The Family Man. Melinda Curtis

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СКАЧАТЬ as if he were a baby. “I know she wants to leave.”

      “Maybe she doesn’t have anywhere to go,” Hannah answered.

      Tess rolled over and faced the wall. “Who asked you?”

      Uncle Logan didn’t seem to like Thea much. He frowned at Thea the way he frowned at Tess and Hannah. Well, mostly Tess.

      Mrs. Garrett had told Thea that Uncle Logan would do anything for Tess and Hannah. Tess knew that wasn’t true. Uncle Logan was always grouchy and silent around them now. Nothing like the fun man who used to spoil them. Tess didn’t like him and didn’t know why anyone else would, either.

      So why was Thea here?

      “I hope Uncle Logan lets her leave Whizzer.” Hannah continued to talk baby talk to the dog.

      Someone knocked on their bedroom door. Whizzer pranced over to it and scratched at the wood with his short little legs.

      “I bet that’s her,” Tess whispered, rolling over. Something not so good happened in her stomach.

      The door opened slowly on its creaky hinges and Thea poked her head in, those bells she always wore jingling. “I think we need to take Whizzer outside. He can’t hold it very long.”

      “I’ll do it.” Hannah popped up.

      “Just a second, Hannah. I have something to ask the two of you.”

      Tess’s tummy clenched again. There was only one reason that adults wanted to talk to kids—bad news.

      “Your uncle Logan invited me to stay for a few days. Before I say yes, I wanted to make sure it was okay with you girls. If you don’t want me to stay, you just say the word.”

      Hannah picked up Whizzer. “Are you going to be Uncle Logan’s girlfriend?”

      Thea opened her eyes really wide and shook her head quickly. “No.”

      “Why would you want to stay here?” Tess asked. If Tess had her choice, she’d go stay with the Garretts…as long as it was okay with Heidi. Her mouth went dry. Well, maybe not the Garretts since she and Heidi weren’t talking. But she’d go anywhere there was a real family with a mom and a dad.

      Tucking her hair behind her ear, Thea smiled. Thea’s smile made Tess’s stomach ease, but didn’t make the pain go away.

      “I made a promise to take care of you. A promise is a very important thing. But I think you need to say yes.” Thea looked around. “I’ll be doing a lot of studying, but maybe we could sew something for your room.”

      The way Thea talked had Tess wondering. Did Uncle Logan want her to stay?

      “My mom used to sew,” Hannah said, wiping her nose. “She made us dresses once.”

      Tess remembered. Her mother had sewn matching blue dresses with pink ribbons that the twins had worn on the first day of school in the third grade. That was when it was really cool to be Hannah’s twin. Now Tess wouldn’t wear the same color shirt Hannah was wearing, much less the same dress.

      Thea’s smile faded and her voice got real soft. “I bet your mom did a lot of special things with you.”

      Suddenly, Tess could barely fill her lungs with air. Her face started to feel numb and tingly. “Why are you being nice to us?”

      Thea started to say something, but Tess drew in a shaky breath and cut her off. “You don’t have to be nice to us anymore. Ask Uncle Logan. We’re not nice.” That’s why no one wanted them.

      “Hmm. Your aunt Glen thinks you’re nice.” Thea didn’t correct her or try to be too cheerful the way the teachers did at school when Tess talked back at them. She just looked…serious.

      It would have been better if Thea had given her a fake smile or argued with her. Hannah was sniffing, crouched on the floor at her feet. Tess struggled not to cry.

      “Tess, I’ve taken care of you for two months and I’ve never seen you do anything mean. I don’t think you realize what a special girl you are, how special you both are. You worked together to save Whizzer, didn’t you?”

      When the door closed behind Thea and Whizzer, Tess wiped her nose, listening to Hannah cry. She couldn’t make herself reach down and touch her sister for fear she’d start crying herself and never stop. She ached with loneliness.

      Why did Mom have to die?

      THEA SAT on the front-porch step watching Whizzer make a frenzied circuit around the sun-dappled yard, but she was seeing something else. Her mind replayed memories of her own past—lying on her bed in a dark room and wondering how she’d make it through the next day without her mother. What would she have done if her father hadn’t wanted to take care of her? At ten, she’d been running the household, striving for perfection in the hopes that her father wouldn’t find fault with and abandon her, too. At ten, Tess and Hannah had gone in the opposite direction, withdrawing into shells so tight they might never open.

      “Whizzer must be marking his territory against the raccoons,” Logan commented as he lowered himself onto the step next to her.

      Lost in thought, Thea hadn’t heard Logan come outside. She hugged her knees tight as she attempted to push the painful childhood memories to the far corners of her mind, along with the strange flutter she got in her stomach from looking at Logan. Being attracted to him was almost more disconcerting than her memories. He’d already made it very clear he didn’t want her around.

      “Should I be afraid of letting Whizzer out at night? He won’t get eaten or anything?” She’d only had the dog for a few days, but he now had a permanent place in her heart.

      “Might.” He shrugged. “Cats need to be kept in at night, too. Not because of the raccoons, but because of coyotes and wolves.”

      “Wolves.” Thea shivered.

      “We’re out in the middle of the woods. This is their turf, not ours.” Anyone else would have smiled when they reminded Thea that she was in the midst of a forest. Not Logan. With the sun on the other side of the house, his face was cast in late-afternoon shadows.

      She should have been put off by the closed, withdrawn expression he wore to cloak his grief. Instead, Thea’s heart went out to him once more. His distant demeanor was very hard on his nieces. It wouldn’t help them deal with the death of the most important person in their lives, or the apparent abandonment of their father. Thea had gone through counseling to deal with her own sense of loss and knew that Logan needed to talk about what had happened in order to move on. And if he didn’t move forward in the grieving process, he couldn’t help the girls.

      In his isolated mountain home, Logan was clearly not working through his grief, hiding in the silence and darkness he so obviously craved. For some reason, Thea couldn’t shake the thought that Logan needed people to heal. The three of them—Logan, Tess and Hannah—stood a chance if he’d just open up.

      “It seems a little lonely up here. No sirens. No music from your neighbor’s apartment. No garbage trucks lumbering by,” Thea said to fill the silence.

      He looked at her shoes, before admitting, “Some call it peaceful.”

      If СКАЧАТЬ