Nathan closed his eyes, squeezing Ty's shoulder before letting go of it. "I know that. And she loved you. That is the only reason she left. It was not because of anything I told her, or anything your mother said. She knew in her heart what was best for you. I am sorry, Tyler, that my coming here caused so much trouble for your family, but I also have a family, and I could not let the government take my children away from me. I had no other reason for coming here. Maybe now you will believe that. I could have let you die, and then I could have claimed all of this for myself." He shook his head. "I have never wanted a share of any of this. The Double L belongs to you. You have earned the right to run this ranch. Like your father, you belong here. You are the Double L, but Ramona would have been unhappy here after a while. I knew her better than you did. I knew how it would be." He rose with a deep sigh. "You have something no wise man would ever throw away, and that is a family, a mother and father who would die for you. If I had not come for you, Luke would have, and you might have both been lost. Do not turn your back on a father who loves you so, Tyler. You must stop living in the past. You must think about the future, not just for you, but for the Double L, for your family, for that pretty white woman out there called Alice. She loves you very deeply. I can see it in her eyes."
For the first time it finally hit Tyler how much Alice did truly love him... and how much he still loved her. "You saved Ebony?" he asked aloud.
Nathan smiled and shook his head. "I found him standing and eating the bark from a tree, not far from where I found you. He is a bad-mannered horse, that one. He should be called Devil, not Ebony."
Tyler managed a smile of his own, but then he winced with pain. "It feels as though all my toes and fingers are broken."
"That is the pain of life coming back into frozen limbs. I did my best to keep you from losing them. I had to build us a shelter for one day until the winds died down. I took off your boots and massaged our toes and kept blankets wrapped around them. The same with your fingers. I lay down beside you and held you close to keep you warm."
"In other words... you saved my life."
Nathan grinned sheepishly. "Maybe."
"There is no maybe about it. I was lost and would have frozen to death. I'm not going to be so proud... as to argue the point. I guess I'll just have to admit... you're better than me at some things."
"And you are better at others. We can teach each other, Tyler. We do not have to be enemies."
Unwanted tears slipped out of Tyler's eyes. "No. I guess not." He took a deep breath. "Tell my folks... I want to see them. There are a lot of people... I need to apologize to."
Nathan grinned, pushing back the chair. "Merry Christmas, Tyler."
Tyler held his gaze. "Merry Christmas to you, brother."
Alice knocked hesitantly on Tyler's bedroom door. When he opened it, he stood there clean-shaven and wearing denim pants and a blue flannel shirt. She drew in her breath at the sight of him, so tall and handsome, a different look in his eyes today than she had seen there for so many months. The hatred and sorrow were gone. He was more like the Tyler she had known before Ramona came into his life. His blue eyes moved over her in a way that made her shiver, and she struggled against her own jealousy over the thought of him being one with another woman. What was it like to lie in Tyler Fontaine's strong arms, to feel his naked body against her own? She felt as though she were naked now, as though he could tell how she looked with her clothes off.
He had been helped to the parlor to celebrate Christmas with the family. That was five days ago. Finally he was getting around on his own. Outside the wind was raging again, as yet another blizzard hit. It was obvious they were all going to be holed up there for quite some time. She was more glad than ever now that her father had accepted Let-tie's invitation to come for Christmas. Now she and Tyler would have plenty of time to talk. She held out a package, her face feeling too warm. "I wanted to bring you your Christmas present. I want you to open it here in private. It just seems as though... I don't know... it shouldn't be in front of everybody. That's why I didn't give it to you the other day when all the other presents were opened."
Tyler took the package. "You didn't need to do this. I guess you know I haven't bothered getting anything for anyone."
"It's all right. Everybody understands. Just having you here in the house and on good terms with Nathan is all the Christmas present your mother and father need. It's all any of us needs."
Tyler ran a hand through his thick hair. "I've been a real ass this past year. I'm sorry, Alice."
"No one knows how they will behave in time of grief, Ty."
Again his eyes raked her body. "I hurt you a lot, didn't I? We were close. I guess you figured it would lead to something more. And then Ramona came along. How can you talk about her without any hatred in your voice? Most women would have wanted to scratch her eyes out."
She blinked back tears that wanted to come because of the hurt. "You loved her. I can't hate someone who meant that much to you." What did he mean about her figuring it would lead to something more? Did he mean it never would have, even if Ramona had not come along? She felt a disappointment that brought a sick feeling to her stomach. Had all her waiting been for nothing?
Ty sat down on the bed and opened the package, which contained a gold watch and chain. "This is a very fine watch, Alice. You shouldn't have done this."
She felt her face growing hot. "I wasn't sure... when we first came out here... I would even get the chance to give it to you."
He held it up and studied it, shaking his head. "It's too much."
"Not for you."
He sighed and set the watch aside. "Come here, Alice."
He patted a place beside him on the bed. "Go close the door first."
Why did her legs suddenly seem frozen in place? Was it proper for her to go sit on a bed with a man in his own room? Part of her wanted to run to him and throw her arms around him, to be wild and free the way Ramona could be, but she was also afraid. Maybe he didn't even want what she hoped he wanted. Maybe he was going to break her heart and her hopes, and he wanted the door closed so that the others could not hear her crying. She swallowed, finally found her legs and turned to close the door. She moved to the bed, stood there rigid for a moment. He took hold of her wrist and pulled at her, and she sat down beside him then, looking at her lap.
"You're a good woman, Alice."
Here it came. He was going to let her down easy. She had made a total fool of herself the other day telling him how much she loved him, that she wanted him to be the one to make a woman of her.
"I've probably always loved you and didn't even know it," he said then.
Her surprise at the remark made her raise her eyes to meet his handsome blue ones. "Love me?"
"You've been patient, kind, faithful. I know now that everybody else was right. As much as I loved Ramona, she never would have been completely happy; and maybe after a while I wouldn't have been either. We loved and wanted each other so much, but we were worlds apart in every other way. You and I, we've always been friends." He put a big hand to the side of her face. "But never lovers. Maybe it's best that the friendship comes first." He studied her lovingly. "And maybe we've been just friends long enough."
Her eyes spilled over with tears so that his face was just a blur. "Oh, Ty, I've loved you for the longest time," she whispered.
He came closer, and in the next moment his full lips were consuming her mouth in a warm, tender kiss unlike anything she had ever experienced. Her own passion overflowed then, and she returned the kiss with great hunger, flinging her arms around his neck. His kiss grew deeper, and he laid her back on the bed, moving on top of her, running a big hand over her ribs to her breast, gently fondling it through her clothes. He moved his lips to her neck.
"Oh, Ty, I love you so," she repeated. "I've wanted you to touch me this way for so long."
He moved his lips over her throat, up over her eyes, meeting her lips again. "I'm sorry for the way I've hurt you
," he whispered between kisses. "Forgive me, Alice."
"There is nothing to forgive." She moved her hands over the hard muscle of his arms, her breath catching in her throat when he moved his lips toward her breasts. He kissed at them through the cloth of her dress, grasped at them eagerly, moved his hand down to grab hold of her dress and push it up so that he could run his hand along her ruffled drawers. He grasped at her firm bottom, squeezing it, pressing his hardness against her thigh.
In those few moments she was lost in him. Everyone downstairs could wait, and she didn't care if they thought she was being terribly sinful. Tyler Fontaine wanted her. He loved her. That was all she needed to know. Before she knew what was happening to her, her dress was unbuttoned and her camisole was untied and he was tasting her taut, aching nipples. Somehow she lost her drawers, and then he was raging inside of her, completely taking her breath away with a mixture of pain and ecstasy. At last she knew the magic of lying in Tyler Fontaine's arms.
April 1888
Lettie looked up from the pastry board to greet Billy Sacks, who had been ushered into the kitchen by Leena. "They're finally back," he told her. "They'll be up at the house pretty quick. I don't think the news is very good, Mrs. Fontaine."
"Thanks, Billy." Lettie took a deep breath, knowing
Luke needed her to be strong. She looked at Alice, both of them knowing they could expect the worst. Luke and Ty and Nathan had been gone with several other Double L men for nearly a month now, inspecting the damage that the blizzard of '88 had left behind. Both women wiped their hands on their aprons, and Alice set aside the bread dough she had been kneading.
Billy left, and Lettie wrung her hands in distress. The waiting had been almost unbearable, and she and Leena and Alice had knitted and crocheted and baked and thought of a hundred other ways to keep busy. Today they were helping Mae with her baking. They did not want to think about what Luke and the other men might find as they combed the many square miles of the Double L to check the damage.
The winter of '86 to '87 had been a bad one, but they had survived. Tyler had ended up losing two toes to frostbite, but the weather had cleared enough that Dr. Manning had been able to come to the house to operate on Ty himself. When Luke fetched the doctor, he had also brought along a preacher to marry Ty and Alice, and just two months earlier Alice had given birth to Ty's and her first child, a son named Patrick. Leena and Lettie had helped in the delivery themselves, as it had still been impossible to get a doctor to the house then because of the snow.
January of '88 had brought a winter unlike any Lettie could remember since coming to Montana, and that was saying a lot. When some of the Double L men had finally managed to get to Billings to buy a newspaper, their suspicions had been verified by the headlines.
"Worst Blizzards in U.S. History," they read. Not only had the West been struck by the awful snows, but so had the East, crippling snowstorms that had locked whole cities as big as New York into immobile prisons. Many people had either frozen or starved to death. Railroads had been halted, and already a stench was in the air. They knew before Luke and Ty and Nathan even went out to investigate that the smell came from the carcasses of dead cattle finally beginning to thaw. Few living things could have survived the snows that had kept them prisoners in their own house for three months.
"We just have to be grateful for our blessings," she reminded Alice. "Your son was born healthy. Pearl and Lawrence have a baby girl now." They had gotten the letter from Pearl last July, before the awful blizzards. Pearl had named her little girl Anastasia, born in May of '87, and she and Lawrence planned to visit this coming summer. That was something else to be grateful for, let alone the fact that Ty was happier than he had been in his whole life. Only a week after receiving Pearl's letter about her own baby, Leena had also given birth, another son, named James Little Crow.
Don't panic, Lettie told herself. Remember the good things. They had nine healthy grandchildren now, three girls and six boys. Nathan and his family had moved back into the cabin built for them when they first came; and Ty and Alice lived in the main house, so in spite of the wicked winter, the house had not been empty and quiet. Elsie and her husband still lived in Luke and Lettie's old cabin, and Elsie now taught the grandchildren. In one more year Robbie would come home, and according to newspapers, Montana was almost sure to be designated as part of the United States by next spring. Luke was going to run for governor.
The sad part was that the past winter might have damaged Montana's economy almost beyond repair. And there had been another article in the newspaper that spoke of another tragedy. "Chloris Greene Bentley, daughter of Attorney Sydney and Helen Greene, wife of English rancher, Nial Bentley, passed away in January of pneumonia," the article had read. "Due to our inclement weather, news of Mrs. Bentley's death did not arrive in Billings until April." So Nial's young wife had died, without ever having given him a child.
She heard Luke come inside. "We'd better go into the parlor," she told Alice. Both women left the kitchen, and Leena was already in the hallway greeting Nathan. Alice ran to Tyler, embracing him.
"I've never seen anything like it," he told her, almost choking up.
Lettie looked at Luke. "It's worse than you thought, isn't it?" She ached at the look in his eyes. "A lot worse," he answered.
Lettie glanced at leather boots that sat in the entrance-way, covered with snow and mud. Today the sun was bright and the day was calm. The air was warm, and a few plants were already beginning to poke up through the lingering snow, as though there had never been a winter.
"I thought last year's blizzards were the worst ever, but this is drastic. There will be dead cattle by the thousands from here into Wyoming and God only knows how far north and west and east," Luke added. He ran a hand through his hair, looking weary.
"How's the baby?" Ty asked Alice, kissing her cheek.
"He's fine. He's taking a nap right now." She touched his face. "Oh, Ty, we were so worried."
He sighed deeply. "The losses are going to be staggering," he told her, his voice strained. "For everybody. Some ranchers will never survive this."
They all walked into the parlor, and Luke poured himself a shot of whiskey, then handed the bottle out to Ty and Nathan. He downed the shot and walked to the fireplace to take a cigar from a silver box on the mantle and light it. "Brad lost a lot of sheep, but he'll be okay," he told the women. "He and Katie and the kids are all doing fine. It's the cattlemen who will fare the worst, especially the bigger ones like myself. We're going to have to call a meeting soon to decide how to survive our losses."
He sat down in a leather chair and rested his elbows on his knees, holding the cigar in one hand. All waited quietly for him to continue. "All of you should know I'm going to have to pare down the size of the Double L," he finally said after much thought. "We've gotten so big that it's impossible even to know how many cattle we have anymore. You get a winter like this, and you can't get them all in close enough, can't afford to buy enough feed for them all, even when you own a wholesale house as we do. Even with enough feed, with snow such as we had this year, it's impossible to get the feed to all the cattle.
"I once thought that bigger was better," he continued, "but not any more. If we tighten our belts, we'll be all right financially, thanks to the mines and our other investments, but we have a lot of cattle to replace. Most of the other ranchers won't hold up as well as we will. The only benefit from all of this is that the price of beef will probably go up because of a short supply. It just makes me sick to see so many good head of cattle suffer and die like that. I'll never let that happen again."
Lettie put a hand to her throat. "Luke, I hate to pile on the bad news, but there was an article in the newspaper saying Nial Bentley's wife had died over the winter."
He puffed quietly on the cigar. "I already knew it. When we were out inspecting the damage we ran into one of his men. As far as cattle, Bentley's losses were worse than ours. They say he's in a pretty bad fix. I guess his stoc
k is actually owned by one of his father's companies in England, and Bentley didn't keep the best records. He might be in a lot of trouble financially. I'm sorry for him, in spite of how I've always felt about the man. I'm sorry for all of them. Even with our other investments we'll have to do some juggling of the books to stay on our feet the next couple of years, and we're in a lot better situation than the ones who rely entirely on their cattle for their income. One thing I'm going to try to do if I become governor is to see if the federal government can somehow subsidize men like Nial, and Joe Parker, Carl Rose, Cal Briggs—men who came out here the way I did and worked themselves to the bone to build what they have, only to lose it all in one wicked winter. It isn't right." He shook his head, his eyes tearing. "It just isn't right."
"What do we do now?" Alice asked. She sat next to Tyler, holding his hand.
Luke sighed deeply. "We go out and take a second count so we can keep our books as accurate as possible. We take some of our strongest horses and rig up some kind of drag we can use to scoop up dead carcasses into piles that we can burn or bury. It's going to be a hell of a project any way you look at it, but we can't just let the carcasses all lie out there and rot. They're already beginning to smell to high heaven, and they'll attract all kinds of varmints and diseases that will just affect the cattle that survived. It will probably take a couple of months' work and there are no extra men to help. Every rancher is going to need every hand he's got." He looked at Lettie again. "This one is going to go down in the history books."
"The papers say even the East Coast was hit," she told him. "Practically the whole nation was shut down for a month or two." Their eyes held, both of them thinking about all they had been through over the years, striving to build the ranch, only to come to the point where they had to give up some of it. They had never thought they would see the day. "There are still plenty of people who want to come out here and farm, Luke. We can sell some of the land to them."
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