Restless Heart (2 page)

“You can’t be that choosy, you know. The men in this area aren’t all finds,” Alice joined in. “And like I said, for a half-breed he’s—”

“Enough.” Lettie rose, her chair scraping across the floor. “Let her be. She doesn’t want a beau, a sweetheart, or gifts. Perhaps you all need to mind your business.”

The silence in the kitchen was palpable, charged with emotion Angeline didn’t want to deal with. She wiped her hands on her apron and stepped out the backdoor for fresh air. It didn’t matter if it was frigid outside; she couldn’t bear to be in there another moment.

Samuel Carver leaned over the old printing press and tried to pry the paper from its maw. Damn thing was older than Methuselah and regularly ate the precious newsprint. If he had some money, he’d buy replacement parts for his father, but publishing a newspaper brought in only enough to scrape by.

Without warning, the paper came free and Samuel careened backward with it clutched in his hand. He landed against the table behind him with a thud. Sam closed his eyes and counted to ten, his hand massaging his bruised back.

“Are you all right?” His father stood there with a cup of coffee, his salt-and-pepper hair in disarray, glasses perched on his forehead. His bright blue eyes were full of concern, and for the first time that morning, lucid and focused.

“I’m fine, just fighting with the monster again this morning.” Sam held up the crumpled paper in his fist. “Ate more newsprint already today.”

“Sorry. I went to get coffee and it was running just fine.” Michael Carver had a brilliant mind; he’d been an excellent teacher, writer, and father. But something had started stealing bits and pieces of that mind, leaving him with holes in his memory and his abilities. Sam had hidden his father’s decline from most everyone, but eventually they would know.

It was becoming more and more difficult to keep up the pretense every day without making his father panic or get insulted.
Sam was exhausted from the effort and the malfunctioning press notched his frustration level even higher.

He took a deep breath and thought about something else as he readied the machine to begin printing again. That something else was inevitably Angeline Hunter.

It had been six months since she’d arrived in Forestville and a day hadn’t gone by that he didn’t think about her. She was exquisite to look at, in face and form. He’d never felt that kind of reaction from a woman before, no matter how beautiful. No, there was something else, some kind of instant connection.

Unfortunately, she hardly even knew he existed. At least she hadn’t until this morning, when he had impulsively handed Dennis a book to give her. Now she probably thought Sam was odd. However, he’d often seen her sitting on the back steps of the restaurant reading a book in the late day’s light. The halo of the sunset surrounded her, making her ethereal in his eyes.

Sam had been struck by what he could only term infatuation. She had already made an impression on him, but the sight of her reading had brought his fascination to a different level.

Now he thought of her every day with an almost embarrassing frequency. Sam wasn’t given to flights of fancy or poetic rambling, but there was something about the woman that called to him at an elemental level. He’d given the book to her on impulse. It had cost him quite a bit of money he could hardly afford. He wasn’t sure yet if he regretted the impulse.

Sam loaded more paper into the printing press and started it running again. This time, thanks be to whatever forces were at work, the press did not jam. It hummed along as if it wasn’t the most confounded machine on the planet.

He sat down with a sigh at the old scarred desk in the corner. The desk was something his father had found abandoned
by a wagon train heading to Oregon twenty years earlier. The roll top had long since stopped functioning. It was still solid though, and served its intended purpose, even if it was as ugly as the printing press.

Life in Forestville was somewhat boring, truth be told, and most of his father’s stories on the one-page sheet related to happenings outside of town. Information he received from other sources was infinitely more interesting.

Sam sometimes wondered why he stayed there, what kept him in the small town, or even what had brought him back after the war. It was hard to understand himself, much less to articulate to someone else.

Life was predictable in Forestville and it was that sameness he craved. After witnessing the evil that men do, the sweetness of his hometown was a salve to his wounded soul. And now there was Angeline.

He needed to get to work on his next job, a fence at the Widow Primrose’s house, but his mind kept wandering to the restaurant. Perhaps if he spoke to Angeline, it might help tamp down some of his imaginings. Of course, that meant any fantasies he’d built up around her would be put to the test. She might be completely different than he expected.

Sam stared down at his ink-stained hands, at the scars and calluses. He might not be a gentleman, or be able to provide anything aside from conversation, but she might like him. What did he have to lose? It was noontime, so he would have dinner at the Blue Plate.

Decision made, Sam rose from the desk and headed outside to wash his hands. He could at least try to get the ink off his fingers.

He hoped she liked the book.

Angeline was off-center and jittery. She dropped a plate, put too much salt in the meat, and forgot to put vegetables on no less than two orders. Marta kept looking at her as if
she was a stranger, and Karen had completely lost patience with her.

“You need to stop this right now.” Lettie frowned at her. “You’re calling attention to yourself.”

Angeline looked up at her friend, the only person in the world who would ever know what she’d gone through. “I can’t help it.”

“Yes, you can. Nothing bad has happened to us in Forest-ville, but that doesn’t mean it won’t. If you keep this up, you won’t have a job for long. No man is worth giving up what you’ve fought tooth and nail for.” Lettie’s brown gaze was steady, familiar. With a nod, she went back out into the restaurant with two plates to serve, leaving Angeline with her thoughts.

Lettie’s words helped Angeline come down from the ledge she was teetering on. She’d never had someone admire her from afar, and since she’d left Tolson, Utah, she had never felt safe. Ever. Just because she and Lettie hadn’t seen anyone following them didn’t mean no one was.

She understood this Samuel Carver was someone who had lived in Forestville all his life. He was harmless, according to everyone who worked at the Blue Plate, even Pieter. Yet she was still unaccountably nervous about the entire affair.

Angeline decided to give the book back to him. It wouldn’t be right to keep it, especially considering how nervous it made her. She had rarely received gifts in her life; she could count them on one hand. They had all been from her sister, Eliza, given in secret since their father did not believe in gifts. He was a church elder, a man who was strict and severe, never allowing his daughters even an inch of room to be individuals. They learned early on to obey him or suffer a beating with a switch, or his belt. They celebrated nothing and worshipped every day. It was a gray, dreary, colorless existence.
Angeline still marveled at the colors of the world around her now that she had her eyes open.

“Don’t forget to slice the bread.” Marta set a ham slice on a plate. Her reminder was surprising since Angeline rarely forgot to do anything.

With an embarrassed smile, Angeline sliced the next loaf of bread quickly, placing two steaming pieces on the plate. She added carrots just in time for Alice to come in with a big smile on her face.

“Your beau is here.”

Angeline stopped in mid-motion. “Excuse me?”

“Your beau is here. Samuel Carver is here for dinner and I would swear he’s spiffed up for it.” Alice grinned widely. “He’s ordered the ham and potatoes, with apple pie. Do you want to serve him?”

“No, I do not.” Angeline felt her nervousness returning and silently cursed Alice for her silly enthusiasm.

“Oh, why not? He asked for you.” She waggled her eyebrows. “He might not be rich, but he sure is sweet.” With a cheeky grin, she took the plate and left the kitchen.

“You might as well talk to him. Don’t listen to Alice prattle on about him being a half-breed. He’s a good boy, no matter who his mother was.” Marta put ham on another plate. This time it was for Samuel Carver. “If you hide in here, it will make it worse.”

Angeline knew she was right. The longer she hemmed and hawed about the gift and the man, the worse it would be. She needed to tell him there could be no future between them.

With a firm spine, she put potatoes on the plate to accompany the ham and nodded to Marta. “I’ll be right back.”

Angeline stepped into the restaurant and looked around. There were a number of people at tables, but she had no idea what the man looked like. Alice’s silly description
meant nothing except that he was a man. As if she’d conjured the waitress, Alice appeared next to a man sitting in front of the bay window. She pointed and winked at Ange-line.

Now she really was uncomfortable because Alice had no tact or consideration for other people. The man looked up and saw Angeline standing there.

The ground shifted beneath her.

His hair was the color of midnight, so dark it was nearly blue-black. It hung straight to his shoulders, too long to be fashionable. The ends curled up slightly as if a breeze had come through and ruffled it. His shoulders were wide, but not overly so.

He had an intense stare that made goose bumps crawl over her skin. His eyes were also darker than pitch, black pools that seemed to be bottomless. To her surprise, his skin was lightly tanned, with tiny laugh lines around his eyes and mouth. He could be any age, but she knew him to be twenty-nine. He had the demeanor of a man who had seen too much in his short life.

The bright blue of his shirt contrasted so much with the rest of him, she had to blink to absorb it all. He was a striking man, not classically handsome but fascinating.

Angeline did not ever remembering seeing him before, which wasn’t surprising because she worked in the kitchen most days.

She managed to swallow, somehow, before she stepped toward his table with her heart firmly lodged in her throat. He watched her with wide eyes, unsmiling and unthreatening. She couldn’t have explained it to anyone, but Marta had been right—Samuel Carver was no threat to her.

“Good afternoon, Miss Hunter.” His voice had a lilt to it, one she’d never heard before. It was like warm honey on a piece of toast.

Angeline thought perhaps she would be embarrassed by her reaction, but she wasn’t. “Good afternoon, Mr. Carver.” At least she set the plate down on the table without dropping it.

He smiled. “I hope you’re enjoying the book.”

She licked her lips and managed a small smile. “I’ve never had a new book before. I-I wanted to say thank you, but it’s much too extravagant for me to accept.”

There, that sounded reasonable and intelligent. He, however, shook his head.

“I can’t take it back.”

“Please, it must have cost you a lot of money.” She put her hands in her apron pockets and clenched them into fists, her right hand pressed up against the book. “It’s not appropriate for me to accept it.”

He hadn’t even glanced at the plate. His gaze was locked on hers. “I know it was forward of me, but I saw you reading on the back steps one day. You seemed to be at peace with a book in your hands.”

Angeline unwillingly nodded. “Yes, that’s exactly it. It’s almost as if the books give me peace.”

This time when he smiled, she found herself smiling back. The situation had gotten complicated in less than five minutes.

“I feel the same way about books. So please accept the gift from a fellow reader. It’s nothing more.”

She was torn between what she had to do and what she wanted to do. Angeline could not become attached or involved with any man, regardless of her silly heart’s reaction to him. It didn’t make it any easier to conjure up every other reason why she needed to keep her distance from him.

Angeline wanted to sit down and talk to him. Horrified by her reaction to this stranger, this man who seemed to be able to see into the depths of her soul, she backed away.

“I have to go back to the kitchen and work.”

“Of course. It was wonderful to meet you.” This time he looked hesitant, almost as if he was shy.

Angeline knew she really should not accept the book, but it remained firmly in her apron pocket as she stepped back toward the kitchen. She felt his stare as she retreated, knowing he watched her from the table by the window.

Her heart skipped a beat.

A
ngeline sat on the corner of her bed and stared at the book. The morning chill hung in the air as the lamplight filled the room with warm shadows. She caressed the spine and cover, ashamed of her enchantment with it, but thrilled to have it in her hands.

She hadn’t yet opened it, afraid if she cracked the spine, Samuel could not sell the book back to whomever he’d bought it from. Angeline couldn’t keep it, she knew that, but she pretended for a little while that she could. It was an extravagant gift, meant for a woman who could give a man something in exchange. She was not that woman and would never be.

Samuel was not what she’d expected. He was handsome, mesmerizing even, with his dark hair and eyes. Yet her attraction to him was much more than that; it was as if she already knew him. That’s what scared her the most—she could not be with him, yet now that she’d met him, she was drawn to him. In fact, she’d even dreamed of him the night before.

She could only remember fragments of the dream, but when she thought of Samuel, she felt warm inside. Surprisingly, she hoped he would be there for breakfast so she could see him. Perhaps she’d built up a fantasy about him that
couldn’t possibly come true. Or perhaps she’d find that he was even more than she imagined.

Angeline brought the book to her face and inhaled. The sharp scent of paper and ink tickled her nose, tempting her to open it, to indulge in the pleasure of reading it. She closed her eyes and breathed in again, her fingers tightening on the cover.