She didn’t answer right away. She just watched him, crying. “Jake, when you first rode away—back in Kansas—I cried and cried,” she finally said. “I didn’t want you to go. I was so scared, heading west alone. And then that awful…trading post…and that snakebite. And then…there you were!” She wiped at tears as she sat up, moving to the edge of the bed. “When I heard your voice…and I felt you lifting me up…I thought, It’s Jake. It’s my Jake. It didn’t matter that we’d never…done anything yet. I wasn’t even thinking about that. I just felt so…so incredibly safe. And that first time…” She covered her face. “I just wanted to be a part of Jake Harkner. I wanted to share your soul, Jake. I wanted us to melt into each other and just be one. It’s like you said. It meant so much more than just feeling good. You’ve always…made it so nice and so…beautiful…and they went and—”
She felt him lifting her, pulling her into his arms so her feet were off the floor. She wrapped her arms around his neck and cried. “Do you know…how much I love you for…never asking for more…than I could give?”
“All I’ve ever asked for is that you love me, mi querida. It’s your love that makes me feel good—your love that pleases me.”
“Take me back, Jake. I want it to be like it used to be,” she sobbed. “You know how. My Jake knows how.”
“You’re all bruised up. I’ll hurt you.”
“You would never hurt me. You’re always so gentle and kind and—”
“Hush, mi amor.” He found a corner of her mouth and kissed it lightly.
She turned her face enough that his lips found hers fully.
He kissed her ever so lightly. “I don’t want to hurt you,” he repeated.
“I’m all right,” she wept.
“I don’t want you to be afraid.”
“I’m with you. Why would I be afraid?”
He carried her to the bed and laid her on it, moving on top of her. He’d spent most of the day inside and wore only long johns with a shirt. He’d kept the fire stoked, and the room was warm and the light growing dim as the sun began to settle behind the mountains. He reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a short stick of peppermint. “Will this help?”
“Oh, Jake!” She cried more, actually smiling through her tears. “Yes.”
Jake put the peppermint into her mouth and came close to take the other end. He rested on his elbows, afraid to put his weight on her. He grasped her hair along with putting his hands on either side of her face, and they each bit off their share of the peppermint and chewed it, holding each other’s gaze and smiling in spite of the fact that Randy also couldn’t stop crying. Jake kissed her more deeply. “Look at me and tell me who you belong to, Randy.”
Tears continued to pour from her eyes and sometimes into her ears. “You.”
“Say my name.”
“Jake.”
“Who do you belong to?”
“Jake Harkner.”
“Every beautiful inch of you, including this delicate face.” He kissed her bruised cheeks, kissed her wet eyes, licked at her tears. “And including these beautiful lips.” He traced a thumb over her lips then reached over to a nightstand and grabbed a clean handkerchief he’d left there, hoping there were enough left to continue soaking up all her tears. “Here. You’re a mess of tears, and it’s hard to kiss you this way.”
Randy actually laughed lightly. She blew her nose and wiped at her eyes.
“I have something else for you,” Jake told her. “Stay right here under me. I love having you under me.” He reached over and opened the one drawer of the nightstand, taking out a sachet. He sniffed it deeply then held it to her nose.
“Jake! My rose petals!”
“A few weeks ago, I found out where you keep them. Before we left to find you, I told Evie to pack this. I thought it would help comfort you.”
She closed her eyes and breathed deeply. “Oh yes, it is comforting!” She started crying again. “Oh, Jake, you thought of everything!”
“How well do I know you?”
“Better than I thought.” She inhaled deeply again, then kissed the sachet. “You’re a man of incredible contrasts, Jake Harkner. Who would ever think a man like you would think of something like this?”
“No one knows how much I love you.” He kissed her eyes again. “I’m so sorry, Randy. The other night should never have happened. I’ll never leave you unprotected again.”
“It wasn’t your fault.” A hint of terror moved through her eyes, and she laid the sachet aside. “Jake, take back what they did. You know how.”
He kissed her lips ever so lightly again.
“Make me yours, Jake. Take it all back.” She jerked in a sob. “I can trust you,” she whispered.
He kissed her again, licking her lips, running his tongue inside them, moving his tongue ever so carefully into her mouth as the kiss grew deeper. She returned the kiss almost desperately, as though taking his mouth into hers would take away the other…the ugly…the violent and the vile. He let her pull on his mouth in her attempt to let him “take it back,” and he knew she meant he should take back her mouth, her lips, the violation. She belonged to Jake Harkner. Even her mouth belonged to Jake Harkner, and only he should touch it.
He lingered at her mouth, kissing, tasting, cleansing it with his tongue, taking back what belonged to Jake Harkner. She wore only a robe, and he pushed it aside…very gently…very cautiously…carefully caressing her breasts, her belly. Finally, he left her mouth and kissed at her bruises—her chin, her neck, her breasts.
Had they touched her here? He would take it back. Had fists landed into her ribs? Her small belly that bore scars from surgeries he feared she’d die from? He would take back her ribs, her belly. Her hip bones. Her thighs. Her legs. The bottoms of her feet. Her legs again. Her thighs again. That little crevice where leg met secret places. He kissed her there. He would take that back, too.
He felt no resistance. No horror. No tense withdrawal from his touch. He kissed her between her thighs then moved back to her breasts, her throat, her mouth.
She returned the kiss, crying at the same time. She hugged his neck. “Make love to me. I want to know it’s my Jake making love to me in that nice way you have.”
“Randy, you have to be sure,” he said gently, kissing the bruises at her throat again. “I don’t want to wake up bad memories.”
“Not with you,” she moaned. “It would never be that way with you.”
“But you’re so bruised and sore.”
“Take me back, Jake.”
It was the first time in his life he’d been afraid to make love to a woman, and she was his own wife. “Are you really sure?”
“You’re my Jake. I’m really sure.”
He tasted her mouth again, gently licking her. He moved a hand down to places that belonged only to him, gauging her reaction when he ran a finger inside of her, wanting to be sure she was ready for this. Slowly and carefully, he used only a little foreplay to be sure she was ready and that nothing would hurt. He watched her eyes as she met his gaze lovingly and with desire. She leaned up and grasped his face in her hands, kissing him almost wantonly. He kept up his touches until he felt the moistness that meant she really did want this. Suddenly, she started crying again. She reached down and grasped that part of him that she considered only hers. “Jake, if you want—”
“No. Never.”
“You’re a beautiful man. I would do anything—”
“No. You wouldn’t, and you won’t. It’s all right, Randy.”
“Maybe you need that to feel like you’re the only one…”
“I don’t need that.” He kissed her desperately as he moved inside her, forcing himself to be gentle but wanting to ram hard, wanting to claim her fast and deep but afraid of hurting her. She was so small, so thin, so perfect, so wounded. How sweet of her to offer the o
ne thing that would bring back her awful ordeal. He would not do that to her.
He fought his own weaknesses, wanting to weep himself, wanting to cling to her because he’d almost lost her, wanting to tell her he’d go crazy without her. But he had to stay strong. She needed him to be strong.
He buried himself deep, gently grasping her bottom. And there it was—not just the exquisite pleasure, but the sharing of souls, the joy of becoming one body in a way that nothing and no one could ever change. Her heart beat in his chest and his beat in hers. Thirty years. Thirty years, and it was just as good as ever, and he needed no more than this—to be inside this woman and spill his life into her—to claim every inch of her and feel her breath against his lips, feel her heart beating against his own—this little slip of a woman who’d hid his guns and dared him to beat out of her where they were.
She knew he wouldn’t. She knew it.
“Tell me you love me,” she whispered.
“Yo te amo, mi querida.”
“Don’t let go of me.”
“I’m right here. Lo nuestro será eterno…esta tierra es eterna…tu y yo estaremos unidos eternamente.”
Randy recognized the words “always” and “forever.”
“Who do you belong to?” he asked again.
She closed her eyes, and Jake was surprised she was finally able to climax. “Jake Harkner,” she gasped.
“You bet.” Jake continued slow, rhythmic thrusts. “And I’m taking back every inch of you.”
She cried out his name, again begging him never to let go of her. Jake couldn’t help his own release, and after the tension of the last few days, he felt completely spent as he relaxed beside her. He kept her in his arms, and she nestled into his shoulder as he pulled the blankets over them.
“You won’t ever take that job, will you?”
“I told you I wouldn’t. Have I ever lied to you, or broken a promise?”
“No.”
“I’m not doing one thing that means being away from you for days at a time, Randy. I already told you that.”
“Did you kill some of those men?”
“Yes.”
“But they were shooting back, right? They took me, and you had a right to go after them.”
“That’s right.”
“Jake, I…I killed Brad Buckley, didn’t I?”
He kissed her hair. “Yes. But you had every right. The state you were in, no one could ever blame you for that.”
“I did it for you. I was scared the law would come and take you away.”
“Randy, I would have had the right to kill him. You didn’t need to do that.”
“I was scared for you. Are you sure you aren’t in trouble?”
“I’m not in trouble, and no one will know. Buckley had no family left, and I doubt anyone will ever miss the drifters with him. No one who was there will ever talk. The men buried their bodies, and I told them I never want to know where. They stayed behind to burn down that cabin, and that will be the end of it. As far as I’m concerned, it never happened.” He kissed her gently, over and over. “I just want you to be able to live with this and be my Randy again.”
“I will. God knows I had a right to kill that man, doesn’t He? He won’t blame me, will He?”
“I can’t imagine that the loving God our daughter is always talking about would ever blame you for what you did. I’m the one who has to live with the guilt of it. You should have let me do it, Randy.”
“I couldn’t! I don’t want to lose my Jake.” She snuggled closer. “Tell me we’ll come back here more often.”
“As often as you want.”
“This is our special place, Jake. I’ll cry this time when we leave it, because of this beautiful memory, but I know we have to go home. I miss my little girls…and those wonderful boys who fought so hard to help me. They’re such good boys, Jake. And they love you so much.”
“They’ve reached an age where they need a lot of talking to.”
“They’ll be fine. They hang on your every word.” Randy sighed deeply. “Don’t let any of the men use this place, Jake.”
“I won’t.”
“You can see half the ranch from up here. Our beautiful ranch where our beautiful sons and daughter and our beautiful grandchildren live—the descendants of the magnificent Jake Harkner.”
Jake had to laugh lightly. “Please stop saying that.”
She smiled through tears. “But you are magnificent.” She kissed his chest. “Don’t let go, Jake.”
“I’m right here.” He found the sachet under a pillow and gave it to her.
Randy squeezed it into her hand and held it to her nose again, loving him more than she’d ever loved him before for remembering the roses.
* * *
Jake carefully eased away from his sleeping wife and pulled on a pair of denim pants. He took down a woolen jacket and put it on over his bare torso, buttoning it up and then grabbing a cigarette from a tin on the table. He glanced at Randy once more to make sure she was still asleep, then stepped into a pair of deerskin slippers and quietly walked outside, leaning against a porch post to light the cigarette. He shivered a little and slowly exhaled, watching the cigarette smoke drift lazily into the endless horizon. The J&L. Maybe at last the family would know true peace. Every last man who’d started all of this was dead now.
Lloyd had been right. He’d taken his revenge in the sweetest, most delicious, most gratifying way a man could enjoy revenge. All those who’d come against him had lost, and he still had his Randy…his beautiful, gentle Randy who loved him in spite of all he’d been, all he’d done, all the running, and all the times he’d tried to leave her.
The quiet almost hurt his ears, though he knew his hearing wasn’t quite as good as it used to be. Too much gunfire over too many years had done that. He did hear an owl hoot, though, and something rustled in the nearby underbrush. He came instantly alert and reached for a gun that wasn’t there. The guns that had brought him so much fame and so much heartache still hung inside the cabin.
A deer jumped out from the brush.
A deer.
Not an outlaw. Not a lawman. Not a drunk. Not an Indian. Not a cattle rustler. Not a prostitute. Not someone out to claim he’d killed Jake Harkner.
Just a deer.
“Jake? Get in here,” Randy called. “You’ll catch your death.”
Jake grinned, tossing the cigarette into the snow and going back inside.
* * *
Amazing grace, how sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost, but now I am found,
Was blind, but now I see.
Through many dangers, toils and snares
I have already come.
’Tis grace that brought me safe thus far,
And grace will lead me home…
From the Author
When I finished Love’s Sweet Revenge, it was obvious to me that I had to write a fourth book about Jake and his family. Not only does the ending to the third book beg for one more sequel, but I am also having trouble leaving Jake and his family behind. I am thoroughly attached to these characters, as I hope you, the readers, are also. Throughout the first three books, Jake has managed to grow and change, but deep inside, he is so deeply scarred by his tortured childhood that a book involving some kind of closure for Jake seemed in order. His every emotion, every decision, every powerful reaction to certain events is based on memories of his brutal father. It’s time for him to come face-to-face with those dark memories.
In addition, now that you have finished Love’s Sweet Revenge, you can see that Randy will need some time to heal. In the fourth book, she will be deeply affected by what she survived, to the point where she becomes very clingy and hates being away from Jake for any length of time. This will present a problem when somet
hing vital forces Jake to leave for Mexico to face his childhood. This parting will be a big test of Jake and Randy’s marriage, to the point of almost tearing them apart…
Can Randy overcome these challenges and grow strong again? Will Jake finally put his dark past behind him? Will an ever-changing West tear them apart, or will it bring them to an even more solid and everlasting love in their golden years?
Whatever comes for the Harkner family, you will not want to miss The Last Outlaw!
Rosanne Bittner
Introducing the men of Texas legend by New York Times bestselling author Linda Broday
Men of Legend, Book One, by
LINDA BRODAY
On sale October 2016
Three brothers. One oath. No compromises.
The Ranger
Gravely injured on the trail of a notorious criminal, Texas Ranger Sam Legend boards a train bound for his family ranch to recuperate—only to find himself locked in battle to save a desperate woman on the run. Determined to rescue the beautiful Sierra, Sam recruits an unlikely ally. But can he trust the mysterious gunslinger to fight at his side?
Sam is shocked to discover his new ally is not only an outlaw, but also his half brother. Torn between loyalty to his job and love of his family, Sam goes reeling straight into Sierra’s arms. Yet just as the walls around his battered heart begin to crumble, Sierra is stolen away. Sam will risk anything to save her—his life, his badge, his very soul—knowing that some bonds are stronger than the law…and some legends were born to be told.
Praise for Forever His Texas Bride:
“Takes me back to a west that feels true. A delightful read.” —Jodi Thomas, New York Times bestselling author
“Broday’s Westerns always captivate.” —RT Book Reviews, 4 Stars
“One of the best historical western authors.” —Fresh Fiction
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