Wildest Dreams - By Rosanne Bittner Page 0,49

hair damp against the pillow. She managed a smile.

"It's a little girl, Luke. I hope you're not disappointed."

God, how he loved her. "I'm just glad you're all right."

Willow held up the newborn baby, letting the blanket in which she had wrapped the baby fall away. The infant's tiny hands were curled into angry fists, and she was giving out a healthy wail. "I guess there's nothing wrong with her lungs," Luke said. He leaned down and kissed Lettie lightly. "I'm sorry about the pain."

She took his hand. "When I had Nathan, my mother told me it's the one kind of pain that is almost instantly forgotten, and she was right." She squeezed his hand. "There will be more, Luke. And there will be sons."

He thought about his decision that maybe they shouldn't have any more, and he already knew that was impossible. Of course there would be more. After all, he wanted sons; and besides, how was he going to stay out of this beautiful woman's bed? "I hate this part of it, Lettie. And I hate waiting outside while you're in so much pain in here. The next time I want to be here with you."

Lettie saw the fear in his eyes. "I wanted you here. Henny said it wasn't proper, but I don't care. The next time I do want you with me."

"Thank you, Lettie, for our little girl." He gave her a wink then. "I guess instead of me getting a helping hand, you got yourself one."

She managed a light laugh. "Oh, yes, I planned it that way." Her eyes teared then at the sudden thought of how she used to help her own mother with cooking and housework. "I want to name her after my mother, Luke. Katheryn Lynn. Katie. Is that all right?"

"Of course it's all right." He closed his eyes and squeezed her hand. "Thank God, you're fine and the baby is healthy."

Outside, Will soothed a weeping Henny, neither of them aware they were being watched from a vantage point high in the foothills.

"You see, Red Hawk?" A fierce-looking Sioux warrior with a scarred nose turned to his fourteen-year-old son. "I told you these whites were here to stay, not just tend horses for the summer."

"It is just as you said, Father," Red Hawk answered. "He has collected many horses, built himself sturdy lodges."

Half Nose grinned. "Not sturdy enough, if we decide we do not want them here."

"Will we burn them down? Steal the horses?"

"Not yet. After another winter there will be even more horses. We will wait until we truly need them to keep fighting those who walk the road through our land to get the yellow metal. These here, they are not after the metal. It is the bluecoats, and the many men who come to dig the metal from the sacred Mother Earth, whom we will kill first. This man here, he will simply supply fresh horses for us... when the time is right."

"I will do it, Father. I will steal the horses from in front of his very face. The white settlers are cowards. They will shiver and hide in their log tepee when they see us."

Half Nose studied the several graves below, remembered that many bad white men often came to this place with many horses. He had stolen some of those horses from them a few times, but it had not been easy. Had they returned again this spring? Had the white man below fought with them and won? He was surely quite a warrior if he had.

"Do not be so sure this white man will run from you, like the other settlers, Red Hawk." He watched the little boy with white hair running about in the distance, and a soft wind carried the sound of the new baby's crying. "This one is here to stay. It will not be easy convincing him he does not belong here."

The winter of '64 to '65 proved just as bitterly cold, burying the Fontaine family just as deeply as the previous winter, but this time Lettie did not suffer quite the awful loneliness as the year before. She was growing accustomed to her new life, the ache to see her parents and siblings not quite so painful now. She had Nathan, who would be four the coming May, and who loved to help her with housework and with the new baby; and she had little Katie, who kept her busy with feedings and scrubbing diapers.

It was obvious Katie was going to