Restless Heart by Emma Lang Read Free Book Online Page A

on time, but something happened with my father.” He tried to think of a delicate way to tell her, but his emotions were still running too high.
    “Your father? He runs the newspaper, doesn’t he? Is he all right?” She rose to her feet, still looking distant and unsure. Sam noticed her blue dress was tattered at the edges, often mended if he wasn’t mistaken. He told himself he’d make sure she got a new dress as soon as he could afford one.
    “Yes, he’s fine. His name is Michael. He used to be the school teacher in town, then he took over the newspaper about five years ago.” Sam remembered how excited his father had been about the paper, especially after he’d been replaced at school by a younger, cheaper teacher.
    “What happened?”
    Sam swallowed. “Pa had an accident with the printing press. It was a huge mess.”
    Liar
.
    The smile he managed to find was nothing short of pitiful.
    “Can we still go for a walk?” He needed to have some sunshine, some sweetness. The dark shadows in his life were sometimes overwhelming. Time with Angeline was the only lightness he had.
    “Of course. I’d like some fresh air.” She picked up a brown shawl and wrapped it around her shoulders.
    Sam held out his arm and thankfully she took it. Just having her beside him, touching him, was enough to ease the strangling sensation he’d felt since his father’s comments had cut him so deeply.
    The sun greeted them as they walked outside and Sam sucked in a deep breath. Angeline’s sweet scent entered him,washing through him, and leaving behind the feeling that he’d been in a cleansing rain.
    “How far is the lake?”
    “Not too far. Just past the livery, there’s a copse of cotton-wood trees and then the lake. It’s small, but pretty deep. When I was a boy I used to go swimming with my mother there. She taught me how to stay afloat.” He smiled at the memory, both sweet and painful when he realized she had been gone for ten years already. Sam missed her, but knew she was part of the earth now, as nurturing as she had been in life.
    “You swam in a lake with your mother?” She sounded amazed. “She taught you?”
    Sam wondered just what kind of parents Angeline had endured. “Yes, she did. My mother was half-Shoshone.”
    He wondered if Angeline would walk away from him now she knew he was what many people called a half-breed. His father had loved his mother deeply, and Sam had known love from both his parents. He’d never known what true hate was until he left their care to take on the world two thousand miles east.
    That thought was for another day, so he pushed it aside.
    “What is ‘Shoshone’?”
    “It’s an Indian tribe that lives mostly in Idaho. That’s where my parents met.” He smiled at the story his mother used to tell of how his father got chased up a tree by a cougar and she’d rescued him. It never failed to make her laugh and his father bluster about how the cat was bigger than a horse.
    “An Indian tribe. Oh, that’s what Alice meant.” Angeline turned to look at him. “She mentioned your heritage, so I guess that’s where you get the dark hair and eyes?”
    She sounded sincere and incredibly innocent. Sam found those qualities unique and so appealing he didn’t know how to react. All his life he’d been treated differently, as if there were something wrong with him because his mother hadbeen Indian. Angeline had none of that prejudice and he couldn’t help wondering why.
    “Yes, Indians have dark hair and eyes.” He tried to think of a way to ask her without sounding like an idiot. “You haven’t heard of Indians?”
    She shook her head. “I grew up in a, um, very secluded community. We didn’t really have much contact outside of the ward, I mean, the town.” She sounded as if she regretted every word that had popped out of her mouth.
    Sam didn’t know what a
ward
was, but it didn’t sound like a fun place to live. Considering how uncomfortable she seemed, he decided not