Someone rang the electric buzzer at the front door. Gretta pulled her robe closer and smoothed back her hair, shooing the other girls up to their rooms. She frowned as she headed for the door. It was too early for customers, and that was usually the only kind of visitors they got. She opened the door a crack, then wider. Loretta Sellers stood there, a woman she figured she’d never see at the front door of the Range Club.
“Mrs. Sellers!” She looked around behind the woman and saw no one. “You shouldn’t be seen here!”
“I know, but—Miss MacBain, we need to talk.”
Gretta’s heart dropped. The very Christian woman had adopted her baby daughter fifteen years ago. Gretta had seen her daughter several times from a distance, but the girl never knew Gretta was her mother, and that’s how Gretta wanted it. “Go through that hedge there so no one will see you, and go around back,” she told Mrs. Sellers. “You’ll see a gazebo. I’ll meet you there.”
She closed the door, putting a hand to her chest. Her baby girl! Something was wrong! She hurried to her room and quickly put on a corset and underwear, then pulled on a house dress and buttoned it up. She stuck combs in the sides of her unbrushed hair and hurried out, not wanting to take time to put on petticoats or fix her face. She stepped into a pair of slippers and walked to the back of the house and out through the kitchen, telling her cook not to let anyone else come into the backyard for a while.
A hot wind hit her. Up until now, the weather had been quite cool for late June. The shade of the gazebo felt good when she stepped inside. Loretta was already there, sitting on a bench and sniffing into a handkerchief. Once a hefty woman, Loretta had gotten much thinner since the last time Gretta had seen her, which was at least a year ago. Gretta hurried to her side. “What’s happened? Is my daughter all right?”
Loretta, now a wisp of a woman with mousy-brown hair and gray eyes just shook her head. “I’m so sorry, Miss MacBain. I’ve failed you!”
Gretta sat down next to her and put an arm around her, hoping Loretta wouldn’t be offended at the intimacy, but the woman turned and wept against her shoulder.
“She’s gone, Miss MacBain! She’s run off! And I don’t think anything good will come of it!”
Gretta felt sick inside. “Run off where? With whom?”
Loretta blew her nose and wiped at her eyes. “With a Mexican! He has bad intentions. I just know he does! He’ll sell her into slavery in Mexico! He’ll turn my little girl into a…” She hesitated, rising. “I’m so sorry, Miss MacBain, but I fear she’ll end up…”
“Like me?”
Loretta met her gaze. “Forgive me.”
Gretta looked away. “What’s to forgive? I gave her to you so she wouldn’t end up like me. You don’t need to apologize, Mrs. Sellers.”
“But I fear it will be worse than your situation.”
Gretta rose and faced her, frowning. “What are you talking about?”
“She’s a virgin, Miss MacBain. I’m sure she’s still a virgin. She’s all starry-eyed over this man. He’s quite handsome, but he’s a lot older. She thinks he loves her. She’s fifteen!”
The same age I was when I gave birth to her, and I’d already been sleeping with men for money for two years, thanks to my uncle. Gretta felt sick inside.
“She’s young and foolish, and she’s been a bit lost since my husband died,” Loretta continued. “She truly thought of him as a father and never knew any different. She was looking for that love and protection. This man—Luis Estava—he appeared out of nowhere and started attending our church and giving her a lot of attention. Before long, they were good friends, and he was filling her with all sorts of lies about…about loving her…telling her he had a huge hacienda in Mexico and he wanted to take her there and marry her. He’s a smooth talker, Miss MacBain. Nothing I told her could change her mind.” Loretta turned away and stared out across the backyard.
“I told her she couldn’t trust him…told her it was dangerous to go into a different country at her age. I suggested what I thought this man’s motives were once he got her there, and she went into a defensive rage, furious that I would think anything bad about him. She carried on about how good he was to her and how handsome he was and how he was rich and she’d have a beautiful life on his horse ranch in Mexico and live like a high-born Mexican woman. I couldn’t convince her otherwise.” She turned and faced Gretta. “Then one night…a week ago…she disappeared. I’m sure he’s taken her to Mexico without my permission, and God knows what’s happened to her!”
Gretta tried to think straight. She’d been so sure her Annie would have a much better life raised in a Christian home. She grasped her stomach, pacing. “I…I don’t understand! Annie was such a good girl, so beautiful and sweet…at least from the few times I got close enough to see her.”
“She was.” Loretta blew her nose again. “Ma’am, girls change at her age. They start noticing boys, and in this case…this man was so handsome and charming. Even people in church liked him.”
Gretta met her gaze again. “I find it hard to believe your church actually accepted this man into their congregation, knowing nothing more about him.”
Loretta stepped closer. “That’s how charming Luis was, Miss MacBain.”
Gretta put a hand to her head, trying to think. “Is there any chance he was sincere? That he really will make a good life for her?”
Loretta looked away, strands of hair falling from under her small straw bonnet and from the bun at the base of her neck. “I prayed for that when he first started wooing her. But when I stood up to him one night and asked him his real intentions…” She looked at Gretta again. “Ma’am, you know men, but we women… I think we all have that instinct, you know? When we’re a little older, I mean. An instinct for that look in a man’s eyes, when they’re being honest and honorable, and when they aren’t. He looked at me in a way that actually frightened me. We were standing there in my kitchen alone, and for one quick moment I feared for my life. I can’t explain it, but—”
“I’ve seen that look!” Gretta interrupted, pacing again, her fists clenched. “Too many times!”
“I just knew…the way he looked at me…that he had bad intentions for Annie. But nothing I said to her after that would convince her. She’d become totally infatuated with Luis, and she told me I was just an old widow who was jealous she had a man in her life and I didn’t. She even accused me of wanting Luis for myself because he was older!” Loretta turned away and broke into tears again. “I’m supposed to be her mother. That’s what she believes, yet she talked so mean to me. I couldn’t believe how she’d changed. I think Luis… I think he’d been giving her something…maybe some kind of drug, and she fell for his compliments about her beauty.” She blew her nose again. “And she is beautiful, Miss MacBain, like you.”
Gretta swallowed back tears. “I’m not so beautiful anymore, Mrs. Sellers, but thank you. At thirty-one, I’m considered a used-up whore.” She noticed Loretta hold her stomach and turn away again. “I’m sorry, but those are the cold, hard facts. I’ve accepted my life, Mrs. Sellers, but I wanted so much better for Annie.”
Loretta covered her eyes. “I’ve failed you.”
“No, you haven’t. Things happen in life we can’t control, Mrs. Sellers. You didn’t expect that devil to come along when he did and move in on an opportunity to woo a foolish young girl away from everything she’d known.” She walked over and touched the woman’s shoulder. “I’m damn sorry about your husband, and about this. I’m glad you did what you did for my baby, Mrs. Sellers. You loved her like your own. And you took good care of her.” She blinked back tears. “God knows I couldn’t have raised her. No innocent little girl should grow up knowing her mother is a…prostitute. I did what I thought was best for her, and what’s happened now is no one’s fault.”
“I just don’t know what to do.” The woman’s shoulders shook. “The law wouldn’t
go after her. They won’t go into Mexico. I did find a man who said he’d try to find her.”
“Who? Has he left yet?”
“I gave him a picture and paid him two hundred dollars. His name is Jesse Valencia. He speaks Mexican and he used to be a sheriff in some town in Mexico. He bills himself as someone who can help people here find anyone. There have been a lot of kidnappings.”
“So he figured, rather than get the rotten pay he gets in Mexico to go after these kidnappers, he’d come here to America and make a lot better money doing the same thing.”
Loretta nodded. “Something like that. He has an office in Denver.”
“I’m not sure I trust he’ll really try to find her.”
“He’s all the hope I have. And I’ve already paid him. All we can do now is wait and pray.”
Gretta paced again, feeling sick inside, hoping Mister Jessie Valencia wasn’t just taking money for nothing. “And what if he comes back without her—or doesn’t come back at all?”
Loretta shook her head. “I don’t know. I fear it’s already too late. Luis Estava has likely already…already shattered all of Annie’s big dreams of living like a rich man’s wife. Once she’s down there long enough, there will be no changing what’s happened. She could even die of disease or be murdered or…who knows? If Mister Valencia can’t find her, no one will.”
Gretta stared at a rose bush. “I’ll pay you back the two hundred dollars and pray right along with you,” she told Loretta, wanting to scream and weep. Her baby had been so beautiful. She’d grown into a sweet, loving little girl with red curls and blue eyes and fair skin. Just the kind men consider prime flesh and worth a lot of money, she seethed inside. “I know someone who I’m betting could find her,” she told Loretta. “And he’s not a lawman, at least not anymore. He’s half Mexican and speaks their language; and obeying the law means nothing to him. He could ride right into Mexico and fit right in. He knows prostitutes and brothels, and best of all, he knows outlaws.”
You didn’t handle those bank robbers the way you did because you used to be a lawman, Jake Harkner. You knew how to handle them because you used to be just LIKE them! Gretta smiled at the thought.
“Who are you talking about?” Loretta asked.
Gretta shook her head. “I don’t even know if he would do it. He’s a family man now, and recently hurt.” She faced Loretta. “But if that supposed investigator of yours doesn’t bring my daughter back in a month, you let me know. This man could damn well find her, and you might say he owes me a favor. I helped keep his head out of a noose last year.”
Loretta thought a moment. “Do you mean that man who made such a sensation here last summer? The one who shot a man in the head at close range at the Cattlemen’s Ball?”
“That’s exactly who I mean.”
“But he’s…he’s no better than an outlaw!”
Gretta grinned. “I guess in some ways that’s still true.”
“And you would trust him with your fifteen-year-old daughter?”
Gretta felt suddenly calmer. “You bet I would. If Jake Harkner cared that a woman like me might be hurt, he’d sure as hell care about an innocent fifteen-year-old girl.”
Thirteen
Jake grunted with pain as Randy helped him step out of his pants and shirt. “Brian said the wound looks like it’s healing beautifully,” she told him. She hung on to him as he sat down on the bed and managed to lay back. She looked around the room. “I’m glad we could stay in our own hotel room tonight. It’s only been six days, but I can’t wait to get back to the J&L, away from all the attention around here.”
“And I’ll be damn glad when I have all my strength back,” Jake grumbled. “Get your gown on and come lie down by me, Randy. The last time you were in bed with me you were fully clothed and about to fall off the edge of the doctor’s cot.”
Randy pulled the covers over him. “I don’t like that sleeping medicine the doctor gave me. I should be awake in case you need something.”
“No, you need to sleep. Now come to bed. We’re leaving in the morning, and we both need rest.”
Randy undressed, and Jake closed his eyes against the sight of her ribs and hip bones sticking out. He wanted to rip apart everything in the room at the sight of her. He’d always loved watching her undress, drinking in the sight of her full breasts and the soft curve of her hips and the small roundness of her belly and the sweet, secret spot between her beautiful legs. She had a perfect bottom that had kept its firm roundness. All those soft curves and the roundness were gone now, and her breasts were not quite so full. He watched her brush out her hair, the beautiful blond tresses he loved to get tangled in his hands.
“Come on to bed, Randy.”
Randy set the brush down and walked around the other side of the bed, away from his wounded side. She watched him warily. “You’re upset.”
“Yeah, you might say that. I’ll be even more upset if you don’t get into this bed.”
Randy turned off the lamp beside the bed and crawled under the covers, lying still on her back and not touching him at first.
Jake sighed deeply, resting an arm over his eyes and struggled to speak calmly. “Randy, I’d like to get back together with the woman who sasses me and bosses me around and who feels good in my arms, the one who is round in all the right places—the one I can tease and laugh with and whose strength makes me stronger. That time we spent at the line shack after what happened last winter—it was beautiful and necessary. You asked me to take it all away and make you mine again, and I damn well did, or at least I thought I did. But something is different. Of all the things we’ve been through, none of it ever made us feel like strangers, but that’s how I feel right now.”
Randy just laid there a silent moment. “Jake, I’m sorry. I’m trying. You know I am. I can’t stand the thought of you being angry with me.”
Jake stared at moonlight on the ceiling. “Baby, I’m not angry. I’m…frustrated. I’m at a loss. When we make love, it’s as though you’re only doing it to prove to yourself I’m right there with you and you don’t have to be afraid, but you aren’t… I don’t know… You aren’t truly wanting me as a husband. I’ve never forced a woman, and I sure as hell won’t start with my own wife. And since this incident here in Boulder, I’ve realized how awful it would have been if I’d died—or even if you’d died at the hands of those men—without us having fixed whatever has gone wrong between us.”
Randy moved a hand sideways to take hold of his. “Jake, how can you possibly think I don’t want you that way anymore? I can’t imagine many women enjoy making love as much as I do with you. You always make it so beautiful. I just… I need to put last winter behind me…somehow. It’s left me…” The tears came then. “I feel like it’s wrong now…to enjoy it…like you’ll think it’s terrible that I still want a man after what they did.”
Jake breathed deeply. God help me. He managed to move an arm beneath her and pull her against his shoulder.
“Randy, I’m your husband. It’s good to enjoy it. What happened doesn’t change the fact that you’re my wife. One of the strongest things we’ve always had between us is practically sharing souls when we make love. Two people can’t get much more intimate than you and I. There isn’t one inch anywhere on your body I haven’t touched or tasted and made love to. I adore every part of you, and nothing makes me happier than knowing I’m pleasing you.”
Randy wiped at her tears. “But…I want to please you.”
Jake frowned, ignoring the pain in his side. His wife was more important. He’d gotten her to talk, and he would do whatever it took to keep her talking. “What are you talking about? You do please me. You know that.”
“That’s not what I mean.” She put a hand over her face. “You just don’t understand.”
Jake was able to turn onto his good side enough to look down at her, his eyes adjusted now to t
he room bright with moonlight. He touched her face, reached under her chin, and pulled her head up, forcing her to meet his gaze in the soft light. “Randy, there isn’t a whole lot about women I don’t understand, and I’m not talking about sex. I’m talking about what I watched my mother go through, and stories from a lot of the women who raised me. So what is it about my own wife I don’t understand?”
She closed her eyes. “I’m afraid to tell you.”
“Since when have you ever been afraid of me?”
She swallowed. “Promise you won’t be upset.”
“You know better.” Jake waited the several long seconds it took her to say what she wanted to say. He wasn’t sure if he dared hope that things might be turning around, but maybe this time she would open up to him.
She squeezed his hand as though trying to hang on. “Jake, that…that thing they did…” Her body jerked in a sudden little sob, the tears punctuating her words. “Jake I can’t make it…go away. Not without…doing something more to take away the ugly. Those three weeks we spent at the line shack…and you made love to me, I lied when I said that made it all better. That’s why…why I—why we feel like strangers. Because we never lie to each other, and I felt the lies between us.” She shivered in another sob. “You’re my Jake…and I’ve been staying close to you to make sure you…don’t leave me because I lied to you. And because you refuse to understand what I really need, and that…embarrasses me and…scares me because I don’t want you angry with me or I might…lose you when I need you most.”
Tears spilled down the sides of her face and into her ears. Jake pulled her closer and kissed her forehead, wiping at her tears with her fingers. “Randy, when have I ever been truly angry with you? You know what you mean to me. And you know I’m not a man who’s surprised by anything. I’ll do whatever it takes to make you happy again, to be close again. You don’t need to lie to me just because you think it’s what I want to hear. I want you better, so tell me what you need. What don’t I understand?”
The Last Outlaw Page 10