She felt some of the tension leaving him. He finally softened a little, embraced her, and kissed the top of her head. “Believe me, woman, I don’t want to do something that means I can’t have you with me in bed every night, but a man should have the right to avenge the abuse of his own loved ones.”
“If there is good cause, yes. But I know you, and you’d like to kill that man on sight even if he doesn’t do one thing to provoke you.”
“He’s already provoked me, just by existing! Randy, I can’t promise what I’ll do if I see him.”
“Then you have to prepare yourself, and you have to hope it never happens.”
Jake gently pushed her away. “Go sit with Evie and ask Brian to come over here. I need to talk to him for a minute.”
Randy leaned up and kissed him. “Evie will get through this. She has Brian, and she’s a strong, tough young woman. She gets that toughness from you.” She detected tears in his eyes.
“Maybe she’s like me in toughness and strength, but in no other way is that angel anything like her father, thank God. Inside, she’s much stronger than I’ve ever been or ever will be.” He kissed her forehead. “Go get Brian like I asked.” He stepped back, and Randy reached out and squeezed his hand before walking off the veranda and out to where Evie and Brian played with the girls.
Jake watched Evie, her beautiful smile, her long, dark hair, the way she hugged the girls. She was genuine goodness, and the thought of what she’d suffered made him feel physically ill. He lit yet another cigarette, wondering how he was going to deal with the fact that a man like Mike Holt had been freed from prison instead of hung. He contemplated all the ways he might be able to kill the man and get away with it.
Brian left the women and walked up to the house. The medium-built, good-looking, and always-dapper Dr. Brian Stewart was as different from Jake and Lloyd as a man could get, and that was fine with Jake. He was a soft-spoken man of incredible patience and kindness, and he barely knew how to use a gun. He’d never even gone hunting.
“Randy said you wanted to talk,” Brian told Jake as he came up the steps. “I take it it’s about Mike Holt.”
Jake took a drag on his cigarette and met Brian’s gaze. “What do you want me to do?” he asked Brian.
“Do?”
“If the man shows his face anywhere near Evie or anybody else in this family, I can make him disappear, if you want me to,” Jake told him.
Brian studied the darkness in his father-in-law’s eyes. He’d seen that look before. “Simple as that?”
“You bet. Just don’t tell Randy or Evie what I said.”
Brian sighed as he moved beside Jake and joined him at the railing. “Jake, you never cease to amaze me with your candid admissions. You said that like it was as easy for you as shooting a rattler.”
“No difference, as far as I’m concerned.”
Brian shook his head. “The last thing Evie needs is for her father to go back to prison, Jake. Nothing is worth that. If that man shows his face, you’d better have a damn good reason to kill him.”
“I already do.”
“You know what I mean. It would just bring it all back for her. And I doubt he’s crazy enough to come anywhere near this place. The trouble is, Evie wouldn’t know it if he stood right next to her.”
“Someone should have told me all of it a long time ago.”
“We figured he’d be in prison too long for it to matter, and Evie knew what it would do to you if you knew everything. Her biggest fear, Jake, is you or Lloyd going off the deep end over it. That’s why she forgave them and wanted you to know it.” Brian rested his elbows on the railing and watched Evie and their tiny daughter Sadie. “This isn’t any easier on me than it is on you. Even I wouldn’t recognize the man. That day…there was so much confusion…and after I took her behind the cabin to tend to her, I never looked at any of those who were left alive. I couldn’t.” His hands moved into fists. “That’s the only time in my life I wanted to kill men rather than save them, so don’t think I don’t understand this time how easy it is for you to consider doing so yourself. Part of me wants to tell you to do it, but we live in different times now, Jake, and all the healing Evie has done would be for nothing if something happened to you. She adores you, and your well-being is far more important to her than any kind of revenge. Just keep that in mind.”
Jake kept his cigarette at the corner of his mouth as he spoke. “She really all right now?”
“Most of the time.” Brian cleared his throat. “I have to tell her sometimes to just…look at me and think about how much I love her and treasure her. Look at me and know who she belongs to.”
“Shit,” Jake muttered. He closed his eyes and turned to lean against a support post. “I’m worried about Lloyd, too. Mike Holt vowed that if he was ever free, he’d get Lloyd for shooting his brother.”
“That worries Evie, too. You know how much Lloyd means to her.”
The women were walking toward them now, Evie holding Sadie and Randy holding Tricia. The younger boys came charging up to the house on horseback, Little Jake sitting behind Stephen with his arms wrapped around his cousin’s waist. The boy clamored down and ran up the porch steps to Jake. “Grampa, go riding with us and let me ride my own horse, will you?”
Jake tousled Little Jake’s hair and glanced at Evie. “You care?”
Evie set Sadie on her feet. “Daddy, if not for you being around to keep Little Jake busy, I’d be a worn-out old woman already. I think the two of you share the same restless soul, so yes, take him riding. Brian and I have trouble making him sit still for his lessons. You need to talk to him about that.”
“I’ll do my best.”
Little Jake tugged at Jake’s hand. “Come on, Grampa.”
Jake took his hand and walked down the porch steps and close to Evie. He put a hand to the side of her face and kissed her forehead. “Everything will work out, baby girl. Don’t be worrying about me or your brother, understand?”
Evie gave him a hug. “I didn’t want you to know all of it.”
Jake hugged her close with one arm while still holding Little Jake’s hand. “You just concentrate on that good man you’re married to and on having another healthy baby. I’ll take care of anything that comes up, and I won’t be careless about it.”
“But Lloyd gets as angry as you sometimes. I’m scared for him.”
“I’ll talk to Lloyd. He has a son and a daughter to think about, let alone a wife. You just take it easy for now. We have a lot of work ahead of us that will keep us right here on the ranch, so there’s nothing to worry about for now, all right? No stranger gets onto the J&L without somebody knowing it.”
Evie pulled away, wiping at tears.
“Mommy cry,” little Sadie said, looking at Evie with lips pouted.
“Mommy’s fine, sweetness,” Randy answered, kneeling in front of her granddaughter. “Come inside and have some cookies, Tricia.”
Evie took a deep breath and put her hand on Little Jake’s shoulder. “You be a good boy and do what your grandfather tells you, understand?”
“Can we go, too?” Stephen spoke up when he and Ben rode closer.
“Yeah, Pa, let’s all go riding,” Ben declared, his face already sunburned from riding most of the afternoon.
“And as far as I’m concerned, Daddy, you can take Little Jake on roundups and let him help with branding and feeding the cattle and anything else that keeps him busy,” Evie told him. “He needs a way to get rid of all that pent-up energy.”
Jake smiled. “Okay, boys, let’s go saddle up Midnight. Maybe Little Jake can ride Shortbread. She’s a pretty gentle horse.” Jake headed toward the barn, hoisting seven-year-old Little Jake under one arm like a sack of potatoes. “And we can’t ride near the pond. Your uncle Lloyd is there with Katie, and they want to be alone, so let’s ride in the other direction.”
“Awww, they’re kissin’, aren’t they?” Little Jake spoke the words in a singsong tease.
“You’ll never find out, you little troublemaker,” Jake answered, hiking Little Jake over his shoulder. The boy laughed all the way into the barn.
Evie watched after them. “Is Daddy really okay with all this?” she asked her mother.
Randy sighed. “No one really knows what’s going on inside that man’s head,” she answered. “But he knows the rules have changed, Evie, and he’ll keep that in mind. I’m more worried about those boys wearing him out. He has aches and pains the kids know nothing about. At their age, they wouldn’t even understand that kind of pain.”
Brian came down the steps and moved an arm around his wife. “Let’s go inside and help the girls with those cookies.” He urged her up the steps, glancing back at Jake as he headed for a barn with two grandsons and an adopted son in tow.
“I’ll be back before dark,” Jake shouted at them without turning around.
Brian smiled. “The wild bunch,” he dubbed them.
“And Jake is wildest of all,” Randy added. “Lloyd said once that when Jake is with those boys, it’s hard to tell sometimes which one is the man and which one is the child.” She turned to Evie. “Let’s go inside and have those cookies.”
Evie and Brian walked through the screened door, and Randy watched Jake out in the corral with the boys. She remembered when she first had Lloyd, how terrified Jake was of being a father. Now there he was out romping around with grandsons.
So far. He’d come so far. Inside she was both furious and terrified over the situation with Mike Holt. The man’s release could end up destroying all of this. Jake Harkner was not going to rest easy until he knew where the man was and what he was up to…and he’d rest even easier if Mike Holt was dead. That was what terrified her.
Eight
“Lloyd Harkner, I am so embarrassed that your parents know why we came here.”
Lloyd grinned, helping Katie down from his horse. “What makes you think they wouldn’t have known anyway?” Lloyd jumped down and grabbed the blanket from the horse, handing it to Katie while he led his horse to a small tree and tied it. The day was warm, and he removed his shirt as he headed back to where Katie was spreading the blanket on the grass. She laid a towel beside it. “Get undressed, woman. We’re going for a swim.”
“Naked?”
“Of course naked.”
“What if one of the hired hands comes around?”
Lloyd unbuckled his gun belt. “I told them not to.”
“You mean they know, too?”
“Sure they do. What’s wrong with that? We’re married, aren’t we?”
“Lloyd!”
“Sweetheart, we don’t get enough chances to do this at home, what with Stephen being old enough to know what we’re doing when he hears all those sounds coming from the bedroom”—he tossed his shirt and dropped his gun belt onto the blanket—“and Tricia crawling out of bed in the middle of the night to come and sleep with us.” He bent down and removed his boots and socks.
“Oh, Lloyd, I can’t strip naked right out here in the daylight.”
Lloyd began unbuttoning the front of her dress. “Sure you can. You stripped naked up in the loft a few days ago. What’s the difference?”
Katie smiled, her cheeks growing red. “The difference is a roof and walls! A little privacy is better than none at all.”
Lloyd pulled the dress down over her shoulders. “No privacy just makes it more exciting.” Still, he paused. When she gave a shy nod, he continued pulling the dress down over her slips, until she could step out of it. He pulled off her slips and moved up to unlace her camisole. “Have I told you lately how beautiful you are in the sunlight, all white and pink and blushing red mixed with those blue eyes? You’re like a flower garden, Katie.”
She laughed lightly, moving her hands over his solid stomach and chest, up to his powerful shoulders and down his arms. “You tell me that all the time.” She kissed his chest. “And here you are looking like an Indian.” She reached up and pulled some of his long, dark hair over his shoulders. “Am I your captive?”
“You bet you are.” Lloyd met her mouth, tasting her lips eagerly as he pulled the camisole all the way off and threw it aside. He moved his lips to her breasts, kneeling in front of her as he gently massaged her breasts and continued kissing down her belly. He pulled her underwear down, kissing at the place he thought the sweetest he’d ever enjoyed. He felt Katie’s fingers dig into his hair as he moved his tongue between her legs to kindle the hot juices of desire he loved bringing forth from her.
“Step out,” he told her, his voice husky with desire.
Katie moved her feet to step out of the underwear, and Lloyd pulled off her shoes and stockings. He worked his way back up to her lips as he unbuckled his belt, then deftly removed his denim pants, pulling his underwear off with them.
“Lloyd, are you sure—”
He silenced her with another kiss as he lifted her. Katie wrapped her legs around him and he knelt down, laying her back on the blanket and kissing his way down between her legs again.
Katie made no more protest. She reached over her head and gripped at a tiny new growth of a pine tree, hanging on to it as Lloyd kissed along the inside of her thigh.
“When we first met, I never knew you had such beautiful, slender legs under all those skirts,” he told her, working his way back to private places no other man had ever tasted, not even her first husband.
“And I never dreamed I’d let a man do such brazen things with me.” She gasped with desire as Lloyd worked his magic. They hadn’t had a chance to get back to this since Lloyd had to leave her in the loft, and he was anxious to finish what they’d started there. He worked his way back over her belly, moving fingers inside of her and feeling the pulsation of her climax. He tasted her breasts again, moved to her neck. “I’m sorry I had to leave the other day.”
“You didn’t have any choice,” she answered softly.
“I felt so sorry for you. I love you for doing that, Katie.”
She cried out when he moved inside her, wrapping an arm under her left knee and bending her leg up so he could push even deeper.
“Let’s make another baby,” he told her, kissing her behind the ear, over her eyes, ravishing her mouth with his own.
For several minutes there was only the pure joy of mating, rhythmic thrusts matching rhythmic groans and gasps until finally his life spilled into her.
“Stay right here,” he told her. “I’m going to stay inside you and do this again.”
His hair fell around her face as he tasted her neck, moved to her breasts again, back to her neck while he kept a powerful arm under her leg and began the mating all over again. He loved the way she had of pulling him inside, and he deliberately held back a need to come until he felt her climax again.
“God, Katie, it feels so good.” His life surged into her again, and in the next moment, he relaxed on top of her, kissing her behind the ear. “Yes, you are my captive, and I’ve just claimed my woman.”
“Lloyd, the way you talk.” Katie smiled, reaching up and pushing some of his hair back behind his ears. “I swear you have a wicked side to you.”
“Of course I do. I’m a Harkner, aren’t I?”
Katie sobered. “Yes, and that’s what scares me. That terrible man who got out of jail wants to kill you, Lloyd.”
He kissed her again. “Don’t you be worrying about that. You know I can take care of myself.”
“Lloyd—”
“We aren’t going to talk about it.” He got to his knees, then picked her up and rose, carrying her to the pond. Katie’s screams of protest did no good. He dropped her into the water and dove in with her. “I’ll race you to the other side.”
“Lloyd Harkner, your arms are longer than mine!”
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He took off swimming, and Katie followed. It wasn’t a big pond, and it took only a couple of minutes to reach the other side. They splashed at each other, and Katie studied her husband’s magnificent build as he came out of the pond naked. She joined him as he lay down in soft grass to rest. They both stared up at puffy white clouds.
“I wish it could always be like this, Lloyd. Quiet and peaceful with no danger lurking behind the trees.”
“There’s no danger lurking anywhere.” Lloyd traced a finger down between her breasts. “Compared to the dangers Pa and I faced every day when we were lawmen back in Oklahoma, this life is great.”
Katie leaned over and kissed him. “But with that man on the loose, it’s like your lawman days are coming back to visit. I hate it.”
Lloyd touched the side of her face. “Katie, I said we wouldn’t talk about that; but if you need reassuring, just remember that he doesn’t want to go back to prison or hang, which is what would happen if he tries anything. And don’t forget that I’m used to watching my back. I want you to stop thinking about it. It’s not likely anything will happen, but if it does, I’ll be ready for it. I just want you to be happy and to concentrate on having another baby.” He grinned, leaning over to taste her breasts again, lightly sucking at them. “We have to catch up with Brian and Evie,” he told her as he nuzzled her cleavage.
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