Love's Rescue (31 page)

He was going to tell her good-bye.

When he came to her burial place, he dismounted and, as usual, tied Cielos to the juniper tree.

Then Jake removed his hat and approached the headstone, squatting down to lay the roses on her grave.

“I need to talk to you, Olivia,” he said softly. Gazing at the eastern sky, which was slowly lightening to gray, he sighed. “I expect you and I spent a hundred or more sunrises together, didn’t we? When we married, I thought we were going to get all the rest of them, too, but I reckon the Almighty had other plans.”

Leaning on one knee, he inched the roses closer to the base of the headstone that bore her name and that of the little daughter they had loved. As always, his heart clenched a little as he remembered holding Livvy by his side and laughing with her over their tiny daughter’s sweet smiles, her giggles.

Jake cleared his throat. “After you, I never thought I could love anyone again. I guess I didn’t want to, truth be told. I wanted us the way we had been.” He hesitated. “But if you had lost me instead, I’d have wanted you to marry again, so you’d have someone to care for you. And I now know that if you could, you’d tell me to do the same.” He turned his hat in his hands. “I never planned for such a thing to happen, but the truth is, I’ve fallen in love again, Livvy. I think you’d like her. Her family name is Hale, in case you meet her ma and pa. She’s a lot like you—strong and determined—and she loves this land. It’s a part of her, the way it’s a part of me, and she’s alone now, like I am. I want to take care of her, and to have her by my side. I want to grow old with her, just like you and I always talked about. I hope you understand, Livvy, because it means I won’t be able to visit you as often, although I’ll still come when I can.”

Jake’s heart was heavy. He felt he was losing her all over again, but, oddly, he also experienced a growing sense of peace—as if she had heard him and understood. As if she had given him her blessing.

When he heard a horse and rider approaching, Jake knew it was Jess. He pushed himself to his feet, sending the Lord a prayer that he might find the words to calm her wary heart.

***

Jess recognized the area as the place she had seen from the hilltop months ago on the day she had found the dead calf and vultures. Quite clearly now, she remembered the burial marker Jake was standing beside. When he turned to face her, she looked down at him. There was no mistress, no romantic tryst, no one else at all.

“I apologize for intruding,” she said softly, dismounting. “I saw you cutting the roses, and I followed.” She tied Meg beside Cielos.

“An intruder is someone you don’t want with you,” Jake murmured. “You could never be that with me.”

Unsettled by his tenderness, Jess crouched down beside the marker. She tried to make out the names by moonlight. Suddenly, her head shot up and her wide eyes met Jake’s.

“Olivia and Sadie Bennett?” Jess searched his face. “Jake?”

“Jess, I’ve been meaning to tell you this, but I didn’t quite know how. Olivia was my wife. She…she’d been gone about a year when you and I met.”

Jess closed her eyes with regret. She finally understood the pain she’d often sensed in him. When he’d said that working horses and cattle could take one’s mind away from one’s troubles, he was speaking from experience. How could she have been so blind—so heartless?

Her eyes opened, and she gazed again at the stone. “And Sadie was…your daughter?”

“Yes. I met Olivia in Sacramento City in the spring of 1860.” He chuckled softly. “I’d gone to buy a bull from Livvy’s pa. On the way, I found this young woman up to her ankles in mud. She was tugging on her horse’s halter, trying to budge that stubborn animal to get her wagon unstuck. I think she was about ready to shoot him when I pulled up and offered to help. I got the wagon unstuck. To thank me, she invited me to supper.” He smiled, remembering.

Jess couldn’t help smiling. “So, that was it.”

“That was it,” he confirmed. “We were married three
weeks later.”

“Three weeks?”

“Three weeks. We had no doubts. It was right.”

Jess looked away, uncomfortable with the pointed way he was watching her. Softly, she said, “And Sadie?”

“She was born the following winter. She was a beauty. Black hair and blue eyes, just like her mama. In their last months, Sadie was walking, and it was all Olivia could do to keep her from climbing the stairs. Her bedroom was the middle one,” Jake explained, “and that was where the cat liked to hide. She was always looking to find that cat.” He was gazing down at Jess, awaiting her reaction.

For Jess, the last unknown details about him began to fall into place. She thought back to all the oddities she’d puzzled over since the day she’d arrived at the ranch—the feminine, floral soap, the dresses packed away in the trunk, the braided belt, which she knew now Jake must have made for Olivia. There were other things, too—the dressing table itself, which had probably had its own place in Jake’s bedroom while Olivia was alive; the rose-print calico tablecloths. The ranch was marked indelibly by the touch of a woman. A woman who had loved Jake very much.

Jess stood and faced him, her manner gentle now. “And the rosebush?”

“Olivia’s mother had always grown roses, so I planted one to help her feel at home. Now I take cuttings when I come to visit her and Sadie.” He seemed a little embarrassed. “I even take the branches when they’re bare. I guess I wanted her to know that I’m keeping her roses alive, that I won’t forget her.” As an afterthought, he added, “Her favorite color was yellow.”

Hence the yellow roses, which he now remembered her by. A breeze stirred, billowing her skirt—also yellow, like the roses. She smiled to herself. With black hair and blue eyes, Olivia must have been a beauty, especially in yellow. “Is Olivia the ‘white woman friend’ Red Deer sometimes speaks of?”

“I suppose she is. I didn’t want Livvy to go that day,” he went on, “but Sadie was a year old and bundled against the cold, and Olivia wanted to visit her mother. Her mother would come to Lake Tahoe to stay with Livvy’s sister for a time,” he explained. “The cattle were dying with the cold, and I felt Olivia and Sadie would be fine; I was needed here.” His jaw tightened. He slapped his hat against his thigh. “I was wrong.”

Jess had the prickly feeling she wasn’t going to want to hear the rest. He clearly wanted her to know, though, so she waited patiently for him to go on. The first hint of sunrise lit the eastern sky.

“On her way to see her ma, Livvy was…waylaid…by outlaws camped in a bend of the mountain. There was nothing in the wagon worth taking, so it was she they were after. A woman.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “As that day wore on, and I worked the cattle, I felt more and more that I should have gone with her. By mid-afternoon, I could think of nothing else, so I went after them.” He looked at Jess again. “I found them about twenty miles south of here.”

Found them. Jess didn’t know what to say. As a boy, he’d buried his mother, and as a man, he’d buried his wife and daughter. He’d buried her family, too—and her father had been a friend. All along, Jake had known exactly what she was feeling; patiently, and in subtle ways, he had worked to help her through it. Jess searched his face. When she’d asked about the roses, she had never expected this. “Did you ever find the outlaws?”

“I didn’t need to. There were five of them, all lying dead not far from where they’d…” The words caught in his throat. He rephrased them. “Not far from Livvy. It seems they’d had some mighty poor intentions, and Livvy decided to fight rather than give in to them. I guess she knew they’d kill her anyway.” Jake looked down at her, and from his wordless expression, Jess could tell that he hadn’t spoken of it since then. “Near as I can tell, they shot her horses to stop the wagon. Knowing Olivia, she grabbed Sadie and tried to run to protect her, but they caught Livvy. Her arms were bruised and her dress was torn, but she pulled her gun and fired on them, and they fired back.

“I found them both shot, Livvy dead and Sadie lying curled in her arm like she was sleeping. I found the gun in Livvy’s other hand.” His deep voice was filled with pride. “She’d emptied it clean.”

His revelation explained so much—why he had been so determined to keep Jess at the ranch, how upset he became whenever she tried to run, why he’d insisted she learn to shoot. He knew the dangers of the West and the importance of self-defense, lessons that had cost him his precious wife and daughter to learn.

Jake glanced skyward. “But they’re with the Lord now, with my mama…and with your family, too.”

Jess passed her eyes over a carpet of dried yellow roses left from other visits. “You miss them dearly.”

He nodded with a reflective smile. “I can’t wait to see them again.”

“Again?”

“In heaven.”

“That’s a long wait.”

“Not so long. The years have a way of slipping by, especially when you have something at the end to look forward to. Then the Lord will bring us home, and we’ll all be together again.” He looked over at Jess. “I thought you read the Bible.”

“It’s been a while,” she admitted, “and I’ve never thought that far ahead.”

“I’ve learned to look at things differently, I reckon. It’s not as though I’ll never see them again, at least not as long as I don’t stray from the Almighty.” He lifted his eyes to search the bluing sky. “No, we’ll always have Again.”

Jess looked up, as well, recalling that Ambrose had used nearly the same words in the last letter he ever wrote. “That’s why I’ve wanted to go to the cemetery where my family is buried, to be close to them.” She glanced pointedly at the roses that dotted the grave. “Surely, you understand that need.”

His steady gaze met hers. “I do. For almost a year, hardly a week went by that I didn’t come out here. There were times when I came nearly every day.”

“Were?” As soon as the question was out, Jess wished she could take it back. She didn’t want to know what were meant.

Jake faced her squarely. “Jess, I came here tonight to say good-bye to her. I won’t forget her or Sadie, but their time here is done. So is your family’s, but I still have now, and so do you.”

Jess started to shake her head and took a step back. The old, familiar fear climbed up her spine.

“We’re right for each other, Jess. What we both want is here. The open land, the sky above us, the horses.”

Desperate to be away, Jess turned and hurried toward Meg.

Jake caught hold of her arm and gently pulled her around to face him. He held her shoulders firmly. “No. You’re not running this time.”

Jess clenched her jaw and squirmed.

“Jess, listen.”

“No!”

“Losing your folks was hard on you. I know, because losing my ma killed a part of me. Later, when I met Olivia, I knew she was right for me, and I was committed to her. We got married, but it still took me a long to give her my heart. Are you hearing me? I wasn’t ready to chance losing it again.”

Jess twisted away from his hold and started walking in no particular direction. Jake stayed put but kept talking, more fervently now.

“In time, I did love Olivia, and with all my heart. She gave me Sadie, and then I lost them. After that, I kept working the ranch, but I believed my life was over.” Tears now streamed down Jess’s cheeks. She turned around and looked into his eyes. “But then I met you, and I know now that no matter how much I fear losing you, it is nothing compared to my fear of never getting the chance to love you at all.”

Jess stilled abruptly and stared up at him in amazement. She felt as though he’d just offered her the sun, moon, and stars—and that he was capable of delivering them. At that thought, every memory of him came rushing back—every time he’d stood between her and danger, each moment he’d been there for her. Her heart took a step forward. She wanted him, she realized—she wanted him for always.

In the next instant, that longing was swallowed by a threat so great it felt like a chasm opening beneath her, consuming her.

“Jess, what—?”

All her fear, all her rage, all her desperation erupted in one explosive shout. “I don’t want to love you!”

Jake’s gaze locked with hers. “Tell me why, Jess.”

“I’m afraid! I’m afraid it’ll be taken away…afraid you’ll be taken away! I don’t know how to love only a little!”

Jake took a step toward her. “I know you don’t.”

She was trembling. “I don’t want things to change between us. I want to work the ranch together, and live here with you, and…and…”

“And what, Jess? You want me to stop loving you?”

“No!”

“You want me never to hold you?”

She shook her head, gasping for breath through her tears.

“Should I stop walking with you, caring about you, keeping you safe?” He didn’t give her a chance to answer. “I want to share my life with you. I want to wake every morning with you by my side. I want to give you children to love, calves to feed, and horses to name.” Jess smiled behind the wet wisps of hair clinging to her temples. “I want to see you rip buttons out of the men’s johns and watch you shoot crooked.” Now she was laughing. “I want to watch you cut cattle out of the herd. I want to see the firelight reflected in your hair. I want to raise horses and not be doing it alone.” Jake had sobered. So had she. “I need you, Jess. I need you with me.”

Her tears stopped entirely. Jess wasn’t sure how he’d ended up so close to her. She wasn’t sure of anything at the moment, except that she wanted him to be even closer.

Jess felt his arms embrace her, meeting at the small of her back. She burrowed against him, listening to the beat of his heart—strong and sure. It was a sound she could easily grow accustomed to.

What if you lose him? her old doubts asked. From somewhere inside came the reply: If you walk away from what you have now, you’ll lose him anyway.

The rising sun burst upon the horizon. Jess turned her face away, suddenly realizing how tired she was. She told him so.

Briefly, Jake hugged her tighter. “Let’s go back.”

Neither spoke as they walked together toward the horses, Jake setting his hat on his head.

At the juniper tree, he untied Meg and gave Jess a leg up into the saddle. Once he’d settled on Cielos, his eyes found hers.