Love's Sweet Revenge Read online

  There was nothing she could say. Evie and Katie were beside themselves, weeping over Lloyd, who truly looked more dead than alive. Randy felt stunned and helpless. With an aching heart she turned to help Evie and Katie up as the cattlemen came over to pick up an unconscious Lloyd. It took six men to lift him, and the women followed as they carried Lloyd out of the room amid whispers and gasps and weeping. Brian hung on to Evie, who was so devastated that she couldn’t walk on her own.

  Randy kept an arm around Katie. She glanced at Gretta as they walked past her. Gretta was crying. “I’m so sorry,” she told Randy.

  “Murderer!” Harley Wicks’s sister Arlis screamed at Jake. “You didn’t need to blow that man’s brains out! He could have been arrested!”

  Randy’s heart pounded. She didn’t like leaving Jake behind when he was in the mental condition he was in right now, but she had no choice. Katie needed her. Evie needed her. Either of them could lose a baby over this.

  “Who let that man in?” Jake roared, walking closer to Arlis. “You?” He pointed his gun at her. “You bitch!”

  “Jake—” Randy whispered. She glanced at him, but right now he wasn’t seeing or hearing her. She hurried Katie out of the room, wanting to scream in fear for what might happen to her husband.

  “You let him in here, didn’t you?” Jake seethed at Arlis. “Let me hear you deny it!”

  God, keep him safe! Randy prayed as she left the room.

  Those left behind saw a darkness about Jake Harkner that no one dared to challenge, not even Harley Wicks. Arlis gasped, putting a hand to her chest and stepping back from Jake.

  “You’re goddamn lucky you’re a woman!” Jake roared at her. “Otherwise, you’d already be dead! In all my years and all my crimes, I never once hurt a woman, but by God, I want to hurt one now! I’ll see you go to prison for this! It’s aiding and abetting! If my son dies, you’re no better than a murderer yourself!”

  “You will go to prison for taking the law into your own hands again!” Arlis screamed back daringly.

  Jake turned his gun on Harley Wicks. “Try arresting me, and you’ll regret it!”

  There came a loud poof! and a flash as the reporter attending the event took a picture of Jake holding his gun on Wicks. Jake whirled, aiming at the reporter, who quickly turned and ran out. Jake kicked over the tripod that held the camera, then kicked the camera across the dance floor. He turned back to Wicks. “I am going upstairs to my son’s room,” he told him, “and I’m staying there! If you send anyone to arrest me, I’ll shoot them, understand?”

  Wicks nodded.

  “I’m not leaving my son’s side until I know he’ll be all right,” Jake added. “I’ll kill anybody who tries to take me out of there!” He looked over at Sam and Gretta. “Do me a favor and stay close,” he told Gretta. “It’s room eighteen on the second floor. I might need you to help my family in some way.”

  “Sure, Jake.” Gretta hurried out after the others.

  “Mr. Harkner, let us help, too.”

  The words came from the preacher’s wife Evie had relieved at the punch table.

  “I’m Linda French, and my husband is a Methodist minister. I met your daughter just before all this happened. I’d like to go and be with her, and my husband might…he might be able to help in some way, even if it’s just prayer.”

  Jake looked her way. “I appreciate the offer,” he told her gruffly. “It’s not likely that God of yours will listen to any of my prayers now, but maybe He’ll listen to yours. And my beautiful daughter has a real deep faith, but right now she’s suffering after having to face one of the men who…” His voice wavered again. My God, Evie…my beautiful Evie! I’m so sorry! And Lloyd! My son! My son! “Where is your husband?” he asked Linda.

  “I’m Reverend Daryl French.” A young man with blond hair and blue eyes stepped forward.

  “Take your wife and go see what you can do,” Jake ordered him.

  The reverend hurried over to Linda and took her arm, leading her out of the room.

  Jake continued to hold the gun steady, studying the crowd closely as though looking for someone. “Has anybody here ever heard of a Brad Buckley?” he asked. “Ever seen him around?”

  Most shook their heads, a few mumbled the word no.

  “If you do, you tell me, understand? Buckley and that dead man over there were both plotting to come after me and my son, so if anybody runs into him, you tell the sheriff and have him arrested! I guarantee he had something to do with this!” He waved his gun at Arlis again. “Have you seen him?”

  “No!” she answered quickly. “I swear! I’ve never even heard of him.”

  “You belong in jail for what you’ve done!”

  “I just… That man over there…that dead man…I did let him in, but he only said he had a score to settle with…with you and your son. I thought he’d make trouble, but I didn’t want…I didn’t want your son to get shot! It…it should have been you!”

  Jake struggled against an urge to pull the trigger of his .44. For the first time in his life, even when he was at his worst in his younger years, he wanted to shoot a woman. “It should have been me, lady! It should have been me clear back in that shoot-out in California. It should have been me shot on the Outlaw Trail! I should have died in prison! It should have been me in the shoot-out in Guthrie, or when I rescued my daughter! It should have been me a hundred times over! And if my son dies, it will be me! You’ll get your wish, because I’ll put this gun to my own head!” He stepped closer. “And may you rot in hell!” he told her.

  The look in Jake’s eyes terrified Arlis so badly that she suddenly fainted. Harley caught her as she went down amid more gasps.

  “You’ll pay for this, Harkner!” Harley told him as he laid his sister out on the floor. “What you did to that man over there was nothing short of an execution!” He rose, facing Jake with a cocky look on his face.

  Jake walked closer, pressing the gun against Harley’s cheek as more people gasped and a couple of women screamed. “He shot my son! Lloyd wasn’t wearing a gun. And Holt was prepared to fire again! Was I supposed to stand and watch him murder my son?”

  “You illegally carried a gun to this event, and you used it to deliberately blow a man’s brains out when you already had him down!” Harley answered weakly, sweat breaking out on his forehead.

  “Get one thing straight, Wicks,” Jake sneered. “I am never without a gun! And when I think it’s right to use it, I’ll use it!” He shoved the man backward, using the barrel of his gun still pressed to Harley’s cheek. Wicks stumbled and fell on his rump. “Now,” Jake told him, “I’m going up to Lloyd, and you’d better pray he doesn’t die, because if he does, you’ll see a side of me that hasn’t shown itself in thirty years, except when Mike Holt and about eighteen other men kidnapped my daughter back in Oklahoma! A lot of men died the day I found her, and I’ll kill again if anyone comes to that room to try to take me out of there! Got that?”

  Wicks nervously rubbed at a sore cheek. “I’ll leave you alone…for now. But I may well arrest you for taking the law into your own hands…again.”

  Jake coldly stared him down, then turned and walked out of the room to find his son.

  Randy stood at the balcony outside Lloyd’s room. The doors to the ballroom below were open, and she’d heard every word Jake had said. She knew he meant them. She watched him storm across the lobby and head up the stairs, his .44 still in his hand. When he reached Lloyd’s room, he looked at Randy, and at that moment, she didn’t know him. He stood there with blood staining the front of his shirt as it flowed down his chest from the shoulder wound, but he didn’t seem to care. Randy realized he was too angry and devastated to even notice the pain.

  “Come into the room with me,” he said gruffly, “and lock the door behind you.” He turned away and went into Lloyd’s room. Randy followed, not sure whom to mourn the
most: her son…or her husband.

  * * *

  Jeff Trubridge looked over the top of his spectacles to see his secretary standing in front of him, holding a piece of paper. Jeff recognized the yellow note as a wire.

  “I think you need to see this,” the young man told him.

  Frowning, Jeff took the wire and read it.

  Lloyd Harkner shot in cold blood at a cattlemen’s ball in Denver. Might not live. Jake Harkner took down the shooter, Mike Holt, with a shot point blank to the forehead. In spite of warrants for his arrest, Harkner is holed up in a hotel room with his son and doctors.

  It was signed by Liam Davis, a fellow reporter for a Denver newspaper called The Evening Post.

  “Oh my God,” Jeff exclaimed softly. “Not Lloyd! Not Lloyd!” A lump rose in his throat, and he fought tears.

  “A picture came through also,” his secretary told him. He handed Jeff a picture of Jake holding a gun on someone. “That’s a Denver prosecutor,” the man explained. “They say Jake is holed up in Lloyd’s room at the Brown Palace and is threatening to shoot anyone who tries to come and arrest him.”

  Jeff closed his eyes and leaned back in his chair. It took him a moment to find his voice. “Get me Attorney Peter Brown on the phone, will you?” he finally asked. “I think we need to go to Denver.” He paused, his shoulders jerking in a sob. “Jake is going to need some legal help, and I want to be there if”—his voice caught in his throat—“if his son dies.”

  “Yes, sir,” the young man answered.

  This is going to kill Jake, Jeff thought. He’ll never survive if Lloyd dies. He couldn’t help the sudden tears. He’d never admired a man more than he admired Jake Harkner. Lloyd, too. And Randy. Poor Randy!

  Memories flooded over him like a waterfall. He’d never seen a father and son who were closer than Jake and Lloyd Harkner. He didn’t need to wonder what this was doing to Jake…to the whole family.

  “Attorney Brown is on the phone, sir,” his secretary told him. “Over at my desk.”

  Jeff was surprised at how weak his legs suddenly felt when he stood up. He had to hold on to the desk for a moment before walking over to the phone. He picked up the base in his left hand and put the horn of the phone to his ear. “Peter?”

  “Yes. What is it, Jeff?”

  “It’s…Jake.”

  “Jesus, what’s happened?”

  “Lloyd’s been shot…and Jake killed the shooter. I have a feeling he could be in a lot of trouble. I think we should go to Denver.”

  “For God’s sake, yes! Is Randy all right?”

  Jeff grinned through tears. He’d expected the question, coming from Peter. “I have no idea. I’m sure she’s a mess. A person can only take so much. Same for Jake.”

  “Make the arrangements. I’ll meet you at the train station tomorrow morning.”

  Jeff hung up the phone. As far as he was concerned, he couldn’t get to Denver fast enough.

  Twenty

  “The man won’t leave the room.” Dr. Cook had agreed to speak with reporters outside Lloyd’s room at the Brown Palace. “He isn’t talking, and he rarely lets go of Lloyd’s hand.”

  “Is he still carrying that gun?” one of the reporters asked.

  “He most certainly is, and I believe him when he says he’ll use it on anyone who tries to come in there after him. The man is devastated. His mental state isn’t good.”

  Amid gasps and shaking heads, reporters rapidly scribbled on pads of paper.

  “Wasn’t Jake wounded, too?” someone asked.

  “Yes, but it’s just a flesh wound at the top of his left shoulder. I stitched it up. He refused pain medication when I stitched his wound because he was afraid the law would come in and take advantage if I put him to sleep. He just gritted his teeth and let me stitch him up. He’s one tough man.”

  “How is Lloyd?” another asked. “Will he live?”

  A very tired Dr. Cook rubbed at the back of his neck. “I honestly don’t know. I did the best I could—went in through his side and removed a bullet lodged near his spine. It missed vital pulmonary veins, and luckily, his heart, but that area of the spine controls a lot of body movement. It could affect his ability to walk or to use his arms or maybe even his ability to speak. He’s breathing on his own, so that’s a good sign. He had a collapsed lung, and it’s been extremely painful for him to bring it back up. He seems to still be in a lot of pain, but he hasn’t truly regained full consciousness yet, so it’s difficult to tell just how much damage has been done. Jake has had to hold him down a few times to keep him from thrashing around from the pain. Too much movement could make the injury worse.”

  “Do you think Harkner would shoot one of us if we tried to go in there?”

  Dr. Cook glanced at the young reporter who’d asked the foolish question. “You willing to try finding out?”

  The reporter swallowed. “I guess not.”

  “Smart decision.” Cook rubbed at his eyes. “I have to say that Jake Harkner practically worships that son of his. For all his ruthlessness, I can already see the kind of family man he is. The agony in his eyes is heartbreaking. Mrs. Harkner isn’t in any better shape. For the last two nights they have both just stayed right by their son’s bedside, along with Lloyd’s wife and his sister. All of you should leave or at least get away from this door, so the women can come and go without you harassing them with questions. Both Lloyd’s wife and his sister are carrying, and this has been dangerously traumatic for them. I finally convinced them to go lie down in another room, so that’s where they are now, but they will want to come back here at times to check on Lloyd, so all of you stay out of their way. Jake’s son-in-law is a doctor, and he’s in his own room now tending to the two women. I’m leaving for a while to go home and clean up and change, but I’ll be back. I’d suggest for your own health that all of you clear out of here. Jake Harkner is still in a dangerous mood, and he’s getting tired of all of you milling around out here. He could start shooting through that door at any time, believe me, so leave. If you don’t, I’ll get the police to make you leave.”

  “Are they going to arrest Jake?” another asked.

  “How would I know that? I haven’t been out there in the streets to find out. You’re the ones who would know something like that. Why don’t you go talk to the prosecutor and police chief?”

  Brian came out of his and Evie’s room, where Katie was sleeping in an extra bed brought in for her so Brian could tend to her and Evie both. He shoved one of the reporters aside. “Get out of here! Go on! All of you get out of here! Nothing is going to happen any time soon, so if you don’t want to get shot, get the hell out of here!”

  The reporters finally began to disperse, and Cook told Brian he was leaving for a while but would be back. “You need some rest, too,” he said.

  “I’m more concerned about my in-laws and my wife,” Brian answered wearily. He knocked on the door. “Jake, it’s Brian. I’m coming in.”

  A couple of remaining reporters tried to peek inside as Brian slipped through the door, but he quickly closed it before they could see anything. Brian walked up to Randy, who sat in her usual spot—a chair beside the bed. Her head and shoulders were reclined on the side of the bed, and she had hold of Lloyd’s hand, while Jake sat on the opposite side, holding Lloyd’s other hand. He glanced at Brian with dark, bloodshot eyes. “Did you get rid of those sonsofbitches outside the door?”

  “Most of them.”

  “When you go back out, you tell them that I’m going to take a look myself soon, and if there is one stranger standing out there, he’ll be shot.”

  Brian sighed, touching Randy’s shoulder. “I’ll tell them.”

  Randy looked up at Brian with eyes puffy from crying. “Brian! How is Evie?” She got to her feet and embraced him.

  “She’s better. I held her as she slept for a while. That help
ed.”

  “At least she has you,” Randy told him as he let go of her.

  “I’m worried about you and Jake. You both need to get out of here and get some real rest and get some food in your stomachs.”

  “I’m not going anywhere!” Jake spoke up.

  Brian sighed, keeping hold of Randy’s arm. “Jake, you have to believe Lloyd will get through this, and if he does, he’s going to need his father for a lot of things. You won’t be any good to him if you continue not to eat or sleep. You’re killing yourself.”

  “That obviously doesn’t matter.”

  “Doesn’t it? Don’t forget you have a beautiful daughter who needs and loves you. You’re breaking her heart behaving this way, let alone her watching you blow a man’s brains out. And you have grandchildren who will need their grandfather, especially if Lloyd doesn’t make it. And you have a wife who needs you. You aren’t the only one suffering, Jake.”

  Jake let go of Lloyd’s hand and rubbed at the back of his neck. “I should have seen it coming. I should have spotted that sonofabitch sneaking in! This all comes back to the same thing…me! Jake Harkner—the man who brings trouble and heartache every place he goes!”

  “It only goes as far as that bastard Mike Holt.”

  “Who hated me and Lloyd. We knew he could be around. I never should have taken it for granted that just because it was a closed-invitation event that Holt couldn’t have found a way in.” He rose, picking up his gun and walking to a window. “All the things I’ve been through in this life, I should have died a hundred times over, yet here I stand while it’s my son who’s dying, and my daughter lies in the next room, suffering ungodly memories after seeing one of those bastards who raped her. And all…because of who her father is!” He turned and glared at Brian. The Jake he’d become gave Brian chills. “You should have let me die of pneumonia back at that prison all those years ago.”

  “I saved you for Evie!” Brian barked. “My wife loves and needs her father. She thinks the world of you, Jake. Lloyd isn’t your only child, and you know what a soft-hearted angel she is. It’s killing her, the way you’re behaving. She’s been in here with her brother, constantly praying, not just for him, but for you. She hasn’t said much, because you’re like a stick of old, damp dynamite right now, the kind that explodes way too easily. I don’t like what this is doing to my wife after what she and I have already been through, especially in her condition. I don’t often speak up to you, but I feel I have to now, because Evie wants to come in here and talk to you, Jake. She won’t sleep well until she does, so you’re going to let her talk to you, and you are not going to behave like the bastard outlaw you used to be! You’re going to behave like the father you are now—the good man she still calls Daddy.”