Wildest Dreams - By Rosanne Bittner Page 0,53

to allow her time to regain her health fully. She had to smile at the thought. How could they possibly refrain from making love, when it was so enjoyable for them both, and when the winters were so long and dark and lonely?

She pinched the edges around the soft, raw crust of a pie, deciding that if and when God intended for her to have a child, she would have it, and that was that. Life with Luke, in spite of the dangers and hardships, had brought her more happiness than she ever dreamed she would have after the agony of her rape and the terrible loneliness that had followed; and she was glad that in turn, she and Nathan and all the other children she would have could help fill the emptiness Luke had known before meeting her.

She glanced over at Nathan who was piling up some blocks Luke had made for him. Katie crawled over to where he played and promptly knocked over the little tower. Nathan pouted and scolded her, then began showing her how to stack them up again. Lettie's attention was drawn from their play when Pup began barking and Jim knocked on the front door.

"I think he's comin', Mrs. Fontaine."

Lettie hurried over to the door and opened it. Jim pointed to the east, along the road that led to Billings. Pup, who seemed to gain a pound a day, bounded from the porch, out toward the road, and back again, still barking excitedly. "Horace rode out to greet him," Jim told her. "Paint was comin' in slow, and it looks like Luke was kind of slumped over, like he's hurt."

"Oh, dear God," Lettie muttered, stepping farther out onto the porch. She could barely make out horse and rider, but it did indeed look as though Luke might be hurt. She waited anxiously. It seemed to take forever for Horace to reach Luke, and she thought how in this land nothing was as close as it seemed. Whatever landmark a person picked, it took twice as long to reach it as one would estimate. Finally Horace reached him. He stopped for a moment, then dismounted and climbed up onto Paint behind Luke. "Jim, he is hurt. Horace is getting on Paint in order to hang on to Luke. Go out there and see if he needs more help!"

Her chest tightened as she waited and watched helplessly. Jim ran to the bunkhouse and mounted his own horse, yelling out to Zeb Crandal to get back to the house. Zeb was mending a fence several hundred yards down in the valley and was able to hear Jim only because the strong wind carried Jim's voice.

The wind. The constant wind. She remembered how it almost drove her crazy that first winter. Now she was so used to it that she hardly noticed it anymore, except on days like today, when the sight of her wounded husband reminded her how quickly one could get hurt and die out here. The land was so beautiful, and at the same time so cruel. A hundred things could happen to a man out hunting alone—flash floods in spring, drought in summer, ravaging cold in winter, wild animals... Indians. Had Luke been attacked by the Sioux? Was he dying? Was he dead already?

She reached down and petted Pup, who jumped up on her, tail wagging. He was already proving to be a good watchdog, guarded the children fiercely, slept on the front porch every night like a sentinel. "He'll be all right, Pup," she said absently, more to assure herself than the dog. She turned and went inside, ordering Nathan to take all his blocks into the bedroom he shared with Katie and to keep the baby in that room out from under people's feet.

"What's a matter, Mommy?" he asked.

"Daddy might be hurt. You be a big boy and help Mommy by staying out of the way."

The boy's lips puckered and his eyes teared as he hurriedly picked up a handful of the blocks and carried them into his room. Lettie did not have time to comfort him. She hurried into the bedroom and pulled back the bedclothes, then grabbed some clean towels from the washroom and set them on a table near the bed. She brought a wash pan from the bathing room and set it, too, near the bed, then checked to be sure the kettle of hot water sitting on the stove was full. She threw some more wood under