Bittner, Rosanne (52 page)

Lettie arched an eyebrow teasingly. "And did you give Annie Gates a kiss good-bye?"

Luke grinned the handsome grin that had always stirred her deeply. "Maybe I should let you wonder about that."

"Luke Fontaine—"

He met her lips before she could finish, his tongue searching suggestively. He left her mouth and moved to kiss and lick at her neck. "Only on the cheek," he answered. "A quick peck on the cheek for good luck." He sighed deeply, pulling some combs from her hair. "Annie Gates is gone for good, and Nial Bentley is married. We're getting our lives back to normal, and Katie seems to be getting stronger every day." He kissed her eyes. "And right now the kids are all over at the church having a good time. How about you and I have our own good time right here before we go back?"

"Luke!" She pulled away. "In the middle of the day? While everyone else is at a church social? That is absolutely wicked."

He just kept grinning and began removing his shirt. "You have to undress anyway."

Lettie drank in the sight of his still-solid chest and arms. At forty-three, and after all he had been through, Luke Fontaine had only grown more masculine and handsome. Age and hard work had been good to him, and the sight of his many scars, from the grizzly attack and bullet wounds brought back aching memories, and awakened her heart to how it had felt every time she thought she might lose this man to death. Still, through it all, he had somehow remained invincible, and now he had accomplished every dream for which he had come to this land. The only thing that she knew still troubled him deeply was that he had never heard from his father and brother back in St. Louis, in spite of all the times he had written them.

She finished unbuttoning her dress as Luke sat down to remove his boots. They had come through the loss of Nathan, had survived little Paul's death and Katie's rape. They had risen above trouble with the land and the weather, rustlers and outlaws, the loss of their two best friends. She knew Luke still missed Will, and she sorely missed Henny; but their deaths had brought them closer, both realizing that all they had was each other.

Luke stood up and removed his pants and underwear, and Lettie finished undressing, blushing, hoping she still looked as good to her husband in broad daylight as he still looked to her. "This is ridiculous," she protested.

"Then why did you strip naked?" he asked with a grin, walking closer. "You could have just changed your dress."

"You forced me," she replied. "I have to do what my husband commands."

He chuckled, pulling her close and rubbing his chest against her breasts. "You don't seem to be fighting me, and I don't hear you arguing." He hoisted her up so that she wrapped her legs around his waist and her breasts were near his face. He kissed eagerly at them as he carried her to the bed.

"This is absolutely outrageous," Lettie told him, grasping his hair and closing her eyes in sweet ecstasy.

"Mmm-hmmm," he answered. He knelt down and set her on the bed, laid her back. He licked at her breasts, then gently tasted a nipple before moving his lips to her throat while massaging a breast teasingly. "Do you realize you're just as beautiful as that first night I took you in that awful little cabin we use now for a storage shed?"

Lettie ran her hands over his solid shoulders, feeling a familiar fire make its way through her body. "Your eyes are getting old, Luke Fontaine. You must not see so well anymore. My waist is a little thicker, my breasts have fed six babies and—"

He cut off her words with another kiss, this one deeper, hungrier, hotter. She said nothing more, returning his kiss with equal hunger, parting her legs in welcome. He quickly moved downward, tasting her breasts again, trailing his tongue over her belly and finally to that most intimate part of her that only Luke Fontaine had tasted.

"Luke," she whispered.

His only reply was a groan. He licked his way back up to meet her mouth again, then pushed himself inside her, his shaft hard and hot, filling her to surprising pleasure, considering the fact that she had borne six children. She had worried over the years that she would not please him as she once had, but the ecstasy of this splendid coupling never seemed to change. In moments they were moving in perfect rhythm, each trying to give as much as they could, glorying in this act that represented the deep love and affection they had shared over the fifteen years since they had settled here.

The thought of Luke doing this with Annie made Lettie grasp at him desperately. She dug her fingers into his arms, arching up to him in an effort to please, to erase any memory he might have of being with someone else. All the while Luke was reminded of how close he had come to losing this woman to another man. How he hated the thought of someone else touching his Lettie. He raised up to drink in her nakedness, grasping her hips and pushing deep, wanting to show her that in spite of all the babies, he was still man enough to please her.

Lettie threw her head back and cried out his name as a sweet climax engulfed her. Luke came down closer again, moving more gently now, teasing, moving in slow circles, licking at her cheeks, her mouth. "Luke, please," she cried. He grinned, kissing her savagely then, moving in hard, quick thrusts and burying his head in the pillow near hers to muffle his groans as his life spilled into her in blessed release.

"Stay there," he whispered. "Just once more before we join the others."

Lettie's only reply was to meet his mouth in another hungry kiss.

CHAPTER 26

September 1880

Katie walked up the steps of the new log building that sported a sign reading Billings Library. At Lettie's urging that she start socializing more, she had begun several months ago to join her mother at the women's club meetings, and it was at one of those meetings that she had proposed the idea of a library for Billings. All the women had raved that it was a wonderful thought. A library was another step forward in civilizing Billings, and through the library Katie planned to begin keeping records of local pioneers, those who had settled here first, where they were from, when they had first arrived and what businesses they ran or ranches or farms they had settled. It was part of Katie's plan to help her mother keep records that could be used to build a museum one day in honor of people like Will and Henny.

She felt good now about how receptive the women had been to the idea, and to her. All were kind and friendly, and she realized why her mother had wanted her to begin joining the meetings. Gradually over the past two years she had managed to come out of the shell into which she had withdrawn after her ordeal with the Walkers, and she loved her mother even more for the constant support she and her women friends had given her.

She carried a stack of new books inside, glowing from the fact that her father had also been proud of her desire to found a library. Luke had given the money necessary to put up the building, as well as making a generous contribution, along with other businessmen in town, toward buying books from New York and Chicago. Her parents, along with others, had also contributed books from their own libraries at home.

It was a dream project for Katie, who loved books more than jewels or pretty clothes or anything else she could think of. For five days out of every week she lived at the Stowe's boardinghouse on Will and Henny's old property, sharing a room with a new female teacher from Chicago, a widow named Yolanda Brown. Mrs. Brown had been hired to assist the town's only other teacher, Howard Task, who had been hired out of Kansas through an ad the Billings citizens had placed because of a great need for a school for the evergrowing community. Her father and other businessmen had built a large, two-room school last summer, and already two teachers were needed. Sometimes Katie also helped teach, but most of her time was spent organizing the hundreds of books that now lined the shelves of the library.

She had spent hours setting up a method of keeping records of all the books that came in, as well as a way to keep track of books by title, author, and subject, and records of books checked out. She knew her mother supported her new "job" because it kept her busy, and being busy meant less time to dwell on ugly memories. People treated her as though nothing had ever happened, and she felt important and needed. It felt good to hear people tell her how clever and industrious she was for coming up with the idea for a library and being willing to stay in town to run it. Many had already visited her, some of the older ones unable to read but wanting books for their children. They also brought with them or dictated to her information about their families and backgrounds so she could incorporate the information into the ledger she kept for the future museum.

Everyone had been eager about both ideas, making it easy to raise the necessary money to maintain the building and buy more books. All the shelves inside had been built by Phillip Crane, a fairly new resident of Billings. Crane was a carpenter and furniture maker, and to show his support of the town, he had donated the material and his own labor to build the shelves. His contribution had immediately put him in a favorable light, and already the man's carpentry and furniture-making business was rapidly growing, as many of the female citizens of Billings and the surrounding area were anxious for new furniture in their homes or to have old furniture refinished. Now his biggest project was to put the finishing touches on the new four-story Hotel Fontaine, which her father had had built over the past winter. Already Luke Fontaine's latest business venture was doing well, and soon a plaque would be placed on the front of the library reading Billings Library, Est. 1880 by Luke and Eletta Fontaine.

She breathed deeply of the smell of fresh pine as she laid the newly arrived books on a desk, thinking what an important role her mother and father had played in settling the area. She went outside to get more books from the freight wagon that had been parked in front of the library by a man from Hendrixon's Freighting and Supply, through whom the books had been ordered. It would take a while to unload all of them, but she didn't mind. She opened another box, having to take a few books in at a time because a full box was too heavy to carry.

She stopped for a moment to open one of the books and sniff it, enjoying the wonderful smell of new pages; yet she also loved the smell of older books. It was reading that had gotten her through the past two years and had helped take her away to places of the mind, where she could forget about what had happened to her. It was books that had helped her heal, as well as spending this time in town organizing the library. Luke and Lettie had not wanted her to leave home, but they understood that for now, maybe this was best. She had a good roommate in Mrs. Brown, who was a childless, middle-aged woman who enjoyed the same things Katie enjoyed, reading, learning, and teaching. She was proud to be living partly on her own at sixteen, and she felt comfortable at the boardinghouse because she used to go there to see Will and Henny when she was little. The house had been enlarged several times so that now the original cabin was nothing more than a large dining room where boarders gathered for daily meals, but Katie remembered playing in that very room when she was small, chasing Henny's several cats, some of which still hung around the property. Martin Stowe and his wife had added on ten rooms, and with the three extra rooms that had already been a part of the main house, there were twelve rooms that could be rented in addition to the room in which the Stowes slept.

Because of the way Billings was growing, the boardinghouse was nearly always full, and the Stowes were already talking about adding on again. The barn and shed out back that were once used by Will for his stock now served as shelter for the horses of those who rented rooms. Mrs. Stowe ran the boardinghouse while her husband managed the Hotel Fontaine for Luke.

Katie took another armload of books out of the box, thinking how happy Will and Henny would be to know how their property was being used, to help new settlers, people who contributed to the growth of the once-tiny town they had helped found. She headed back up the steps with the books, which were heavier and harder to balance than she thought. She realized she had taken too many, but decided to hurry and get them inside before she dropped them. In her haste, she walked right into someone. She heard a yelp as the books went tumbling against whoever it was, some of them landing on his foot. She managed to cling to three of the books, then stepped back to see a young man bending over to pick up those she had dropped.

"Oh, I'm so sorry!" she told him. "I didn't see you. I guess I just took too many at once."

"It's okay, ma'am." The man straightened with the rest of the books in his arms, and for a moment he stared at her.

Katie blushed at the obvious pleasure in the man's eyes as he quickly looked her over. Those eyes were a soft green, the strands of hair that stuck out from under his leather hat a sandy color. In spite of the fact that she had never had any particularly romantic feelings for any young man, something about this one stirred an odd feeling deep inside that almost frightened her. She was sure that after what she had been through she should and could never have feelings for anyone of the opposite sex, but this young man impressed her in a special way. She was surprised to realize she was wondering how she looked. Until this very moment, she had never cared how she appeared to anyone else, certainly not to a man. This one was handsome, with a sure look in his eyes, his smile bright and kind. He stood only a couple of inches taller than she, but he had a husky, brawny build. She was nearly five foot eight herself, something else that had always made her feel awkward around young men, since the ones who were her age were usually shorter than she.

"You want me to take these inside for you?" the stranger asked.

Katie realized she had been staring, and she wished she could hide the crimson she was sure showed in her cheeks. "Yes, that would be very nice. I truly am sorry I walked right into you like that."

His gaze moved over her again, and strangely, she did not feel insulted or offended by the way he seemed to be gauging her every curve. She wondered if he thought her pretty or ugly, maybe too tall and gangly. Her mother was always telling her how pretty she was, but all mothers thought that way. Maybe to men she wasn't pretty at all, and any who knew the truth about her probably wanted nothing to do with her. She had only socialized with women since the ugly attack, had not gone to any dances or other events that might put her into contact with men on a social level. Because of that, she had no way of knowing what the other young men in town thought of her, except that none had formally called on her. She knew that could be because she was Luke Fontaine's daughter and they were afraid of Luke; or because she was simply still too young. Then again, she was sure the primary reason was that they surely felt awkward, knowing what had happened to her.