Wildest Dreams - Rosanne Bittner

As you may have realized from my last post.  I loved this book.  It was a 10/10 for me.  I can't think of one thing that bothered me about it.  It also had the wonderful intangible quality that some books have that just grab you right from the beginning and don't let you go.

Blurb from Fiction Database

Lettie MacBride knew that joining a wagon train heading west was her only chance to begin anew, far from the devastating memories of the night that had changed her forever. But though she might leave the past behind, she never believed she would escape the pain of innocence lost, nor feel stirrings of desire for any man .... until she met Luke Fontaine.


Haunted by his own secrets, Luke could never blame Lettie for what had happened in the past. One glance at the pretty red-haired lass was enough to fill the handsome, harddriving pioneer with a savage hunger. This was the woman he wanted by his side as he fought to build an empire -- to tame a land that only the strong could take and only the courageous could keep.
Against relentless snows, murderous desperadoes, and raiding Sioux, Luke and Lettie would stand together, bound by a passion that ran deep. But violence and tragedy would stalk them, and in this time of endless tears and brutal challenges, they would face a heartrending choice -- to abandon a lawless land before it destroyed them, or to fight for their ... Wildest Dreams.

When I first started this book I wasn't sure I was going to like it.  Bittner does something a little different at the beginning and has Lettie and Luke meet then skips forward 7 weeks to a point where the two are already in love with one another and just haven't let the other know.  At that point I thought to myself - I'll give it a hundred pages - if I'm not buying this relationship by then I'm out.  Ha!  I don't even know when I hit the 100 page mark because by the time I came up for air the first time I was already almost 250 pages in.  Luke and Lettie still have so much more to learn about one another and so much to go through you see them fall in love again and again over the course of the novel.  
 
On to Luke and Lettie.  Luke is Alpha in all the right ways and Beta when it comes to how he treats Lettie.  And even with all that being said Bittner still manages to give Luke flaws that make him real and all the more likable for it.  Lettie is a wonderful heroine and so very strong.  From being able to overcome her traumatic past and love her son to being there every step of the way to support Luke even if it means having to shoot someone.
 
These two don't have it easy.  There are some terribly heart wrenching moments in this book and there are also some really touching happy moments.  It is definitely a roller coaster but it is so worth it to get to the ending.  In my opinion this book  was everything a good western romance should be.