Wildest Dreams - By Rosanne Bittner Page 0,32

obvious Luke Fontaine was already deeply entrenched in the new land and new way of life. There was no going back now. The reality of that fact hit Lettie harder every day. She thought about St. Joseph, about her family, the friends left behind, the companionship of her mother and sister. That was all gone now. Her only friend since arriving here was a hardened, pipe-smoking woman who lived too far away to visit very often. Luke would have to be not only a provider, protector, and lover, he would also have to be her friend. There was no one else. Sometimes she felt so close to him, yet she realized they still hardly knew each other at all, in spite of their intimacy. "I love you, Luke."

He kissed her ear. "And I love you," he whispered.

Outside the wolves began their nightly calling, and Bear raised his head, whining softly, his tail wagging. Lettie watched his eyes, a bright orange in the glow of the firelight, and it seemed the wildness she saw there could also be found in Luke, a yearning to be master of their territory, to answer to no one. There had been a look in his eyes the morning he'd found Red missing. Already he was thinking of the little cabin and the surrounding valley and foothills as "his land." With no law out there, a man had to do his own defending and set his own rules, and that frightened her, but she was not going to let him know. Nor was she going to tell him yet that she suspected she was already pregnant.

"Don't let the land change you," she said softly.

She got no reply. His deep, steady breathing told her he was asleep.

CHAPTER 6

Lettie took the iron from where it sat heating on the stove and began pressing a dress as best she could, using the table to iron on. Clothes hung all around her, pinned to ropes Luke had fastened from one wall to another, as there was no other way to hang a wash in the dead of winter. Even in the best of weather, washday was difficult enough. Now it was even harder, carrying in bucket after bucket of snow to melt on top of the stove in order to have enough water to wash with, trying to find enough room in the little cabin to hang everything, helping Luke carry the washtub outside to dump it when she was through.

Having to make her way amid long johns and drawers, pants and shirts that seemed to fill the tiny cabin and hang nearly to the floor because of the low ceiling only added to Lettie's feelings of being trapped. She ironed almost frantically, wondering how much longer it would be before she lost her sanity entirely. Winter had come hard and fast, and for four months now, to her recollection, it had snowed every single day. Most of those days the wind blew in howling wails that made her want to plug her ears. She longed for total quiet, ached for warm sunshine and green grass. She wanted to be able to go outside without dressing like an Eskimo, to run through flowers.

Luke was gone most of every day, kept busy just shoveling snow in order to keep the wood supply and the animals from being buried. Now there was a tunnel going from the front of the cabin to the shed where the four mules and two horses were kept, as well as a pen for chickens so that they could have fresh eggs, although in such weather the hens did not do much laying. Another tunnel led from the cabin to the outhouse. Luke had made several more trips into Billings before the snows closed up the road completely, bringing back feed for the animals, something else he had to keep digging at constantly so it wouldn't become totally buried. The problem was, he had no building in which to store the bales of hay and alfalfa and bags of grain, and the feed attracted other animals. Deer and elk managed to dig through the snow and have their share, and Luke feared he would run out of feed before spring melt allowed the animals to graze. Some nights he was up for hours, sitting out in the bitter cold guarding the feed. The only advantage to the problem was that they had plenty of fresh meat for themselves. At least Luke had not had to go out