Wildest Dreams - By Rosanne Bittner Page 0,222

had put up a huge Christmas tree near the window, knowing their mother liked the biggest tree they could find, wanting to surprise her with it when she and Luke got home. Did Nathan even understand what the tree was for? What did he know about their family and how they lived?

He didn't like feeling this anger, but he couldn't help it. After so many years of being the oldest brother and doing everything he could to show his father he was fit to take over the ranch he loved so much, it just didn't seem right having an older brother come along who had decided long ago he wanted nothing to do with this family. The first time he came back, he had been forced. This time he had come on his own. That could only mean he wanted to make the Double L his home, which was like making it home to an Indian, after all the heartache the Sioux had caused his parents. None of it seemed fair.

He looked up when he heard the outer door open and close, heard Luke and Nathan stomp their feet to get off the snow. He watched his mother, who stared at the parlor door as though a ghost was about to enter. The epitome of a mother's love shone in her eyes when Nathan stepped inside the room, and Tyler hated him. Nathan stared back at her silently.

"Hello, son," Lettie spoke up.

He nodded. "Mother."

Mother! At last he had called her mother. Lettie struggled against a need to run to him, embrace him, but he was a stranger, a grown man, so tall and strong and handsome! She could hardly believe this was her son. A little part of her was stunned at how much he looked like the man who had given him life. It brought back the memory of that night of horror, but she reminded herself that Nathan was innocent of that awful night. He was life, a grown-up human being who need never know the truth of his beginnings. She glanced at Katie, warning her with her eyes she must never tell. Katie only smiled through tears. She seemed to understand how she felt.

She looked back at Nathan, whose blond hair was tied into a tail at the back of his neck. He wore cotton pants and a calico shirt with knee-high winter moccasins and a doeskin vest. How strange to feel so nervous around her own son. "I... I'm so glad you came. Ever since you left eight years ago, we've been so worried, Nathan, wondering if you were all right. We were even going to try to find you this summer."

Nathan glanced at his siblings. He could not help sensing Tyler's animosity since he had arrived, understood it to some extent. Robbie and Katie had been good to him, but he knew Tyler would rather he left, and he would, if he thought he could stand living on the reservation the rest of his life. He looked back at his mother. "I was in Canada for five years after the Battle of the Greasy Grass."

"Greasy Grass?"

"The Little Big Horn," Luke explained. He walked past them to the fireplace to roll himself a cigarette from tobacco and papers he kept there.

"You were there?" Lettie asked, her eyes wide with wonder.

Lettie saw it then—a quick flash in Nathan's eyes—the Indian spirit drilled into him that brought forth a certain pride, a hatred for soldiers like George Custer.

"I was there," he answered, holding his chin proudly. "It is no use trying to explain to any white man why it happened. No white man wants to hear the Indian side of it."

"But you are white," Tyler reminded him.

Nathan met his brother's eyes, put a fist to his chest. "Not in here."

"Then what the hell are you doing here?" Tyler asked.

Lettie cast him a quick look of chastisement. "He's here because he's our son and your brother!" she snapped. "If he feels more like a Sioux, who can blame him? He was raised by them!" She looked back at Nathan. "I don't care why you're here, Nathan, or how Indian you are, or even if you have no feelings for me as a mother. It doesn't change how I feel about you. I will always love you just the same as I loved the little four-year-old boy who was stolen away from me all those years ago. Whatever the reason, I'm glad you're here, glad to be able to see