Lettie smiled softly, looking at John. "It was rather a last-minute decision to come here. We were in Chicago for our youngest daughter's wedding." She glanced at Luke, aching for him for all his years of hurt. "Luke is anxious to get back to the Double L. He's happiest when he's on the ranch." She looked back at John. "I do wish you would come and visit us there, meet Tyler and Katie and Nathan, see the ranch."
John rose, walking closer to Luke. "I'd like that. With Dad gone, my wife dead, it gets a little lonely around here."
Their gaze held, and Luke nodded. "Then find people to run things for a while and come to Montana. You might like it so much you won't want to leave. It's beautiful country, John."
John smiled sadly. "So I've heard." He sighed. "I told Dad I could send for you so he could see you before he died, but he didn't want that. He was afraid you would think he was only doing it because he wanted quick forgiveness. He figured you probably couldn't forgive him, anyway, and I don't think he wanted to see what he was afraid he would see in your eyes."
Luke studied the man, wondering where all the years had gone. "I'd like to see his grave."
John nodded. "I'll take you there this afternoon. I hope you can both stay at least a couple of days. St. Louis has grown a lot. I'd like to show Lettie around, let her get a last taste of city life before you take her back to that wild, remote place you call Montana and bury her beauty on the Double L."
Luke smiled, walking over to where Lettie sat, putting his hands on her shoulders. "This woman gets around more than you think she does. Most people in the territory of Montana know who she is, and that's a lot of territory, just about the biggest out West except for Texas and maybe California."
John studied his brother's rugged appearance, his face and hands weathered from years of working outside under Montana skies. He wore a neat suit jacket, but he wore denim pants and leather boots. "Destiny sent you there, Luke, not Dad or anything that happened here. If you hadn't left when you did, you wouldn't have met the perfect woman to help you find your dream. Montana was calling you. I don't think you would have been happy staying here no matter what happened with Dad. Running Fontaine Warehousing would have been too boring for you." He put out his hand. "I would say welcome home, Luke, but you aren't home at all, are you?"
Luke thought about the Double L and how he missed it. He shook his brother's hand again. "You're right. This hasn't been home for me for a long time now." He squeezed John's hand, and their eyes held in mutual affection.
"Do you want our mother's picture?" John asked. "I have another one, a smaller one. I found them up in the attic after Dad died. I have a picture of Dad, too, if you want it."
Luke quelled the temptation to hate his father. The man was dead now. "It would be wonderful to have pictures to take home to show my children. I've told them about Dad, and of course they have asked over the years why he would never come to Montana. I always told them you and Dad were too busy with your business here. They never seemed to question that answer too much. I never had the courage to tell them the truth. Now I don't see any reason to, especially if you come and see us."
John gripped his hand more firmly. "I'll make a point of it. I promise." He let go of Luke's hand. "I'll have my groom rig up a buggy for me and I'll take the pictures to my office and have someone there wrap them up for you. Tonight we will dine at St. Louis's best restaurant and you can tell me more about this ranch of yours and how it's run. You and Lettie will be my guests right here. No sense in staying in a hotel. Besides, it will give us even more time to talk." He turned and put a hand out to Lettie. "I'm so glad to meet the famous Lettie. My brother indeed chose well, I can see that," he added. "I am so glad to meet you."
Lettie grasped his hand, big like Luke's, but much softer. "And you have no idea how glad I am to meet you. I was a little bit afraid I would regret talking Luke into coming, but now I'm very glad that I did."
John straightened. "I'm going to find my groom. I'll have Margaret get a room ready for you. Where is your luggage?"
"At the St. Louis Inn. We got in last night," Luke answered. "I wasn't sure how long we'd be here, what I'd find when I got here. Actually, everything is still in our room. I can drive back in the carriage I rented and get it."
"Fine. I'll ride with you and we can take the pictures down to the office and get the luggage while your wife rests right here. You will stay a couple of days, won't you?"
"No longer than that," Luke told him. "I'm anxious to get home and make sure everything there is all right. I do have duties as a legislative delegate I need to get back to. And Lettie misses the grandchildren."
John smiled and shook his head. "Grandchildren. You're such a lucky man, Luke. It's too bad Dad never got to meet Lettie or his own grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Hurt and anger sure can make a man do foolish things, can't they?" He sighed again. "I'm going to talk to Margaret about the room and then we can leave. Later today we'll go visit Dad's grave."
John left them, and Luke went to stand near the fireplace, looking up at the painting of his mother. He stared at it for several seconds before turning to look at Lettie. "As usual, you were right, Mrs. Fontaine. Thanks for making me come here. I just wish I could have seen Dad once more, got it all straight with him. I would never want to be so estranged from any of my children. I don't know how a man can let that happen."
"You and I were like strangers for two years after Paul died, Luke. It just happens. He's gone now, and there is no use in trying to live in the past or worrying over how different things might have been. John was right. Destiny called you to Montana, and nothing that happened here could have changed that." She rose and walked to stand beside him. "It's as though we've come full circle. I've learned to be at peace over what happened when Nathan was conceived, and now you're back here facing the painful things that caused you to leave. Neither of us belongs here in Missouri anymore. We belong in Montana." She moved her arms around his waist. "Let's not stay too long."
He smiled, tears in his eyes. "We have to be sure to keep our story about Nathan's father straight, Lettie. I don't ever want him to feel the way I felt all these years, my real father being some nameless person who probably didn't give a damn about my mother. Maybe there was a reason God took Nathan away for so many years. All those growing-up years he might have been full of questions about his real father. Now I think he's old enough that it doesn't matter anymore. I just don't want him to know that kind of pain."
"He won't. Katie is the only one who knows the truth, and she'll never tell." She stretched up and kissed his cheek. "I'm so happy for you, Luke."
He moved his arms around her, saying nothing for several seconds. Then Lettie felt his shoulders shaking, and he grasped her tighter. "It still hurts, Lettie," he groaned. "I'll never know who my father really is, or if and why my mother took another man."
She didn't know how to answer. She just held him, realizing that in those dark days of her own unhappiness, she might have done the same thing, could have ended up having a child by another man. Thank God she'd found her common sense in time to save herself from something that would have devastated her husband even worse than the average man, considering his own background.
"Everything will be better when we get home," she told him. "We just have to get ourselves back to Montana."
Tyler rolled in the grass with Ramona, her laughter music to his ears. She made him feel constantly on fire with her freeness and open sexuality. They had met at the pond often for three weeks now, and every time she undressed and goaded him to come into the water with her, he could not resist. They had made love, in the water and out of it, and sometimes she would insist that he roll onto his back and let her do the moving. "I will ride my beautiful, wild, white stallion," she would tell him.
They lay together now, her silken, dark-skinned legs wrapped around his own naked torso. "I love you, Ramona," he whispered before meeting her delicious mouth again, wondering if there was another creature on earth as beautiful.
He moved inside of her, filling her deeply, his youthful eagerness giving her near-agonizing pleasure.
For several minutes they moved in rhythmic pleasure, each fulfilling the other's aching needs. Tyler rubbed himself over that magical spot he had learned made her even wilder and brought her even more pleasure, until she would cry out his name and push herself at him as though she could not get enough of him. That was when he would grasp her slender hips and rise up to his knees, burying himself even deeper and looking upon her splendid nakedness until finally he could no longer control his own release.
He wished Ramona was already his wife legally. In her eyes, he was her husband simply because he had been her first man and she had offered herself willingly. Still, he wanted a church wedding, and he couldn't have that until his parents came home. He gave no thought to what Luke would think of his eldest son marrying an Indian woman, especially since Nathan was already married to one. He had already complained that half his ranch was going to end up in the hands of Indians, which just didn't seem right because of all the Sioux had put him through in those early years. Besides that, the citizens of Billings and other ranchers were not so happy about the arrangement with Nathan. They only tolerated it because it was Luke Fontaine's family, and after what Luke and Lettie had already been through over Nathan, they understood. Would they understand Tyler also wanting to marry an Indian woman? After all, he had not been raised with the Sioux. His was an entirely different situation.
And there was Alice to think about. Somehow he had to break the news gently that it was over between them. He loved Ramona, and he was going to marry her, no matter what anyone thought of it. "When my father gets home—"
"Get off my sister!"
Tyler's words were interrupted by the order, spoken in a deep, angry voice. He looked up to see Nathan standing near them, his fists clenched. "What the hell!" He jumped up, scrambling to find his long johns.
Ramona gasped, quickly pulling their blanket around herself to hide her nakedness.
Tyler yanked up his underwear. "What are you doing here, you son of a bitch?" he growled at Nathan.
"The question is, what are you doing here, robbing my sister of her innocence when she belongs to someone else!"
"I do not belong to someone else! I love Tyler. I belong to him now!"
Nathan cast her a scathing look of shame. "You belong to Standing Horse! You know you are promised to him!"
"We no longer live that way! We choose our men, the Christian way!"
"By rolling in the grass with them before you have had a Christian marriage?" Nathan sneered. He looked at Tyler. "I know you! You are just trying to get back at me by dirtying my sister! You have no use for her! You took advantage of her!"
"You bastard! I love Ramona! I was just waiting for Pa to get home so I could tell him I want to marry her!"
"You love an Indian woman? You love her only enough to stick yourself inside her and have a good time!"
Tyler charged forward and landed into Nathan with a raging grunt, knocking Nathan to the ground. They fought and tumbled, while Ramona scooted away, screaming both their names, not wanting to see either of them hurt. Within moments their faces were bruised and bloody. The two of them were an almost even match, although Nathan was more a wrestler, while Ty preferred using his fists.
All their pent-up emotions about each other were finally released through blows and kicks and punches as the two young men fought fiercely. Tyler remembered the day when Nathan had taken over the training of Ebony, the black stallion Tyler had captured. Tyler had not been able to control the horse, but Nathan had had him almost fully trained in one day. Tyler hated him for that, hated to be shown up by this "Indian" brother who had stolen so much from him. And where did he get off calling himself an Indian in the first place? He certainly had no Indian blood, and he was tired of Nathan's holier-than-thou attitude. He pummeled Nathan with big fists, and Nathan in turn warded off some of the punches with quick movements of his own, catching a foot behind Tyler's ankle so that he fell onto his back. He went down with him, pressing Tyler's wrists to the ground.
"You had no right taking my sister with no one's permission!" he seethed.
"Ramona and I love each other," Tyler growled in reply. He arched against Nathan, then banged his head forward into Nathan's mouth, startling him enough to get loose and roll away from him. He landed near his six-gun, and he quickly pulled it from its holster.
"Tyler, no!" Ramona screamed. "He is your brother!"
Tyler hesitated. He stood there panting, his back scratched and bleeding, his skin and long johns grass-stained, his whole body bruised and cut. Nathan was just as filthy, his mouth bleeding from a split lip. He wiped at his lip, spit blood.
"Aren't you going to pull that fancy knife on me, Nathan?" Tyler asked. "The one my pa gave you?"
Nathan straightened. "Is that what you think? That all Indians are ready to knife a white man?"
"I don't know what to think! You aren't even an Indian! What right do you have telling me whether or not I can marry Ramona? You aren't her brother by blood!"
"But I am your brother by blood! Yet you stand there and hold a gun on me. What would Luke think of you right now?"
Tyler blinked, hardly aware he'd pulled the gun. He looked at it a moment, then threw it aside. "Maybe he'd be wondering why he let you come here to live," he sneered.
"Or maybe his heart would break to see his sons fighting."
There it was, the word he hated. Sons. Nathan spoke then as though he were as much Luke's son as Tyler was, but he wasn't. Tyler did not mind so much having to share his mother, but there was something about having to share his father that grated on him. Still, he knew Nathan was right. "Maybe he would, but I don't care what he thinks of anything I do if you try to keep me from Ramona!"
"She is Indian. She should marry an Indian."
"And you are white, Nathan, yet you married an Indian. Why is it all right for you?"
"Because I was raised by them! I understand their ways. You do not. In the end you would be unhappy, and so would Ramona. People understand it for me, but they would not understand Tyler Fontaine marrying an Indian. They would be cruel to Ramona!"
"You said you hated it on the reservation. How can Ramona marry an Indian without going back there?"
"Standing Bear is Cheyenne. He has put in for transfer to the Northern Cheyenne reservation here in Montana. They would be closer then, and I could go there and take them food and blankets and other things they need."
"But I love Tyler, Nathan," a sobbing Ramona said. She walked closer, keeping the blanket wrapped around herself. "You had no right to spy on us!"
Nathan shook his long, blond hair back from his shoulders. "I was not spying in the way that you think. I knew that you like to come here. Little Luke is sick, and there are chores Leena needs help with while she tends to him. I came to get you. I did not know you would be with Tyler."
She held her head proudly. "Tyler and I are already married the Indian way, and there is nothing you can do about it. Standing Horse has eyes for some of the other young girls. It would have only been a marriage of promises, not of love. Tyler and I love each other, and as soon as his father gets back, we are going to marry the Christian way. I could already be carrying his child. I cannot marry Standing Horse now."
Nathan looked her over with disappointment in his eyes. "Go behind some bushes or something and get dressed."
She stormed up to him, meeting his eyes squarely. "You will not give me orders about whom I should love and marry! Look into the mirror, Nathan! You are no different than Tyler!" She turned and angrily picked up her things and walked off.
Tyler, still panting, stepped closer then. "Maybe some of the hard feelings between us are for that very reason." He sneered. "You come here carrying on about being Indian. But you're not Indian, Nathan, and that bothers you, doesn't it? Ramona is right. You are just like me!"
Nathan took a deep breath, wanting to light into him all
over again. "I told you, being Indian is not in the skin. It is in the heart." His pale blue eyes were icy. "Do you truly love Ramona?"
"I told you I do."
"You will have differences. You do not understand this yet. And there will be a strain between you because people will talk. You will see pretty white girls in town and you will wonder if you did the right thing. They will make fun of Ramona, make her feel bad. She will never fit in as she would among her own kind. People understand why I am married to Leena, but they will not understand you marrying an Indian. I am not saying there is any reason for Ramona or any of her people to be ashamed of who they are. I am only saying that marrying you will make life harder for her. Even the men around here look at her as something only to be used and then thrown away. I can read their thoughts."
"My pa wouldn't allow any man on this ranch to insult her!"
"He cannot control the other ranchers, or the whole town of Billings. To his face they are cowards, but behind his back they will talk, and they will make sure that Ramona hears." He sniffed and wiped more blood from his lips. "If you hurt Ramona, in any way, I will kill you, brother or not!" He turned and walked back to his horse.
"You'd hang," Tyler shouted. "And Luke would do it himself! If I told him what you just said, he'd send you right back to the reservation!"
Nathan turned. "And what would he do if I told him you pulled a gun on your own brother? I do not think he would like that so much either." He mounted his horse and rode off. Tyler watched after him, hating him. Ramona, partially dressed, walked up to him then and put her arms around him.
"We're getting married, Ramona," he told her with determination in his voice. "I don't give a damn what Pa or Nathan or everybody in town or anybody else thinks! I love you, and we're getting married!"
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