The Last Outlaw

by Rosanne Bittner

  “Jake, you’d better think this one over really good,” Brian warned. “One man has already died. I know he probably didn’t compare to you when it comes to using a gun, but you should still take someone with you. If not Lloyd, then a couple of the ranch hands. Cole and Terrel are good shots.”

  “I should go!” Lloyd argued in a near rage. “We’ve had each other’s backs since we rode together in Oklahoma. I’m not letting you do this alone, Pa!”

  “Lloyd, you can’t!” Katie protested, breaking into tears. “I’m going to have another baby. And you have the ranch to run. My God, Lloyd, don’t leave all this. You know Jake is right. You can’t go with him.”

  Jake faced them with determination. “Katie’s right. Of every member of this family, I’m the one who’s needed the least,” he told them.

  Evie gasped. “Daddy, don’t say that!”

  “I didn’t mean it that way,” Katie told him, tears starting to come.

  “I know that.”

  Jake began to pace. Randy knew the signs. No one would be able to argue with him, not even Lloyd. In minutes he’d turned from a gentle, loving husband and affable grandfather to someone else…to the man she’d first met and feared. And she knew deep inside that the possibility of bringing his past right in front of his eyes again was what had him the most upset.

  “Every person in this room is a keeper of the J&L,” Jake told the family, finally standing still to face them. “You all represent the future of this place. I’ll never truly fit into that future. I’m part of a past that will never be again.”

  There it was! Lloyd realized why his father had been so restless the last few weeks. It was as though he’d known something like this was coming. He wanted to grab Jake and beg him not to go, but he knew better. “Pa, you have to let me and a couple other men go with you.”

  Jake shook his head. “No. Not you. Not my son. I already watched you die, or close enough as to make no difference. You’re too important to this whole family, and I’ll not let anyone else risk his life over this. I’ll talk to the men. Maybe Cole can go with me, but only him.”

  Randy turned away. “Jake, you promised not to leave me again.”

  “I know what I promised, but I can’t let this go, Randy. You have to trust in me. We both knew when we talked upstairs that I might end up having to go away.”

  Gretta spoke up. “Jake, I could go too. I could claim I’m looking for new girls.”

  Evie broke into tears, covering her face as Brian put an arm around her and drew her close.

  “I won’t take the risk of you ending up in their hands any more than I’d risk my own wife or daughter,” Jake told Gretta. “It doesn’t matter what you are. You’re a woman, and I won’t risk any woman’s life. I can do this alone. The only reason I’m taking Cole is for backup to get Annie out of there if I’m…” He hesitated. “If I don’t make it out.”

  “Damn it, Pa, I know we can do this together!”

  Jake faced Lloyd, his countenance like a rolling thunderstorm. He looked ready to explode with a mixture of determined anger and undying love. “You’ve followed me to hell and back too many times,” he told his son. “You’re the most decent and most loyal son a man could ask for, but you’re also a father, and young enough to learn how to live with all the new laws and new ways. It won’t be long before you’ll have to defend this ranch against the changes that are coming. If you don’t stay here and stay healthy, the ranch could be broken up and parceled out. You’re smart and educated, and you’ll know how to handle things without violence. And violence is all I know, son.”

  Lloyd held his gaze, his eyes teary, his jaw flexing in horrible indecision. “What if you get shot? I can’t let you die alone, Pa. No man should die alone, especially not my…” His voice choked. “Not my father.”

  Randy covered her face and wept. Jake looked at her, pain ripping through his heart. He could lose her again. She was still so fragile. He turned away. “In spite of your mother and this family, in a way I’ve been alone my whole life, Lloyd. You know what I’m talking about. It’s a different kind of alone.”

  “You aren’t going down there just to find Gretta’s daughter, are you? You’re going down there to prove something to yourself. You grew up by the gun, and you think you should die by the gun. I saw it in your eyes when we had that talk after that deal with Brady. Some little part of you gave up right then. I heard it in your voice. You saw the future, and you think you don’t belong in it, but you do, Pa! You do belong in it—for Stephen and Ben and Little Jake and the girls…for me and Evie…and for that woman standing beside you—the woman you just pulled back from hell and made whole again. That’s what you do, Pa. You pull people back from hell because you know what hell is like.

  “So you go ahead and go to Mexico and take that girl out of her hell, because I know not one person here is going to be able to stop you, including Mom. But you, by God, had better not give up. You’ve survived a hell of a lot, so don’t be using this as your excuse to finally give it all up, Jake Harkner!”

  It struck Gretta that there was far more going on here than Jake rescuing her daughter. Did the man have a death wish? He was surely a tortured soul, in spite of the big, loving family that surrounded him…in spite of the woman who’d given up so much for him. She realized she probably didn’t know half of what Randy Harkner had been through in her married life, over and above what happened to her last winter. “I’m so sorry,” she told them again. “I wish I wasn’t the one asking this. I’ll leave, and I will find someone else—”

  “No!” Jake answered. “Once you mentioned Brownsville, I knew it had to be me.”

  Randy wiped at her eyes and faced him with determination. “You’ve left me before, and I was always sure you would do everything in your power to make it back. But something about you is different this time. I’m looking at Jake, the outlaw who thinks he’s worthless. But he’s worth a hell of a lot to a lot of people, and he’s my life. So you come back, damn you! You come back, because when I die, I’m not going to be buried up at that line shack alone. Do you understand me, Jake? We’re going to live and love together for a lot more years, and one day we’ll be buried together up on that mountain. Don’t you take that away from me, Jake Harkner! Don’t you dare consider yourself dispensable to this family—and not ever dispensable to me! You know damn well how much I need you!”

  Jake studied her a long, silent moment, a spark of the abused little boy flickering in his dark eyes. “I have something to do besides going after Gretta’s daughter, Randy. You know what I’m talking about.” He walked past her. “I’m going out to talk to Cole, and I need to find Rodriguez. He knows the right things to pack in my gear for me.” He paused at the doorway. “And all of you understand something. I don’t want one person in this family blaming Gretta for this. It is what it is, whether her daughter or someone else’s. And, Gretta, none of this is your fault. If anything, it’s your uncle’s. If he was here right now, I’d make him a sorry man for what he did to you.” He reached up and took down his guns from where they hung over the door, then faced Gretta. “Pack some underclothes and a dress and give them to Rodriguez. Your daughter might need something decent to wear when I find her.” He started out again.

  “Daddy!” Evie shouted before he could get out the door.

  Jake hesitated. “Don’t say it, Evie. You won’t change my mind.”

  “I don’t intend to try. All I want is your promise that you won’t go riding off in the morning without all of us being there to pray for you first.”

  Jake sighed and leaned against the doorjamb. “You don’t give up, do you?” He faced her, his brows lowered.

  “No, I don’t. I’m a Harkner. I didn’t give up on myself or my marriage after Dune Hollow, and you aren’t going to give up just because you’re getting older and you think you don’t belong on this earth any longer. You forget how well we a
ll know you and how you think. The Good Lord knows we’ve all had our share of time talking you out of these moods. But once you’re gone from here, we’ll have to leave what happens up to God Himself. He will be the one who chooses when you leave this world, Jake Harkner, not you. I prefer to ask Him to bring you back here, and with that girl. So don’t you dare leave without letting us pray for you!”

  Jake shook his head and turned. “Lloyd, go upstairs and fix that goddamn bed.” He walked out.

  Not one of them could help smiling through their tears. Only Jake would say such a thing at such a serious time.

  Randy looked at Gretta.

  “I’m sorry, Randy,” Gretta told her. “But Annie is the only good thing I’ve ever accomplished in my life. I can’t leave her down there with those animals.”

  “Of course you can’t. And you couldn’t have picked a better man to go after her.” Jake! You promised not to leave me again! You promised!

  Gretta looked at her lap, Jake’s remark about packing clothes for Annie playing over again in her mind and giving her hope. He’d said “when I find her”…not “if I find her.”

  Thirty-nine

  Randy sat on a quilted bench beside a bedroom window, listening to the bellow of cattle, the occasional whinny of a horse, the hoot of an owl…and in the distant mountains the howl of wolves, the sound Jake hated.

  She felt empty and alone. Jake hadn’t returned since leaving the house earlier. Wouldn’t he even come back to hold her one more night? Maybe he thought it was better to stay away, to just leave without making love to her one more time—maybe that would make the leaving easier.

  Her heart raced faster when she heard a noise downstairs, some rustling sounds, the squeak of one of the stairs as someone came up. She rose from the bench and waited. The door opened, and there was no mistaking his big frame in the moonlight. “Jake—”

  He walked up to her, and in a breath, she was in his arms, her feet off the floor. He held her against him with one arm and wrapped his other hand in her hair.

  “I’m so sorry, Randy, but I have to do this,” he told her.

  “I understand.”

  “Don’t be scared. It’s like we talked about. We’re always together in spirit, even when I’m gone. It was like that back in Oklahoma, and it will be the same this time.”

  She kept her arms tightly wrapped around his neck, deliberately breathing deeply of his familiar scent. She was used to the smell of tobacco, and it didn’t bother her. His scent was all man…all leather and sage and just Jake.

  “I left my boots and all my gear downstairs. Is it safe to leave my guns out? Are all the kids gone?”

  “Yes. It’s just us. Gretta went to sleep at Evie’s house. She knew we’d want to be alone.”

  “Is the bed fixed?”

  Randy jerked in a sob. “Yes. Oh, Jake, I was afraid you wouldn’t come up here. I was afraid you’d think it was best we didn’t do this before you leave.”

  He carried her to the bed and laid her on it. “I considered it, but just like all the other times, I couldn’t stay away.” He met her lips in a desperate kiss. “I want to remember every inch of you,” he told her. “Every move you make, every curve, the way you taste, your breath, your voice.” He pulled up on her gown as he spoke.

  Randy sat up, and he pulled the gown over her head and tossed it aside. She wore no underwear, hoping for this moment.

  “Don’t move,” he told her. By the moonlight, she watched him remove his shirt, his denim pants, his long johns. He climbed back onto the bed. There was nothing more to say. He met her mouth again as he moved on top of her, kissing her almost violently. When they found themselves in this kind of situation, his lovemaking was always more deliberate, wilder, more demanding, as though he needed to see and taste and touch her as thoroughly as possible so he wouldn’t forget, so he could take her with him in his mind and heart.

  His hands were everywhere, caressing, massaging, exploring. She let him do what he needed to do, wanting the memory as much as he did. He kissed and licked and spoke to her in Spanish, moving over her eyes, her lips, her throat, massaged her breasts as he suckled them hungrily, as though tasting a delicious meal. His hands and lips worked their way over her belly, her hip bones, down her thighs. He gently pushed her legs apart and tasted and licked every secret place until she groaned from the ecstasy of his touch.

  When he was in this mood, she always just let him ravage her in that strange way he had of making her completely helpless under his spell. It was so much like that first night…in the middle of nowhere…in the back of a wagon. Back then, Jake Harkner had guarded her on the way west and ended up saving her life. Then he’d taken that life and bent it to his will, claiming her in a way that had left her branded.

  This was the reason she trusted him, the reason she always waited for him…always. The man was like a drug she couldn’t resist. Her only fear was that this time he could be saying goodbye for more than just one trip. This could be his way of remembering her as he prepared to die.

  No! He’d come back to her! He’d come back!

  He licked his way back over her body to her lips. Randy grasped the slats of the headboard as first he entered her teasingly, knowing she was close to an intense climax. He wanted to be inside her when it happened, for her ultimate pleasure. His tantalizing thrusts took her to that place where utter, desperate ecstasy surged through her loins. As her insides pulled at him in her climax, he pushed deep with an erection that felt bigger than normal, and normal had always been all she could handle. She literally gritted her teeth as he grasped her bottom and grunted with every thrust. He buried his face in her hair as she grimaced from the power of the man.

  “Do you know how much I love your perfect bottom?” he asked.

  She didn’t reply. She just enjoyed the way he plied her bottom while pushing hard. It helped the pain a little. She wanted to tell him it hurt, but she was not about to spoil this very necessary mating of souls. It could be the last time they did this. Climaxing while he entered her made the pain more bearable, an erotic experience of agony and pleasure.

  “Who do you belong to?” he groaned.

  “Jake Harkner,” she moaned, still clinging to the headboard.

  “Every inch of you. No one else will ever own your soul, Randy Harkner.”

  Why did he say that? Of course no other man would ever own her. She let go of the headboard and raised up enough to wrap her arms around his neck. “Don’t talk that way.”

  “Yo te amo, mi quiero. Siempre recuerdes cuanto te amo.”

  Always remember how much I love you. When he spoke to her in Spanish, it only heightened her desire and her love for him.

  His life spilled into her in hard pulses. Their lovemaking had always been like this back in Oklahoma, each time before he rode away into No Man’s Land. It was a feeling Randy always hoped she’d never have to experience again. Yet here he was, riding away again, after promising he wouldn’t. The only way she could stand it was knowing he truly didn’t have a choice. How could he say no to Gretta, when a child’s life was on the line?

  That was the one thing Jake Harkner couldn’t stand. Every abused woman was young Santana, or his mother. His whole life he’d tried to make up for being too little to help her when his father killed her. The horror of what it must have been like, of having to help bury his own mother and hide the murder was unimaginable. It was a miracle he’d managed to stay halfway sane, and she knew deep inside that the only way he did that was to believe that every man he’d killed was his father—over and over again.

  He met her mouth in a deep, demanding kiss. She could taste herself on his lips. He moved his mouth to her throat.

  “Jake, I want to taste you. I want to remember.”

  “You don’t have to.”

  “I want to.”

  He rolled to his side with a groan. His co
untenance was not that of the man who’d been gently making love to her these past many months. He was Jake the outlaw, and that made it easier to let her do this. He grasped her hair tightly as she kissed her way down his powerful chest and flat stomach. She realized she didn’t care that he’d just been inside her, that he tasted of a mixture of their sweet juices. He grew hard again in moments from her gentle kisses and licks, to the point where she could take him fully into her mouth and remind herself that this could be beautiful. This was Jake. This was Jake.

  “My God, Randy.” He gripped her hair tighter.

  She kissed her way back up and over his powerful arms, straddling him as she met his mouth, her hair shrouding his face. He reached down and guided himself into her, grasping her thighs then pushing up to fill her. She rocked herself over him for several minutes, until he turned her onto her back and began his own powerful thrusts all over again, this time taking longer—both because he’d just climaxed, and because they both wanted this to last forever and forever.

  When his life spilled into her a second time, she felt him tremble. “I’m so goddamn sorry, Randy,” he told her yet again, moving to his side and keeping her close. “If I make it back, I want you to be just like this. Don’t be scared anymore. I’m always with you. Always.”

  “How will I sleep at night without you?”

  He kissed her hair. “Back in Oklahoma, when Evie was missing and I wanted to die—when you were far away, having that surgery, and we couldn’t be together in the worst time of our lives—I walked into our house after those men had ransacked it,” he told her. “But when I went into the bedroom, it was untouched. God didn’t let them destroy that place where we shared each other in the best way there is. I took up your pillow and put it to my face, and I could smell your rose scent, and it made me feel like I was with you. Hold my pillow, baby, and just pretend it’s me in your arms, because I will be, understand? I will be right here with you. Nothing can change that. You’ve kept me sane all these years. I’d have no life without you.”