December and Mae

Wyoming, 1889. Rock-faced as a quarry, hewn of hard work and Wyoming Territory's harsh environment, he, at 54, is a wealthy widower and overlord of over forty thousand acres and a copper mine. His unwed sister rules their house and, so she thinks, her brother's morals, as she attempts to set him up with various widows and spinsters. Yet underneath, Luke's loneliness for a woman of his own choosing, and no little longing for the warm, willing flesh of such, gnaws at Luke's soul if not his fevered body. Enter a runaway, a starved waif far below his social standing. She stumbles onto his spread, willing, in her innocence, to do anything he wishes...