Restless Heart (12 page)

He didn’t mean it, or perhaps he did and needed to get it said. Her reaction, however, made him realize it was far too soon to mention marriage.

Angeline’s face drained of all color so quickly, he swore he could actually see the blood travel down her skin. Her eyes grew wide as saucers and her lips pinched together so tightly that they didn’t even appear pink anymore.

“I can’t marry you, Sam.” Each word was torn from her throat, ragged and raw.

He knew he was hearing what she hid deep inside. “Why not?”

She shook her head.

Sam took her hands in his, noting they were cold and trembling.
“Trust me, Angel. Please, tell me whatever it is. It won’t change how I feel about you. You are firmly inside my heart and nothing is going to dislodge you.”

A single tear rolled down her cheek, but still she said nothing.

Sam dropped to his knees beside her and took her face in his hands. The rest of her shook just as hard as her hands. It was fear he saw in her eyes.

“You’re scaring me and believe me, I’ve had enough scaring for one day. Please just tell me.”

“You are a wonderful person, Sam. Better than I deserve, but I can’t marry y-you because I’m already married.”

A roar went through his ears and he could see nothing for a few moments. Then he managed to suck in a breath and his brain recognized what she’d said.

“Oh, Angel.” He kissed her forehead. “I still want to marry you, no matter what. Please tell me you don’t love him.”

She made a sound that sounded something like a laugh but was more a cry of pain. “Love him? I hate him more than I ever thought I could hate anyone. He destroyed my life and my future.”

It explained so much, everything really. She had run from a husband she hated, who must have hurt her. Then she came to Forestville and into Sam’s heart.

He pulled her into his arms and held her. It was a day of heavy emotions and confessions. Sam didn’t know what it meant for the two of them, what the future held for them, but he did know he meant what he’d said.

Sam wanted to marry Angeline, no matter what.

Angeline walked back to the Blue Plate with her heart in tatters. It had been such a strange morning and it was barely past dawn. She had been so worried about the older Mr. Carver when Jessup had come to the kitchen to get her.

This situation was even more stressful than three days earlier when Alice had needed her help to get rid of an unwanted suitor. Then she’d been worried, but not truly afraid. This time she’d been more fearful, knowing that Mr. Carver’s life was in danger.

However, fortune had smiled on them when they’d found him hale and hearty if very cold. He needed help, and no matter what Sam said, she would do all she could. Even if it meant reducing the hours she worked at the restaurant.

One of the things she’d been taught as a girl was to take care of family, that parents and grandparents were to be revered and respected, taken care of until they passed. Even if she’d abandoned much of what had been beaten into her, she firmly believed in taking care of older relatives.

After Sam’s confession about keeping secrets, guilt immediately settled on her heart. She needed to tell him the truth, not just a small nugget of it. After all Sam had done for her, his devotion to courting her, she owed him the same respect he’d given her.

She would tell him the whole truth that night.

The corners of her bedroom were deep in shadow, with only the moonlight streaming through the small window. An-geline crept in with Sam behind her, his hand firmly tucked into hers. She knew Marta would not approve, much less Pieter, but she needed to be with Sam. With Karen’s help in watching Mr. Carver, Angeline had an hour alone with Sam.

“I don’t like sneaking around,” he whispered harshly.

She didn’t answer him, instead closing the door and leaning against it. “I needed to talk to you in private.”

“What about my father? I can’t leave him alone.” His voice sounded pained to admit that particular fact.

“Don’t worry. Karen is keeping an eye on him. Daniel was even playing checkers with him when I came to get you.”

Angeline sat on the edge of the bed and clasped her hands
together. She couldn’t look him in the eye as she prepared to tell him everything she had kept hidden inside. He glanced at the windowsill and smiled when he saw the collection of his gifts perched on it.

“I told you I was married.”

Sam sat down beside her. “Yep, I remember that. It’s something I’m not likely to forget.”

She felt her cheeks heat, grateful for the semidarkness, since all she appeared to do was blush around him.

“I wasn’t entirely honest with you about that.”

“Do you mean you aren’t married?”

Oh, how she wished that was true. “No, I married Josiah. In fact, I was his third wife.”

The silence was loud enough she could hear the blood rushing past her ears.

“Excuse me?”

“I grew up in Utah, in a small town called Tolson. My mother died when I was five and my father raised my sister, Eliza, and I, with the help of the church. Our church, you see, is a faith called the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Have you heard of Brigham Young?”

Sam was quiet enough to make her fidget. “No.”

“He founded our church and our faith. I won’t go into the details of everything I was brought up to believe, but one of the main practices of our church is allowing a man to have multiple wives.” She swallowed the huge lump in her throat. “I was chosen by a well-respected church elder to become his wife. My father told me to do it and although I thought I loved another, I obeyed him as I had always done.”

Sam’s body tensed at the use of the word “loved.” He was sitting next to her like a block of wood.

“My sister, Eliza, tried to stop the wedding, but my father would not be swayed. Although I didn’t want to marry Josiah, I did. It was not a joyful day for me, but it was the last day I felt anything but fear.”

Sam’s gaze snapped to hers in the semidarkness. “What do you mean ‘fear’?”

“Josiah had already buried his first wife, his current wife was a shell of a woman who simply took care of his ten children, the second was Let—a friend of mine who did not want to marry him either, and then there was me. All of us lived in one house together.” She closed her eyes, remembering the noise, the heat from fourteen bodies, and the shed out back.

“Sounds cozy.”

Angeline clenched her hands into fists. “Sam, I know you’re angry and hurt, but if you keep being snide, I won’t continue. This is hard enough.”

He was quiet for a few moments. “I’m sorry, Angel. I don’t mean to be snide. It’s just, well, I wanted to marry you.”

She took his hand in hers and felt the warmth of his skin, the beat of his life force against hers. Angeline brought it to her cheek and let him feel her tears.

“I would like that too, Sam, more than you can ever imagine.” She managed to get a deep breath in and tucked his hand onto her lap between hers. “The one thing no one had warned me about was Josiah’s strange proclivities. You see, he enjoyed inflicting pain. It gave him pleasure to do so. He was not a young man and he needed all the help he could get to, um, perform as a husband should.”

Angeline let that information settle in Sam and his sharp intake of breath let her know he understood what she meant.

“Are you saying he beat you so he could get hard enough to fuck you?”

She would have said something about his cussing, but she didn’t. It was understandable, given the mental image she’d just put in his mind.

Her chin trembled as she continued. It was so hard, so very hard to not only relive Josiah’s brutality, but to know she would likely never have Sam as her husband to erase those memories.

“Yes, although it wasn’t always a beating. Sometimes he used things other than his fists. I’m damaged inside and out, Sam. I can never be whole and I can never marry you.”

He gathered her in his arms and held her as they both came to terms with Angeline’s statement. It was a bitter truth that would not taste good, no matter who was delivering it.

She burrowed into his warmth, breathing in the scent that had become a part of her. He hadn’t run from the room, and he offered her comfort when she needed it. Perhaps telling him was the right thing to do.

“Never say never. I’m going to fight for you, Angel.”

Angeline sat back and stared at him. “What do you mean, fight for me?”

His dark eyes were intense in the lamplight. “I won’t simply give up on being with you. We are meant to be together, two sides of the same coin. This isn’t something that happens every day. People can go their entire lives without meeting their other half. You and me, we got lucky.”

She stared at him openmouthed, completely flummoxed. “I don’t understand.”

“You said you were his third wife. In the eyes of the law, no man can have more than one wife at a time. That means you aren’t really married.”

Angeline hadn’t considered the legality of her marriage, just the church’s position on marriage. She was bound to Josiah for life and after death according to her church. Yet, as she stared at Sam, she realized he was right. Completely right.

“I’m not married?”

He cupped her cheek. “You’re not married.”

Her heart began to beat like a jackrabbit at the possibility Josiah had no legal right to follow her, to make her return to Tolson or ever to lay his hands on her again. She allowed a tiny flare of hope to ignite within her. Yet she hadn’t told Sam everything yet. It was time to tell him the rest.

“He sent a man after us. Someone who tracked us from—”

“Did you say ‘us’? Who is us?” Sam frowned.

Angeline realized she’d slipped up and said more than she should have. Lettie’s secrets were her own to tell, but it was too late to take back the words that had popped out.

“Me and, uh, Lettie. You can’t tell anyone though because it’s her business, not mine. I didn’t mean to tell you about her.”

She watched his face carefully for a reaction. Instead of looking shocked, he nodded as if he’d known what she’d say.

“She’s his second wife now, and unfortunately barren, so he never had children with her. That was the reason he decided to marry me.”

“I hate to tell you this, honey, but that’s not the only reason.” Sam raised one brow. “You’re simply stunning, smart, and have such an amazingly good heart, it humbles me.”

Angeline shook her head. “I’m not that good. I’ve done things in the last year I’m not proud of, including running from my husband.”

Sam squeezed her hands. “He’s not your husband. Just keep saying it over and over.”

“I’ll try. Now let me tell you the rest.” She opened up the memory of what had happened in the dark forest outside Bowson. The fear, the outright terror of having a gun pressed to her head.

“Lettie and I were on our own for a few months, scared to death and surviving on willpower alone. We thought we had been so clever, but this bounty hunter found us. And my sister was with him. She was using him to find me and, since we look nothing alike, he didn’t suspect who she was.” Angeline looked away from Sam, unwilling to let him see just how hard it was to talk about the terrifying experience. “We were working in a restaurant in a town called Bowson. Eliza tried to help me escape, but the bounty hunter got to me first. H-he
was going to shoot me in the h-head. My sister saved my life by hitting him and tying him up.”

“Jesus. You have a helluva sister.” Sam kept her at his side, his body touching hers from shoulder to toes.

“She’s amazing and I owe her so much. I’ve never been so scared. The last year has been nothing but sleepless nights and so much worrying my stomach hurts nearly every day.” Angeline felt the familiar knot of tension inside her. It was a constant companion she would do anything to cast aside.

“Ah, Angel, I’m so sorry.” Sam leaned his head against hers. “If I could take away all the bad, I would.”

Angeline’s eyes stung with tears at the love she heard in his voice, at the love that was in her heart. “I know.”

He kissed her forehead. “Will you marry me, Angeline Hunter?”

This time, the impossible was possible. She could marry him and be his wife, no longer indentured to Josiah, no longer needing to be afraid he would find her and hurt her. It was tempting, so tempting.

She wanted to say yes so badly, she actually tasted it. Something held her back though. If she married Sam, then he would be a target for whatever vicious bounty hunter Josiah sent after her. Josiah could make her a widow before she had a chance to truly be happy with her new husband.

Instead of telling him no, she wrapped her arms around his neck. “Kiss me, Sam.”

His breath gusted out on a sigh. “You know I can’t resist you, Angel.”

She watched his mouth descend and closed her eyes just before it met hers. At first it was a simple brushing of the lips, the lightest touch like a butterfly. Then he pressed himself against her from top to bottom and she gasped.

It was all he needed.

His mouth opened over hers and consumed her. His
tongue coaxed hers out of hiding, caressing, rasping against it. She felt his cock hard and insistent against her hip. His entire body shuddered as he pressed himself closer, then closer still, as if they could occupy the same space.

Her bed wasn’t very big, but it was large enough for them to find their pleasure together. She leaned back and pulled him along until they were side by side on the narrow bed. He thrust against her rhythmically, reminding her of just what they could be doing if all their clothes weren’t in the way.

“You know we shouldn’t do this here,” he whispered as he rained kisses down her neck, his hot mouth leaving a trail of tingles.

“I know but it feels so good.” Angeline reached down and grasped his cock through his trousers. He was hard as iron and pulsed against her palm.

“Obviously my dick agrees with you.” He pushed against her hand. “You’ve got a magic touch.”

Sam started unbuttoning her dress until it was open to the waist. Through the opening, her breasts were only covered by a chemise. She never had much money for undergarments, so this was all she had, along with one thin petticoat. Sam, however, didn’t seem to mind at all.