Love's Sweet Revenge (32 page)

“Nope! I always have three pieces!”

“
Three!
That's a lot of pie.” Jake picked the boy up and carried him to the table, plunking him into a chair. He walked around the table to Randy, reaching around her from behind. He wrapped a hand around hers and bent close as she cut into another pie. “Have I told you lately how much I love you?”

Randy turned her head and kissed his cheek. “Yes. Just a few minutes ago, in so many words.”

“I'd rather show you than tell you.”

“Are you just needing to prove something in case I do share notes?” she joked.

“Woman, I don't have many years left to keep up with these younger men.”

Randy laughed lightly. “The day a man who reeks of sex can't—” She stopped and broke into laughter. “I can't even begin to picture it. You can prove yourself later. I have pie to serve, so go sit down.”

He kissed her lightly. “I'm going outside for a few minutes.”

Randy set the knife aside and looked up at him. “Are you all right?”

“I just need to go out and clear my head. You cut me a piece of that pie, and I'll be back in a few minutes.” He kissed her again and spoke softly into her ear. “And you rest up this afternoon, because you won't get much sleep tonight.”

“Save it for after we're gone, Pa,” Lloyd jabbed.

Jake just shook his head and walked past them and out the front door.

The jovial atmosphere around the table faded a little.

“Is he okay, Mom?” Lloyd asked. “Should I go out there?”

“No. He's fine,” Randy told him. She walked to the icebox to get some milk for the boys.

“Did I make him feel bad?” Little Jake asked.

“No, Little Jake. I think you made him feel very good, and sometimes it's hard for your grandfather to accept the good things in his life.” She glanced at the doorway, hoping she was right.

Outside, Jake lit yet another cigarette, his mind and heart reeling with memories he preferred not to stir. But he couldn't avoid explaining everything to Little Jake and the boys. A lot of it was in Jeff's book, but not some of the ugliest details. He leaned against a support post on the veranda and drew deeply on the cigarette, hearing a wolf howl in the distant hills even though it was midafternoon. More laughter came from inside the house, and as always, he wondered how long he could hold on to those he loved most. Hearing a wolf howl in daylight was unusual, and he couldn't help feeling as though it was some kind of bad omen.

He straightened and threw his cigarette down when he saw Cole charging toward the house on an unsaddled horse and pulling another horse with him.

“Jake!”

Jake stepped off the veranda. “What is it?”

“Trouble down at the bunkhouse. I'm scared Pepper will get himself killed.” Cole slid off the horse. “I figured I'd get here quicker if I didn't take the time to saddle up. And with this bum leg, I'm not much of a fast runner.”

“What the hell is going on?”

Cole stepped closer, glancing at the house. “Well…it's about your daughter. One of the newer men said as how little Sadie wasn't really Brian's kid, claimed she was the… Hell, I'm sorry, Jake—he said she was fathered by one of them men back in Oklahoma. Pepper lit into him and—”

Before he finished, Jake was back up the steps and through the front door. He grabbed his guns from the hook and began strapping them on. “Lloyd, come with me!”

Lloyd immediately scooted back his chair while Jake grabbed Lloyd's gun belt from where it hung nearby and tossed it to him.

“Jake, what is it?” Randy asked.

“I'm not sure. But you women stay here, understand?” He quickly tied his holster straps around his thighs. “Brian, you make damn sure all three women and the girls don't leave this house.”

“Can we come, Grampa?”

“You'll have to run fast, because we're going to the far bunkhouse, and Lloyd and I are taking horses.”

Jake charged out, Lloyd right behind him, still buckling his gun belt. The boys excitedly flew out the door after them. “Stay out of the way!” Lloyd shouted as he and Jake took off, riding bareback toward the bunkhouse.

The boys raced each other across the lawn and jumped over a fence in an effort to keep up.

Randy hurried to the front door and saw Cole walking away. “Cole!” she shouted. “What's going on?”

“Just a little tussle, ma'am. Nothin' Jake and Lloyd can't handle. You know how men can be.”

Randy watched him limp away as Jake and Lloyd and the boys disappeared around a barn. “Oh, I know men, all right,” she said softly.

Jake and Lloyd charged up to a shouting match outside the bunkhouse, two men holding back an enraged Pepper, and three holding on to one of the newer men, Clyde Pace. Two other new hires who'd shown up with Clyde—Ronald Beck and the other named Tucker—stood nearby, rooting Clyde on. No one knew if Tucker was the third man's first or last name.

Jake dismounted and strode up to the melee, followed closely by Lloyd. “What the hell is going on here?”

“Jake's here now, you sonofabitch!” Pepper growled at Clyde. “If you'd seen what he did to a man who insulted his wife, wait till you see what he does for insultin' his
daughter
! She's an angel if there ever was one who walked among us!”

“No woman who's been had by that many men and is still getting herself pregnant is any angel!” Clyde retorted.

Lloyd charged past Jake. “You bastard!”

Jake rushed up to grab him. “You're not healed enough to be getting into a fight!” he yelled, struggling to hang on to his arm. “One wrong blow, and you'll be in trouble!”

“I'm healed enough to beat the shit out of anybody who'd say something like that about my
siste
r
!”

“Hold on, damn it! He
wants
this! Can't you see it in his eyes?”

Clyde stopped his struggling, grinning. “You
bet
I want it! I'm wearin' a
gun
, ain't I?” Ronald Beck and Tucker stepped forward, all three men wearing guns. By then the three younger boys made it to the scene, stirring up dust as they stopped short, panting and sweating. Ben's blond hair was plastered to his head with perspiration.

“You boys stay out of the way!” Jake ordered.

They scrambled over to the side, watching with great anticipation. Jake let go of Lloyd, who took a stance beside his father.

“What the hell do you three want?” Jake growled.

“
You
, Harkner.”

“You've been here nearly a month with no trouble,” Lloyd steamed. “Why now?”

“Been waitin' for the right time,” Tucker answered. “Took a while to get up the courage, but we figure out of the three of us, one of us is bound to make a name for himself.”

Pepper jerked away from the men holding him. “Somebody's gonna get hurt here today, and it ain't gonna be Jake or Lloyd, you stupid sons of bitches!”

“I've been so involved with making sure Lloyd gets well and getting things back to normal, I didn't pay enough attention to you three,” Jake thundered. “Who hired you?”

“
Pepper
did!” Clyde answered.

“That true, Pepper?” Jake asked.

A disgruntled Pepper stood there with fists clenched. “I'm sorry, Jake. I thought they were okay.”

“Where did you find them?” Lloyd asked.

Pepper looked away. “Shit,” he mumbled. He swallowed before answering. “Gretta's place.”

Jake grinned, surprising Lloyd. “Pepper, you should know better. I know firsthand that when you're drinking and cavorting with whores, you don't exactly make the best decisions.” He backed up a little, keeping his eyes on all three opponents as he reached out and grasped Lloyd's arm. “Step over a little, Son. You keep your eyes on Tucker. The other two are mine.”

The three men straightened. “You're gettin' old, Harkner, and your son still ain't completely well.”

“I'm well enough, you worthless snake!”

“They insulted Evie on purpose, Lloyd,” Jake told him. “It was just a way to get us out here.”

“Sure it was,” Ronald Beck sneered. “But it's goddamn true. Who's ever gonna know your granddaughter ain't the child of a rapist?”

“
I
know, because she was carrying when they took her,” Jake answered, his smile gone. “And every man here goddamn well knows it, too! They also know that if a man insults a Harkner woman, he'd better already have his tombstone engraved.”

“You just narrowly missed getting hanged back in Denver, Harkner! You'd best think twice about killin' any of us,” Tucker told him, moving his hand toward a gun. “You'll end up in a noose. That gives us an advantage.”

“You're the ones who decided on this,” Lloyd told them. “And you aren't facing just my father. I might still be a little weak, but my gun hand is just fine!”

The three men braced their feet and put on looks of bravery, but Jake saw right through them. “They're scared shitless, Lloyd.”

“They
should
be scared shitless!” Lloyd scanned them. “If I were you, I'd be pissing my pants right about now. Do you realize who you've called out? What in God's name made you think you could take Jake Harkner?”

Clyde kept moving his hands into fists and opening them again, sweat stains beginning to show under his arms. “We've talked a lot about it,” he answered. “The name it would get us is worth the risk.”

This time it was Lloyd who grinned. “You idiots! Take my advice and apologize for insulting my sister before you get the hell off the J&L!”

Clyde shook his head. “No way. We came this far, and we've been plannin' this for a month! We're finishing it!”

“Then I'd advise anybody standing behind me and Lloyd to get the hell out of the way,” Jake announced, “because I figure these three couldn't hit the side of a barn.”

Men scattered, Pepper going over to the boys and herding them farther away.

“Pa, after what happened in Denver, I don't think you should shoot to kill,” Lloyd told him, enjoying the growing fear in the eyes of the opposing men. “You might get in more trouble, and these three will never clear their holsters anyway. They just want to prove they're faster.”

“I figured that,” Jake answered.

“Grampa said once that when you draw against a man, you watch his eyes, not his hands,” Stephen whispered to the other two boys. “Him and my pa are doin' just that. Can you see it?”

“I see it,” Little Jake answered, his dark eyes glowing with anger. “And I don't like what they said about my little sister.”

“They're just trying to make Pa draw on them,” Ben said softly. “Lloyd, too.”

“You'd
better
shoot to kill,” Tucker growled, “or you're both dead men!”

More men backed away.

Ronald's eyes widened. “Maybe we should just go,” he told Clyde.

“Maybe you
should
,” Lloyd told him. “Real quick. Wounded or not, I really, really want to beat you till you can't even see—and
then
I'll shoot you!”

“I ain't goin'
anywhere
till I kill Jake Harkner,” Clyde growled. He went for his gun.

The three boys watched in astonishment. Before any of the men could even clear their holsters, Jake and Lloyd's guns boomed. The three shots came so fast it was almost like one thunderous roar that made the boys jump. Jake shot Clyde's gun out of his hand, the bullet putting a hole through his hand from the side so it blew half his fingers off. His second bullet skimmed Ronald's holster in such a way that it fell off him and left a deep gash across the side of his hip. Lloyd's bullet went into Tucker's holster and hit the bullet chambers, causing some of the bullets to explode against the man's hip and thigh.

Clyde just stood there a moment, gawking in astonishment at his bottom knuckles where three fingers used to be. The fingers lay several feet behind him, and blood poured from the stubs. Realizing the fingers were actually gone, he began shaking and screaming curses at Jake while Ronald was already down, writhing in pain from a bleeding hip.

“I think my hip bone is broke!” he screamed. “It's broke! It's broke!” He held a hand to his hip, trying to stop the bleeding.

Tucker was also on the ground, curled up and groaning and hanging on to his thigh.

“Pepper, get their guns,” Jake told him.

“Gladly,” Pepper answered, marching up to take the guns and picking up what was left of Tucker's shredded gun belt.

“We need a doctor!” Tucker yelled, beginning to cry.

“The men can help you best as they can, and then they'll escort you off the J&L,” Lloyd sneered.

“Your brother-in-law is a doctor!” Clyde screamed. “Get him out here! He's got laudanum!”

“After what you said about his
wife
?” Lloyd seethed. “I'm not sending him to take care of the likes of you, you worthless snake in the grass! You can lay there and
bleed
to death for all I care! I hope you
die
, and real
slow
from infection!” He looked at the other men. “Do what you can for them and make sure they're off my ranch by dark!”

“Where will we go?” Clyde screamed.

Lloyd looked at Jake. “Where do you think they should go, Pa?”

They turned away, and Jake barked at the three boys to follow them back to the house.

“What do we tell the women?” Lloyd asked. “I don't want Evie to know what they said. Brian either. Jesus, Pa, in the last five or six months, I can tell they've both really been able to get back to normal married life. You can see the difference in them.”

“I know. That joke Brian made really surprised me. And for Evie to be able to go along with it really told me something. They're enjoying each other the way they
should
be able to enjoy each other.” He called the boys over. The three came scurrying.

“Grampa, you really showed 'em!” Little Jake said excitedly.

“I've never really seen you draw a gun on a man,” Stephen told Lloyd. “That's the fastest thing I've ever seen, Pa!”

“Yeah! Boom! Boom! Boom!” Ben put in, his blue eyes sparkling. “I'm glad you're okay, Pa,” he told Jake.

Jake took them aside. “You boys listen to me. What just happened couldn't be avoided, but there was a time when I would have shot those men dead. I have to be careful now how I handle myself. I knew they'd never outdraw me anyway, so I just made sure they were hurt enough that they couldn't shoot back again, even if they tried. You just have to remember there are a lot of new laws that can get you in trouble, like how I got in trouble in Denver. Understand?”

The boys nodded. “They said somethin' bad about Mommy and my sister,” Little Jake pouted. “I wanna go hit 'em! That Clyde is a sonofabitch!”

Jake looked at Lloyd. “Get over there and make sure the men know not to talk about this in front of Brian or Evie,” he told them. “I'll tell the women it was just a fight over cards that got out of hand, and these men were drunk and thought they could take us. We knew they were drunk, so we just wounded them and kicked them off the J&L for causing trouble.”

Lloyd nodded. “I wish this was the old days. I'd have killed Clyde and made up an excuse for doing it!”

“If he makes any more trouble,
I'll
kill him!” Jake seethed. “They'd better understand it would be best to never step foot on the J&L again.”

“Oh, the men and I will make that very clear. Get the boys out of here, Pa. And explain to them not to talk about this in front of Evie.”

Jake put his hands on Ben and Little Jake's shoulders and walked all the boys over behind a barn, where he stopped and knelt in front of them. “You three heard what those men said, and you know it's not true,” he told them.

They nodded.

Jake turned to Little Jake. “Do you understand what they meant about Sadie, trying to say she's not really your daddy's baby?”

“I know what they meant,” the boy pouted. “I ain't a kid about them things, Grampa. I seen what those men did to Mommy back in Oklahoma. I was there.”

His frankness reminded Jake of himself. He closed his eyes at the memory of cigarette burns on his grandson's belly after he found him and Evie at Dune Hollow. He addressed all the boys. “All right, all three of you need to understand how bad it would hurt Evie, and Brian, too—if they knew what those men said. And I know for a fact it's
not
true. So none of you is going to say anything about what really happened, understand?”

They nodded again.

“It was just a drunken fight,” Ben spoke up. “That's what we'll say.”

Jake studied the young man he'd rescued from an abusive father in Oklahoma and adopted as his own. He couldn't be more pleased at how Ben was turning out. “That's a good explanation, Ben.” He looked at the others. “Stick to the same story, understand?”

“Will my dad be okay back there with those men?” Stephen asked.

Jake saw the worry in the boy's eyes. He still had nightmares about thinking Lloyd might die in Denver. “He'll be fine. He's got all the other men behind him, and by now, those three know better than to mess with your father.” He rose and headed back to the house with the boys. “You boys remember that men get drunk and tend to want to strut their stuff and brag a little. Sometimes it ends up in a fistfight. You just have to keep an eye out and keep the help in line now and then. And you have to get rid of the real troublemakers. You can't run a ranch well if you have to worry about somebody always causing trouble.”

“
Señor
, what is happening?” Rodriguez came running over to them from his cabin. Teresa was standing on the porch, watching.

“Just a little trouble over at the bunkhouse. We took care of it.”

“I heard shooting. Is anyone hurt?”

“Oh, someone's hurt, all right. Lloyd is taking care of it. And it's your day off, Rodriguez. Go on back and enjoy it.”

“
Sí, señor.
Next Friday I am planning a big Mexican cookout!” he added. “I know how much you like Mexican food,
s
í
?”

“
¡Sí! ¡Bueno
!
”