Heart of Thunder Read Online Free PDF

gone through,” Jeannette said gently as she put her arm around Samantha and led her to the sofa.
    Samantha thanked God for Jeannette. She and her brother were both decidedly French, though born in America. Their mother was French, and their American father had died when they were children. The father had left them comfortably well off. Their mother had not married again, so they had had no influence except hers. Perhaps Adrien had needed a man’s influence. Lord, he was acting like a faint-hearted woman.
    “Did you really shoot someone five times?” Jeannette asked.
    Samantha sighed. “Yes,” she answered simply.
    “How terrible!”
    “For him,” Samantha said bitterly.
    “You are not upset?”
    “Oh, I don’t know. I was so furious. I still am. The man just wouldn’t leave , not even after I got my gun. I guess he didn’t think I would use it.”
    “But after you shot him the first time, surely—”
    Samantha laughed shortly, cutting her off. “You would think he’d have gone, wouldn’t you? But after that first shot he was mad, and he wanted to get his hands on me. He would have killed me if I had given him a chance.”

    “ Mon Dieu! So you were only protecting yourself, just as you said.”
    “Yes. I finally got him out of the room and made sure he left the hotel by the back stairs. But even then he wouldn’t give up. He tried to knock me down, so I shot him again.”
    “How could the man live after all that?” Adrien broke in suddenly.
    “I didn’t mean to kill him, Adrien. I knew what I was doing. I gave him five harmless wounds.”
    “Harmless? Harmless!” Adrien gasped. “You can talk so calmly of shooting a man! I thought I knew you. I have traveled across this country with you, but I do not know you.”
    Samantha was enraged. “What was I supposed to do, let him hurt me? He had already attacked me before I finally got hold of my gun. And he was able to walk away. He will live, I’m sure of that. And I would like to point out that none of this would have happened if you had got here when you were supposed to. Where were you, Adrien? Did you forget we had a luncheon engagement?”
    Adrien nodded his head. She had deftly turned the tables on him. But Samantha got no satisfaction from his weak answer.
    “I did forget.”
    “Oh, Adrien, how could you?” Jeannette said the very words Samantha had been about to say, though Samantha’s tone wouldn’t have held mere disappointment.
    “Do not look at me so, Jean,” Adrien replied with a little more gumption, his shock lessening. “I simply forgot. I made an important decision this morning and acted on it promptly. I only just finished.”
    “Only just finished what?” Jeannette asked with sudden surprise.
    “Buying supplies,” he said almost defensively. “I am going to Elizabethtown.”

    Samantha frowned. She hadn’t expected Adrien to leave Denver. She had assumed she would have at least another month in Denver to work on him. In a month she would leave for Santa Fe to meet her escort from the hacienda .
    “Elizabethtown? Why?” asked Jeannette.
    “To find gold, of course.”
    The girls gasped. Jeannette spoke first. “But why, Adrien? You came here to open a law office.”
    “Others are getting rich here, Jean. I never dreamed what it would be like,” Adrien replied, excited now. “We shall be rich, too, and own one of those fine mansions like the wealthy miners are building.”
    Samantha laughed suddenly as the realization struck her. “He’s got gold fever!”
    Jeannette looked from Samantha to her brother, thoroughly bewildered. “But why go all the way to Elizabethtown? There is silver here—tons of it, if the reports are true.”
    “I agree, Adrien,” Samantha added soberly. “You could stake a claim right here. There’s no need to go running off to New Mexico. Haven’t you heard of the Indian trouble they’re having there?”
    “Ah, that is nothing.” Adrien waved a dismissal.
    “You’ve never seen an