Outlaw Hearts (38 page)

“I'm sorry, Randy. It's got to be Hayes now. I've told my boss it's Jackson Hayes but that some call me Jake instead of Jack. Mr. Parker is a pretty fair man, a little demanding, wields his power pretty good when things call for it, but he's been fair to me.”

“I wanna ride the horse, Daddy.” Lloyd wiggled in the saddle, and Jake turned and put a hand behind him to make sure he didn't fall. He looked back at Miranda.

“We have a lot to talk about. Let's go to the house. I want you to see it, and I want to meet my daughter.” He reached out to her. “Here. You get up on Outlaw and hang on to Lloyd. I'll walk the horse back to the house.”

She stepped closer, shivering at the reality that Jake was standing right in front of her. She took his hand and he drew her closer again, bending down and kissing her lightly. She rested her head against his chest for a moment. “I love you, Jake. I never stopped loving you.” She felt him tremble.

“I almost went back, Randy. I almost said the hell with it, figured that it would be best. I hung out with men like the kind I used to be, gunned down three men who wanted to prove they were better than I was. I thought I could go back and be the old Jake, but I couldn't do it. I couldn't find him. I think you killed him that day you shot me. He just slipped away and died, but I didn't even realize it until I tried to find him again.”

He let go of Lloyd and put his hands to her tiny waist to lift her up onto Outlaw. Miranda noticed him wince slightly when he did so, and she knew he was still in pain. She glanced at the familiar guns he wore. He was still using them to make his living, but at least it was an honest living, although she didn't like the idea that he'd had to risk his life to earn the position of Zane Parker's right-hand man.

She sat sideways on the saddle and held on to Lloyd. She smiled as Jake stood back to study them.

“That's the prettiest sight I've ever set eyes on, my wife and my son.”

“Go, Daddy, go!” Lloyd began bouncing in the saddle, and Miranda laughed, hanging on to him.

Jake grinned, walking to take up Outlaw's reins to lead the animal back to the house. Lloyd giggled as the horse began walking, and the sound was music to Jake's ears. Life was going to be good now, better than it had ever been yet. He would make sure it stayed that way.

***

They talked until well after midnight. Jake wanted to know all the “firsts” about his son and daughter, wanted to hear again how Lloyd asked about him every day. He told Miranda about his work, warning her that for two weeks every month he would be gone. Yes, it was dangerous at times, what with the weather and wild animals and sometimes cattle rustlers, but he argued that the pay was good and they got to live on this beautiful land and be together again.

They went into the bedroom where they had put the children down together in a log bed Jake had made himself, with a rope spring and feather mattress. It would have to do for now until he could take her to see a Mexican carpenter in Pueblo who made beautiful furniture. Miranda was to order anything she wanted, buy whatever she liked in the way of carpets, material for curtains, and anything else she needed. Jake said he would even take her to Denver if she couldn't find anything good enough in Pueblo.

“We'll have a good life here, Randy,” he told her quietly as they watched the children sleeping. He leaned over the bed, kissing each child, still overwhelmed that they were finally here, that Lloyd still adored him and that Evie had taken to him so easily. “They're beautiful. I never thought something so sweet and innocent and good could come from me, but then I expect their goodness comes from you.”

He straightened, and Miranda moved her arm around his waist. “It comes from you too, Jake. How many times have I told you I don't want to hear any more of that kind of talk?”

He turned and pulled her close. “We'd better turn in ourselves.”

Miranda saw the question in his eyes. “I want to sleep with you, Jake. I feel like the last two years never even happened, and I have ached for you every night since you left. I don't need to wait, if that's what you're thinking.”

He leaned down and captured her mouth. Now that the talking was done and the children were asleep, they could let the hot coals that had slept in their souls for all these months flare into the searing flames of passion they had forced themselves to ignore until now. His kiss felt like fire on her lips, and all her buried needs were awakened when his tongue slaked into her mouth suggestively. The kiss lingered as he picked her up in his arms and carried her into their own bedroom.

He pressed his lips gently against her cheek as he laid her on the bed. He sat down beside her and took a deep breath. “It's been so long,” he told her, touching her face, moving his hand down over her breast, still hidden by her dress. “I don't want to hurt you.”

She took hold of his hand and kissed it. “You won't hurt me, Jake. But I'm afraid for you to see my scar. And after two babies, my breasts—” She sat up beside him, looking at her lap. “I'm not quite so firm and unblemished as I was before.”

He grinned, leaning over and kissing her deeply again, laying her back on the bed and stretching out beside her. “You don't really think any of that matters, do you?” He touched her breasts again, kissing her neck. “You're as beautiful as ever, but it wouldn't matter if you'd come back fat and wrinkled.” He grinned again, biting lightly at her lips. “I need you for much more than that. You loved me when no one else did,
mi
querida
. You saw through the beard and the long hair and the meanness and touched the man beneath all that. You are my life.”

She closed her eyes and let him undress her, sighed deeply, first with apprehension, then with pleasure, as he caressed her breasts, her stomach, kissed at her full nipples, trailed his tongue down over her belly and kissed at the scar that reminded them there could be no more children.

As far as Jake was concerned, that scar was beautiful, because it meant she was alive. He had noticed how Jess had looked at her before he left them earlier in the day. Jess had spent a lot of time with Miranda. Had he fallen in love with her too? God knew the woman was easy to love, a woman a lot of men would like to call their own; but she belonged to him, and he was going to make sure she never regretted that. He adored her for her faithfulness, her trust, for the children she had given him, for the chance he had at love, at being a father and making up for his own sorry childhood.

He moved to kiss at the love nest he had so longed to invade, and she groaned his name, reaching down to weave her hands through his hair. From then on there was no stopping either of them. He savored the taste of her, made her wild with desire.

Miranda wondered how she had gone so long without this, and she realized it was only because there was just one man who could do these things to her, one man who could make her so bold and free. If she could not be with this man, she had no need of any other. When she was with Jake, all her womanly needs and passions came alive.

Jake left her a moment then to remove his clothes, and she curled up to watch him, drinking in the still-hard body, the flat stomach, the magnificence that was Jake Harkner. There was another scar on his abused body, at his left shoulder, and she noticed it seemed to hurt him a little to move his arm to get his shirt off. He turned to throw his clothes on the floor, and she saw the scar left on his hip from the wound in the shoot-out at Desert. His right forearm also bore a scar from that same fateful day.

He was right when he said he was lucky to be walking on his own two feet. So many times he could have been killed, and so many times he had defied death. Now he had overcome something even worse, his past. He was a happy husband and father, and life was going to be good for them here.

He stretched out beside her and drew her into his arms. “
Siento
el
fuego
bajo
tu
piel
,” he said softly. He kissed her deeply, and she tasted her own sweetness on his lips. He had spoken those words before, and tonight they were never more true.
I
feel
the
fire
under
your
skin
, he had told her, and never had she felt that fire burn so hot.

He moved on top of her, his kiss desperate and almost violent. In the next moment he was surging inside of her, and she knew in that instant that nothing had changed, that in spite of two babies none of the pleasure of this act had been lost. If anything had changed physically, their love and their desire made up for it. With every breath he groaned her name, and in moments she felt his pulsating release, but he kept up the rhythmic movements.

“I'm going to stay right inside you all night,” he whispered, kissing, nibbling at her ear. “As long as I'm inside you, I know this is real.” In only seconds he was filling her again, raising up slightly then to brace himself so he could drink in her nakedness.

Miranda caressed the scar at his shoulder, the one at his neck that his father had so cruelly given him. She leaned up and kissed his chest, his neck, met his mouth and drew him back down to her in hot, desperate kisses that left them breathless. “Tell me again,” she whispered, her skin feeling branded as it rubbed against his own hot, damp body. “Tell me what you're going to do to me all night.”

He groaned the words. “I'm going to make love to you all night,” he said softly, kissing at her eyes. “I'm going to stay inside my woman until neither of us can move. Tomorrow I'm going to spend all day with my kids, but tomorrow night, it's just you and me again in this bed.”

He kissed her wildly again. He raised to his knees and grasped her under the hips, moving in the way only Jake could to make her feel wild with desire. This time he held back longer, wanting her to enjoy it for as long as possible, realizing she had needs of her own that had been long neglected. He thought about that first time he had taken her almost violently in the wagon on their way west. She had surprised him with her response, releasing a wild passion he never thought this slip of a woman possessed.

Again came his release, and he still remained inside of her. He lay down close to her, pulling a blanket over them. “Just stay right there,” he told her.

“I'm not going anywhere,” she whispered, opening her eyes to study his handsome face. “I need to know this is real just as much as you do.”

“It
is
real, isn't it?” He kissed her softly. “
Gracias, mi esposa
, for never losing faith in me, for being so strong, for loving me.”

“You had to be stronger, Jake. You had to rise above your past. You had to believe in yourself and in our love, and in your responsibility to those children in there.”

“They're my whole world, Randy.”

“I know.”

Their eyes held, and he knew what she was thinking. “No, Randy,” he said softly. “You made me a promise. They can't ever know about my past. I want them to always be proud of their father.”

She still felt it was wrong not to tell the children someday about their father's past, but she wanted no arguments tonight. Tonight was just for them. She reached up and stroked his thick, dark hair. “Those children will always love you and be proud of you, Jake, just because you're their father and they know how much they're loved. And
I'm
proud of you for what you've done here, for the beautiful home you've given us, for not giving up on us or on yourself.”

She felt his life returning, and she closed her eyes and breathed deeply as he began moving again, more gently this time. “It feels so good, Jake, to be with you like this again,” she whispered.

“
El
gusto
es
mio, mi querida. Yo te quiero
mucho
.”

In the distant foothills, wolves began their nightly wailing. Jake and Randy clung tightly to each other, ignoring the menacing, wild cries that in the past had always given them a feeling of impending disaster. That was not going to happen again. They were together, a family, in a beautiful land where they would find the peace they so longed for. This time was forever.

April 1881

Lloyd blew out the fourteen candles on his birthday cake, and eleven-year-old Evie laughed as he used his last breath to get them all. Beth Parker joined in the laughter, and Lloyd glanced at her, wondering why he was suddenly so self-conscious around her. He'd never thought of girls as particularly pretty, but Beth sure was. He found himself thinking about Zane Parker's daughter a lot, since she had started coming over often to play with Evie. She was always accompanied by her nanny and one of Mr. Parker's men, but her wealthy father didn't seem to mind that his pampered daughter played with the children of the men who worked for him. He studied her white-blond hair and sky-blue eyes, and he thought she looked like one of Evie's china dolls, so perfect and smooth. Sometimes he felt foolish thinking about a twelve-year-old girl that way. He had kept his feelings a secret, even from his father. If anyone were to ask, he'd say he thought of Beth Parker as nothing but his sister's silly friend.

“What did you wish for, Lloyd?” the girl was asking.

Lloyd noticed she blushed when he met her eyes, and he reddened in return, realizing she thought he was handsome and that in her eyes he was a man. Evie had teased him about it, told him things Beth had said about him.

“That's supposed to be a secret,” he answered.

“Oh, come on, Lloyd, you can tell,” Evie begged.

Miranda began cutting the cake, and Lloyd glanced at his father, who was watching and smiling. He wondered if he should bring up the subject again. “I wished that my father would figure I was old enough now to learn to use a rifle and learn to hunt,” he answered.

Jake's smile faded. He glanced at Miranda, who had stopped cutting the cake and was watching him. She gave him a look he knew well, telling him with her eyes what he knew she would say aloud if they were alone.
You
can't take your past out on Lloyd, Jake. Teaching him to use a rifle isn't going to turn him into an outlaw. It's something every father has to teach his son, and in country like this, it's dangerous for him not to know how to shoot. Out here a man needs to know how to defend himself against wild animals when he's riding alone, needs to know how to hunt for game. What if something happened to you? It's Lloyd who would have to bring home the
meat.

He knew she was right. They had been having the same argument for two years now. Like he'd been, Lloyd was big for his age. At fourteen he looked more like sixteen, and he was a damn handsome kid. Jake suspected Beth Parker felt the same way. She was too young now to understand it all, but give her a few years and those girlish feelings would become womanly ones. He wondered if Zane Parker would mind if his daughter fell in love with the foreman's son.

He got up from his chair and walked over into one of the spare bedrooms that they used for an office, opening a desk drawer and taking out a can of tobacco and a cigarette paper. He began rolling a cigarette, and before he could light it he heard Miranda's voice. “You can't put it off any longer, Jake. It isn't fair to Lloyd. The more you fight it, the more he'll wonder why. You're the one who doesn't want him to know about your past, so quit acting like you have something to hide every time he asks about learning to shoot.”

In the outer room the girls laughed when Lloyd showed them a card trick Jess had taught him. “Hurry up, Mother,” Evie called out. “We want our cake.”

“Yeah. Come on, Pa.”

Jake turned to look at Miranda. “He's fourteen. Do you know what I see when I look at him? I see
me
! I see what I
could
have been. I see what a kid he is, and then I realize that at just about the same age I killed my father. I was a damn
child
, Miranda, and putting a gun in his hand makes me remember all of it!”

Miranda stepped closer. “And now at fourteen, your own son worships the ground you walk on. He thinks the sun rises and sets with you, Jake, and as his father, it's your duty to teach him how to be a man. If you keep refusing to teach him how to use a firearm, he's going to start resenting it. Is that what you want? To refuse to teach him is to insult his attempts at being a man, Jake. That's very important to him right now. If he learns from you, then he'll learn from the best. He'll learn to respect his firearms and use them wisely. You know darn well that teaching him to shoot doesn't mean he's going to run out and turn bad. You ended up using your guns for the wrong things because you were forced into that life by a brutal father. It's all different between you and Lloyd. He's a good boy who's loved and who honors and respects his father. Learning to use a gun and to be a man isn't going to change that.”

Jake smoked quietly for a moment, his eyes moving over her. She was nearly always right, and he wondered just when and how he had come to be unable to say no to anything she wanted. At thirty-five, his wife was still slender, but round in the right places now, a full, ripe woman who knew how to please her man and who was still beautiful. The tiny lines about her eyes spoke of a woman of strength and courage and experience; and so far there was not a hint of gray in her honey-colored hair. In the nearly fifteen years since they'd gotten married, he had found a peace he had once never thought possible.

They both loved it here in Colorado, or was it that they both loved each other so much that it didn't matter where they lived? They had both survived the grasshopper plague of seventy-four, a run-in with Cheyenne Indians that same year; in seventy-six they had survived an epidemic of measles that had brought them even closer when both the children took sick and it seemed possible that Lloyd might die. Last year they had survived the worst winter in the nation's history. That time it was he who nearly died, lost in a snowstorm trying to find stray cattle that Parker was afraid would freeze or starve to death. It had been a rough year for Parker and other big ranchers, and a year ago this time he and other Parker men had worked for two months just dragging stinking cattle carcasses into piles to be burned, burying others.

“Hey, Pa, come have some cake,” Lloyd yelled.

“Do you want to go riding tomorrow?” Beth was asking Lloyd.

Jake looked at Miranda, and she smiled. “She has a terrible crush on him, you know,” Miranda said in a near whisper.

Jake stepped closer. “I know, and I'm not sure I like it.”

“They're just children, Jake.”

He scowled. “Maybe she is, but
he
isn't. I thought
I
was in love at fourteen, remember?” He took another drag on the cigarette. “That isn't what bothers me. What bothers me is that she's Zane Parker's daughter. If the interest should last when they get older, Parker's going to think twice about it, maybe decide to check me out a little more, make sure just who his precious daughter is falling in love with.”

“She couldn't find anyone better than Lloyd, and Mr. Parker knows it. He's good, he's honest, he's smart. We're even going to send him to college with that money we've been saving. If Zane Parker ever dares to say my son isn't good enough for his daughter—”

“Mama, come on!” Evie came into the room, grabbing Jake's hand. “You too, Father. I want Lloyd to open his presents.”

Jake grinned, releasing her hand and putting an arm around her shoulders. His daughter was already exotically beautiful, even though she wasn't developed yet. She had big dark eyes and dark lashes. Her nearly black hair hung in thick waves down her back, and her olive skin was like satin. She looked so much like his own mother. He wondered how he was ever going to let young men come calling on her. She was sweet and innocent and full of love, and he couldn't bear the thought of any man taking advantage of that. If anything could make him turn back to his murdering days, it would be if someone hurt either one of his children.

He stuck the cigarette in his mouth and put his other arm around Miranda, finding it almost humorous how neither of their children bore any resemblance to their mother, except for their goodness. He could see Miranda in Evie's smile and her small-boned frame, but the physical resemblance stopped there.

Miranda returned to cutting the cake, and Lloyd opened a small present that Beth handed to him. His eyes widened when he took out a pocketknife with a handle made of real silver.

“Wow! Look at that,” Evie exclaimed.

“My father bought it last time he was in Denver,” Beth told her proudly. “I told him I wanted to give Lloyd something for his birthday.”

“Look at this, Pa.” Lloyd handed the knife to Jake, who glanced up at Miranda, who in turn raised her eyebrows in their shared knowledge that Elizabeth Parker was enamored with Lloyd Hayes.

“This had to be pretty expensive,” Jake said, looking over at Beth.

“Not for my father,” she answered. She blushed deeply then. “I didn't mean that like it sounded.” She looked down at the cake on her plate. “I just meant…I mean, I wanted to give Lloyd something nice, and if Father had thought it was too much, he wouldn't have bought it.” She looked back at Jake, and he could see she was about ready to cry. He gave her a smile.

“Well, it's the nicest gift Lloyd has ever gotten.”

“Yeah. Thanks, Beth,” Lloyd said, taking back the knife. “I'll be real careful with it.”

“I'll be right back,” Jake told them, turning and walking outside.

Miranda finished serving the cake, then went to a window to watch her husband returning from the barn. At forty-five, he had the virility of a man much younger, but he limped a little now, just like Jim Henderson said he would probably do as he got older. It was that bullet wound to his hip. She knew he had aches and pains he never talked about, but the handsome build and the strength was still there, and at night in his arms he still made her feel like the twenty-year-old he had married, still knew how to bring out her deepest passion. He had been an even better husband and father than she had first believed he could be, and the past seemed so far away now. Surely it couldn't hurt them anymore.

She smiled then when she saw what was in his hand. She turned away and took some lemonade from the icebox to pour for the children, her heart beating with excitement for Lloyd because she had seen what Jake was bringing him. So, he had decided on his own after all. He had kept his gift hidden until he could make up his mind for certain.

The door opened, and they all looked up to see Jake standing there with a brand-new rifle in his hand. The room got quiet, and Lloyd slowly rose. “I told Beth that the knife was the best present you had ever gotten,” Jake told his son. “Until now.” He handed out the rifle, its barrel oiled to a blue sheen. The wood stock was polished to a beautiful finish, with the initials
LJH
carved into it and finished off with a gold butt-plate; the metal casing was gold with beautifully etched designs, including a picture of an antlered moose.

Lloyd's eyes widened, then teared as he came closer and took the rifle from his father. Jake glanced at Miranda, and she knew how hard it was for him to put a gun in his son's hands.

He looked back at Lloyd. “That's the latest model Winchester .44–.40 repeater,” he told the boy. “It even has an extra rear sight for more accuracy. I had it all polished up and wrapped in a blanket out in the barn.”

“Pa,” Lloyd said softly, studying the rifle. “When in heck did you get this? They don't sell anything like this in Pueblo. The last time you went to Colorado Springs was last fall, when you bought those new Colt Peacemakers for yourself.” He looked up at Jake and realized that was when Jake must have bought the rifle. “Why'd you wait so long to give it to me?”

Jake watched him almost sadly, wondering if his son could ever understand about his past. Was Miranda right in saying he and Evie should be told? Maybe she was, but the pain was too deep, the fear of losing his son's love and respect too great. He struggled to control his own sudden urge to weep. “I just figured fourteen was a better age than thirteen, that's all. Besides, I didn't know if I'd get back to Colorado Springs again before your birthday, so I went ahead and bought it. Your mother didn't even know.”

“Jake, it's a beautiful rifle,” Miranda said, coming closer to look it over.

Lloyd quickly wiped at his eyes with his shirtsleeve. “Thanks, Pa. When can we go practice shooting it?”

Jake shrugged. “This afternoon, if you want. Fact is, I thought maybe you'd like to go with me this time when I ride the line and check things out. It would be a good time for you to do a little hunting, but it means sleeping on the cold ground at night for a good two weeks. Think you can handle that?”

Lloyd smiled through tears. “Heck, yes! You know how bad I've been wanting to ride out there with you.” He looked at his mother. “It's all right, isn't it? I can catch up on my lessons when we get back.”

Miranda wondered when she had ever been happier for her son and his father. She knew what Jake was suffering deep inside, remembering how different things had been for him at fourteen. Another barrier from the past had been hurdled. “Of course, it's all right. Now let's all eat our cake. Jess will be coming soon with Beth's guardian to take her back home.”

Beth and Evie began whispering and giggling while Miranda poured more lemonade. Lloyd set the rifle against the wall and looked at his father, then grinned and walked closer to embrace him. “Thanks, Pa,” he said again. “It's the best gift I've ever had.”

Jake closed his eyes and hugged the boy. How ironic, he thought. At fourteen he'd hated his father. Now he hugged his own fourteen-year-old son. If only he could have enjoyed such an embrace at this age.

***

Lloyd sat back and watched the rabbit sizzle over the open fire, proud that he was responsible for the meat they were eating tonight. Jake had told him that rabbits were hard enough to hit even with a shotgun, but Lloyd had shot it with his Winchester. He figured it was mostly luck, but then it was a damn good rifle, a “straight shooter,” Jake had called it.
Some
guns
hit
above
or
below
the
sight
mark
, he had explained.
Some
are
straight shooters. You just have to get used to the
gun.