“Please don’t get upset.”
“I won’t get upset.”
“But you have before.”
“When?”
“Every time I try to tell you.”
“Tell me what?”
She hesitated again before speaking up. “I just think…if it was you…my Jake…if you were the last one to…do that… It would make everything better. Because…you love me and you’d…you’d find a way to make it beautiful because you’ve always said…you had too much respect for me as a person… I mean…you understand that would be hard for me. And yet you would be doing it for me.”
He reminded himself not to react in a way that might scare her away and end the conversation. He realized what she was telling him, but what if it brought back memories that would send her over the edge? “Randy, you’re talking about something that could have a bad effect on you, even though it’s me.”
“No, it won’t.” She sniffed back tears and put her hand over his as he held his to her face. “Jake, I can’t explain why. But if it was you…that’s the memory I would keep. And it would make the ugly way they did it go away because it would be you…my Jake…and it would be an act of love.”
Jake didn’t say anything for a few minutes, weighing what she was asking. Letting this beautiful, proper woman he adored do what she was asking didn’t seem right, even though he’d been totally intimate with her body. It struck him that all he’d ever cared about was making sure she took pleasure in everything he did with her and to her. He got his deep pleasure in return just being inside her, owning her, watching her breathe deeply in utter passion and surrender. If she’d ever once said no, he would have stopped. He’d never even considered she might need to feel the same way—that she needed to please him, to touch him and taste him in her own way. “We’ve talked about this, Randy. Those men did something I’ve never asked of you because I’ve always felt you’re too proper and—”
“I know,” she interrupted. “That’s just it, Jake.” She sniffed in another sob. “They made it so ugly, but you can make it better, because if we…did that…it would be…beautiful and…intimate…and right. I know you’ve never asked that of me because you think I’m too special…but I need you to understand why it would help me get over what happened. You think they made it so ugly…and they did. And when brutal men…do that…it’s called that ugly, ugly word. But no one can call it that…if it’s between a man and wife and out of love. Then the act becomes beautiful.”
Jake could hardly believe his ears. “Randy, what if it just makes things worse for you?”
She shook her head. “It won’t. I just know it won’t. You’re my Jake. You’ll make it beautiful. Don’t tell me you’ve never done that because I know how you grew up. I need you to understand why I need to share that with you. It would make it beautiful for me because everything you do to me is beautiful. I feel the adoration in your every touch. It would erase the ugly. You refuse to do it, and I understand why…and I wouldn’t want to do it often. Maybe even just once. I only know I need to do this, Jake. You have to stop insisting I shouldn’t. It’s what I want, and if it gives you pleasure in return, I’ll feel better about all of it, and I’ll feel closer to you again.”
He pulled her closer. “You have to be sure, Randy. I could lose you completely.”
“I am sure. I’ve been sure ever since we went to the line shack after that horrible attack. We were so intimate, and I kept saying maybe we should do that because it might help, and you kept refusing, thinking I would hate it.”
“You still might.”
She nuzzled her lips against his neck. “It would be you. How could I possibly hate it?”
“Because you aren’t made that way, Randy. Something like that isn’t natural for you.”
“Letting you be so intimate with me wasn’t natural for me either when we first became lovers. But you have a way of loving me that makes it beautiful, and makes it seem so right.”
Jake struggled for the right words. If he said one thing that made her feel ashamed or embarrassed or made her think he didn’t respect what she wanted, he’d lose her again. “Baby, you do whatever you need to do to get better. That’s all I care about.” He wrapped his hands into her hair and kissed her eyes. “And you’re right. I didn’t understand, but I was only thinking of you and trying to keep away the bad memories.”
“I know.”
Jake leaned in and met her mouth in a deep, delicious kiss, groaning then with the thought of what she wanted to do, something that in all their years together he’d never asked of her. “Damn,” he said amid more kisses, “I wish I didn’t have these stitches in my side.” He felt her smiling in the midst of another kiss.
“Now you have something to think about,” she teased. “Something that will give you reason to heal faster.”
There it was—that attempt at the old teasing remarks they always shared when making love. “Well now, here I am in bed with the woman who makes me crazy, and I can’t do anything about it. This is more painful than these damn stitches.”
Randy moved her arms around his neck, and they shared an even deeper kiss. “There are times when I like making you suffer, Jake Harkner. There are a few things you’ve done during our marriage that you deserve to suffer for.”
“I won’t argue that one.” More kisses. Jake gently moved a hand over her breasts through her soft flannel gown. “Tell me again you’re sure, Randy, because when I’m well—”
“I’m sure.”
He ran a thumb over a taut nipple. “And here I thought I might be losing you. I was imagining you turning to another man, someone who wouldn’t put you through the hell my past keeps dredging up to come between us—someone like Peter Brown.”
Randy gasped and pulled away. “Jake Harkner! How could you think such a thing?”
Jake grinned. There was the spark. “Hell, the man has loved you for years. If he got the chance, he’d sweep you right away from me.”
“He wouldn’t get the chance. You’d shoot him first.”
“You bet I would.” Jake grimaced as he managed to lay back down. “Randy, you have to always tell me the truth, understand?”
Randy snuggled closer. “That’s what I’ve been trying to do, but you wouldn’t listen.”
Jake sobered. “Let’s get something straight, and I want to hear it from your own lips. What those men did didn’t change one thing for how I feel about the most beautiful woman on the face of the earth. They never touched you. Understand? You know I’m right, so say it.”
She curled tighter against him. “They never touched me.”
“Say it again.”
“They never touched me.” Jake felt her shiver. “They never touched me.” She burst into tears.
Jake held her close, refusing to let on he was in any pain. She needed this. “Let it out, Randy. You’ve been pretending everything is fine, but you still need me in your sights night and day. You’re stronger than that.”
She broke into such heavy sobs that Jake’s eyes teared. “Who is holding you, baby?”
She could barely get the words out. “Jake Harkner.”
“And who do you belong to?”
“Jake Harkner.”
“You bet.” This was the closest she’d come to her old self in months. He loved her more for being too bashful to tell him what she wanted. Thirty-one years together and she sometimes acted like they’d just met. He would have to be so damn careful. How was he going to do what she wanted without bringing back bad memories?
He ran his thumb back and forth over her lips, then leaned over and found her mouth again, invading it with a long, slow kiss that was so deep it was like making love to her with his mouth. He ached to be inside her.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“I’m just…” She put a hand to her face. “I didn’t know how to
tell you.”
“Randy, who the hell have you been living with all these years?”
She reached under her pillow for a handkerchief and used it to wipe at her eyes. “A man who’s done it all and might laugh at me asking something like that.”
“You know me better.”
“You were so…adamant…about not doing that. It’s okay, Jake. I’m your wife. It’s not disrespect. I just… I don’t know how else to make what they did go away. And I feel better…just telling you.” She wiped at her eyes again. “I know you well enough to know how hard this has been for you. You’ve devoted practically every minute of every day to me since last winter, and I love you for it. I promise to eat better and give you some freedom.”
“I don’t need freedom—not from you. We’ll take things a day at a time, all right? I’ll leave you on your own more often, and the other—it will just happen when it happens. We won’t plan it, and we won’t talk about it. How’s that? We’ll just know when it’s right.”
“Okay.” She snuggled even closer. “You do so much for me, Jake.”
The remark pained him. I’ve done so much TO you, he thought. He would never understand why she’d stayed with him through so much hell. How many times had he thought they’d finally found peace? Yet here he lay healing from a bullet wound, and they were talking about how to help her get over an ugly, brutal attack she’d suffered…because of him…because of his enemies. It was no wonder she’d half lost her mind.
Fourteen
Lloyd drank in the sight of the Harkner homestead as they came over the rise. Below, the Harkners’ three homes were nestled against the foothills of the Rocky Mountains range. There should be more snow high in those mountains, but it had been a mild winter for Colorado and not enough rain this spring. Now they were headed for July, normally dry anyway.
He couldn’t worry about it today. It was just good to be home, especially good that his father was healing fast. The whole family had been through so much hell, and strangely, in spite of most of the trouble stemming from Jake Harkner’s past, Jake remained the hub around which the family circled. It was as though all the spokes that emanated from that hub would fall to pieces without that central strength. Jake would deny that, a man who had never accepted his worth. You’re just like your father, people often said to Lloyd. Some men might not take that as a compliment, considering. But Lloyd was proud.
He lit a cigarette and waited while everyone greeted Jake and fussed over him. Lloyd shook his head, remembering there was a time when he’d thought he hated the man—so many years…so many memories. Jake Harkner had a surprising capacity to love, mostly because he’d never known the meaning of the word as a boy growing up with Satan for a father. Lloyd supposed that was why Jake had been determined to be the best father a kid could ask for. It was his way of living over his boyhood in the way he would have liked it to be. Everything they’d been through only made the whole family stronger, knitted together in a way that they would never be pulled apart.
That’s why it had hurt so much to see Randy withering away. These last few months, he and Evie had feared they were watching their parents drift apart, something they never thought could happen, but there was hope in the fact that his mother actually seemed a little stronger on their trip home. Maybe it was just because she felt safer here, in familiar surroundings. Over the last couple of days he’d noticed more joy in her eyes, and she’d fussed over Jake all the way home, giving him orders for every move he made so he wouldn’t reinjure himself. They’d exchanged a few biting, teasing remarks, a rather comical exchange of barbs—something he hadn’t see them do in a long time.
Something had happened, but he wasn’t going to ask Jake about it. His father was a man who talked about something only when he wanted to. Better to just take comfort in what he’d observed and be glad that maybe—just maybe—his parents were finding their way back to each other. It just takes a lot of time. His sister had told him that once, and who knew better about things like that than Evie?
He kicked Strawberry into motion, riding at a faster gait to catch up with the entire procession of family and ranch hands as they made their way down the hill, the three boys peppering Jake and Randy with questions, Little Jake riding in circles around the buggy. Chickens squawked, and horses in an outer corral whinnied, as though even the animals were glad to see Jake return.
“You really okay, Grampa?” Little Jake asked when they finally reached the house. The boy suddenly looked ready to cry.
“I’m all right, Little Jake. Everybody come inside the house, and we’ll have the girls cook up a good meal for all of us. We’ll talk about everything then.”
“And no jumping all over Jake. He’s not healed yet,” Randy told them with an air of authority. Lloyd noticed his father move an arm around her when he climbed out of the buggy. Yes, something had certainly changed.
“Mommy! Mommy!” Tricia shouted as Katie ran down the steps to sweep her daughter into her arms and hug her tight. Lloyd thought it was a beautiful sight. Katie Donavan had come into his life when he needed her most. She was beautiful and loving, had helped him get over his first wife’s death, and was a good mother to his and Beth’s son Stephen. She’d given him Tricia and now another son, Donavan Patrick.
How amazing was it that the infamous Jake Harkner was responsible for this huge, loving family? And now he and Lloyd ran this ranch together, a glorious eighty-thousand acres. This spring hadn’t boded well for rain, but Lloyd had planned ahead and was saving grass for emergency feed in a vast valley called Evie’s Garden. Horse Creek ran through there and had never dried up, even when there had been years with little rain. Mountain snows fed it, but this year that could be a problem.
There followed two hours of sheer bedlam. The ranch hands surrounded Lloyd and Jake outside with questions about the fracas and reports on roundup and branding, while the women cooked inside the main house. Nothing felt better than the whole family being together, which was why Jake had insisted on keeping a big house with lots of bedrooms. Stephen and Little Tricia slept there practically as much as they slept at home. All the kids loved Randy’s cooking and being around Jake, whom they considered the toughest, most famous man on the face of the earth. Lloyd had to shake his head over that one.
Once in the house, Jake insisted on holding the two babies for a while, little Donavan and Evie’s new baby girl, Esther Miranda. They let Tricia and her cousin, Sadie Mae, sit on his lap, while Randy constantly reminded the girls not to hug their grandfather too tightly or crawl all over him the way they usually did. Sadie Mae pulled his shirt up unexpectedly to see where Grampa had been shot, and then she started crying.
The women were all over her tears, and Lloyd wondered if there would ever be any semblance of order in the growing mob of brothers and sisters and cousins the family had become.
One thing that gave him the most joy was noticing how his parents kept glancing at each other. Things were definitely better, and Lloyd suspected they’d rather have some time alone, something they hadn’t had since they left for Boulder in the first place. Randy walked to where Jake sat in his favorite big chair near the fireplace and put out her hands. “Come to the table, Jake.”
Jake grasped her hands, and she helped him up, a rather comical sight with him so big and his mother so small. He watched them kiss, and his mother put an arm around Jake as he walked to the table.
They all took their seats, and Jake asked Evie to say grace. Evie looked at him in surprise. “Did I just hear my father ask me to pray?” she asked teasingly.
“Yes, you did.”
“You never ask me to pray.”
“First time for everything, baby girl. Your prayers are strong. Mine don’t hold water at all, so just say grace and don’t ask questions.”
Lloyd grinned. Typical Jake Harkner comment. Jake was feeling better, and it wasn’t just his side that was healing.
&
nbsp; “And include a thank you that your mother is eating better and smiling more.”
“Jake, she doesn’t have to do that,” Randy protested.
Lloyd studied his mother closely. Was she actually blushing a little? He glanced at Evie, who just shrugged before offering the prayer. The whole family dived in then, and Randy filled her plate and ate as though truly hungry. Lloyd wondered if maybe the shooting had been good for his mother. It had forced her to be stronger.
As soon as they finished eating, the boys continued to insist Jake tell them the story about the bank robbery all over again. Little Jake was the most excited, using his fingers to mimic handguns as he yelled “Bang! Bang! Bang!” when Teresa retold what it was like to feel Jake’s bullets whizzing over her head.
Lloyd stepped outside to have a cigarette, and Evie followed him out. “Lloyd, did you see? Mother seems better.”
Lloyd drew on the cigarette and leaned against the porch railing. “Yeah, she does. I don’t know for sure what happened, mind you. She was still bad when we got to Boulder, and no better after that damn shoot-out—at least from what I could tell when we got there. She looked really bad. Pa was still concerned, and I could see him sliding backward, you know? He was about to do something crazy, I think, as if that shoot-out wasn’t bad enough. It’s probably a good thing he was injured. It kept him from… I don’t know. Something he probably would have regretted. You know how he is. He told me that before the shoot-out he got into it with Brady Fillmore over that stolen steer, but there was more to it than that. I think maybe Fillmore said something about Mom. It doesn’t take much of that kind of talk to set Pa off.”
“We all know how ornery he can be.”
Lloyd studied his sister, never quite able to stop worrying about her since her ordeal at Dune Hollow, even though it was almost five years ago. “How are you?”
The Last Outlaw Page 11