Wildest Dreams - By Rosanne Bittner Page 0,38

river.

It seemed Luke had spent most of his time through the winter hauling water and doing other chores to feed and protect the animals, as well as for his own family. Now the animals could be turned loose to graze, and they could drink all the water they wanted out of the stream. She could do her wash outside and hang her clothes in the fresh air; and they had stored more water in barrels left behind by whoever had lived here before them.

She had ached for the warm sunshine, and now it was here.

They had also been hit with two fierce and frightening thunderstorms. If their little shanty had been built a few yards to the left, it would have been completely washed away by the now-torrential creek; a few yards to the right, and it would have been enveloped and destroyed in an avalanche that had come roaring down from the mountains above only three weeks ago. The snow it had carried was mostly melted now, but from what they could tell when they inspected it, the swath of snow that had come down with it was several hundred feet wide. God had surely been with them, saving them from both flooding and from being buried alive.

She felt the life kicking inside of her. Six months pregnant, she was still not terribly big, but big enough for her condition to be obvious. It embarrassed her for Luke to see her naked, but he insisted she was more beautiful than ever because it was his baby she carried, another son for Luke Fontaine, or so they both hoped. Her condition had not interrupted their lovemaking, and when she thought about how gentle the man she had married could be, she loved him all the more. That love only increased when she remembered Luke's promise that no matter how many children they had, Nathan would be loved just as much, treated the same as the others. Luke was a good father to him, a devoted husband; and he was slaving away to keep every promise he had made to her.

She looked down the hill where he was working on the new cabin. He wanted it to be ready before the next winter. He was building it about two hundred yards below on a flat piece of land that was still higher than the valley. The spot would have a grand view of the foothills and mountains beyond the valley, and the area was big enough to build an even bigger home later. Luke had been careful to make sure it was an area unaffected by spring melt off, high enough that the floodwaters in the valley below could not reach it. It was a perfect site, and now Lettie was glad no one else had yet claimed this land.

As soon as he felt the road was passable, Luke intended to bring in some help to dig a well and build a windmill, finish the cabin, and build a barn. Lettie was worried he would work himself to death, as well as spend every last dime he had brought with him, but he was determined that by next winter life would be a little easier. As soon as he could get someone to stay there with her so he could leave for a few days, he intended to ride out and determine the boundaries of land he wanted to claim. Just how much he could claim legally, she wasn't sure, but he intended to get his hands on as much as possible, one way or another. She had decided she would not question the how of it. Owning it meant everything to him, and he was working so hard to make life better for her that she didn't have the heart to argue with him over how he would lay claim to all that he wanted when the Homestead Act allowed a man to settle on only 160 acres. "No man can ranch on a little piece of land like that," he had complained. "Hell, there's more than one hundred sixty acres in the valley alone."

She folded the blanket and put it in a basket, then smiled when Nathan came running to her with some little blue flowers in his fist. He held them up to her with a proud smile. "For Mommy," he told her.

"Oh, thank you, Nathan," she told him, leaning down to take the flowers and kiss his cheek. She thanked God every day for his sweet nature.