Read Online Heart of Thunder by Johanna Lindsey - Free Book Online Page A

mines were making him richer every year. If only Adrien knew all that. But she didn’t talk of her wealth, so it was possible that he didn’t know. All the Allstons knew was that her father was a rancher in Mexico. Perhaps they didn’t equate ranching with wealth. Adrien would be surprised when they married and she was finally free to tell him.
    Hank walked Samantha to the hotel. “Will you dine with me this evening?” he asked before leaving her at the top of the stairs. When she nodded, he caught her hand and squeezed it, then let it go. “I will call for you in an hour.” He went to his room.
    Samantha soaked for a long time in a too-small wooden tub, brooding on that intimate gesture. It was something she would have liked Adrien to see, but it had made her uncomfortable because she and Hank had been alone.
    She hoped that Hank was only amusing himself with her. It wouldn’t do at all for him to become serious about her. She liked him, but she loved Adrien, and she was not so fickle that she could change her feelings easily—not even for such a handsome, gallant man. For more than two years she had dreamed of becoming Adrien’s wife, and marry him she would.
    Hank was at her door precisely at six o’clock, as promised. He had bathed and shaved, and he was wearing a suit. The frock coat and trousers were black, but the striped satin waistcoat was in two shades of brown. The ruffled shirt was white. He looked magnificent. Could he have tucked the clothes in his saddle bags? Impossible. He had probably just bought them.
    “You look magnífica ,” Hank complimented as he took in her gray merino dress with the fitted jacket trimmed in black.
    Samantha couldn’t help smiling. “I was just thinking the same about you.”
    He grinned, his eyes crinkling, the dimples giving a boyish quality to his face. “Shall we go? There is a small restaurant a few doors down the street.”
    “Do you mind if we walk awhile first?” Samantha ventured. “Perhaps see whatever there is to see of this town?”
    “It is dark now,” he pointed out.
    “We can stay in the main street.”
    There was hardly any light, only a quarter-moon and an occasional dim glow from a window. They strolled slowly along the wooden walkway in front of the stores. Samantha just enjoyed the feeling of walking, the chance to stretch her legs.
    Lord, how she hated traveling by stagecoach! Only three more days. Only? She was seriously considering sending a message to Santa Fe, asking her escort to come to Elizabethtown. She could be done with stages. The vaqueros would be on their way, for she had wired her father.
    “What do your close friends call you, Samantha?” Hank spoke softly beside her.
    She thought of Adrien and Jeannette and answered, “Samantha.”
    “You are always called that?”
    She looked at him sideways, amused. “Why? Don’t you like my name?”
    “It does not suit you,” he said frankly. “You are morelike a Carmen, a Mercedes, a Lanetta. Samantha is so…Victorian.”
    She shrugged. “My grandmother was Victorian, and she chose my name. Still, you’re right, it is rather formal.”
    Then she grinned. “At home they call me Sam, or even Sammy.”
    Hank chuckled. “Sam! No, you are certainly no Sam. Sammy is not so bad, though I could still think of better names for one so lovely. Do you mind if I call you Sammy?”
    “I don’t know.” She hesitated. “It’s a bit…”
    “Familiar?” He shook his head. “You do not consider me your friend, then?”
    “Of course I do,” she quickly reassured him. “Oh, I suppose it will be all right. It will just sound funny coming from you. I’m called that only at home, and I’ve only known you for a few days.”
    “But you have agreed we are amigos .”
    “Yes, we are friends. And here I am taking advantage of our friendship.” She had noticed that his limp was getting worse. “Here I am making you walk with me, when your ankle isn’t healed yet.”
    He took her arm and