Bittner, Rosanne (4 page)

"She's a good girl, Luke," Mrs. MacBride told him. "She needs a man who can show her how to be a woman and not be afraid."

Luke stood there with rain pouring down his face, his hair soaked to his scalp. It was only then he realized he'd lost his hat somewhere. "I don't doubt that for a minute, ma'am. She thinks she's scared me away, but I don't scare that easy."

Lettie's mother smiled. "I didn't think you would, but it was up to her to tell you, not us."

Looking past Mrs. MacBride, Luke saw that one wagon had been destroyed. Someone began shouting, asking where Mrs. Nolan was, the young widow who had lost her husband to snakebite. She was nowhere near the wagons.

"I'd better go help with the cleanup," he told Mrs. MacBride, "but this isn't finished. Your daughter and I are going to have a good talk."

She smiled sadly and touched his arm. "I hope you do."

Luke glanced at the MacBride wagon once more, then left to help look for poor Hester Nolan.

The rain turned to drizzle, a fitting accompaniment to the sad burial. Hester Nolan had run out into the storm and shot herself in the head. No one had seen her run away, and no one had heard the shot above the sound of the wind. Hank Preston said a few words over her grave, after which everyone went through the young woman's belongings, to decide whom to notify back east of her husband's and her deaths. Preston rather callously explained how everything would be done. Personal belongings would be left at Jules-berg for relatives to claim. The wagon and oxen would be sold to anyone at Julesberg who might want them, or to a member of the wagon train, the money held with the personal belongings. A few other things would be divided up among the other travelers.

It seemed a cold and matter-of-fact way to dispose of everything, but Luke was fast learning that in this land there was little room for sentiment, little time for tears over what might have been. They had to keep moving or risk dying in the mountains. That was the way it was, and there was no getting around it.

While the others were still gathered over the Nolans' possessions, Luke pulled Henry MacBride aside. Lettie turned and gave him a discouraging look as though to warn him it was useless to say anything to her father; her answer would still be no. But Luke had already decided he would not take no for an answer, even if he had to forgo his plans to go to Montana for the time being and follow her all the way to Denver. He would keep after her until she gave in to what he knew were her true feelings.

"What is it, Luke?" MacBride asked him.

Luke drew in his breath, watched Lettie a moment longer before meeting Henry's gaze. "This seems like a strange time to tell you, but it won't be long before I'll be heading on north," he told the man. "I want to marry Let-tie, Mr. MacBride, take her to Montana with me. Do I have your permission?"

The man's eyebrows moved into a frown. He looked as though he had expected the question. "I'd say that was up to Lettie, son. She's a woman with a child now. It's her decision. But there are things you need to know."

"I already know about the rape. She told me during the storm while I was holding her." He felt a little embarrassed then, ran a hand through his hair and turned away. "Damn it, Henry, I love her. I told her so, and she burst out and told me how Nathan came to be." He looked back at the older man. "I don't care, Henry. It doesn't change my feelings for her. In fact, I admire her for her courage, and for keeping the boy and loving him like she does. Any man who would blame a proper young woman for something like that is wrong. All I see when I look at your daughter is a beautiful woman, capable of a lot of love, a woman of strength and courage and stamina. She's the kind of woman a man needs where I'm going."

Henry rubbed at his neck. "My Lettie is used to a very comfortable life, Luke. I imagine it would be anything but that where you're going."

Luke leaned closer, towering over the much shorter Irishman. "You have my word that I'll give her everything she could want, just as fast as I can manage it. Yes, it will be rough at first, but I think Lettie has the strength for it. In time I intend to be a rich landowner, Henry. I'll build her a nice, big home. Some day she'll be one of the wealthiest women in Montana, I promise you that. We'll write as often as we can—maybe not at first, because I don't know where we'll settle, how easy it will be to get word to you. But we'll find a way, so you'll know she's all right. We'll write the general post office in Denver. You can check there until you get settled yourself and send us a proper address."

Henry sighed, putting his hands on his hips, his cotton shirt still soiled from the mud under his own wagon during the storm. Luke also still had not changed out of his damp denim pants, but he kept a canvas slicker around his shoulders.

"It isn't just the danger in Montana I'm thinking about, Luke. It's Lettie herself." Henry rubbed at his chin. "What happened... well, she was a virgin. A thing like that is horrifying enough for any woman, but at fifteen, knowing nothing about men—"

"I don't intend to push her into anything, if that's what you're thinking. I'm not a fool, Henry. I've seen the fear in her eyes, but there's love there, too. I kissed her under that wagon, and she
wanted
me to kiss her. I think it surprised and scared her. Once she learns she can trust me and realizes how much I love her..." He sighed. "I'd never hurt her or do anything to bring back that terror. Surely you know me well enough to trust my word by now."

The old man's eyes teared. "We love her so much, Luke. The thought of being parted from our Lettie hurts, but considering her circumstance, maybe you're the best thing for her now. The boy takes to you like a bear to honey, and he needs a father. He's got too much energy for this old man to keep up with." He grinned. "You don't need my permission, Luke. You just need to get Lettie to say yes. She thinks she's not good enough for any man now."

Luke shook his head in exasperation. "She's
too
good for most men as far as I'm concerned, probably too good for me."

Henry put a hand on his arm. "You talk to her, tell her how you feel. And if you expect her to tell you all of it, then you've got to be straight with her, too, Luke. Something tells me you haven't told us everything about your own past, the truth about the trouble with your father. She has a right to know all of it, just the same as you have the right to know everything about Lettie. You don't have to tell me if you don't want, but you tell Lettie. I want your promise on that."

Luke nodded. "I'll tell her."

Henry glanced at the lonely grave. "I don't want my Lettie to end up like that, Luke, buried up there in Montana in some nameless grave."

"That won't happen. I'll make sure of it."

Henry studied the sincerity in Luke's eyes. "I like you, Luke. I know you'll do your best, and I think you have what it takes to do everything you set out to do. I see a burning desire in those eyes, a hunger to be a man of wealth and importance some day. Whatever is driving you, and I think it's some kind of hurt your father has set on you, it will take you far. Just don't lose sight of what is really important along the way, like your wife and children. I've seen it happen."

Luke shook his hand. "I love her too much for that, the boy, too. They'll always come first."

In the distance Lettie looked around from behind a wagon to see her father and Luke shaking hands. She grasped her stomach, anticipation and apprehension both fighting a war inside of her. She knew what that handshake meant. It would be up to her now, and somehow she would have to find a way to tell Luke Fontaine no. It didn't matter that she had enjoyed that kiss, that it still lingered on her lips. It didn't matter that she felt safe and protected when Luke Fontaine's arms were around her. It didn't matter that she had fallen in love with the strong, handsome, skilled descendent of a French trapper, whose touch sent fire through her blood.

She was not worthy of him, not worthy of any man. She could never belong just to him. She had been robbed of the most precious gift a woman could give her husband, and it had left her tainted. How could he say that what had happened could not keep him from loving her? It didn't seem possible. Maybe he wasn't even asking for her hand.

Maybe he was explaining to her father why he had decided to go his own way soon. He had surely decided he could never marry her. Besides, the thought of marriage and what it meant frightened her, even though a part of her wanted to throw her arms around Luke and tell him she would follow him to the end of the earth; and God knew a place like Montana was as close to that as a man, or woman, could get. He might as well ask her to go to Australia or Africa. Montana seemed just as remote, and that was just one more reason to say no.

CHAPTER 3

Luke donned his best suit of black silk, with a white ruffled shirt and black bow tie. He glanced at himself in a mirror he had hung on a tree, smoothing back his dark hair by the light of a fast-setting sun, then rubbed at his clean-shaven face. For a moment he wondered, as he had so many times for the last fourteen years, if his features really had come from someone other than his own father. He didn't really look much like Jacques Fontaine, but he had the man's build. Maybe it was someone else's build he'd inherited. His coloring was completely different from his father's. He could hardly remember his mother, who had died when he was only four, and his father had refused to let him see any pictures of her.

He turned away from the mirror, shaking off the hurt such memories brought him. Maybe it didn't matter what Lettie had been through. Once she knew the truth about his own background, that would be reason enough to turn down his proposal. There had been another woman... back in St. Louis. Pretty Lynnanne Haley had loved him, too, or at least she had claimed she did. She was the daughter of another prominent merchant, and he had loved her as much as a twenty-two-year-old man can love the woman he wants to marry. She would have been his wife already if her father had not put a stop to everything by telling Lynnanne that the man she was considering marrying was a bastard and was beneath her station. He had promptly sent her off to a finishing school, and the next thing Luke knew, she was married to a prominent New York lawyer.

He had received only one letter from Lynnanne, expressing her sorrow at having to break off their relationship, but also expressing anger that he had not told her the truth. Before Lynnanne, and ever since, there had been no one, just a string of loose women and tavern whores. He had no doubt his own father had instigated the heartbreaking mess. The man seemed bent on making sure his illegitimate son never knew an ounce of happiness. But Jacques Fontaine could not stop him now. He loved Lettie MacBride, and he would have her for his wife. Surely Lettie was nothing like Lynnanne and would not consider herself above him.

He brushed at the suit, grateful that one of the women among the travelers had offered to press it for him. It was the only dress suit he had brought with him on the trip, realizing that where he was going, there would be little need for fancy clothes. Most of the clothing he had brought along consisted of denim or heavy wool or buckskin pants, sturdy cotton and wool shirts, deerskin and heavy wolfskin jackets and hats, boots lined with animal fur, as well as knee-high leather boots, the kind of clothes that would withstand riding and living in a rugged land with freezing winters. He would head into Montana with plenty of food, clothes, and other supplies, as well as an array of good weapons and the ammunition to use them.

He had everything he needed to get started... except the one thing he needed most. Lettie MacBride. He walked to the circle of wagons to see her standing in the distance with her brother and sister, her hair pulled up at the sides with combs, the rest of it hanging nearly to her waist in a rich, dark red braid. She wore a soft green dress dotted with yellow flowers, and it fit her figure fetchingly. He wanted to think she had worn the dress for him, but she had been so stubbornly evasive these last ten days, he couldn't be sure.

They were just outside of Julesberg now, and everyone had decided to do something to lift the pall of sorrow that had been hanging over them since burying Hester Nolan. A nearby farmer had welcomed them onto his land and was roasting a pig to share with all of them. The man's son played the fiddle with a flare, and now several of the emigrants, including Henry and Katie MacBride, clapped and danced to a fancy tune, skirts whirling around a roaring campfire over which hung the pig.

Dusk was growing toward darkness, reminding Luke there was not much time left. Tomorrow the MacBrides would keep heading south into Colorado. He had to convince Lettie tonight to stay with him and go on into Wyoming with the rest of the wagon train. She had been avoiding him, and he damn well knew why. She was trying to keep from having to answer a proposal of marriage. Ever since he'd talked to her father, she had found ways to keep from being near him, even staying in the wagon whenever he joined them for a meal. He was determined that tonight she would listen to what he had to say, even if he had to drag her off by force.

He drew in his breath for courage, headed across the clearing in the middle of the circle of wagons. Lettie MacBride had a stubborn, determined streak that made her a formidable challenge at times. It was the Irish in her. But, by God, he was not going to let her fend him off any longer. He ached for her. He dreamed about her. He loved Nathan, hated the thought of saying good-bye to the boy in the morning and never seeing him again. And he loved Lettie, more than he ever thought he could love a woman. He could not imagine any woman being better suited to help him realize his dream. She was not going to get away from him, nor was she going to let something she couldn't help keep her from enjoying the natural love between a man and a woman that she deserved to have for herself. Before this night was over, Lettie MacBride was going to agree to be his wife.

Lettie saw Luke coming and considered hiding in the wagon again but she knew deep inside that this time she had to see him. After tonight she would never see Luke Fontaine again. He deserved at least a good-bye. Despite everything, she felt driven to look her prettiest. She was two women—one, full of shame, wanting nothing to do with any man; the other hoping that Luke Fontaine found her beautiful, wanting to dance with him, go to Montana with him, go anywhere with him. For Luke's sake, she was determined to hide that other side of her. He deserved better than soiled goods.