Twin Wishes. Kathryn Alexander

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СКАЧАТЬ Betty,” Maggie remarked as she watched their director getting out of her vehicle. “She had dinner last night with Warren again. That’s the third evening this week they’ve been out together. Maybe Warren Sinclair would be a good man for Luke to meet. You know what I mean, Julianne? Warren lost his wife about a year ago, and he’s been able to get on with his life.”

      Julianne sighed and walked through the heavy wooden door. Arguing this matter with Maggie was obviously hopeless until Maggie actually started listening, and Julianne had work to do before her classroom was invaded by four-year-olds.

      A short time later, a light rap on Julianne’s classroom door alerted her to the fact she’d neglected to open the door for the parents to enter.

      “Miss Quinn?” It was Luke O’Hara’s voice. Low and quiet. Just like it had been on the phone last night.

      Julianne pulled the door open the rest of the way. “Come on in, Mr. O’Hara. Good morning, kids. How are you today?”

      “Okay,” Nora and Todd answered almost simultaneously as they burst through the door and ran toward the play area in the rear of the classroom. “Let’s get the animals out,” Nora suggested, and Todd followed her lead.

      “They’ve been up for over an hour,” Luke remarked, watching his kids begin busily playing with toys they’d grown accustomed to in only one day. “They really seem to like it here.” He looked from his active children to the young woman who had made them feel comfortable and accepted yesterday—enough so that they were anxious to return again today. So, this Julianne Quinn that his sister had bragged about might really be as good with children as Maggie claimed she was. She’d certainly worked wonders with his twins the first day. Maybe it was that soft voice, he considered. That same thought had occurred to him last night when they’d talked briefly on the phone. Julianne had a soothing manner in the way she spoke. It was something the children could respond to favorably. Who wouldn’t? he wondered momentarily, then dismissed the thought. He had a busy schedule today. There wasn’t enough extra time in his day to ponder the qualities that made Miss Quinn a good teacher. “I’ll be back around four-thirty this afternoon,” he stated matter-of-factly.

      “All right, Mr. O’Hara. We’ll look for you then,” Julianne replied and smiled at the tall man who stayed near the door as he watched his kids play. His hair was combed casually to the side and slightly windblown, Julianne noticed. She had this unexplainable urge to reach up and smooth it back into place. The thought startled her, and she glanced nervously away from Luke. Maybe she’d been listening to too much of Maggie’s rhetoric. “Enjoy your day, Mr. O’Hara,” she added in a very businesslike tone. “Don’t worry about your children. I’m sure they’ll be fine here at the center.”

      Something had changed her mood abruptly, Luke was aware by the tone of her voice, but the cause of the change eluded him. Then again, women quite often were hard to understand as far as he was concerned. Kimberly certainly had been, and even his own sister was, at times. But he didn’t want to think about that now. The work he had lined up with several branches of a bank in Minneapolis awaited him, so Luke thanked Miss Quinn for her help and turned to leave the room. He was halfway down the hallway before he missed that fragrant flower scent that had lightly hung in the air in Julianne’s classroom. He recalled that Nora had remarked yesterday that her teacher “smelled good.” Now that he thought about it, he realized he agreed with his daughter.

      But that second day in Miss Quinn’s classroom didn’t go quite as well as the first for the O’Hara twins. Things seemed fine and all six of her children were busy and content until late in the afternoon when the skies outside turned stormy. They were in the activity room playing ball when a tornado siren unexpectedly sounded, upsetting all of the kids in Julianne’s group. Especially Nora and Todd O’Hara. Julianne sent her teaching assistant down to Betty Anderson’s office for help, and soon Betty was filling in for Maggie Wren with her group of newborns while Maggie hurried to her niece’s and nephew’s sides. It took the comfort of Aunt Maggie’s hugs to stop their crying and settle them down enough to get through the remainder of that day.

      Fortunately, Luke finished his work early due to the inclement weather and came to pick up the twins ahead of schedule. Nora, Todd and Julianne were all relieved to see him walk through the classroom door just as another clap of thunder crashed outside. The children ran into their father’s arms with fresh tears and stories of the awful siren that had frightened them and how Aunt Maggie had come to “save” them.

      Julianne gathered up Nora’s and Todd’s art projects they’d worked on in the morning and slid them carefully into the backpack they’d brought with them. Her assistant continued reading to the rest of the children, who were all seated in a circle, while Julianne spoke with the twins’ father.

      “I’m sorry, Mr. O’Hara,” she offered quietly, frustrated and overly apologetic about not being able to console the twins by herself. She’d tried every way she knew to soothe their fears but had failed, and it discouraged her. She realized she’d underestimated the difficulties she might face with these two youngsters who had lost their mother. Her disappointment showed in the downward turn of her mouth, and Luke saw for the first time something other than confidence in the young teacher’s expression. It looked a little like insecurity. Now, there was something he could identify with.

      “Nora and Todd are fine, Miss Quinn. No harm done,” he remarked while picking up his daughter, who had finally stopped crying. Todd’s arms remained wrapped securely around one of his father’s legs as Luke continued. “We can’t…I mean, I don’t expect things to go perfectly. Just do the best you can with them. That’s all I’ve ever managed to do,” he stated. “And Maggie’s available when you need her. She’s the reason we moved here.”

      Julianne caught her lower lip between her teeth and nodded her head, grateful for his understanding words. “I guess we should both thank God for Maggie.”

      But the straight line of Luke’s mouth didn’t give a fraction of an inch in either direction. “You’ll have to thank Him for me, Miss Quinn.”

      “I will for now,” she answered, remembering Maggie’s mention of Luke’s lost faith…and ignoring the warning that it was a subject better left alone. “And, maybe, someday, you can do so for yourself again, Mr. O’Hara.”

      Luke’s blue eyes lit with what Julianne fully expected to be irritation. But if she’d have known him better, she’d have recognized it for what it was—simple surprise that this young woman, who couldn’t be more than a few years out of college, would be so frank in her remarks to a man at least a decade older—a man in his position in life.

      And just what was his “position in life,” Luke suddenly wondered as he and the twins said goodbye to Julianne Quinn and made their exit from the center. He was…what? A father, the owner of his own business, a good provider for his family, a successful landscaper with excellent references, a widower. And, he had to admit, a man who only listened to his children’s bedtime prayers instead of joining in.

      That thought stung him as he lifted Todd into the extended cab of the truck. Nora scrambled in behind her sibling, and Luke helped them with their seat belts while his mind raced with discontent. Life had changed in so many ways this past year. But they were here, now, in Fairweather, Minnesota, close to his sister where he felt they belonged. This change was a good one, the right one. It had to be. He needed it to be.

      Luke climbed into the pickup just as he noticed how dark the skies looked for so early in a summer evening. His wife had loved gray, dreary days. The cooler, the better. She said they reminded her of her childhood in New England, where she’d grown up. Home, she’d called it—regardless of the many years she’d lived in Chicago. That СКАЧАТЬ