Hearts of Dust 3: Hearts of Dust

By Elena Martin

Do you like sweet historical romances?

Having overcome the challenges of a second land run and influenza, Sarah, Tony and their adopted son Geraint now face new challenges. A long-lost uncle wants to take Geraint away. It seems Sarah's dreams for a family and child of her own are not to be. Will their love for each other and hope for the future carry them through this devastating turn of events?

This sweet historical romance has a hard-won happy ending.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Elena Martin
• Release date: Nov 3, 2014
• ISBN: 9781502252456

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

Geraint! Sarah called out the door of the restaurant. You and Spirit come in and wash up for supper.

Geraint and the dog had been playing stickball with a few of the other boys in the street in front of the restaurant. Since Sarah found the boy two years ago, he and the dog had been inseparable. It was early fall, but it was a warm, Indian summer and the sun was just starting to dip at almost eight o’clock. Sarah had let the boy stay out later than usual because she had been dealing with her husband who she was quite upset with today.

Geraint and Spirit ran in with Sarah on their heels telling the dog to stay out of the kitchen and the boy to wash his hands. Neither of them listened to her as they both noticed Tony in the kitchen and raced to see him.

There’s my strong knight, Tony said, swinging the six year old up into his arms. Do as your mama says and wash up for dinner. I’ll be up to tuck you in after a while.

After Sarah came home with Geraint two years ago, she had gone to the Sheriff in Guthrie. The Sheriff told her that he had done a search for the boy’s parents. Sarah and Tony suspected that meant he’d asked around. It made Sarah feel bad to think there was a possibility that Geraint’s mother was still alive, and that if she was, her heart was probably breaking for her lost son. But she was torn, because she too loved the boy like he was her own, and she felt that if she ever had to give him up it might kill her.

During that first year, Geraint would sometimes wake up screaming at night. He would sob and shake for a long time after Sarah picked him up. He was never able to verbalize to Sarah what was happening in his dreams that terrified him so, but she would just hold him and sing to him until he calmed down. The nightmares finally went away, and Geraint began to adjust to life as homesteader.

Sarah and Tony desperately wanted to adopt Geraint so that they didn’t have to live in fear that someone would come along someday and take him away. A lawyer in town had told them about an adoption statute that had been enacted in Massachusetts in 1851. It was America’s first adoption statute. Twenty five more states adopted the act over the following twenty-five years. Unfortunately, Oklahoma was still a Territory and not a state so no adoption law existed. One day Geraint had asked if he could call them Mama and Papa. Sarah had never been so delighted, and Tony had actually cried. He had grown to love the boy as much as she did, and with his dark hair and eyes, people in town believed him to be Tony’s biological son. Tony never corrected anyone if they said so; he would just beam with pride. Sarah tried after a while to put the worries that someone would take him away out of her head. She prayed nightly that Oklahoma would become a state and adopt the same laws that other states had.

The past two years in Chandler hadn’t been easy ones for the little family. They had lived in a tent for weeks while spending every day and late into the night building the restaurant and living quarters on the second floor. The town was wild during those times with no law in place. Sometimes at night gunshots would ring