Wildest Dreams - By Rosanne Bittner Page 0,79

the cigar a moment. "What is it?"

"Don't let yourself change completely. I wouldn't want you to become as coarse and unfeeling as Tex."

Luke shrugged. "Tex isn't all bad. He told me he grew up an orphan in the streets of Chicago, learned to steal at the tender age of five just to stay alive, killed his first man at eleven. He never has told me who it was or why he killed him, has never said what his real name is or any other details about his life, but I know there's a side to him that knows right from wrong, appreciates honesty in a man. He as much as saved my life the day we faced off those buffalo hunters. The same time I shot one of them, another had his gun out. Tex got that one. Otherwise I might have taken a bullet."

He met her gaze, and Lettie thought how very handsome he looked today. Was it just because his being home was still new and such a sweet pleasure, or was it that the weathered, rugged look about him had only added to the masculine features she already loved? His eyes were bluer today than the vivid blue sky above them.

"Don't worry," he was saying. "Men like Tex are necessary out here, and part of me has to be just like him. That doesn't mean I'm not the same man you married." He looked away again. "I do have to say that part of that man died when Nathan was taken. I'll never quite forgive myself for not being able to get him back for you, Lettie."

Lettie gazed at a sea of green grass spread out before them as far as she could see. It had been a good summer, just enough rain to keep the plains green with good feed for the cattle. She worried what would happen if they ever had a drought and had to buy feed for so much stock. Surely it would ruin them financially. "You did all that you could. There is no sense going back over it again."

They both sat there quietly for several minutes, a gentle breeze blowing the smoke from Luke's cigar off into nothingness. "You see that fence line way out there?" he finally asked.

Lettie strained to see the dim, dark line of fence made of logs notched into fence posts. "I see it."

"I'm going to claim another hundred thousand acres beyond it. That will give us a total of close to a million acres, all Fontaine land. I'm buying more beef out of Oregon and California. The market is growing every day, and I intend to be ready to meet the demand. That's all good grassland out there. With the buffalo being killed off the way they are, there's just that much more of it for my cattle."

Lettie tried to fathom so much land. She had never even ridden the full perimeter of the land they owned. She'd been too busy with raising the children to get fully involved in everything Luke was doing with the ranch, and sometimes she worried about what she would do if something happened to him. "Isn't that government land?"

Luke shrugged. "Some of it, but they'll never do anything with it. Lots of other ranchers use government land to graze their beef. It's mine for as long as it sits there not being used, and I intend to fence it in so others understand that. Some of it I'll try to buy from other homesteaders, and some of it I can claim legally."

Lettie sighed with worry. "Through David Taylor?"

Luke turned to look at her again. "Everybody does it, Lettie. The government doesn't understand how much land it takes to graze one steer."

"And the richest man out here is David Taylor. Henny said on her last visit he's building a huge house north of Billings."

Luke chuckled. "Who cares? A little bribery money up front means a lot more money down the road through the sale of prime beef. It's all legal, once it's on paper, with deeds, titles, all of that. Don't worry about it, Lettie. We've formed our own cattlemen's association to help protect ourselves, sent out invitations to the next meeting, which will be in a couple of weeks. We even invited that Englishman who bought all that land from the homesteaders southwest of Billings who lit out because of so much Indian trouble. I've never met him yet. Sounds like quite an interesting fellow."

He squinted to watch an eagle