The American Lady(104)

“And now Anna is upset with me. Johanna will say I’ve been abusing their hospitality. And Peter will . . .”

“Wanda! Stop blaming yourself. None of them will say anything of the sort.”

Richard shook her shoulders gently. Then he wiped her tears away with his thumbs.

“There was never anything going on between Anna and me. We worked together a couple of times on special orders. She’s a good glassblower, and I admire her work. But that’s all. Perhaps I’m not entirely free of blame if she imagined it meant anything more. I should have told her long ago that I don’t even see her as a woman. I didn’t take her infatuation seriously, though. She’s practically still a child!”

“I’m only two years older,” Wanda said, sniffling. She wiped her nose.

“You’re a woman,” he told her firmly. He took her hands and kissed them. “When Johannes stopped by to visit me with you . . . I will never forget that moment. You standing there with your hair damp with snow, the snow melting and trickling down into your eyes. You were blinking like a scalded cat. That’s her! I thought. It hit me like a thunderbolt.”

Wanda wanted to burst out crying again. He sounded so certain! It was just like when he had talked about Venetian glass.

“Something like that only happens once in a lifetime. If that. Every day since then I’ve been going crazy trying to run into you again somehow.” Richard laughed self-consciously. “Some days I went down to the general store three times hoping to find you there. Mrs. Huber looked at me as though I wasn’t quite right in the head. I wanted to tell her that indeed I wasn’t.”

“But didn’t that scare you?” Wanda asked breathlessly.

She glanced nervously at the door. How long was her family going to leave her alone out here with a man who was, after all, a total stranger to her?

His eyes gleamed. “I was only scared that you might leave for some reason before I saw you again.”

Wanda giggled nervously. Then she admitted that she had been roaming Lauscha looking for him in much the same way.

Richard opened his arms and Wanda clung to him. She shut her eyes and turned her face up toward his, but all he did was stroke her hair and then kiss her on the top of her head, as though saving the rest for later.

How clever he was! Wanda leaned her head trustingly against his chest. She could hear nothing but her own heartbeat and her breathing. Any thought of what her mother might have to say about this vanished as she thought, with every fiber of her being, I love this man!

She would be able to explain to Ruth one way or another why she had to stay on in Lauscha.

Richard cleared his throat. “As for your departure . . . you can give the ticket away; you won’t be needing it anymore now that you’ll be staying in Lauscha.”

“What?” Wanda tore herself abruptly from his arms. “How can you be so sure of that, we’ve only just—”

“I’m not talking about us,” he interrupted her, as though all that were settled anyway. “I’m talking about your family. They need you more than you can imagine!”

Wanda laughed. “You’re the only one who thinks so! I folded together a few cardboard boxes and packed some Santa Claus figures into them, but the other hired hands could do anything I do with their eyes shut. Especially since things will calm down in January, and then . . .”

“I wasn’t talking about Johanna.” Richard waved her words away. “You have to go up the hill. To the top of the village. To your other family.”

“You’re joking!” Wanda glared at him, furious. “That’s just mean! I’m sure that everybody in the village has heard by now how ‘overjoyed’ my father was to see me.”

Richard laughed. “But he was, believe me. You should have heard the way he sang your praises last time he came down to the tavern. He told everyone how pretty you are. How clever. Apparently your grandfather was saying exactly the same thing, going on about how nobody would mistake you for anyone but a Heimer. Thomas tells us that your visit gave the old fellow a new lease on life. Supposedly he even tried to get out of bed, though he was too weak for that. So there you have it!”

“I don’t believe a word.” Frowning, Wanda tried to clear the confusion in her mind.

“Why would I lie to you? What good would it do me?” Richard asked intently. “I know your father, and I know that he means what he says. He’s not the friendliest of fellows, and when he’s in a mood it’s best just to leave him be. But he’s honest through and through. If he sits there and tells the whole tavern what a fine girl you are, it really means something. Of course he would never tell you right out how happy he was that you came to see him. When he doesn’t know how to behave, he turns surly. That’s just the way he is. But one thing’s for sure: your visit made him happier than anything has for a long time.”