“I went to church last Sunday,” Sandra murmured, staring at Logan’s hands holding hers.
She felt his tighten, but she still didn’t want to look up. It was amazing enough to be sitting with him, to have him expressing concern for her spiritual wellbeing.
It’s more than that and you know it.
But Sandra didn’t want to entertain that thought.
“And what did you discover?” Logan’s voice was warm, encouraging, soothing away the pain she had initially felt in his presence.
“That I’m a pretty unworthy person.” She looked at him, forcing a smile. “I’ve also been reading the Bible more and discovering the same thing.”
“Nothing we do can ever be good enough for God,” Logan said softly. “But He loves us just the same. While we were sinners, Christ died for us. Not when we were good. When we didn’t deserve it. We can never hope to deserve it. It’s a gift. An absolute gift, freely given. Surely you know that.”
Sandra lowered her head. “I should. But it’s not what I saw as I grew up.”
“Sandra, your parents’ love was imperfect. But God loves you as you are. Yes, He wants you to be better than you are. Yes, He challenges us to step outside of our lives. But not without His help. Not without His Spirit and His love.”
His words surrounded her, gently reinforcing the positive message she had heard at church. That He who made the lily, who flung the stars into space, had made Himself weak and vulnerable for the world. For her.
“You know,” she replied softly, “it’s so much easier to think I’m unworthy.”
“Why is that?” His voice was pitched low, creating an intimacy that drew her closer to him.
“That way I don’t have any obligations.” She dared to look at him, to lose herself in the depths of his warm eyes. “No expectations. That way I could think I was free.”
“And were you?”
Sandra shook her head slowly, feeling a freedom in just admitting this to Logan. “No. I was tied down to trying to outrun my father. How betrayed I felt that my mother had died, leaving me alone with him and his expectations.”
“And what about God in your life?”
“I think I was trying to outrun Him, too. But I didn’t. He found me.”
“Sandra, it means so much to me that you can understand this.”
She was fascinated by the sight of his hands holding hers, by his comment. “Why?”
Logan’s thumbs moved across her knuckles. “Because I’ve come to care for you more than I’ve ever cared for anyone else. I thought I could forget you when you left, but I’ve thought of you every day since you left twelve weeks ago.”
“Twelve weeks and two days,” Sandra corrected with a light shiver. She looked at him, dared to make yet one more connection with him.
His hands tightened on hers, then he slowly leaned forward and touched his lips lightly to hers.
Sandra’s heart spiraled slowly downward as she sat perfectly still, her eyes drifting shut, her hands clenching his.
Logan drew back slightly and rested his forehead against hers with a sigh light as a wish.
“I haven’t been able to forget you, Sandra. I haven’t stopped praying for you, wondering what you were doing.”
Sandra closed her eyes as a single tear slid down her face, cool and wet on her cheek. She wanted to say so much but couldn’t articulate the fullness in her heart. The peace she felt stealing over her as if so much had suddenly become right in her world.
“I couldn’t forget about you, either.”
Logan kissed her again and again, then drew back, still holding her hands, his smile huge. “I love you, Sandra.”
Sandra thought her heart couldn’t hold any more happiness. Still she couldn’t stop herself. “Logan, I don’t deserve…”
He laid a light finger on her lips. “I don’t, either, okay? None of us do. Love is a gift.”
“Then I have a gift for you, too,” she said softly. “I’ve never cared for anyone like I care for you. I love you, too.”
Logan pulled her close, holding her tightly. Sandra’s thoughts became inarticulate prayers of thanks. He tucked her head under his chin, still holding her. “I never thought this would happen. Not today,” he whispered, stroking her head with his chin. “If ever.”
Sandra snuggled as close as she could, her free hand tangling in his thick hair. “I didn’t, either.” It was wonderful, heaven to be in his arms. She never wanted to move.
“I wonder what the girls will have to say about all this,” he said quietly.
Sandra laughed, pressing a quick kiss to his warm neck. “I’m sure they’ll take all the credit.”
“No doubt.”
They were quiet a moment. Logan fingered her hair, sending shivers down Sandra’s back. She didn’t know if her body could possibly contain the happiness that filled her. She wanted to tell him, but couldn’t.
So she simply held him, praying he would understand.
“There’s something else we need to talk about, Sandra.”
“What?” she murmured, fingering the corner of his shirt collar, feeling an absolute freedom in doing so.
“I’d like to meet your father.”
Sandra stiffened and almost pulled away, but Logan wouldn’t let her go.
“I take it you haven’t visited him yet?”
Sandra swallowed at the softly worded question as new sorrow engulfed her. “No, I haven’t,” she said quietly. “I tried to call him over the summer, but there was no answer. Then, when I got this job, I thought maybe I could tell him that. But I didn’t dare.” Her laugh was without humor. “I called him a couple of times after I left home, but he hung up on me. I don’t know what I would do if that happened again.”
“Have you ever thought of seeing him face to face?”
Sandra pulled back, looking at Logan. “If he won’t talk to me on the phone, you surely don’t think he’ll let me in his house?”
Logan cupped her cheek with his hand. “I’d like to meet him. With you.”
Sandra lifted a shoulder, pressing his hand against her face. “How can I tell him we’re coming?”
“We could just show up at his place. See what happens.”
Sandra couldn’t repress a shiver.
“I’ll be with you, Sandra,” Logan said. “You won’t be alone.”
Sandra blinked as new tears pooled in her eyes at his words. It seemed too much to comprehend all at once.
“I’m not sure I want to do this to me. To you. My father can be pretty intimidating,” she said.
“I want to do this for you, Sandra,” Logan replied. “I think whether you want to admit it or not, you miss him.”
Sandra sighed, brushing away an errant tear. “I do,” she whispered.
“Then I’ll pray his heart will be softened when he sees his beautiful daughter on his steps, just like mine was when I first saw you.”
“It was not,” she said.
Logan canted his head to one side, as if studying her. “Yes, it was.” He grinned. “But then you started talking. And everything changed.” He dropped a light kiss on her mouth. “You talk a lot, you know.”
She kissed him back. “Not all the time.”
His grin widened. “That’s a good thing.” He pulled her close and sighed. “’Cause I’d hate to have to compete with you and the twins.”
Sandra nestled closer to him, her heart full.
Thank you, Lord, she prayed. Thank you for your love. Thank you for this man.
A harsh rap on the window made them pull apart. Sandra felt a guilty flush warm her cheeks.
Two grinning faces were pressed against Logan’s window. Brittany and Bethany.
“Well, so much for the quiet,” Logan said dryly. “Think we should tell them?”
Sandra smiled as she saw the girls come running around to the passenger side of the van. “Something tells me they already know,” she said.
* * *
Logan squeezed Sandra’s hand and gave her a quick wink. As he reached out to press the doorbell, Sandra felt herself praying. Hard.
She felt like a coward for taking up Logan’s offer to come with her, but as she stood waiting for her father to answer the door, she was thankful he was beside her.
Then the door opened, and through it came warmth and light and the gentle strains of classical music.
Sandra felt a clench of sorrow at the sight of the slightly stooped man who stood framed by the doorway, folding his newspaper. It had been five years since she’d seen him. He looked older.
Joshua Bachman frowned and took his glasses off as he looked first at Logan, then Sandra.
Sandra couldn’t stop herself from pressing closer to Logan, from clinging tightly to his arm.
“Hi, Dad,” she said quietly.
Mr. Bachman straightened, his dark eyes hard. “What are you doing here?”
His voice resonated with anger, but Sandra sensed another note beneath that.
“I live in Calgary now, Dad. I thought I would stop by and say hello.”
“After all these years?”
Sandra swallowed a knot of guilty remorse. She’d maintained contact, she reminded herself. She’d written him letters. “I never lived close before.”
Josh Bachman laughed shortly and slapped his newspaper against the side of his leg. “No. Your letters came from all over the place. Wandering like a Gypsy. Living off the government.”
His eyes ticked over Logan, then back to Sandra as if dismissing him. “What do you want?”
His words were like a slap.
Sandra swallowed the sorrow that began to thicken her throat. Logan’s hand tightened on hers, and she felt another strength.
“I want to talk to you.” She faltered, took a praying breath. “I want my father back.”
“After all this time?”
“Yes.”
Josh Bachman shook his head. “It’s too late, Sandra.”
“God doesn’t think so,” Sandra replied.
He stopped then, looking at her. “You turned your back on God when you turned your back on me. ‘Honor your father and your mother that your days may be long.”’ He paused. “You didn’t honor us much, did you, Sandra.”
“I tried, Daddy. I did. But God didn’t turn His back on me. He kept calling me and calling me. I know I didn’t always live the life I should have.” She glanced at Logan, who was smiling at her. “But thanks to Logan, I started listening to God. Now I want to make peace with you. I was wrong. In many ways.” She didn’t add that he was, as well. She realized that was her father’s problem, and he would have to deal with it in his own way.
For now the important thing was that she be reconciled with him.
Sandra’s father acknowledged Logan for the first time. “Who are you?”
“Dad, this is Logan Napier.”
Logan held out his hand, and to Sandra’s surprise, her father took it, albeit reluctantly.
“Can we come in, Daddy?”
Mr. Bachman looked at Logan, then at Sandra. Sandra counted her heartbeats as he considered.
“‘Children, obey your parents the Lord, for this is right.”’ he quoted from Ephesians. “This is the first commandment with a promise, Sandra. And you went against that commandment when you left this house.”
“Yes, but the same passage goes on to say, ‘Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord,”’ Logan said quietly.
Josh Bachman swung his steely gaze on Logan. “Which I did, young man.”
“Yes, you did, Daddy,” Sandra admitted. She could tell from the set of Logan’s jaw this was not going quite how he hoped it would. “And I was wrong to turn away from you.”
She paused, hoping, praying that her father’s heart would soften. “But you’re the only parent I have. And I’m the only family you have. If you don’t let me in, we are both going to be even lonelier. I missed you as much as I missed Mom. Maybe I wasn’t always the daughter I should have been. I was wrong. I was selfish. But I still love you. And whatever you do right now, that’s not going to change.”
For the first time since he had opened the door, Mr. Bachman lost some of his regal bearing. He reached out, catching the side of the door.
Sandra didn’t know what to do. She looked at Logan.
“He needs you, Sandra,” he said quietly.
She knew he was right, and with a quick prayer went to her father and for the first time in years put her arms around him and held him.
He resisted, almost pulling away from her. But she didn’t let go. Couldn’t.
Then, with a hoarse cry, he dropped his newspaper and clasped her close.
“I’m so sorry, Daddy. So sorry,” Sandra whispered, stroking his head, marveling at the love God had given her to share with this man. Her father’s only answer was to hold her, and Sandra wondered why she had waited this long. Then, as she felt Logan’s strong hand on her neck, she knew. She needed Logan to encourage her. To help her.
After what seemed a lifetime, Sandra’s father drew back, his eyes reflecting a deep sorrow. His gaze flicked over her face. “You look so much like your mother,” he said quietly. “I miss her so much.”
“I miss her, too,” Sandra whispered, touching his hand.
He drew back and pulled himself erect once again. So soon he had drawn his usual barriers of aloofness around him, but Sandra was heartened by their shared moment of togetherness.
“I suppose I should ask you in,” he said, some of the starch momentarily coming back.
“We’d love to come in,” Logan said, slipping his arm around Sandra’s shoulders. “There’s a few other things I want to discuss with you, as well.”
Mr. Bachman glanced at Logan and then at Sandra. “Well, come in then.” He walked away, leaving the door open.
Logan gave Sandra a quick hug, and Sandra leaned against him, sending up a prayer of thanks for who he was and all he had done for her.
Before they stepped through the door, Logan dropped a light kiss on her forehead. “You’re a very special woman, Sandra Bachman,” he said quietly.
“And you’re a very special man, Logan Napier,” she returned.
Then, with Logan beside her, she stepped into her home.