Wildest Dreams - By Rosanne Bittner Page 0,216

not only at home, but at my husband's side, and to help him however I can in bringing Montana into the United States. It is men like Luke Fontaine who have brought us this far, and who will bring continued progress to our territory. Just as it took brave and rugged men to pioneer this land, so will it take the same kind of men to defend our honor and our particular needs when Montana becomes a state. Mrs. Luke (Eletta) Fontaine

She reread the letter, folded it and put it in her handbag. She checked herself in the mirror. She had chosen to wear a deep brown velvet dress. She pulled on a matching velvet cape and tied it at the neck, then placed a white velvet hat on her auburn hair and pinned it at an elegant slant. She chose to wear white gloves. She would show this town and everyone else just how elegant and refined she really could be; and they would have to wonder, if Luke was the unrefined tyrant the article had made him out to be, why someone like herself would still be with him. She would do her share in this campaign by simply being on Luke Fontaine's arm, the happy, loving wife, and she thought how pleasant it would be to have Nial Bentley in front of her right now and to put a derringer to his chest and pull the trigger.

She picked up her handbag and went out. She would take her letter to a printer's office and have it typeset, then have enough copies run off to send to every damn newspaper in Montana and beyond!

Luke untied his tie and began unbuttoning his shirt, at the same time watching Lettie brush her hair. It was still thick and lustrous, showing only a little gray. "We sure have seen a lot of Montana, haven't we?" he asked, removing his shirt and going to look out the hotel window. "Bozeman, Butte, Anaconda, Helena, now Great Falls." He watched a light snow fall onto the street below, just enough to dampen the already muddy street. "Is there any land prettier, Lettie?"

She smiled. "I really don't know. Montana is about all I've ever known. I hardly remember our trip up here through Wyoming, it's been so many years ago, and I never did get to go to Denver."

He turned away from the window, studying her lovingly. "That's my fault. I'm sorry, Lettie. There must have been times when you felt buried alive up here. We can still travel to other places, you know, even Europe if you want, or other places out here. We have the money—"

She faced him, putting down her brush. "I wasn't complaining, Luke. I was just stating a fact." She rose and walked closer, tracing her fingers through the dark hair on his still-solid chest. "There is no place I want to go but home, Luke, to the Double L. And I know it's the same for you. I don't need to travel all over the country or across the ocean to be happy. You know that."

He put his hands to her face. "I know there isn't a man alive who could have a better wife, or a more beautiful one." She smiled, and Luke noticed new lines about her eyes, but he saw beyond them, to the eighteen-year-old girl he had married and brought to this wild land. "Thank you, Lettie, for the letter."

She rubbed her hands over his arms, up to his shoulders. "I was afraid you might be angry about it, but it was something I had to do. I couldn't let those lies go unanswered." She arched her eyebrows teasingly. "Of course, I did leave out the fact that this poised, elegant, refined, and intelligent wife of yours has done her share of shooting at outlaws, even killed one. I guess I should have mentioned that."

He broke into a handsome grin. "Maybe you should have." He moved his hands into her hair and down her back, pressing her close. "You're a good woman, Lettie. I've gotten a lot of good response since that letter."

"Well, we'll know in two days how much good it did.

Then all this will be over. However it turns out, we can get back to a halfway normal life again, back to the Double L and the children." She kissed his chest. "That's where we both belong."

"I can be home wherever I am, as long as I've got you right here close to