Love's Sweet Revenge Read online

  “That was your mistake. You let me see you on your hands and knees with that beautiful bottom begging me to touch it. Now step out of that nightgown.”

  Randy obeyed, laughing softly. She reached up, and he folded her into his arms, kissing her hungrily and lifting her so her feet were off the floor. He carried her to the bed, and they fell onto it together. Jake rolled on top of her, kissing her deeply again. He had a way of waking up her deepest needs without her even knowing they were there. Just a moment ago she’d been writing to Jeff, and this was the last thing on her mind. “Mmm, you smell good from that bath,” she told him when he left her mouth to caress her neck with butterfly kisses.

  “Well, after shoveling horse manure part of the day, I figured I’d better scrub up good.” He kissed his way down to her belly, then got to his knees and pulled off her drawers. “Don’t you move,” he told her then.

  Randy drank in the sight of him when he got up from the bed and pulled off his long johns. No. There was still nothing old or soft about Jake Harkner.

  “Have I told you lately how beautiful you are?” Jake asked, leaning down to move between her legs.

  “You’re a wonderful lover who tells me every day how beautiful I am, even the times when I know you don’t really mean it.”

  “I really mean it every time. When have you ever thought I didn’t?”

  “When I’m a mess from cooking and cleaning, and all you want is to relieve your needs.”

  “And even when you’re a mess, you’re still beautiful, which is why I have needs. You create them.” He kissed her again, softly groaning with the want of her, then moved to kiss her eyes. “Randy, if you’re really too tired for this, let me know.”

  “Oh, now you ask.”

  He sobered. “Are you?”

  “Too tired to have Jake Harkner in my bed? Or to have Jake Harkner inside of me? Surely you jest.”

  He nuzzled her neck with a growling laugh. “You bathed while I was outside working earlier, didn’t you? You smell like roses again.”

  “I know my husband well, and we haven’t done this for a few days, so I had a feeling you might be needing this.”

  He studied her lovingly, smoothing back her hair. “How do you do that?”

  “Do what?”

  “Smell like roses. Sometimes even the bed smells like roses.”

  “Why do you think I insist on having a lot of rosebushes?”

  “I just figured you liked raising them and looking at them.”

  “Well, when I trim them, I keep the petals, sometimes the whole flower, and I crush them up and use the oil to rub over myself and sometimes over our sheets. I save enough to use all winter.”

  “How could I have lived with you so long and not known that?”

  “A woman has to have some secrets.”

  “Oh? What else are you keeping from me?”

  “I’ll never tell. And I could ask you the same thing, but it would probably take the rest of the night to tell me all of it. And I would probably be horrified.”

  Jake moved his lips and tongue down over her breasts, her belly. “You probably would.”

  Randy grasped his hair. “I think I’m better off not knowing.”

  He moved back up to her breasts, tasting them fervently. “You’re always saying these beautiful breasts aren’t perky anymore.”

  “You have a way of perking them up.” Randy breathed deeply as he kissed his way back down to secret places and moved fingers inside of her, stroking her erotically in the way he had of destroying all reservations and making her forget that earlier she thought she was too tired for this. She felt adored sexually. Jake never asked for anything he knew she wouldn’t want to do, yet had a way of making her want to give him more than she had to give. In spite of all their years together and getting older, her climaxes were as intense as always, usually because she couldn’t get over the memories of all the times she’d watched this man ride away with no guarantee he would ever make it back. She couldn’t imagine life without her Jake, or ever imagine any other man doing this to her.

  He moved back over her body, pressing his hardness against her belly, then reaching down to move inside of her. She winced at how he filled her, with tremendous pleasure but now sometimes pain. She refused to tell him. He was too sensitive and might think she didn’t want this, but she did…she did so want it and always would…always…as long as they could do this, and as long as they needed each other this way. Sometimes this was what brought both of them the strength they needed to face the past, the dangers, the lingering worry that this could end. She’d lived with that fear for thirty years. This is what kept her fears at bay.

  They moved in sweet rhythm for several minutes. He grasped her bottom gently, whispering to her in Spanish. She felt lost beneath his big frame and leaned up to kiss his chest as she ran her hands over the hard muscle of his arms and shoulders until she felt his life pulse into her. He pushed harder with his release, groaning her name, then settled on top of her.

  “Jake, I can’t breathe,” she told him.

  “Shit.” He rolled to her side. “I’m sorry. Did I hurt you?”

  “No, but there is a bit of a difference in our weight.”

  He pulled her close, kissing her hair. “Randy, just because you love me and want to please me doesn’t mean you can’t say no once in a while.”

  “Why on earth would you say that?” she asked lazily. “I can never say no to you, Jake. I’m happiest and feel safest right here in your arms.”

  He sighed. “Well, sometimes I sense things—more than I let on. You tell me if I’m hurting you.”

  She smiled, loving him more. “How many men would say that…or care? Only my Jake. I don’t like the reasons you know women so well, but you’re so sweet to ask.”

  He put a big hand to the side of her face and leaned down to kiss her eyes. “Baby, I can read your every physical reaction, whether because it feels good or because it hurts. Things change. I know that.”

  “Are you saying I’m getting old?”

  “Hell no!” He moved only partly on top of her. “I’m saying I love you beyond this. I’ll always want you this way, but not just because I draw strength from being inside of you or because you’re so damn beautiful. I want you this way because I want to please your every need.” He kissed her gently.

  “Then please me again. It only hurts at first sometimes when it’s been a while.” She leaned up and captured his mouth, kissing him suggestively before moving to kiss his throat. “Don’t be worried about hurting me. It’s a nice kind of hurt.” She kissed him again. “I love you, Jake. And if the day ever comes when we can’t do this anymore, all I’ll ever need is these arms around me. I’m safe here. So safe.”

  He grinned, moving between her legs again. “Yeah? Well, maybe you aren’t always so safe when I’m going nuts with the want of you, whether you want it or not.”

  “You’d stop in a second if I asked you. I knew that clear back in that wagon when we first did this. You didn’t scare me one bit.”

  He laughed lightly and kissed her ear. “Baby, I absolutely can’t guarantee I wouldn’t have kept going, even if you said no. I never wanted a woman so bad in my life as I wanted you that night. If I’d have had to wait one more day to be inside of you, I would have considered shooting myself.”

  He entered her gently again, moving softly, slowly. “Tell me if it hurts.”

  “Not a bit,” she whispered.

  He rocked her rhythmically, moving in that way he had of bringing on another climax without her even needing any other stimulation. This time it lasted even longer before he came again in his own groaning release.

  He moved to her side and pulled her into his arms again. “Thank you…for all of it, Randy—all the sacrifices, all the waiting alone, all the forgiving and forgetting.”

  “You’r
e easy to love, Jake Harkner.”

  “Yeah, well, not many people would agree with that remark.”

  “They don’t know the Jake I know.”

  They lay there quietly together, nearly asleep when they heard it—the signal bell at the bunkhouse. It began clanging wildly.

  “Fire! Fire!” someone was screaming.

  Jake jerked awake. “What the hell?” He jumped out of bed, and Randy followed close behind, grabbing her robe and holding it against herself as she rushed with Jake to a window. “The horse barn!” he exclaimed.

  Jake ran over to the bed to find his long johns and yanked them on while Randy stared in horror. Already she could see Lloyd running from his house toward the fire as someone kept clanging the bell and more men surrounded the barn. She turned to see Jake jerking on his denim pants. He buttoned them, sat down to yank boots over his bare feet, and grabbed a sheepskin jacket from a hook on the wall. “Make sure the boys stay in this house!” he yelled to her. “I don’t want to have to worry where they are!”

  “Jake, be careful!” she called after him.

  Randy ran to the bathroom and quickly cleaned herself with a washrag, then pulled her heavy flannel robe over her nakedness and tied it tightly. She heard the boys talking excitedly downstairs. She hurried down. “You boys stay right here!” she ordered. “I mean it! Don’t go out that door!”

  “Grandma, the horse barn is on fire!” Stephen yelled.

  All three boys stood at the front window. Randy rushed over to join them. “I know. Those poor horses! Midnight is in there! And some of the best mustangs they brought in the other day!”

  Someone ran past the house. It was so quick Randy couldn’t tell who it was. She frowned, wondering why one of the men would be so close to the house when he should be running to the fire.

  Thirty-five

  “Get Midnight out of there!” Jake charged toward the flames, and Lloyd caught up with him just in time to keep him back.

  “Pa! Nobody can go in there!”

  “Pepper’s in there!” one of the men shouted.

  Three horses came galloping out, the whites of their eyes filled with terror. One of them was Midnight. The black gelding reared and whinnied wildly as Jake tried to grab hold of him. One hoof came up and caught Jake under the jaw, sending him sprawling as the horse tore away and ran off.

  “Pa!” Lloyd ran over to where Jake lay rolling on the ground. He could tell his father was momentarily stunned and dizzy. Lloyd leaned over to help him up. “Pa, take it easy.”

  “Got to help—”

  “I don’t think it’s going to make any difference.”

  Brian reached them, wearing woolen pants and a corduroy jacket and leather dress shoes he’d thrown on at the last minute. They weren’t high enough for the snow that collected inside them as he ran, but he paid no heed.

  “Jake!” He looked at Lloyd. “What happened to him?”

  “Got kicked under the jaw by Midnight.”

  “Jake, stay down a minute. There’s nothing you can do about that barn!”

  “No.” Jake moved to his hands and knees. “Pepper’s in there…the horses!” He managed to get to his feet while hanging on to a fence post. For several minutes he stood there, trying to clear his head.

  “What can I do to help?” Brian asked Lloyd.

  Lloyd just watched the out-of-control fire consume his best barn and best horses. “Sonofabitch!” he roared.

  “We have to…get the horses out,” Jake repeated, still clinging to the fence post.

  “It’s too damn late, Pa!” Lloyd kicked at a fence board and cracked it, then paced. “Midnight got out with a couple of the mustangs,” he told Jake, sounding ready to cry. “I think that’s all that will make it out.”

  For nearly an hour, men continued their fruitless effort to put out the fire. Jake struggled against blacking out from the blow to his jaw. Dizziness kept overtaking him, so he could barely walk in his efforts to help the other men. When his head cleared more, he stumbled toward the barn again.

  “What about Pepper?” He grasped another fence post to keep from falling again. “Pepper! Pepper!” he screamed at the top of his lungs.

  Brian hurried up to him, grabbing his arm. “No one can help him now, Jake!”

  “It’s too damn late!” Cole could be heard shouting to the others. “Let it go! Let it go before somebody else gets hurt!”

  “Pepper! Where’s Pepper?” Jake roared.

  “Jake, give it up,” Brian told him. “You’re too injured to do anything about this.”

  Lloyd left him there and ran all the way around the barn, searching for more horses that might have escaped and hoping to see Pepper. By the time he made it back to Jake and Brian, the barn was beginning to creak, and the flames had reached the highest loft.

  “Pepper never came out!” Vance Kelly shouted. “And most of the horses are still inside.”

  The continued, near-screaming whinnying of the trapped horses stabbed at Lloyd and Jake like a dagger in the heart. For a few more agonizing minutes, the gut-wrenching sounds continued, until finally there was nothing but the roar and crackle of the fire as the barn became completely engulfed in an orange glow. All any of the men could do was watch while the building they’d helped construct creaked and groaned, until it finally collapsed with a huge rumble that hurt the ears. Glowing sparks spiraled high into the sky, accompanied by black smoke that enshrouded the sparks as the rubble continued to burn.

  “Jesus God Almighty,” Jake groaned.

  Lloyd held his stomach and turned away. The rest of the men filled the air with curses and shouts.

  “That beautiful bay I cut out of those wild mustangs the other day was in there!” Terrel Adams groaned.

  “Thank God there’s plenty of snow on the ground, or that fire might have spread through the grass to other buildings,” Cole commented.

  They all stood around in stunned disbelief, most of them wearing nothing but long johns, boots with no socks, and an array of fur or buckskin winter jackets.

  “What the hell happened here?” Lloyd seethed. “Who saw the fire first?”

  “Pepper! Goddamn it! Pepper!” someone yelled. “He never came out!”

  Cole noticed Jake’s jaw was turning so purple it could be seen even at night by the light of the fire.

  Again Jake bolted for the barn, his injury leaving him still confused. “We have to get Pepper out of there!”

  “Pa, get back!” Lloyd grabbed him and pulled him back. “It’s too goddamn late! There’s nothing we can do!”

  Jake ran a hand through his hair and turned in a circle. “Sonofabitch!” he roared so loud everyone jumped. “Who the hell was in the barn last?”

  “Nobody was in there,” Cole answered. “We was all sleepin’ when Pepper suddenly yelled that the barn was on fire.”

  “Jesus, we’ve lost over half of our feed hay,” Lloyd lamented.

  “And most of the best horses you were going to sell,” Brian added.

  “Jake, that fire went too fast to be natural,” Cole told him. He turned to Lloyd. “Seems like it was all around the whole barn right away, not in just one spot. No fire breaks out everywhere at once like that unless it was set.”

  “Who in hell would do that?” Terrel asked.

  Suddenly, Jake grabbed Cole’s arms, his dark eyes on fire with rage. “You really think it was deliberately set?”

  Cole cringed. “Jesus, Jake, let go of me!”

  Brian and Lloyd pulled him off Cole.

  “Are you sure?” Jake repeated, yanking his arm away from Brian and Lloyd.

  Cole put his hands on his hips, stepping back a little. “It’s the way it went,” he told Jake. He turned to Lloyd. “It just didn’t seem like no ordinary fire.”

  “I found an oil can layin’ outside,” Terrel told them,
“and it ain’t the brand we use to fill lamps and burn brush.”

  Jake looked at Lloyd, still seeming confused at first, then stumbling backward. He looked toward the house, then back to Lloyd. “Sonofabitch!” He began running toward the house. “Brian, go check on Evie and Esther and Sadie!” he screamed.

  “Pa, I left Katie and Tricia at the house with the baby!” Lloyd yelled, hurrying to catch up with him.

  “Go make sure they’re all right!”

  Most of the men ran right behind them.

  “We have to make sure all the women and kids are accounted for!” Jake roared. “All three boys are at my house!” He ran toward the main house.

  Lloyd grabbed Jake’s arm. “Pa, what are you thinking?”

  “Brad Buckley!” Jake roared. “That’s what I’m thinking! That fucking sonofabitch did this! You can bet on it!” He turned and kept running.

  Lloyd made a beeline for his house. “Katie!” he screamed.

  When he reached his front porch, Katie came out of the front door. “Oh, Lloyd, the horses! The barn!”

  “Never mind that! Are you and the baby and Tricia okay?”

  “Yes. Why?”

  Lloyd turned and screamed for one of the men to get over to his house. One called Til Reed came running.

  “Stay here! There’s a rifle inside over the front door!” Lloyd told him. “Keep Katie and my daughter and baby in the main room with you, and don’t let anybody in!”

  “Yes, sir. What’s goin’ on?”

  Lloyd struggled with rage. “If you’d been at Dune Hollow, you’d know what’s going on! I can’t explain right now.”

  He heard gunshots. More shouting. “Randy!” his father was screaming.

  “Please, God, no!” Lloyd groaned. “Stay here and together!” he told Katie. He ran off the porch, shouting at Vance Kelly to get over to Brian’s house and stay with Evie and the girls. “Send Brian to the main house! Somebody might be hurt!” Stephen! Were the boys okay? He hurried toward Jake’s house, where Jake was stumbling around outside like a crazy man, shooting his rifle into the air and screaming Randy’s name.