Wildest Dreams - By Rosanne Bittner Page 0,46

see his new son or daughter."

"A son. It has to be a son. He'll need sons," Lettie answered, feeling another pain coming, hoping that talk would help ease it. Why couldn't Luke be here? What was so wrong about allowing the husband to be with his wife at a time like this? Following instructions from Willow, she breathed in quick gasps as another pain tore at her belly. She didn't want to scream, but it was impossible not to. She remembered the terror of thinking the first time this happened to her that she was going to die for being "bad," but her mother and a minister had helped her understand that nothing that had happened was her fault. The pain was just a sacrifice for the beautiful gift she had received from God, and now she would soon receive that gift again. She could bear the pain because this was all for Luke, to begin the family he so sorely needed and wanted, and to give little Nathan a brother or sister. The baby would help all of them get through the next long winter.

How she missed her mother and father, sister and brother. At least she knew they were all right. The last time she and Luke were in town before getting snowed in for the winter, she had sent a letter to Denver, telling them to write to her in care of Will Doolan in Billings, Montana. This last time Will and Henny came out to help them, Will had brought a reply from her family. To her great relief, they were all fine and doing well in Denver. They had even been spared in a terrible fire that had burned down most of the town the very same summer they settled there in '63; and they had come through a killer flood that had washed away most of the city just this past spring. God had been with them.

Now here it was August of '64. A whole year had passed since she parted from her family. As soon as she felt better she would write and tell them of her new home, her experiences over the winter, how big Nathan was getting... and she would be able to tell them they had another grandchild.

She relaxed again in a reprieve from pain. She looked around the spacious bedroom that was now hers and Luke's.

The new cabin was barely finished enough to move into, but she wanted to have her baby here, not in the old shack up the hill. She had not even had a chance to put up curtains yet. Henny had promised to shop for material for her and help her make the curtains after the baby was born.

"You're all... so good to us," she told Henny.

Henny smiled. "Well, out here folks learn they've got to help each other. You never know when you'll need help in return. Besides, folks in town are always happy to help new people settle here."

Lettie managed a brief smile of her own. "The cabin is beautiful." She looked out her bedroom window at green grass and trees, wildflowers growing on the distant hill. Surely this baby would be born healthy. Their lives were getting better all the time. Will and Jim had brought in more men from town who had helped Luke finish the house. It was a sturdy log structure with three bedrooms. It even had a separate little room for washing that also contained a chamber pot so that she and the children could stay inside on the most bitterly cold days instead of having to visit the new privy behind the house. She had wood floors, fresh, varnished wood instead of the old, dried-up, cracked floors in the shanty. Luke had built plenty of shelves into all three walls of the kitchen end of the main room, and she had a real cookstove, a cast-iron contraption that had taken an extra-heavy wagon and a whole team of mules to haul out to the ranch from Billings's one-and-only supply store, where it had finally arrived in answer to a months-old order. It had then taken six men to get the stove into the house. It could be heated with either wood or coal, and for now it would have to be wood. There was no coal available in Billings, but Syd Martin, the owner of the store, had promised he would see about ordering some.

The part of the house she prized most was her stone fireplace, right