The Glassblower by Laurie Alice Eakes Page B

But if I’d been working with him all along, he wouldn’t have felt the need to work too hard and be careless with his life.”
    “I’m sorry. That’s a difficult burden to bear.” She moved up beside him, tugged off her gloves, and placed one hand on the glass to steady it in its frame while he applied the caulking. “But you’ve been forgiven if you’ve asked for it.”
    “I ken that’s what the Bible tells me, but I don’t feel it in my heart.” He shifted his position for a better angle, and his hand brushed hers.
    Like brushing fine porcelain, creamy and as smooth as her silk glove had been.
    He took a deep breath to stop his heart from skipping any more beats than it already had. “I need to bring my family here and keep my work to be truly obedient to the Lord. Just like you’re needing to marry that fine gentleman your father wishes you to wed.”
    “I’m not convinced my father really does wish me to marry Joseph.”
    Colin dropped his knife. “I beg your pardon?”
    “I haven’t told anyone, even Sarah, and I probably shouldn’t say anything to you.” She peeked at him from beneath those extraordinary lashes. “I like talking to you. You listen to me and don’t treat me like I’m a child who should run along and play.”
    “You should, you ken. Perhaps not play but run along.”
    “That’s common sense, but my heart says otherwise. I mean—” She pressed her free hand to her cheek. “By my heart, I mean the feeling I get inside when I see others in need, not my heart in how a lady feels for a—should I stop up my mouth?”
    “Aye, probably so.” Chuckling, Colin made the mistake of looking at her mouth, those pretty lips that always seemed to curve in a smile. His mouth went dry.
    She laughed, too. “I talk too much. You do understand what I’m saying, do you not?”
    “I understand.” Realizing that he held the caulking knife and was doing nothing with it, he set back to work.
    He couldn’t avoid looking at her, though. The windowpane reflected her lovely face.
    “You want to make me a charity,” he made himself say. “Take me in and pamper me like one of your kittens, or teach me American history like the charcoal burners’ children.”
    His words hurt her. He read it in the way her face stilled and her body tensed.
    “Your father’s already doing plenty for me, Miss Jordan.” He gentled his tone. “I have no need of your help.”
    “What if I could get your family here faster? Would that help you to—to feel worthy of the Lord’s love and forgiveness?”
    “You’re a kind lady, Margaret Jordan.”
    So kind, so pretty, so giving, he feared he was more than half in love with her.
    “But I have to do this myself. ‘Tis the only way I can make up for letting them down.”
    “You can never make up for letting them down, Colin.” She placed a bit of emphasis on his Christian name, an emphasis of her defiance of convention, like talking to him at all was. “We can’t make up for any of our mistakes, no matter what we do. That’s what God’s forgiveness is all about.”
    “I have to try.” He finished with the pane but couldn’t place the next one with her standing between him and the frame. “I’ve been given so much. A runaway lad of twelve years should not have found a place in the Edinburgh glassworks, but I did. They needed assistants to carry the molten glass to the glassblowers, and I was quick. I fell in love with the craft and persuaded the master glassblower to teach me.” He faced her instead of her reflection. “I have the gift for it. I have to use it to make up for what learning of that gift stole from my family. You ken? I have to do it.”
    “I don’t agree with you, but I understand. I was away at school when my mother died. I didn’t want to be there, but Father wouldn’t let me come home. That’s partly why this school is so important to me. If it works out, children won’t have to leave home to get an education. And children from