“But what if one of them is dying?” Amanda asked, her pretty blue eyes filling with tears.
“Not even then.”
“But—”
“You may tend to it outside.”
“What if it’s cold and freezing and only needs my care and a warm bed inside the house?”
“Frogs are supposed to be cold and freezing,” Phillip shot back. “It’s why they are amphibians.”
“But what if—”
“No!” he bellowed. “No frogs, toads, crickets, grasshoppers, or animals of any kind in the house!”
Amanda started gulping for air. “But but but—”
Phillip let out a long sigh. He never knew what to say to his children, and now his daughter looked as if she might dissolve into a pool of tears. “For the love of—” He caught himself just in time and softened his voice. “What is it, Amanda?”
She gasped, then sobbed, “What about Bessie?”
Phillip felt around unsuccessfully for a wall to sag against. “Naturally,” he ground out, “I did not intend to include our beloved spaniel in that statement.”
“Well, I wish you’d said so,” Amanda sniffed, looking surprisingly—and suspiciously—recovered. “You made me extremely sad.”
Phillip gritted his teeth. “I am sorry I made you feel sad.”
She nodded at him like a queen.
Phillip groaned. When had the twins gained the upper hand in the conversation? Surely a man of his size and (he’d like to think, anyway) intellect, ought to be able to manage two eight-year-olds.
But no, once again, despite his best intentions, he’d lost all control of the conversation and now he was actually apologizing tothem.
Nothing made him feel more like a failure.
“Right, then,” he said, eager to be done. “Run along. I’m very busy.”
They stood there for a moment, just looking up at him with wide, blinking eyes. “All day?” Oliver finally asked.
“All day?” Phillip echoed. What the devil was he talking about?
“Are you going to be busy all day?” Oliver amended.
“Yes,” he said sharply, “I am.”
“What if we went on a nature walk?” Amanda suggested.
“I can’t,” he said, even though part of him wanted to. But the twins were so vexing, and they were sure to force him to lose his temper, and nothing terrified him more.
“We could help you in the greenhouse,” Oliver said.
Destroy it was more like it. “No,” Phillip said. He honestly didn’t think he could answer to his temper if they ruined his work.
“But—”
“I can’t,” he snapped, hating the tone of his voice.
“But—”
