Do Not Forsake Me (39 page)

“What if you
had
been with me?” Randy continued, studying the magnificent man he still was, even though so much thinner. “It would have taken you three times longer to find Evie. God had his reasons for making you stay behind, Jake. He has worked so many miracles for us.”

Jake sat back down in a way that told her he couldn't have stayed on his feet even if he wanted to. He literally collapsed onto the bed, and Randy remembered that morning—oh, so many years ago—when she came home to find the outlaw Jake Harkner passed out on her bed back in Kansas. She'd stripped him and washed him and shaved him then, and she'd nervously removed the bullet from his side that she'd put there herself. Jake mumbled something about Evie, then rolled to his side.

“My sweet, beautiful angel,” he groaned.

Randy moved around the other side of the bed and crawled in beside him, still dressed. She realized he was quietly crying. “Jake, come here.”

He moved his arms around her. “I wanted to…kill all of the ones left alive, Randy, but she wouldn't let me. She forgave them, Randy. She
forgave
them. Preacher Zilke said evil couldn't touch her, and he was right. He was right.”

Randy wiped tears from his cheeks. “When on earth did you talk to the
preache
r
?” Randy asked.

“Before I left.” He pulled her tightly against him. “There is so much to talk about, Randy. I picked up a little boy along the way. I want to raise him, Randy. His name is Ben, but he's me. He's
me
.”

Randy kissed his hair. “Jake, I told you I already know about Ben. Dixie brought him to town to explain, just in case you didn't make it back.”

“Don't be upset about Dixie. I stayed with her one night after we left. I held her and held her and I wanted it to be you. I cried like a goddamn kid. I was sure I was losing you.”

“Jake, I'm not upset. Dixie told me about that. She's a good woman, and she was there when I couldn't be. I'm only concerned about what seeing that boy get beat with a belt did to you.”

“Where is he? Where is Ben?”

“Jake, you are so tired you don't even remember you already asked the Donavans to keep him for a while.”

“She helped me, Randy. Dixie…kept me from killing myself.”

Randy closed her eyes and sighed. “Jake, you're rambling and not making any sense. Just sleep now.”

He met her mouth in a hungry kiss. “Over a week,” he mumbled then, “since I slept. I want…to make love to you…and know you're really here and alive…but I'm so damn tired, Randy.”

“My God, of course you are. Just
sleep
, Jake. All that matters is that you're back and it's over. There will be lots of time for everything else. All that matters is you're here! You're here in our house and in our bed and in my arms.”

“I was so afraid…of losing you.”

“I'm going to be fine. I was just as scared you would never make it back. Let's just lie here and enjoy the feel of each other's arms.” Randy realized how devastatingly tired he must be, because of his repeated ramblings. He finally stopped talking and soon fell into a deep sleep.

Randy carefully pulled away and got up. She covered him, then went and locked the front door. Jeff would take care of things out in the street, and the other men would probably be here tomorrow with what was left of those who'd done such awful things to Evie. She determined she would go and see Evie tomorrow. Her beautiful, precious, forgiving daughter would need a lot of talking to. Thank God for Evie's patient, loving husband. And Little Jake, her wild, naughty, brave, cussing grandson. He was all Jake. She didn't even know yet what had happened to him. If Jake didn't want to talk about it, then that meant those men
had
hurt the child in some way, but she'd seen him run to the Donavans as though nothing was wrong. It made her smile. He was all Harkner through and through. Put him down and he got right back up. He was tough like his grandfather…and like the little boy Jake who'd lived through so much pain, both physically and emotionally.

She walked back to the bedroom and undressed. She pulled on her flannel gown, then walked around the bed and climbed into it from the other side, snuggling against Jake. “Thank you, Jesus,” she whispered.

Jake moved his arms around her, but his eyes were closed. “Bed…still smells like…roses.” He moved a leg over hers and breathed against her neck. “
Mi
esposa
.
Yo
te
quiero…mi vida
,” he whispered.

Randy kissed his wounded arm, his eyes, his hair. What had he been through? How many men had he killed this time? He'd never fooled her. Killing so many men weighed on him. “And I love you, Jake,” she said softly. “Forever and forever…and forever.”

She remembered his remark about Evie forgiving the men who'd abused her and telling Jake he should do the same.

Evie, my darling Evie, you taught your father more in that one gesture than all our love and preaching over the years could have taught him.

In his sleep Jake pulled her even closer. She drank in the pleasure of his embrace, nestled in the sweet feeling of love…and the safety of his arms. She could still feel the strength of those arms in spite of his being thinner and so terribly worn-out. When he was awake again and rested, she'd help him bathe and shave, and she'd fatten him up with that bread he loved. She had five loaves of it in the kitchen. She'd kneaded and baked it all just to keep busy, praying with every warm, sweet-smelling loaf that he'd come home to eat it. A neighbor had let her cut some roses, and she'd filled the bedroom with vases of them. Jake always teased her about how this room—and she—always smelled like roses. She'd wanted the familiar smell in the room when he got home…and here he was…home.

She felt the tears come then. He was really here and alive. How could she have gone on if he'd never come back? How awful that they both could have died…separately…away from each other. She couldn't think of anything worse. There was so much to be thankful for.

She kissed him over and over, his unwashed hair, his stubble of a beard, his eyes closed in exhausted sleep, his familiar lips. She nuzzled her face into his neck, realizing that no matter how clean or dirty he was, he always smelled good there, a specific, familiar smell that never seemed to change, that distinctive little area that held an identifying scent. And Jake's was simply man. Just man.

Randy awoke to a tapping near her mouth. She turned into Jake's arms to see him with one end of a peppermint stick in his mouth.

“Oh, no you don't,” she told him.

“Why not?”

“Because we're going to church today, remember?”

He rolled the peppermint stick into the corner of his mouth. “So?”

“So we can't make love and then go to church.”

Jake frowned. “Well, if that's the case, then I'm not going. I don't like that rule.”

“Jake Harkner, you've been fighting that promise for a month now. Your excuse has been that you won't go until Evie is ready to go, and she is. Our lovely, healing daughter is finally ready to get out and see people again, and the main reason she agreed to do so was because you promised her you would go to church with all of us today. It's time to keep your promise. You are out of excuses.”

He bit off a piece of the peppermint and ran the other end of it over her lips. “What's that got to do with making love before we go?”

“It just doesn't seem right, that's all. We've waited this long so I'd be completely healed and we were both stronger. What are a few more hours going to matter?”

“Randy, do you realize who you're talking to? This is a record for me. We haven't gone this long without sex unless I was gone and we couldn't be together.”

“Jake—”

“What if I promise to keep it respectful?”

Randy smiled. “You don't know
how
to make love respectfully.”

“And you enjoy it.”

“Jake, I am absolutely not going to have sex before I go to church.”

She started to get up but he pulled her back down. “We're married, so it's not sinful, if that's what you're saying. And, hell, the Bible is full of stories about lust and whores and men tasting the fruits of women's breasts and murder and mayhem and all the damn things I've already done, so maybe I'll fit right in when I walk into that church.”

“Jake Harkner, you just used the words
hell
,
lust
,
whores
,
breasts
, and
damn
all in the same sentence as the word
Bible
. You are the most hopeless child of God I have ever known.”

He moved a hand over her breasts, caressing them through the soft flannel gown. “All I know is that God made man and woman to fit together just right, and for a reason. They're supposed to mate, and you're my mate.” He moved his hand down to the hem of her nightgown and up underneath it, along her thigh. “And I've waited because I wanted you to be completely healed. I can't take this torture any longer.”

“So you pick a Sunday morning before church to stop and make love after all this time?”

“Seems like a great way to start a Sunday morning. You're the one who says God saved both of us. I think he saved us for this.”

“Not many people would think God saved someone so they could have sex again.”

Jake grinned, the old familiar, handsome grin that always undid her. “Come on, woman, take off the underwear and bite on this peppermint stick.”

“Why do you have a way of always making this seem sinful?”

“Because it's more fun that way.”

“What if Ben wakes up?”

“That kid sleeps like a bear in hibernation.”

“I'm only going to let you do this if you promise not to use one cuss word today when everyone comes for dinner. Evie is right. Your grandsons are starting to talk like barroom brawlers, and Ben will be doing the same thing if you don't stop. And be careful in church if the preacher talks to you afterward. I know how easily those words fall out of your mouth without you even being aware of it.”

“Take off the underwear and I promise not to cuss.”

Randy smiled, her eyes full of doubt. She bit the other end of the peppermint stick, and they ate it down until their lips met. Once they did, she had no argument left in her. The underwear came off. Not only that, so did the gown, and Randy found herself allowing the man to ravish her in what she considered was surely the most sinful way of all.

But it had been so long. So long. Her weak protest was whispered and not very firm as his kisses trailed from her breasts, over her belly, where he licked and kissed at her scars. He moved down to her thighs. She sucked in her breath when he found her sweetness and groaned with the pleasure of tasting her in the most intimate way she once never dreamed she'd let a man do to her. But this was Jake, and she doubted there was anything he
didn't
know about how to please a woman. She grasped his hair and offered herself to him, taking wicked pleasure in the way he had of making love to that secret place that belonged only to him. She cried out with an intense climax, almost painful from that deep, reawakened need for this man. He moved his tongue back up over her belly and savored her breasts as he grasped her bottom with both hands and filled her with manly passion. She tasted her own sweetness on his lips as he devoured her mouth in that way he had of bringing out not just desire but pure
lust
—lust that made her arch up to his thrusts, all of it made so keenly perfect because she was well and there was no more fear of what might have been. This was sweet, soft, warm morning sex—their favorite time to make love.

As always, he commanded her every response, making the oh-so-familiar act seem like the first time, as only Jake Harkner could do. And after so long without this, it did almost feel like the first time…like that wild night of lovemaking when he really did do this to her in the back of a wagon…somewhere. They moved in perfect rhythm as he filled her over and over again with all that was Jake, until she felt his pulsating release. Saying nothing, he nuzzled her neck and leaned down then to taste each breast yet again with relish, and she knew he wanted to do it all over again. And she
wanted
him to take her again. She felt his swelling desire for her, and again he moved inside her, hard and deep, as though he couldn't get enough of her…and she wanted as much of him as she could get. He deliberately moved in all the right ways, rubbing against that special spot with such expertise that she found herself gasping with a second climax. It felt so good to be physically able to make love again in all the best ways.

“Jake—”

“You okay?”

“It feels wonderful.”

He smiled as he spoke between kisses. “Then enjoy it,” he whispered in her ear. “You're well now,
mi
amor
. I feel you pulling me into you.”

He kept burying himself deep to fulfill the need she had, and to satisfy his own need to claim his woman again, to prove to himself she was still his and only his.

“Who do you belong to?”

“Jake Harkner.”

“You bet your ass. I own every beautiful inch of you.”

“And I own
you
, Jake Harkner. You remember that when other women tempt you.”

He kissed her harder, pushed himself harder. “You're the only woman I can't resist.”

“It's the same for me.”

The words were spoken amid hungry kisses and sweet, rhythmic thrusts that made Randy wonder if it was even possible for him to go any deeper. When Jake Harkner claimed her, she was branded for life. And she didn't mind at all.

His life spilled into her then, and finally he relaxed, lying there on top of her for a while, both of them listening to birds outside the window. He kissed her again, more kisses, over and over. He raised to his knees then, running his hands over her breasts, her belly, her private places. With a mischievous glint in his eyes and a teasing grin he took a deep sigh of satisfaction and said the words that made her burst into laughter.

“
Now
we can go to church,” he told her.