As they ate, Logan watched in amusement as Bella leaned forward over her plate and squinted at her dinner. Eventually he felt he had to ask, "What the hell are you looking for kid?"

"Onions," Bella replied, glaring at her plate. "I don't like onions, and I know Marie put them in, she said she didn't but she chopped them, so they must be somewhere but I can't see them," she explained.

With a grin Logan glanced at Marie, who was wearing a smirk of her own. He knew there were onions in the meal, he could taste them but like Bella he couldn't see any. Though in saying that... it was getting pretty dark now that the sun was just dipping below the horizon. Without a word he stood up from the table, and collected one of the oil lamps off the mantle. A strike of a match, and a few moments later, he carried the lamp to the table.

"Can you see better now?" he asked, setting the lamp down in the middle of the table.

The little girl didn't answer straight away, instead she got distracted glancing around the room. "You got no lights?" she said suddenly, a frown on her face as she considered that thought.

"Yep, this house was built before bathrooms and electricity, that's what the lamp is for, but the lamps work with fire so you have to be real careful with them so you don't accidentally set anything on fire that shouldn't be, like, the table, your bed, the house," Logan said seriously.

Bella was curious then, and interrupted her dinner to get him to show her how the lamp worked. Eventually she remembered her hunger, and the mystery of the vanishing onions, and went back to her meal, thoroughly inspecting each spoonful of stew to be sure she didn't get any onions. Marie watched her with an amused look, knowing she was eating all the onion without even realizing it.

After the meal was finished, Logan washed the dishes while Marie and Bella went to the loft and folded all of Bella's new clothes away into her new drawers. Then they unpacked the last of the days purchases, finding places for all the books, and toys that now belonged to Bella. When the little girl finally yawned so widely she almost fell over backwards, Logan announced it was time for her to go to bed.

"Will you read me a bedtime story?" Bella begged Logan, when she came rushing back inside after using the outhouse.

"Of course sweetheart, you go put your pjs on and I'll be up soon," he instructed, watching with a grin as she scrambled up the ladder.

Her voice filtered down a moment later. "Logan, I can't see my jammies, it's too dark."

With a chuckle the man in question collected one of the spare lamps and moved it upstairs to Bella's room, setting it up on her new bedside table and lighting it for her. He left her to find her pyjamas and get ready for bed, with another warning to be careful with the lamp.

"Is that safe?" Marie asked apprehensively, as she watched Bella's larger than life shadow flicker on the upstairs wall and ceiling.

"It worked for kids for hundreds of years, worst case scenario she burns everything down," Logan replied, with a chuckle and a shrug. For some reason that didn't appear to fill Marie with confidence.

Marie busied herself with general tidying downstairs as she listened to Logan reading Bella a bedtime story, and another, then another. He finally told the little girl three stories was enough, and if she behaved herself and went to sleep now he would read to her again tomorrow. Marie was relieved to note he blew the lamp out before he came down the ladder again, just in time to catch her yawn widely.

"Time for bed for you too darlin," he teased with a grin.

Though it looked like a nice, soft smile, Marie couldn't help the shiver of fear that ran down her spine. There was only one other bed, clearly Logan intended her to sleep with him again, this time just the two of them. With Bella out of the way that could only mean... Well, she did promise him anything, and if it stopped him laying a hand on the little girl, she would live with it. She still flinched when his hand touched her arm.

"You go get ready for bed, I'll lock up and be in soon," he said, as his hand skimmed up her arm, and down her back, before he gently encouraged her, with the hand now at her waist, toward the bedroom.

Moving into the bedroom, Marie warily eyed the pile of clothes Logan had purchased for her. She hadn't gotten around to putting them away yet but she had sorted them out into general piles. There were three items that looked like bed wear, a thick pair of flannel two piece pyjamas, another thick flannel nightgown, and a short silk nightie - the sexy kind Marie would never have imagined wearing but looked like the sort of thing a man like Logan would want to see a woman wearing. She didn't want to wear that, and not just because it looked like what her owner would want her to wear, it also looked like it would leave her freezing cold, even under the heavy pile of blankets on the bed.

She had just finished pulling on the flannel nightgown when Logan stepped into the room. He gave her a once over glance, and nodded as if he were happy with what he saw, before he began to strip off his own clothes. Turning away from him hurriedly, as he began to work on dropping his pants, Marie busied herself getting into bed. It took Logan a few minutes to get ready for bed, he seemed to be tossing up himself what to wear to bed, before he tugged on a pair of sweatpants. He sat on the edge of the bed for a few moments, before he extinguished the lamp on the bedside table, and rolled under the covers. Marie immediately tensed, as she felt him shift into his preferred position, and she very nearly screamed when he reached out and tugged her closer to him, wrapping an arm around her as he murmured for her to relax and sleep.

An hour later Marie was still lying silently, tense and unmoving, spooned against his warm, masculine body. She had thought Logan had fallen asleep from his deep, even breathing, and she jumped in fright when he spoke to her suddenly.

"Darlin if you don't relax neither one of us is going to get any sleep," he said softly, his tone smothered in amusement. When she stayed quiet, he shifted them both around a little more, rolling her onto her back so he could look down at her - though how he could see her in the dark she didn't know. "What's wrong Marie?" he asked gently a moment later.

"It's a little hard to relax when..." she started, trying to reign in her thoughts and emotions before she either got mad or started crying.

"When?" Logan asked gently, his hand moving from her waist to her arm, rubbing her arm in a way that felt oddly comforting for the circumstances. "When?" he pressed, a little more insistently when she still didn't speak.

Anger won out, just by a fraction, and she snapped at him. "When you're a piece of goddamn property, owned by a grown man who wants to do god knows what to you!" she said, tearing up as terrifying thoughts of 'god knows what' began to creep into her mind. She might lack physical experience, by sheer grace of god, but she was nowhere near naive. She knew that if he wanted to, he could hurt her in ways she couldn't even imagine, probably the only few ways she had left to be hurt.

"Marie... darlin I don't consider you property, and I don't intend to lay a hand on you, anything that happens between us, if anything happens between us, will only be something we both want and are both comfortable with," Logan replied gently, and she could almost hear the smile in his words. "I know you made promises Marie, promises you didn't particularly want to make, promises you made to protect Bella, I don't have any intention of collecting on those promises, I want nothing more than for you to both be happy, and warm, and safe, and cared for, and that's what I'm going to do. Don't get me wrong you're a beautiful girl, and if you wanted it I wouldn't say no, hell I've done enough shit in my life to know I don't deserve anyone as sweet, and caring as you in my life but I'm also not stupid enough to turn down the opportunity when it presents itself. All I want to do to you right now, is make sure you get a decent nights sleep, you worked hard today - I don't think this place has been so clean in decades - you deserve a nice night of peaceful, warm sleep, so relax, please, sleep, I'll be right here beside you to keep you warm and safe, that's all," Logan assured her. By the time he finished talking, she did feel a lot more relaxed, she wasn't sure if she believed him entirely but it was a start.

She nodded in agreement, into the darkness, before rolling back over onto her side. Logan lay down behind her, and wrapped his arm back around her. Despite the fact nothing had really changed, the embrace this time felt comforting, rather than restricting, and Marie felt herself relaxing by degrees, until her eyes fluttered shut.

The last thing she heard was Logan whisper into her hair, "Goodnight darlin."
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