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"Isn’t she going to join us for dinner?" he asked Ruth.
    Ruth hid her smile as she looked from Kelli’s empty chair to Logan’s untouched dinner. "She’s painting in the shop. She told me to wrap her plate and she would heat it up later."
    "Does she skip dinner often?"
    Henry leaned back in his chair and studied his nephew. Amusement glistened in his eyes. Ruth might be right about Logan and Kelli. "Can’t say that she ever has before."
    With a frustrated sigh Logan pushed his plate away. Kelli had been avoiding him since that morning. It was no wonder; he’d practically snapped her head off. Twice he’d gone looking for her to apologize, only to come up empty-handed. This time he’d face her in her lair, say his piece and hopefully she would come for dinner. He handed Ruth his full plate. "Could you please wrap this and put it with Kelli’s. We’ll be back later for it."
    After Logan left, Henry waited by the door, chuckling. "By all the saints, I think you’re right, Ruth. I’ve never seen Logan so upset over nothing."
    A smile touched Ruth’s wrinkled face and a blush of excitement tinted her cheeks. "Wouldn’t it be wonderful if they fell in love? Then we could live here with Logan and Kelli."
    Henry reached out with his large hand and gently covered her smaller blue-lined one. "Don’t get your hopes up, love. Let nature run its course."
    "You’re right." She sighed wistfully. "But wouldn’t they have the most beautiful babies you ever saw?"
    Henry’s chuckle sounded across the room as the pet door swung open and a blast of cold air whipped across the linoleum floor. "I guess one of the cats just went out?" he said.
    Ruth’s brow wrinkled into confusion. "That’s funny. I could have sworn all the cats were already out."
     
    #
     
    Logan glared at the warped door and wondered how to begin this conversation. With more determination than finesse, he threw open the door and announced, "We have to talk." Kelli dipped the brush into a delicate shade of pink and painted a whimsical smile on the statue in front of her. Tinkerbell’s sudden movement caught her attention. There was only one person who caused Tinkerbell to smile like that—Logan. So he’d finally caught up with her. She knew he had been looking for her earlier, but she had purposely avoided him. She wasn’t sure why; she put it down to self-preservation.
    Reluctantly she slowly pulled the earphones out of her ears and turned toward her intruder. "Logan?"
    He noticed she wore the same paint-smeared sweatshirts and gloves as the day before. The kerosene heater was on full blast, attempting to combat the drafts.
    "You didn’t come in for dinner."
    "I wasn’t hungry. I told Ruth that I’d be in later."
    "She told me." He closed the door behind him. The only lantern was above her worktable, and he stayed in the shadows. "Why are you avoiding me?" he asked, studying her.
    She watched the darkened figure, and masked the sudden anger that shot through her. How dare he come into her home and threaten to take the one thing she held dear and then accuse her of avoiding him? She calmed herself, drawing from a lesson she’d learned years ago in various foster homes. When confronted with a force more powerful than yourself, do the complete opposite of what is expected. It confuses the enemy. "Why would I be avoiding you? I have a lot of painting that has to be done before the park opens. Why don’t you pull up a crate and we could have a nice talk while I work?"
    Logan watched as she turned around and began to paint a blush onto a fairy. With a shrug he reached for an empty crate that he thought might hold his weight. He dragged it nearer to the heater and closer to Kelli. After several moments of silence he asked, "Did you major in painting at school?"
    Kelli finished the fairy’s eyelashes before answering. "I was in the art club during high school. I only had a year and a half at a local community college."
    "That’s when Ben died, wasn’t