Love's Sweet Revenge (23 page)

Jake just watched as Randy embraced Peter, keeping his feelings in check. Peter Brown was responsible for his being released from his sentence to serve as U.S. Marshal in Oklahoma so he and the family could finally come to Colorado. He was responsible for a lot of help in other ways…but Jake knew it was all for Randy.

“Oh, Peter, it's so comforting to see old friends right now,” Randy told him. “You did so much for us back in Guthrie. Did you bring your wife? I so want to meet her.”

She pulled away from Peter but kept hold of his hands, while Jeff set a silver tray that held a decanter and four coffee cups on a dresser.

“Not this trip,” Peter answered. “I figured I'd wait until things are back to normal for you and we're sure you and Jake can go home. Then maybe I can bring Treena out to the ranch for a visit. Jeff has told me how beautiful it is.”

“He's right, Peter! It
is
beautiful!” Randy agreed.

Jake watched Randy finally let go of Peter's hands and turn to Jeff for a hug. He caught the way Peter watched her then. Yes, the man was most certainly still in love with her.

“I'd love to see
both
of you and your families come to the J&L,” Randy was telling them, grasping both their hands then. “Once all this is—” She hesitated, her smile fading. “Over.” Her eyes suddenly teared. “You did come here to help, didn't you, Peter?”

“When I heard the news, I knew I
had
to come.” Peter turned to Jake. “I'm so damn sorry about Lloyd, Jake. Sorry about
everything
. Jeff and I came as soon as we could. We took a train from Chicago. Thank goodness we can travel to places a lot faster than we used to.”

Jake nodded. “Yeah.”

Jeff turned and looked up at Jake. At six feet four inches, Jake towered over his five-foot-eight-inch frame. He reached out to shake Jake's hand, and Jake jerked him closer, slapping the young man on the back.

“Jeff, it's damn good to see you!
Damn
good!”

“You, too, Jake, but I don't like the circumstances that brought me here.”

“Well, my good friend, you are always looking for a headliner story. You know me. I can always provide one for you.” Jake stepped around him and closer to Randy. “It's been a mess.”

Peter noted the tired, strained look in Jake's eyes. “We knew this would be hell for you, Jake.” He glanced at Jake's guns. “I have to say you're looking a bit intimidating at the moment. Are things really so bad that you have to wear those guns?”

“They are. You must know by now everything that's happened, and I'm not leaving this hotel until I know my son is completely well. These guns are keeping the law from coming for me.” Jake put out his hand. “Thanks for coming.”

Peter took his hand a bit hesitantly. He knew Jake Harkner well, and that meant being careful when he was in the kind of mood Peter guessed him to be in. Neither of them needed to say it. Peter had come as much for Randy's sake as anyone's. They shook hands firmly…two men in love with the same woman…two men as different as sand and water. But that woman had eyes for only one of them, as devoted a wife as a man could ask for.

“Jake, you're in every headline in every newspaper across the country by now,” Jeff told him. “I know for a fact you made the
Chronical
in San Francisco and the
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
. It hit the papers in Chicago the very next day after the shooting, and Peter and I knew right away you might need some help out here. Thanks to the railroad, we were able to get here in just a couple of days.”

“Oh, my goodness, I didn't know half the country knew about this,” Randy exclaimed, putting a hand to her chest. She cast Jake a worried look.

“There are people milling around outside and in the lobby,” Jeff added. “Mostly reporters, all of them wanting to get a look at the infamous Jake Harkner. Half of them expect some kind of shoot-out.”

“There
will
be if they try to come for me before Lloyd is up and walking,” Jake told him. “He'll need a lot of care, and he's a big man. Katie and Evie are both with child, so I need to be here to help move and lift Lloyd and help keep him bathed and all the other things that need doing for something like this.”

Peter smiled softly. “So, you have two more grandchildren on the way.”

“We do. I always have trouble believing our growing family is really mine. That's something I never dreamed would happen to me.” Jake turned to Jeff. “I'm not leaving my son's side, Jeff. You know how it is between me and Lloyd.”

“I know all too well,” Jeff answered. “A man doesn't ride with the likes of Jake and Lloyd Harkner like I did and forget it anytime soon.”

“Jeff, how is your wife?” Randy asked. “We were so happy to learn you got married.”

“She's fine. She is also going to have a baby. I was afraid the trip might be too much for her, so I left her back in Chicago.”

“You be sure to let us know when the baby is born,” Randy asked. “We'll want to send a gift.”

“Congratulations, Jeff,” Jake told him with a grin. “That's good news. It won't be long before babies are popping out all over the place.”

“Yeah, well, Peter is here to see that you're around to welcome all of them.”

Randy put a hand to her forehead and turned away. Jake took her arm and led her to sit down on the edge of the bed. “Jeff, pour us some coffee. Sorry, but there are only a couple of chairs in here. If we'd known you two were coming…” He sat down with Randy on the bed. “You can take the chairs.” He put out his cigarette in an ashtray on the bed stand, noticing how Peter looked at Randy with love and concern. Jake moved an arm around her. “How's married life, Peter?”

Peter smiled at the instant possessive embrace and the obvious hint in his question. “Very good. Katrina is a beautiful woman. I knew her when she was married to a friend of mine, a business acquaintance who died a few years ago. Katrina hired me for some legal work involving one of his businesses, and, well, one thing led to another, and now we're married. We have a home north of Chicago, and my practice is flourishing.”

“I'll say!” Jeff put in. “His home is more like a stone castle.” He handed some coffee to Jake and Randy. “I visited him there once when…” Jeff hesitated. “Well, when Mike Holt was released, I thought I'd go talk to Peter about it. We were both a little concerned, Jake. Turns out that concern was well placed.”

Jake sobered. “Yeah.” He drank some of the coffee.

Randy did the same, clinging to the cup and closing her eyes to enjoy the warm steam that helped her relax. “It's been a nightmare,” she said softly. “That man walked right up to poor Evie and…”

Jake tightened his arm around her. “Evie nearly passed out,” Jake continued. “I don't even know yet what he said to her, but you can bet it was something that brought all that ugliness back for her. Lloyd noticed what was happening, and so did Brian. Both ran to help her. By then, I couldn't shoot because they were both in the way. It all took place in maybe three or four seconds. That sonofabitch turned on Lloyd and fired.”

The room hung quiet for a moment until Peter spoke up. “And you, being a man used to dealing his own justice, decided then and there to be judge and jury and executioner of the shooter.” He spoke the words more with sorrow than condemnation.

Jake stared at his coffee cup. “I thought Lloyd was dead. He's my
so
n
! All I could think of was that sonofabitch robbed me of the chance to even…” His voice caught in his throat. “
¡Me quito a mi hijo y ni siquiera tuve la oportunidad de despedirme de él
!
”

“I know you sometimes turn to Spanish when you're upset, Jake, but I need English,” Peter told him.

Jake breathed deeply and rose, walking to a window. “He took my son from me, and I didn't even get a chance to say good-bye. That's what I was thinking. I didn't get to…hold him and tell him I love him…before he died. That's what was going through my mind.
¡Debería de haber sido yo
!
”

Peter looked helplessly at Randy.

“He said—” Her eyes teared. “It should have been me.”

Jake wiped at his eyes while his back was to the rest of them, and Randy put her head in her hands. Jake cleared his throat before continuing. “The man deserved to die!”

“Of course he did,” Peter answered. “But you're no longer a U.S. Marshal, Jake, and even if you were, that wouldn't give you the right to hold the man down and blow his head off. That's just a fact that I know is hard for a man like you to live with.”

Jake turned, the “outlaw” back in his eyes. “I didn't kill Holt the other night just because he'd shot Lloyd. I killed the man who blindfolded my beautiful, angelic, Christian daughter and
raped
her! No man who does what he did should exist!” He took another deep breath. “And then there lay my son…my
life
! Lloyd and Evie are the only good things I've ever contributed to this world. If I didn't know Randy like I do, I'd swear they came from someone else's seed, but they're
mine
—something I did
right
! So, yes, I shot the bastard who didn't hurt just one of my children. He hurt
both
of them! If Evie hadn't asked me to spare their lives, I would have killed every last man back there at Dune Hollow, and this thing wouldn't have happened, because Holt would already have been dead.”

Jake's wrath permeated the air to the point where the room began to feel much too small.

“Jake, when we go before a judge you can't be in the kind of mood you just showed me,” Peter told him. “You
can
tell the judge what you just told me because it's very touching and helps people understand, but you can't say it with that dark, menacing way you have about you when you're upset. And you shouldn't mention that you would have killed the rest of the men left alive back at Dune Hollow if it weren't for Evie. That just makes you look more ruthless.” He shook his head. “Not that you
aren't
ruthless at times.”

“A judge? Do you know something I don't?”

“Jake, we've already talked to a prosecutor and a judge about this,” Jeff told him.

Jake straightened in a defensive mode. “I hope the prosecutor you talked to wasn't Harley Wicks,” he said with obvious anger. “This is partly
his
fault.”

Peter always felt nervous around an angry Jake Harkner wearing six-guns. He ran a hand through his hair. “Jake, you are less intimidating when you sit, so please do me that favor. I can tell you're getting worked up again, and you need to learn to control that for what I have planned. If you will sit back down I'll explain. And no, it wasn't Wicks.”

With a deep sigh, Jake walked back to the bed and sat down next to Randy.

Peter met his gaze sternly. “Have you forgotten I'm actually good at what I do? And I know you all too well, Jake. Jeff got the scoop on what happened and what Wicks had to do with it, so I talked to a different prosecutor. With the help of a young attorney here in Denver named Hawk Monroe, I got this whole thing removed from Wicks's control. And Mr. Monroe helped me gain permission to practice here in Colorado so I can represent you.”

Randy let out a little gasp. “Thank you, Peter!”

“I've heard of Hawk Monroe,” Jake told him.

“There is a book about the Monroe family here in Colorado. It's called
Savage Destiny
. The Monroe name is well known here. The father, Zeke, was half Cheyenne and very involved with the Indian problems here years ago. He once owned quite a big ranch in southern Colorado. Hawk Monroe is his grandson. He had to go out of town, or I would have brought him with me to meet you. Be that as it may, I can represent you if that's what you want, Jake.”

Their gazes held in mutual understanding. “You helped me get out of that job from hell in Oklahoma so Randy and I could find some peace in Colorado, Peter, but peace doesn't seem to last long wherever I go. And I do know you're good at what you do, so yes, your help is welcome. Like you said, you know me better than most men, so maybe you know a way to keep this from looking as bad as it really is.”

“Peter, Harley Wicks's sister let Mike Holt into the dance that night,” Randy explained, “hoping to cause a ruckus and get Jake kicked out or in trouble for fighting. She said she didn't know Holt had a gun. I don't know if that's true or not.”

“I heard,” Peter told her. “That's how I got Wicks off the case.” He turned his attention to Jake. “I told Wicks that if he backed off of this, you and Lloyd won't press charges against his sister for letting that man into the ballroom.”

Jake nodded, suddenly rising and wiping at tears. “I'm sorry, Peter. The last four days have been a nightmare. Seeing Lloyd lying near death just about put me in my own grave.”

“I understand completely, believe me. It would be the same for Lloyd if it had happened to you. I saw him after you were shot in Guthrie, and he was devastated. I know how close you two are. The bond is admirable, and it might help you in this.”

Peter shuffled through some handwritten notes while Jake stood at a window and lit yet another cigarette.

Jeff got up and poured more coffee for everyone.

“Like I said, I spoke with a prosecutor named Randall Prescott,” Peter continued, “and I consulted with a judge. Both agreed to hold a hearing, not a trial. The public can be there, but there won't be a jury. The judge will decide whether or not to actually bring charges against you. He said he can't just let you off without some kind of chance for others to have their say and without some kind of public explanation. It wouldn't look right, and judges are voted in, so he obviously wants to please the citizens of Denver. And until the hearing, you can stay right here with Lloyd, as long as you promise not to try to leave Denver.”