Patience shrugged. “Of course not.”
Obviously, they both had been afraid of overstepping, and knowing that helped.
“So, you wanted to help?” she asked.
“Yah. That was the plan.”
Patience pulled out a box of supplies. “I need to get these organized in the bins up there at the front. I’m thinking I can have all the markers, glue and scissors in those bins, and when the kinner need them, I can pass them out.”
“Sure.” Thomas easily lifted the heavy box.
“I could have helped you during the service, you know,” Patience said as they headed toward the front of the classroom.
“I felt like I should do it myself,” Thomas said. “After I kissed you, I mean. I know I ruined things there, and I didn’t want you to think I was taking advantage or...”
“I don’t think that,” she said.
“Are we becoming more to each other?” Thomas asked, turning toward her. He put the box down on a desktop.
“Maybe we are,” she admitted.
“The thing is,” he said quietly, “I’m the one at fault here. I’m feeling things I shouldn’t. You’re beautiful, and I’m attracted to you. I’m just trying to pretend that I’m not. I think it’s the smart thing to do. It just gets a bit awkward sometimes.”
Patience felt warmth hit her cheeks. He’d called her beautiful again... No other man had told her that before. Even Ruben had called her “good-looking” and “strong.” Not beautiful. Beautiful was different... It came from a different place.
“I’ll never have my own kinner, Thomas,” she reminded him. “I’d be happy to help out with Rue. She needs someone who can love her for who she is, and one of these days soon, if I stay in Redemption as a teacher, I’ll have her in my classroom. So, don’t be afraid of taking advantage. Really, you’re just giving me a chance to be more than a teacher to one little girl. I won’t have that offer very often.”
“Yah?” His gaze softened. “You sure about that?”
“Positive. I can be your friend, Thomas. I’m going to be the old maid schoolteacher, so I’ll need friends.”
“Don’t say that,” he chuckled.
“I’ve very nearly made my peace with it,” she said with a shrug. “I’ll get there.”
“There might be a widower—” he started, but Patience shook her head, and he fell silent.
“I tried that once,” she said. “It didn’t work for me, and I’m not in a rush to embarrass myself or a good man in that way again.”
“Just tell me if I’m overstepping, or asking for too much when it comes to Rue,” he said. “Because I don’t want to ruin the friendship we have. You mean a lot to me.”
“Okay.”
She’d try to keep her feelings in line with her rational expectations. She’d stop hoping to hear from him when he didn’t need her help with something. She could be reasonable when she needed to be.
Patience filled the first bin with markers, and the second with rulers and protractors for the higher grades’ math. And when she turned for the box again, she nearly collided with Thomas. He was pulling out a bundle of rulers, and they both froze.
Thomas was so close that she could feel the fabric of his shirt touch her dress—that soft scrape of cotton against cotton. She sucked in a breath, and he smelled musky with a hint of shaved wood. That smell had seeped into her over the last while—a scent she associated with this carpenter daet—and it made her heart ache.
She felt his work-roughened hand brush against hers, and he moved one finger up her skin in a slow line. Her breath caught, every fiber of her being focused on that one place on her body. She knew she should move back, move her hand at the very least... But she couldn’t quite bring herself to do it. She lifted her fingers toward him, and he twined his through hers. They didn’t move—not toward each other, and not away, just standing there breathing the same air, their hands clasped.
What was it about this man that made her do this? Why did something as simple as standing this close to him, or touching his hand, feel like it could stop the entire earth from spinning?
But then Thomas did what she wasn’t strong enough to do on her own, and he let go of her hand and took a deliberate step back. She released a shaky sigh.
“We have to be more careful,” she whispered.
“Yah...” He cleared his throat.
She missed him—even standing right here next to him, she missed his fingers twined through hers—and all she could think about was the feeling of his lips, his arms around her, the tickle of his stubble against her face... But she had to stop this. Whatever they were feeling had no future. Why was she punishing herself like this?
“Why don’t I get those chairs from the corner? That’s across the room.”
She smiled at his dry humor. “Maybe a better idea.”
He caught her gaze with an impish grin.
“I made a family,” Rue announced from her seat at the desk. There were four blobs of modeling dough lined up. “They’re Amish. You can tell because they have a rooster named Toby.”
“Yah?” Thomas said. “And who else is there?”
“That’s a mammi,” Rue said. “And that’s a daet.”
Patience looked over at Thomas, her heart suspended in her throat. Rue had used the Amish words for a grandmother and father... And it was her representation of a family. She saw that Thomas’s eyes misted.
“And who is the other one?” he asked, his voice catching.
“That’s just me. I’m next to Toby.”
“Yah, I can see that,” he said. “Right next to Toby.”
“He’s part of the family, Daddy,” Rue said seriously. “I just want you to remember that we don’t eat family.”
Thomas burst out laughing. “No, we don’t.” He turned to Patience with a rueful smile. “I’m stuck with that rooster until it dies of old age, you know.”
And he was, Patience had to agree, all because
