Jake embraced the man again, slapping him on the back. “Go on out there and get drunk with the other men. I don’t think Lloyd will mind if you end up having to sleep it off tomorrow.”
Cole grinned and wiped at his eyes before looking Jake over. “Damned if you don’t look good, Jake. When I saw them drag you off—” He sniffed and wiped at his nose with his coat sleeve. “Goddamn, I felt like somebody was rippin’ my heart right out of my chest. You’re a sight for sore eyes.” He raised his chin a little, obviously embarrassed at his tears. “You can explain to me and the boys later. You need to be with your family.” He grasped Jake’s hand and squeezed it. “Welcome home, boss.” He nodded to the rest of the family and left.
Little Jake walked up to Jake and hugged him all over again. Jake stepped back a little and looked him over. “By God, you’ve grown!”
Little Jake straightened to as tall as he could make himself. “Yup. And they call me Jake now—just Jake. From now on I am Jake, and you are Big Jake.” The boy threw his arms around his grandfather once more.
“Calling me Big Jake is just fine with me.” Jake gave him another hug, then turned to Stephen and Ben. Stephen was taller than Katie, and Ben looked like he was pushing eighteen. “Look at the three of you. The future of the J&L is looking damn good!”
The three boys had red, puffy eyes from crying. “We love you, Grandpa,” Little Jake told him. “We talked a lot about how we didn’t believe you died on account of you’re too tough to die. I told everybody that.”
“Well, we all die eventually, son, but I had a talk with God, and He decided it wasn’t my time yet.”
The three boys smiled through tears and straightened to stand as tall as they could. Jake kept hold of Randy’s hand and limped over to sit down in his favorite chair. He noticed a blanket and pillow.
“That’s where I’ve been sleeping,” Randy told him. “I couldn’t bring myself to sleep alone in that big bed upstairs.”
He leaned down and kissed her. “Well, you sure as hell won’t be sleeping up there alone tonight.” He sat down in the chair and pulled her onto his lap. She kept his coat pulled tight around herself, and she curled her still-wet feet under the skirt of her dress to warm them. She rested her head on Jake’s shoulder, and he wrapped his arms around her. “You feel so good in my arms.”
“And your arms feel so good around me,” Randy answered.
“Randy, I have a lot of healing to do yet. And I’m tired to my bones. I can’t—”
“Jake, all that matters is you’re here and alive and I can lie next to you tonight. We have plenty of time for everything else. We’ll go to the line shack as soon as you feel up to it.”
The rest of the family got some food ready, and all was sweet bedlam again. It was music to Jake’s ears. He studied Randy’s face as he smoothed back her hair and leaned down to kiss her again. “Lo nuestro será eterno, Randy. Tu y yo estaremos unidos eternamente.”
You and I are forever.
She was safe now. Jake was home.
Fifty-five
Randy helped Jake bathe, her heart sick at the sight of more scars on his back. There was barely a half inch of his original skin left there. She gently washed his back, almost afraid to touch it.
“It’s okay,” he told her. “There is no feeling to scar tissue.”
Her eyes teared. “My God, Jake, how you must have suffered.” Her voice broke as she rinsed his hair and back.
He reached behind him and touched her hand. “Don’t cry, Randy. I’ll be all right.” He sighed. “Obviously, Don de Leon wasn’t too happy that I stole his virgin from him.”
“But you didn’t even touch her.”
“It wouldn’t have mattered, and I didn’t bother explaining. It was worth every lash, because it helped me cope with what my father did to Santana. I couldn’t save her, but I did save Annie. At least this was something I could stop, and I’m glad as hell Cole got Annie back to Denver.”
“We’ve seen her, Jake. She is so beautiful…and so deeply saddened by thinking you gave up your life for her. She and Gretta will be so incredibly happy to find out you’re alive and home.” She held out a towel for him, closing her eyes at the sight of the bump on the front of his left leg from the poorly healed break. “Jake, I know you’re in pain. Please let Brian give you some laudanum.”
He wrapped the towel around himself and limped over to where clean underwear lay. “No. You know how I feel about laudanum. It’s nothing more than enhanced whiskey. You know I don’t drink if I can help it.”
“But, Jake—”
“Randy, I’ve lived with pain all my life. Brian said the bone just healed crooked, so my body produced more bone to fill in the gap. That’s all it is. It will get stronger and stronger, and eventually the pain will lessen. It’s one hell of a lot better than having the damn thing cut off. I would never have come home to you like that. Never. I can ride a horse, and I can walk on it.” He pulled on the long johns and faced her, studying her lovingly. “I’ll just have an old man’s limp, I guess.” He smiled sadly.
Randy walked closer, running her hands over his muscled arms and still-firm chest and flat belly. “You are no old man, Jake. You’re amazing—the strongest man anyone could know.” She moved her arms around his middle and kissed his chest. “And you’re here and alive, and you know damn well I’d love you the same if you did come home with half a leg.”
He sighed and wrapped her into his arms. “Well, I have a good one for you. Don de Leon told the men who dragged me into the desert to cut off my privates before they left me—just payment for taking his virgin, I guess.”
Randy gasped. “My God, Jake!”
He leaned down and kissed her forehead. “Apparently, they chickened out. Maybe they even felt sorry for me. I don’t know. All I know is when I came to, I still had my equipment, much to my great relief.” He grinned and gave her a squeeze. “What if I’d come home without that?”
Randy laughed lightly and looked up at him. “That, Mr. Harkner, would have been something to give a lot of thought to. I suppose we would have had to reinvent how to have sex.” Jake laughed too, and Randy drank in the sound with relish.
“I’m not even going to comment on that, Mrs. Harkner,” he told her. He grasped her face and leaned down to kiss her softly. “And right now, I’d love to make sure this thing is still in working order, but I’m so goddamn tired and in so much pain, that’s going to have to wait.”
She reached up around his neck. “Oh, Jake, surely you don’t think that matters. This is your first night home, and you’ve been to hell and back. Just being able to touch you, hear your voice and your laughter, and to know that tonight I can sleep in your arms are the most wonderful gifts God could have brought me. We have weeks, months, years to make up for this. As soon as you’re fattened up a little and well rested, we’ll go to the line shack, and we’ll make up for lost time.”
He gave her his best smile. “Sounds damn good to me.” He kissed her hair. “Get undressed, woman. We might not be able to make love yet, but by God, I intend to feel your naked body against mine tonight. That’s all I’ve thought about ever since I was able to think straight. That old Mexican told me I lay in a near coma for about a month. It was two more months before I could get up and walk around, but I was still in incredible pain and so weak I could only take a few steps. An old woman was there—his wife, I guess. He never said. She kept putting some kind of salve on my back that helped, and she rubbed my leg and kept bending it and making me move it so it wouldn’t seize up on me. I don’t know where they came from, other than God Himself must have sent them. I suspect one more day of lying naked and wounded in that desert would have done me in for good.”
“This whole family was praying for you.” Randy took his hand and led him to the bed. Jake gladly climbed into it.
“This feels so good I could cry,” he told her
as he settled into the quilts.
Randy smiled and undressed. “That bed will feel good to me too, because I haven’t slept in it since you left. That peppermint stick is still lying there on the nightstand.”
Jake rolled over and grabbed the candy. Randy climbed naked into bed, and he studied every curve, every slender line, the flow of her hair, the fullness of her breasts. He threw the covers over them and pulled her close. “My God, Randy, this is the longest we’ve been apart since I went to prison for four years.” He put the peppermint stick into her mouth and kept the other end in his. They licked it until their lips met. Through it all, he moved his hand over her breasts, her soft belly, her hip bones, her sweet bottom, her slender legs, drifting his fingers past the blond hairs of her love nest, up to her neck. They finished the candy together, kissed deeply, settled against each other…and fell asleep in each other’s arms for the first time in months.
Deep in the night, Jake ignored his pain. Bad memories woke him: the whip lashes, the desert, his broken leg, the boiling sun burning up his naked body. When he roused to consciousness, it took a few seconds to realize where he was…and that his beloved Randy was lying right beside him. She’d saved him from the darkness of hell over and over again. She lay here now in the flesh, not his imagination—naked and beautiful—still the woman he loved beyond measure, the woman who’d given up so much for him. He had to know this was real. It had simply been too long.
“Randy,” he groaned. “Tu eres mi vida, mi querida esposa. I need to be inside of you.”
She turned, rubbing at her eyes by the soft light of a low-lit lamp in the washroom. “I want that more than anything,” she answered softly. “I just wanted you to be rested.” She threw her arms around his neck. “I haven’t even slept yet, Jake. I was just lying here enjoying the feel of your strong arm around me.”
He moved on top of her, and she gladly opened herself to him.
“I don’t want to hurt you. It’s been such a long time, Randy.”
“It doesn’t matter.” She helped guide his hard shaft into her depths, drawing in her breath at the feel of him, the realization that he really was here and all in one piece and making love to her. Usually he took his time with foreplay, but right now, they both needed this…just this…anxiously, desperately. She smiled at how glad she was that those men who took Jake into the desert hadn’t cut off what gave her so much pleasure now.
He grasped her arms and moved them over her head. He moaned as he buried himself hard and deep, nuzzled her neck, and kissed her ear. “Who do you belong to?” he asked.
“Jake Harkner,” she answered.
“Every last inch of you.”
Epilogue
July 1898
It was the grandest cookout the J&L had ever held. The whole family was there, of course, Katie holding six-month-old Jeffrey in her lap and Sadie Mae pushing around a pram that held Evie and Brian’s new baby, just two weeks old—a son named Cole, for the man who’d been such a good friend to their father. Sadie Mae beamed with pride over mothering her new baby brother.
Most of the ranch hands were there. Teresa, Katie, Evie, and Randy had been cooking and baking for days. Tables made of sawhorses and planks of wood were covered with checkered tablecloths. An entire steer was roasted over an open fire. A few neighbors came. The guest list was long, and included Peter and Treena, Jeff and his wife and two children. Loretta and Annie came, and so did Gretta and Sam. Annie knew the truth now and understood her real mother’s sacrifice. Cole rode in for the affair, and he and Gretta announced they were getting married, which brought rousing cheers from everyone.
Randy started out of the house with another pie in her hands just as Jake came from the upstairs bedroom. He walked up to her and grabbed her from behind before she could get out the door, making her let out a little scream. With the pie in her hands, she couldn’t stop him from moving his hands over the square-cut bodice of her dress.
“Jake Harkner, do you know how many people are out there? Get your hands off my breasts.”
“But I love these babies.”
“And between three weeks at that line shack and what just went on upstairs this morning, you should be able to keep your hands off of me long enough to welcome everyone and sit down and eat.”
“You taste better than any of the food.”
Randy turned her head and looked up at him. He met her mouth in a deep kiss, gently squeezing her breasts at the same time. Randy grinned and wiggled away from him. “Stop!”
“Hell, you shouldn’t have worn yellow. You know how I like that dress on you. And look at you—all filled out again in all the right places. It’s nice to hold a woman with some flesh on her bones and all kinds of soft things to grab hold of.”
Randy whirled around in a teasing dance move. “You’ll have to save the grabbing for later.” She hurried through the screen door just as Gretta was coming up the steps to get more pies. She stopped in front of Jake.
“You know, big guy, that if the light is just right, a person can see right through that screen door. It appears you’ve healed well.”
Jake grinned. “Damn right.” He leaned down and kissed her cheek. “A man just needs the right motive to get well.”
“Mmm-hmm. And your wife seems very happy.”
“I aim to please.”
“I’m sure you do.” Gretta laughed and walked past him to retrieve more pies. Jake walked out onto the veranda and limped down the steps to join the others.
Everyone sat at the huge length of tables, sixteen different conversations going on at the same time. Even Katie’s parents were there, having moved from Oklahoma to take up residence and help out on the J&L. It was a great relief for Lloyd and Katie, who needed their help with the children. Jake considered Katie’s parents two of the nicest, most unselfish people he’d ever known. He had the men build a cabin for them and liked to joke that if any more people came to live on the J&L, they would simply create their own little town right here. Harkner Acres, we’ll call it, he told everyone.
He still could not quite get over the fact that all of this was because he’d fallen in love with a woman from Kansas almost thirty-three years ago and bedded her one wild night in a covered wagon. His life had never been the same since.
Evie prayed and sang Amazing Grace, everyone’s favorite hymn. They ate…and laughed…and ate…and laughed…and Jake enjoyed teasing Katie into deep blushes, one of his favorite pastimes.
By then, Jake had made all the headlines. Jake Harkner, America’s Last Outlaw, Escapes the Hands of Death! Articles explained how he was saved by an old Mexican healer, a man he would probably never be able to find again if he tried…a man Jake personally believed was sent by God in answer to Evie’s prayers.
Randy sat down next to Jake, and they held hands—often. They kissed—often. They shared looks of desire—often. Not long after he first returned, they’d spent over three weeks at the line shack, making love and making love and making love, some of it quite disrespectful.
Jake’s leg had healed more, becoming a bit less painful, but he feared the pain would never truly go away, and he would always have a limp.
Before dessert was served, Sadie Mae came to sit on Jake’s lap. She showed him an egg she’d snuck out of the chicken coop, but in the next instant, Outlaw appeared between Jake’s legs and snatched the egg right out of her fingers, then ran off.
“Sadie Mae, what just happened?” Jake asked her with a frown.
She whispered in his ear. “I gave the egg to Outlaw. Don’t tell, ’cuz Mommy said I’m not s’posed to feed him chicken eggs.” She covered her mouth and giggled.
“You sure do like secrets, Sadie Mae.”
She nodded her head vigorously.
“I have a secret too,” Jake told her. He whispered in her ear. “When some bad men were hurting Grandpa, I saw a chicken right in front of me. A
nd I said, Jake, that chicken must be little Sadie Mae, come to help you and make you feel better. So you were right there, Sadie Mae, and you helped Grandpa feel better.”
Sadie Mae hugged him around the neck and kissed his cheek. “I’m glad, Grampa. I don’t want you to hurt.”
A buggy appeared over the rise, and Terrel rode in.
“There’s a woman comin’,” he told Jake. “Calls herself Dixie, and damned if she don’t look like a… You know, one of them women.”
“Dixie?” Jake grinned and glanced at Lloyd. “Dixie James is here!” He looked at Randy. “How in hell did Dixie know about this?”
Randy grinned. “Because I wrote to her and invited her.”
Jake rose and handed Sadie Mae to Randy, leaning down to kiss Randy when he did so. “That was damn good of you.”
“Yes, well, just remember who you belong to. We have two prostitutes here who are both crazy about you.”
Jake laughed. “Woman, I’ve always known who I belong to.”
Lloyd grinned and rose to watch the buggy come in as Jake walked out to greet Dixie before she reached the house.
“Who’s Dixie James?” Gretta asked.
“Let’s just say you and Dixie have a lot in common,” Lloyd answered with a grin. “She’s from our lawman days back in Guthrie. You know Pa. He has a natural gravitation.”
Gretta let out one of her loud guffaws. “I think it’s the other way around,” she joked. “The women gravitate toward your father.”
Jake limped to the buggy, and in the next moment, a buxom, blond woman in a pink dress was in his arms.
“Dixie! My God, you came all the way from Guthrie?”
“They do have trains now, love.” She laughed as Jake whirled her around. “I wanted to see for myself that Jake Harkner really did still live and breathe,” she told him. “Besides that, I always wanted to see this ranch I’ve heard so much about and see my favorite outlaw and that gorgeous son of yours.”
The Last Outlaw Page 39