5
“Are girls supposed to be wild?”
Logan looked up from where he crouched in the yard. It had been three days since he’d rescued a row of Hot Wheels from the toilet for Erin, and he’d been busy working on things outside the house in an effort to give Erin some space. There had been a moment in the car when Logan shared a story from his high school days where things had felt like old times between him and Erin. It had spooked Logan, and it had seemed to upset Erin as well because she’d completely shut down after they’d returned to Aunt Betty’s after their trip to the hardware store.
That was fine though. He didn’t need any distractions as he focused on Aunt Betty’s house. And he certainly didn’t need to rekindle anything with Erin. He needed to make sure there wasn’t any confusion about sticking around in Frostford. He had a startingdate in Florida. He was moving soon, whether or not Aunt Betty’s house had sold by then. He still planned on taking her with him, even if that meant selling after the fact.
Today, he’d spent the afternoon checking on all the sprinklers in the yard to see if the irrigation was still functioning. He stood and wiped the dirt from his hands onto his jeans and looked down at Samantha.
His brows furrowed. “What do you mean?”
Samantha clasped her hands in front of her, her eyes trained on the sprinkler head Logan had just been messing with. “The other night at dinner, you said that boys were supposed to be wild.”
Logan vaguely remembered saying something like that at dinner but wasn’t sure why Samantha would bring it up. “Okay.”
She squared her shoulders and looked up at him. “Can girls be wild too?”
Logan kneaded his eyebrow, unsure of how to answer the question. It was one thing for him to talk to the children over their nightly dinners together. Having a one-on-one conversation with Samantha was new territory. “Why do you ask?”
Samantha jutted her chin out. “I wanna ride a bike.”
“A bike?”
She nodded. “You told Parker he should be wild and ride a bike. My friends, Rose and Holly, can both ride bikes. I want to too.”
Logan’s shoulders relaxed and he felt himself grinning. “I think it would be great for you to ride your bike with your friends.”
Samantha looked down at her foot, which was now drawing circles in the grass. “What if I don’t know how?”
Didn’t know how? Wasn’t she too old to not know how to ride her bike? When Logan was growing up, everyone learned how to ride their bikes in kindergarten. From what he gathered, Samantha would go into third grade when school started up again in the fall.
He crouched down to get a better look at her face. “Didn’t your dad teach you how?”
She shook her head. “We went and bought a bike. He even let me pick it out. But then he got sick. Mama put it in the shed.”
Logan’s heart ached for the little girl standing before him. He could encourage Samantha to ask her mom to teach her how to ride a bike, but Erin had her hands full. Then there was the possibility of teaching Samantha himself. It would mean taking a break from working on Aunt Betty’s house, something he wanted to finish as quickly as possible.
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
God, what do you want me to do?
When he opened his eyes, Samantha was staring at him expectantly.
“Would you ... ” he said, hoping he was doing theright thing. “Would you like me to teach you how to ride a bike?”
A small smile touched her lips and she nodded.
“And you said your mama put it in the shed?”
Another nod.
“How about this?” He stood back up. “I’m going to go looking for your bike. Will you go get us some lemonade while I do that?”
Her small smile transformed into a huge grin. “Thank you, Mr. West.”
She turned and started running toward the house. Considering her excitement, Logan didn’t have long to see if the bike was even safe to ride. He’d need to make sure the chains hadn’t rusted and the tires hadn’t rotted out after being in storage all this time.
He opened the shed and found Samantha’s bike almost immediately. It was pink and purple, with streamers coming out of the handlebars—and training wheels still attached to either side.
