Hold your ground, he reminded himself. Don’t let them think all they have to do is cry and they can get their way.

But while the rational part of his mind argued the point, his shirt was getting damp from his nieces’ tears. Tears that he knew were genuine.

“I suppose we could stay here for a little while.” He relented, ignoring a riffle of panic. He had three weeks to brainstorm an idea for a house, do a drawing and create blueprints, then another week to build a model of the idea.

The biggest hitch in all of this was that he didn’t have an idea.

You don’t have time for this, the sane part of his mind said.

“For a little while? Really?” Bethany lifted her head as a tear slid silently down her cheek.

Logan sighed, bent over and dropped a light kiss on her head. “Yes, really.”

He was rewarded with a feeble smile.

“Thank you, Uncle Logan,” Bethany said, wiping her cheeks as she sat up.

“But I need your help.” He tried to sound stern. “No fooling around. Just do what I ask.”

“So that means no schoolwork?” Brittany asked.

Logan sighed. “No. It means I’ll have to help you with it until we get back to Calgary. I’m going to start looking for a tutor right away.”

Brittany’s face fell. “And what about Sandra?”

“I told you already, she is not teaching you. And I’m not going to talk about it while we’re here.”

He almost missed the glint in Bethany’s eye as she glanced at her sister. But as she looked at him, her blue eyes guileless as ever, he figured he must have imagined it.

“And there’s no way I could get an advance from you?” Sandra bit her lip as she heard what she knew she would. The restaurant would absolutely not give her a dime until she delivered twenty lamps as promised. She knew that, but thought she would give it a try. “Thanks, then. No, there’s no problem. I have other resources,” she lied. She hung up the phone.

“I’m not going to worry, I’m not going to worry,” Sandra muttered as she grabbed her sweater and slipped it over her shoulders. Trouble was, try as she might, she couldn’t stifle the panic that fluttered in her chest.

After months of work and inexpert marketing, she had gotten the first break with her stained glass work. A restaurant in Calgary had ordered twenty lamp-shades. If they liked her work, she had a good chance to make more for some of their other locations.

Trouble was she was desperately short of money. The unexpected move here from Saltspring Island in British Columbia had cut into her meager savings. She had one month’s rent paid on the cabin, and Cora, her friend and roommate, was nowhere to be found.

Working for Florence Napier had been the blessing she had been looking for.

And now that was over, too. Her broken-down car wouldn’t even allow her to work in Medicine Hat.

Sandra took a deep breath, then another, hoping the mad flutters in her heart would settle once she started on her usual evening walk.

Outside, the sun’s penetrating warmth had softened and a faint breeze wafted off the lake.

Sandra paused, letting the evening quiet soothe her.

Except it didn’t.

She buttoned her sweater and started down the street toward the boardwalk that edged the beach and followed the lake. Her steady tread on the boards echoed hollowly, creating a familiar rhythm.

What to do, what to do, what to do.

Phone home?

The thought slipped insidiously through her subconscious. She let it drift a moment, then pushed it ruthlessly aside.

Phone home and hear how useless she was? Phone home and hear, “Why don’t you do anything constructive with that education degree I paid so much money for?”

Sandra shivered, even though it was warm. Conforming was the way things happened in her home. Conform and you get to come along on promised trips. Conform and your education will be paid for. Conform and Father would deign to talk to you. Sandra conformed, trying in vain to live up to the expectations of a father who was never satisfied. She got her degree, and as soon as she could, she fled. All the way to Vancouver Island.

Five years and a hundred experiences later, Sandra’s flight from conformity had washed her up here, in Cypress Hills, a four-hour drive from where she started, flat broke with a roommate who had flittered off again.

The evening breeze picked up a little, riffling the water and teasing her hair. Sandra sucked in another breath and squared her shoulders. She wasn’t going to give up. Not yet.

She ambled along the boardwalk, her arms wrapped around herself. Life was still good, she thought, raising her face to the unbearable blue of the Alberta sky. She was still alive and still free, and no one could put a price on that.

“Hey, Sandra.”

Sandra lowered her head, wondering who had called her. She looked around and saw Bethany and Brittany sitting on a bench, swinging their legs.

“Hey, yourself.” She walked over, happy to see these two very rambunctious girls. “You out on the town tonight?”

Brittany glanced at Bethany, then at Sandra. “Yup. Uncle Logan is buying us an ice cream.”

“Then I’d better leave you alone.” The last thing Sandra wanted was to come face to face with Logan only half a day after being fired by him.

“Here you are, girls.” Logan’s deep voice sounded behind her, and Sandra whirled.

Logan looked up and halted, his expression unreadable. “Hello, Sandra,” he said, his steady gaze flicking to his nieces and then to her.

“Don’t worry,” she said crisply. “I haven’t had a chance to really corrupt them yet.”

Logan said nothing as he handed the cones to the girls. “Why don’t you take a walk, Bethany? Brittany?”

The girls giggled and scampered down the beach toward the water.

“I don’t think we have anything more to say to each other, Mr. Napier,” Sandra said, wrapping her sweater around her. She forced herself to meet his hazel eyes and not to be moved by his casual good looks. A man who wore khaki pants to the beach, whose hair never looked messy, who drove a minivan was exactly the kind of guy her father would love. A conformist. Stifling.

Logan’s gaze was steady as he slipped his hands into his back pockets. “I’m sorry that you lost the job—”

“You made me lose the job, Mr. Napier.”

“Fair enough. I’m just sorry that it didn’t work out.”

“It didn’t work out because you chose not to let it,” Sandra snapped. “You’ve got your own ideas about who and what I am—”

“I got my ideas from what you told me.”

“And based on that you know who I am?”

“Based on what you told me, I’m making a guess.” Logan rocked slightly on his heels, still watching her with that unnerving gaze. “I don’t think I’m too far off. I have my nieces to think of.”

Sandra tried not to get defensive, but she couldn’t help it. Everything about him seemed to condemn her out of hand. “Implying that I’m not going to contribute to their well-being.”

“Why does this matter so much to you?”

Sandra wasn’t sure. It was more than needing the job. Maybe it was because Logan personified the very thing she had been running from, and his judgment stung her pride. Maybe it was because even after spending a couple of days with Brittany and Bethany she was getting attached to the two girls who had lost so much.

Or maybe it was panic at the idea that she had tried to live her life on her own and losing even this small job proved to her the magnitude of her failure.

But Logan didn’t need to have one more thing to judge her by. Didn’t need to know precisely how close to the bone she was living right now.

“It doesn’t matter,” she said quietly, turning away. She took a few steps down the boardwalk, then heard Logan call her.

She didn’t want to turn but couldn’t stop herself.

“Yes?” she asked, forcing a casual tone to her voice.

“Nothing,” he said, lifting his hand as if in surrender. “I’m sorry.”

Sandra just nodded and walked on.

“So now what are we going to do?” whispered Brittany as she and Bethany huddled beside each other on the floor of their bedroom. Their lights were out. Below them, they could hear the faint tapping of Uncle Logan’s computer keys.

“I thought for sure he would like her,” Bethany said wistfully. “And now we have to leave.”

Brittany flapped her hand. “So, we’ll just have to go ahead with Plan B, I guess.”

“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.