Wildest Dreams - By Rosanne Bittner Page 0,52

for all of them.

CHAPTER 9

Lettie took another loaf of bread from the oven, weary from so much baking and cooking, yet glad to do it for the extra two men Jim had brought back with him as hired help. Not only would it be nice to have other human beings to talk to in the coming winter, but the extra men kept her busy... too busy to get upset over the fact that Luke should have been back two days ago from his hunting trip. Ever since he'd killed one of the Indians who had tried to steal the horses, she had been sick with worry that while he was out alone he would in turn be killed. He had left five days ago to hunt for meat that he would smoke and store for the winter. He had said he would be back in three days, and she decided that if he didn't show up by tonight, she would send all the help out to find him, even if it meant she had to stay here alone.

She set the bread on the table to cool. The pleasant smell of freshly baked bread in her cozy new house usually cheered her, but today she hardly noticed. Every Sunday she fed the help a fancy meal and baked extra bread and pies for them, but the rest of the week they had to feed themselves. They also scrubbed their own clothes, something which the two extra men, who had always lived as single men, seemed adept at doing, although not often enough as far as she was concerned. Zeb Crandal and Horace Little had worked as scouts, hunters, trappers, and ranch hands all their lives. Horace had never been married, but Zeb had. His wife was dead now, his full-grown son off to California. The two men were older than Jim, she guessed roughly forty, and although they were congenial and were respectful of Luke and her, they were rather crude in their ways, men who had never lived a genteel life.

Neither she nor Luke minded, as long as they earned their keep, which both men did to full satisfaction. The bunkhouse was completed, another storage shed built, and the windmill was finished. Now she could draw buckets of water from a well. The best part was that there was always someone to keep watch at night, although how much help that would be against an entire Indian war party was doubtful.

She was trying to be strong about this, stay busy, master this fear of reprisal from the one called Half Nose, if indeed he was the one who had paid them a visit two weeks ago. There had been no sign of Indians since, and she had told Luke and convinced herself, too, that they could not stop living or give up out of fear of what might happen. Life went on. Now there were extra men to help out in return for a roof over their heads and food from the family garden and her own ovens.

She was proud of what a fine garden she had grown last summer. Already she had another garden started, even bigger than last year's. She had never had a vegetable garden of her own before then, and she felt very accomplished that her root cellar still contained potatoes and carrots from last fall, as well as a basket of seed potatoes from last year that she would use to plant a new potato field this spring. Horace had already dug the trenches for her.

Two years they had been in Montana already. Two long, bitter winters. Nathan turned four just two days ago, little Katie was eight months. She thought she'd heard once that while a woman was nursing, she couldn't get pregnant again. How wrong that had proved to be! Apparently, when it came to a woman's body, nothing was guaranteed. She had barely recuperated from Katie's birth before realizing she was pregnant again. At first she thought it was just taking time for her body to get regulated again, as she had not had a period for three months after Nathan was born. But then she felt the life in her belly and realized it was growing again. Now she wondered if she would always get pregnant so easily. Luke was thrilled to be having another child, but very worried about her health. He had sworn they would simply have to stay away from each other for several months after this one,