Jake Walker's Wife (15 page)

Her mama had been a woman of great faith, but since Mary's death, Bess hadn't done much praying. Still holding
Jake's hand, she bowed her head and closed her eyes. Yes, he'd stolen her heart, but he was no murderer. She would stake her own life on it, if it came to that.

Lord,
she prayed silently,
show me the way to help heal his heart-wounds. Teach me how to love him as he deserves to be loved....

***

At Foggy Bottom he felt, for the first time since losing his folks, that he belonged. In the years he'd been running from the law, he'd never called a place his own. But here, where towering pines shadowed grasslands that rolled like a wide, wind-rippled river, he felt
home
.

Likewise, in the years he'd been dodging Texas Rangers and bounty hunters and U.S.
Marshals, Jake had never allowed himself to become attached, not to a place, and certainly not to the people in it. Many folks for whom he'd worked had invited him to stay on, indefinitely. With genuine gratitude, he'd declined their kind offers and headed out, giving no explanation for his departure and no reason why he wouldn't stay. Caring about a town--or anyone in it--was a luxury he couldn't afford. Not if he wanted to avoid the dreaded hangman's noose.

Often, as he traveled from one place to the next,
Jake ruminated on those invitations, figuring they'd been extended because he'd given his employers their money's worth and then some. Not once did he consider they might have asked him to stay because they liked
him
rather than the hard-work and dedication that made him worth his pay.

Now, sitting here, in her private place,
Jake glanced down at his thigh, where her tiny hand rested in his calloused palm. Now and then, she'd sigh, or tuck a wayward tendril of dark hair behind her ear, or incline her head toward a bird's song. Time and again, she'd squeeze his hand, or point across the valley at a hawk or an eagle, soaring high on a sultry summer air current.

Jake
thought he knew how those winged creatures felt, coasting way up there in the clear blue sky, where the wind caressed the treetops and held billowy white clouds aloft. The big birds could glide from lofty nests and survey the landscape below, or slip silently by, or slow their flight should something catch their eye. And when their mighty wings grew tired, they could rest on a bouncing birch bough. Remain in flight, or pause in some protected perch: the choice was theirs, for this was their home, and here, they were free.

Until coming to Foggy Bottom,
Jake hadn't allowed himself to taste freedom. Glorious as it was, he'd spent his entire adult life in the shadow of it, knowing full well that he'd never bask in the warmth of that hard-earned, elusive thing.

Until this place,
Jake hadn't recognized how much he
wanted
to belong, to call one place his. And until Bess, he hadn't admitted, even to himself, how much he yearned to be enveloped by the unconditional love of a woman,
this
woman.

He glanced over at her, sitting there, thick dark hair blown back from her pretty little face, long lashes curling up from her high cheekbones as she surveyed the vast valley beyond.

In recent years, the thought had crossed his mind a time or two that letting the marshals catch up with him might just be a blessing. Why had he been running all this time, after all? In truth, lately, the longer he ran, the less he feared the end.

But since Bess....

How still, how hushed she sat! he acknowledged, smiling to himself. Ordinarily, she'd be chattering like a chipmunk. Jake knew what her silence meant. It meant that she'd sensed his need for quiet, just as she'd sensed his need to pretend she hadn't seen his tears or heard his sobs. And he loved her all the more for that."Have you opened all your birthday presents?"

She blinked a time or two before facing him, then sent him a smile he could define only as serene. "All but yours...."

He looked into her teasing, smiling face. "How do you know I even
got
you a present?"

The grin faded into a slow, small smile of certainty. "I just
do." Just as quickly as it had disappeared, the mischief in her eyes reappeared. "I only hope you didn't spend
all
your pay on me. Before you know it,  it’ll be Christmas...."

If he'd earned himself a fortune in his years on the run, it wouldn't be enough, because what he wanted to give her couldn't be bought with money.
Jake wanted to give her his true name: Walker Atwood. The worst of his torment behind him now, Jake grinned. "Folks are going to wonder where you are," he repeated.

Bess lifted her chin and raised both brows. "Let them wonder," she said again in her matter-of-fact way.

This time, it was he who squeezed her hand. "They've gone to a lot of trouble to bring you gifts, to make a fine party for you."

She'd lowered her head to hide her thoughts from him, he realized. But she hadn't done it quickly enough. For in that instant before she focused those incredible eyes on some unknown spot between her tiny boots,
Jake had read her lovely face, and saw that she'd already had the same thought, had probably considered it even before she made her ascent to join him on the big boulder. Without releasing her hand, he stood. "Let's head on back," he drawled, "before Micah rounds up a posse to hunt us down."

Bess sat for a moment, looking up at him through those lush, black lashes. She'd never said she loved him straight out, but h
e'd long suspected it.

She didn't iron the
other
hired hands' shirts, or darn their socks, or polish their boots. She'd never invited any of them to join her on the porch after supper to sip tea and enjoy the breeze.

He'd never heard her ask any of Micah's other employees what their favorite color was, and if their answers had been 'red', he'd never seen them sporting bulky red sweaters she'd knitted to warm them when
bitter winds blew through the valley.

Never had she studied the others as they ate, to determine a food preference, then whipped that favorite dish into a tasty lunch the very next day, wrapped in a line-dried napkin.

No, she hadn't told him how she felt. Instead, she'd
shown
him. And now, what she felt shone from her eyes like twin beams of radiant light.

And he loved her for that, too.

"C'mon," he said, tugging her arm 'til she stood beside him, "or they'll cut into the cake without you."

Love still sparkled in her eyes when she grinned. "They wouldn't dare."

Jake knew he shouldn't have pulled her into that tight embrace. Knew he shouldn't press his mouth against her waiting, parted lips. He'd known he ought to keep his calloused fingers out of those satiny waves. But the swell of emotion that rose inside of him at the lovelight in her eyes gave him no choice.

All right. So he'd weakened on that score. But
Jake was determined to exhibit strength elsewhere.

He mustn't tell her that the love she felt for him flashed in her eyes like lightning. Mustn't let her know how good it felt to have someone as warm and wonderful as she in love with him
. Mustn't ever allow her to discover that he'd never held another woman as tenderly, nor kissed another woman as passionately. He mustn't speak aloud the trite, poetic thoughts that roiled in his head:
You taste like honey and smell like lilacs.

Jake
didn't believe words existed to describe the way her soft murmurs set his pulse to pounding, for they were like music to his ears.

Bess could never know that loved her more than life itself, more, even, than his precious freedom.

Because to be with her night and day as husband and wife, he'd gladly forsake his precarious hold on freedom. If a prison sentence awaited him instead of the hangman’s noose, he'd wait out the marshals. And if she’d have him, he’d endure the time, knowing when it ended, he’d spend his remaining days in her arms.

But no. He loved her too much to subject her to that kind of pain.
Jake would shelter her from gloom that had shadowed him since leaving Lubbock. He loved her, true enough, and leaving her would be harder than anything he'd done to date. Harder, even, than burying his parents, for they hadn't left him by choice, as he'd be leaving Bess.

Another eagle screeched overhead, reminding
Jake of the creature's freedom to come or go or stay as it chose. Suddenly, he no longer felt quite so envious of that great, wild bird.

He kissed her,
and then clutched her to him in a desperate attempt to blot out thoughts of being caught, of leaving Foggy Bottom, of losing his precious Bess. He felt her heart thumping against his chest, felt her fingers comb through his hair. He took her face in his hands and looked deep into those innocent, soulful doe eyes. Inhaling deeply, Jake looked up into the pale blue sky and shook his head. He'd never felt more loved or wanted than when he was with Bess. Had never felt more important or cherished than when in her arms. Was it wrong to want her on every human level? Not wrong, perhaps, but not right, either....

And so
Jake took a careful, if not reluctant, step back, reminding himself he'd soon leave Foggy Bottom soon. Too soon. "When you cut that cake," he said, tenderly tidying her mussed hair, "make mine an end slice."

Was it his imagination, or had he put extra emphasis on the word ‘end’?

The next days passed in a flurry of activity.

The men Micah had hired at the start of the season were busy every hour of every day
, readying the farm for the harvest. He'd promised Bess that next year, if she cut savvy deals in Baltimore
this
year, she could travel west on his behalf to choose and purchase the stud bulls that would sire a whole new line of dairy cows at Foggy Bottom. That he trusted her enough to let her go alone to the meeting with the Texas rancher made Bess happier than she'd been in years. Happy, and proud, too.

It was important to outfit herself like a woman who understood a thing or two about negotiating:

Her practical, low-heeled shoes went well with what Micah teasingly referred to as her “Do Business” dress. Richly trimmed in deep green cotton, the folds of its sea-green skirt shimmered in light and shadow. The three buttons that graced each wide cuff were covered in the same dark green fabric, as were the two that held the glimmering golden throat clasp on its collar. When her mother had worn the dress, she looked to Bess like a goddess. No such aura came to mind when she donned it herself, however.

Her mother had been one of those rare beauties who needed no rouge on her high cheekbones
or lips. Her luxurious, waist-length brown hair shone with lustrous red and gold strands, and her skin, so pale it was almost translucent, reminded Bess of the fragile china that her mother reserved for special dinners.

She'd never recognized the similarities in her face and her mother's. Nor did she see the likeness between her own delicate frame and Mary's. She had no way of knowing that every time he looked at Bess, Micah was reminded of his beloved wife, or that the striking resemblance was a daily reminder of a painful fact: Mary was gone to him, forever. Bess could not have known that this fact caused him to hold his daughter at arm's length, avoiding her when he could
, avoiding her dancing brown eyes when he couldn't.

So when
Jake occasionally referred to her as J.P., for Just Plain Bess, it had been all too easy to believe he saw her as plain, too. Not until he began to show genuine interest in her, not as someone who could help him carve a wedge of Foggy Bottom for himself, but as a woman, did she begin to see herself as more than 'just plain.'

She remembered the first time she'd come face to face with the fact that she did, indeed, look very much like her beautiful mother.

She'd been in the dining room polishing the silver when she heard a noise in the parlor. Leaving her cleaning supplies behind, Bess tip-toed across the foyer's Persian rug to peek through the velvet curtains on either side of the wide doorway.

Jake
had stood before the fireplace, one big hand gripping the mantle on either side of the gilded frame that housed a tintype of her family. He'd seemed entranced by the images, captured forever by the photographer. Sensing her presence, he turned. For a fleeting moment, Bess saw naked vulnerability in his blue eyes. But in a blink, the warm, sweet look was gone, and in its place, Jake's usual, guarded expression.

"Didn't hear you come in," he'd said, pocketing both hands.

Crossing to where he stood, she’d felt oddly like an intruder in her own home. "Would you like me to introduce you to everyone?"

"Maybe some other time," he
’d said, glancing at the clock. "It's time to—“

"
Surely you can spare a moment." One by one, she identified grandparents, aunts and uncles, and cousins, saving the family portrait for last. "The twins favor Mama, don't you think?"

Nodding, he’d whispered,
"I reckon, but you could be her twin." He touched a curl that had escaped her cleaning bonnet. “Your hair is thicker, and those doe-eyes of yours are bigger." His thumb skimmed her lashes. "You're living, breathing proof there's a God in the heavens."