She rolled her eyes at the thought, feeling foolish and sinful. Jake Harkner had nothing to offer a woman but trouble. Besides that, he was not a man who bothered offering a woman anything, except maybe a little money for a roll in bed. It was not likely he had known any decent women.
She hung the kettle on the pothook and stoked up the fire. Why was that womanly side of her she had ignored since her husband’s death suddenly stirred, even after he had lit into her with his harsh words? Part of her looked forward to his being well enough to leave, and another part of her didn’t want him to go.
She filled a second kettle with water and hung it on another hook to heat it for washing his hair. She knew deep inside what was really happening to her. She had a man in her house again, not a father, but a man who looked at her as a woman, the way Mack had looked at her when they’d first met. It felt good to take care of a man, cook for a man, shave him. She missed those things, perhaps because she had had Mack for such a short time and had just begun to get used to being a wife when he left for the war. She had always helped her father, cooked for him, kept house and such; but doing it for a husband had been different. She and Mack had had big plans to build up the farm, build their own bigger and better house once the war was over, have children; but those dreams had died when he had.
She cut some dumplings from the dough she had rolled out on her pastry board earlier that afternoon. She began dropping them into the pot of heated water, realizing that since she was fourteen she had been taking care of men, first her father and brother, then her father and Mack, then just her father. She had missed having someone to fuss over, and she reasoned maybe that was why she hadn’t really minded having Jake around.
She heard him come back inside then, and she took out a wash pan and set it on a shelf her father had built onto the side of the wall for a countertop, and beneath which she stored pots and pans. She glanced at Jake, watched him set her rifle against the wall. “Bring a chair over here and lean back. I’ll wash your hair,” she told him.
“You don’t have to if you don’t want.”
“I do want. It’s the only part of you that still needs washing.”
She turned away at the words, hoping he didn’t notice the flush in her cheeks. Yes, she had bathed him when he was sick, mostly to keep him cooled down. She had noticed his flat, muscled stomach; his powerful thighs. She had tried to forget about seeing the parts of him that normally only wives and whores saw. In spite of his reputation and usually sour personality, Jake Harkner was a beautiful man physically. She wondered if he even realized it. His father had told him all his life that he was no good, a worthless bastard, in Jake’s words. Did he even see himself as physically ugly too? That would take a pretty amazing imagination. Perhaps he wanted to be ugly, thought it was fitting. Maybe that was why he left himself unbathed and unshaved and let his hair grow every which way.
“Can you get the chair all right, or do you want me to do it?” she asked.
“I can do it. By the way, where are my pants? Feels kind of strange walking around in bare feet and long johns.”
Her eyes widened, and without thinking she walked up to him and touched his upper arms, realizing how cold they were. “My goodness! It’s so cool out this evening. I didn’t even think!” She rushed past him and took his blue denim shirt, his denim pants, and a pair of socks from where they lay neatly folded on her cot. “Put these on. You should never have gone out there half-dressed! You’ll take sick in your condition.” She handed him the clothes. “Wait a minute. I’ll get the top half of your underwear. It’s in the bedroom.” She went into the other room and called to him. “I burned the one-piece long johns you were wearing the day I found you. They were too bloodstained to wear again. I found these in your gear.”
Jake smiled to himself at her sudden concern that he might have gotten cold. She came back and handed him the underwear. He pulled it on and buttoned it, then put his arms into the sleeves of his shirt. It felt good to get dressed, made him feel less at her mercy and more in control. “I guess in our exchange of words earlier, neither one of us thought about me getting dressed.” He began buttoning the shirt. “By the way, I really am sorry about exploding at you.”
Miranda turned and cut more dumplings. “It’s all right. I’m sorry, for judging you. In any case, I see no new bloodstains on those bandages since I changed them earlier today, so you might as well get dressed. I’ll wash your hair while these dumplings cook.”
Jake finished dressing, except for his boots. “How’s Outlaw doing?”
“Outlaw?”
“My horse.”
“Oh, he’s just fine. Eating me out of oats, I might add.”
“I’ll pay you something before I leave. And I’ll see what I can do about getting you some meat—maybe shoot a couple of rabbits or something.”
“That’s all right. I’ll be leaving myself a few days after you do. No sense stocking up on anything. I’ll sell my horses and take a train to Independence, find someone there to take me to Nevada.”
Jake watched her work, realized he enjoyed watching her doing womanly things, enjoyed watching the woman herself. She wore yellow today. He liked that color on her. It was a pretty dress of polished cotton, with white lace around the cuffs and around the modestly cut bodice that showed just a hint of the fullness of her breasts. Had she dressed extra nice just for him? Or was it just her beauty and quiet elegance that made the dress seem prettier than it really was? “You really still planning on going to Nevada?”
“Yes.” Miranda stirred the dumplings, then picked up a hot pad and took hold of the kettle of hot water. “There’s nothing left for me here but bad memories.” She poured some of the water into the wash pan she had set out. “My mother died from injuries from a fall when I was fourteen, and my father blamed himself for not being able to help her. For all his skills as a doctor, there was nothing he could do. That was back in Illinois.” She hung the kettle back over the fire. “Father—his name was Doctor Lawrence Baker—moved here to start fresh, get away from his own bad memories. He gave up doctoring, tried to farm. I met Mack in Kansas City. Mackenzie Hayes was his full name. He was a boot-maker. We married, and two weeks later he volunteered for the war like all young men his age. He fought for the Union, of course.” She glanced at Jake, saw a look of near guilt in his eyes. “I don’t suppose you fought in the war?”
He folded his arms. “No. I was a gunrunner—smuggled rifles and ammunition to the Confederates for gold.”
She paled slightly. “I see.”
“I don’t think you do. By the time the war started, I was already well on my way to living on the wrong side of the law and getting money however I could get it, legally or illegally. What did I know about the reasons for that war? All I saw were a lot of young men blowing each other’s guts out for what they thought were noble reasons. What was really happening was that the men in power were using those poor young men as their little pawns in a political struggle. I wasn’t about to die for that, but I didn’t mind making money off their war, so I robbed Union trains and stole guns from the North, then sold them to the South. Some of that led to robberies after the war ended. That’s when I fell in with Kennedy and his bunch—Confederates bent on continuing their revenge. When that’s the only kind of people you’ve ever known, Randy, you just end up in that kind of life.”
Miranda dipped a large ladle into a bucket of cool water and carried it over to the wash pan to poor it in and cool the hot water already there. “I would like to understand, Jake, I really would. Sit down here and I’ll wash your hair. Maybe at supper you can tell me more about yourself.”
He took the chair. “It would be pretty hard for a woman like you to hear it.”
“I’m stronger than you think.”
Jake put his head back. “You were telling me about yourself.”
“Nothing much more to tell.” She took the ladle a
nd poured some of the water over his hair, letting the excess run back into the pan. She began soaping up his hair then. “Mack never came back. I married him in sixty-two, got the telegram about his death in sixty-three. He didn’t even die from a wound. He died from cholera. In sixty-four, my brother left and it was nearly a year before he bothered to write and tell us he was in Nevada. I haven’t heard from him since. That’s his picture over there on the stand by the cot.”
She began scrubbing his hair. “A few weeks ago my father was killed by raiders and we lost everything of value, which left me with this excuse of a farm and the draft horses my only collateral. Since the farm isn’t worth much, all I really have left is some money my father had in the bank and what I can get for the two draft horses of mine. I intend to load most of my furniture into the wagon in a few days and take it and the wagon and horses into Kansas City and sell everything. The bank is going to take over the farm and sell it for what they can get, and I’ll be on my way to Nevada.”
Jake enjoyed the gentle massage of her hands. He struggled against growing feelings for this woman whom he admired for her courage and fortitude. She was no fainting flower, in spite of her size. She had strength and determination, and she was not easily frightened. Never had he fought manly urges as much as he was right now, for besides his great admiration for her, he also could not help feeling a sexual attraction. She was bending close, her nicely rounded breasts not far from his face. He wanted to take hold of her, touch those full breasts, taste them, take pleasure in her mouth, feel her body against his own. It had been a while since he was with a woman, and he’d never bedded one like Miranda Hayes, a woman of virtue and gentleness, the kind of woman who only gave herself to a man out of love and devotion. He almost laughed out loud at the idea of her thinking of him that way.
“You’re quite a woman,” he told her. “Most would have gone into town a long time ago just for the protection of civilization, maybe married the first man who came along who could provide for them.”
“I’ll find a way to provide for myself. I married Mack because I had deep affection for him. He was a good man. It had nothing to do with wanting someone to look after me. I wanted to take care of him, give him children.” She began rinsing his hair. “Have you ever thought of settling, Jake? Having sons?”
He chuckled. “Me? I’ve given it a thought a time or two, but a wanted man isn’t one who can settle, let alone find a woman who would be willing to be on the run the rest of her life. As far as children…” He paused for a moment, losing his smile. “I got no teaching in how to handle children. I’d be too afraid that somehow I’d be like my own father. I’d shoot myself if I ever found myself doing that to my own kid. The way I was raised, and the way I’ve lived, I’d make a pretty rotten father. I’m better off leaving things just like they are.”
Miranda took a towel and motioned for him to sit up straight. She began drying his hair with the towel. “Where will you go when you leave here?”
“I don’t know. Indian Territory, I expect. That’s the best place for wanted men to hide out. I might go on farther west from there. It’s a lawless land out there. A man can make his own rules. I was on my way when that bounty hunter found me.”
Miranda went to her father’s washstand near the cot and returned with a comb and a pair of scissors. Pulling the comb through Jake’s tangled hair, she said, “Do you want to know something funny?”
“What’s that?”
“I think I’ll miss you a little when you go. I don’t even fully trust you yet, and I am firmly against the way you live. But I have actually enjoyed taking care of you. It has kept me busy, kept my mind off my grief. You have brought a strangely exciting element to things lately—I’ve never shot a man before, never taken a bullet out of a man, never known a real outlaw. It’s too bad it was your kind who killed my father. I could never fully forgive that, but I truly would like to understand it, if you would share your past with me. I feel it might be good for you to talk to someone about it. And where is the harm?”
She began snipping at his hair, thinking how full and wavy and pretty it was, so black it almost looked blue. “Once you leave here, you’ll never see me again, so why not use me as a sounding board? You already did a while ago when you lit into me about how your father treated you. Were you a bastard, or was that all in his head?”
Jake thought about his mother, as beautiful a woman as any man could want, a dark, exotic beauty. “My father was white, from Connecticut. He came from a very poor family. His own father abused him, kicked him out when he was twelve years old, or so he told me. I used to feel sorry for him, until he kicked or beat out any feelings I had for him.” The last statement was spoken bitterly, and he paused a moment before continuing.
“At any rate,” he finally spoke up again, “he wandered to Texas, worked for a while, joined Houston’s army to fight for Texas’s independence. He was at San Jacinto when Santa Anna surrendered. After that he wandered around northern Mexico and southern Texas, bought a young Mexican girl off her drunken father and lived with her, never married her.”
“Your mother?”
Again Jake paused before answering. “Her name was Evita, and from what I can remember, she was the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. But from my earliest memories, my pa seemed to enjoy beating her. He accused her of sleeping with other men, was jealous of her beauty. I wouldn’t blame her if she did sleep with other men, the way my pa treated her. But I don’t believe in my heart she ever did. She just wasn’t that type. I felt so sorry for her when I got older and realized she never had any choice in living with my father. He paid money for her, like a common whore. I’m sure she hated that. At any rate, it wasn’t long before my father turned on me, believing I was the bastard son of one of my mother’s lovers. I can’t begin to describe what it’s like, being seven, eight years old and having your giant of a father come after you with his big fists or a wide belt that leaves welts and scars.”
Miranda combed through his hair again, deciding to be careful with her words. He was being unusually open, and he spoke with near trembling emotion. She was not sure how long this spell of revealing his true feelings would last. “Your back?” she asked.
“Yeah.” He sighed deeply. “Scars from a three-inch-wide belt with a big buckle on the end.” He stopped to swallow and clear his throat, as though the next words were too difficult to speak. “I had a younger brother once. Pa beat him one time until he was unconscious. He was only six. I tried to stop him, but Pa turned on me and wrapped a piece of thin cord around my neck, twisting it until I choked to the point of blacking out. It cut into the skin and left a scar. You probably noticed it when you were nursing me.”
“Yes. I wondered about it.” Miranda fought tears. She never dreamed one man could be capable of such horror against his own children, let alone that a child could survive such a thing and remain sane, if Jake Harkner could be considered sane.
“When I came around, I was still lying on the floor, blood everywhere. My little brother lay not far from me, dead. My mother was in the next room, also dead. Pa had beat her for trying to help me. I didn’t see it, but I know that’s what happened. Pa was outside digging graves. When he came in and found out I was still alive, he told me I’d better never tell anybody what really happened, or he’d kill me, and I damn well believed him. He told others that my mother and brother had taken sick and died from cholera. That was in a little town in northern Mexico, and most of the people there were afraid of him, so nobody questioned the explanation. Pa was a big man, like me. That’s where I get my size from, but my coloring, my looks, that comes from my Mexican blood.”
“I wondered. I knew you had either Spanish blood or perhaps Indian.” She finished trimming his hair, then rubbed in a little of her father’s hair oil to smooth it back and combed through it. She came around to stand in front of him, struck by what looked like tears in his eyes. She decided he would h
ate it if she acknowledged those tears, so she put on a smile. “You look wonderful. Do you want to go look in the mirror in my bedroom?”
He grinned almost bashfully. “Sure. Lord knows this is the last time I’ll be clean and groomed for a while.” He rose, scooting back his chair and walking into the bedroom.
Miranda wanted very much to ask him about Santana, about the circumstances of his father’s death and how he had ended up living the life of an outlaw. But she had learned a woman had to tread cautiously around a man like Jake Harkner. If he wanted to tell her, he would tell her. She couldn’t pressure it out of him, and she knew now that it was probably something very difficult for him to talk about. He had already told her more than she ever imagined he would.
“Looks fine,” he told her from the bedroom. “I hardly recognize myself.”
Miranda laughed. “Maybe that’s the look you should keep. Maybe others won’t recognize you either. Besides, you’re an exceptionally handsome man, Jake Harkner. You shouldn’t hide under all that dirt and hair.”
There came no reply. She picked up the pan of water and held it against her waist with one hand as she opened the door. She walked out onto the porch and tossed the used water into the grass in front of the cabin. It was then she saw them, three riders coming. She recognized Sheriff McCleave’s horse, and her heart rushed faster. The sheriff! Jake!
She hurried back inside. “Stay in the bedroom!” she called out, hurriedly shoving Jake’s boots under her cot. She grabbed the comb and scissors and put them back with her father’s things, pushed the chair back in place. Jake came into the main room.
“What is it?”
“Sheriff McCleave. He’s coming here! I can’t believe he’d come when it’s nearly dark like this!”
Jake hurried into the bedroom, and Miranda ran in behind him to see him quickly loading his revolvers. “No!” she shouted, grabbing at his arm.
Outlaw Hearts Page 7
