Do Not Forsake Me(85)
“Pa, Peter has been pounding the boardwalks for days circulating a petition saying you deserve to have your sentence shortened,” Lloyd spoke up. “That you’ve done an outstanding job and that people here think you have paid your dues. He got three hundred signatures, Pa. Three hundred! Does that sound like a man who would turn around and betray you? That petition will go a long way toward influencing Judge Mitchell.”
Randy covered her mouth in surprise. “Peter! Three hundred signatures?”
Peter kept his eyes on Jake. “Yes. That’s how much people in this town care about you, Jake. If you think only your immediate family cares, you’re wrong. A lot of people care. And a lot of people see through that badge and those guns and your ability to shoot men down with seemingly no feeling, and they see the kind of father and husband and grandfather you are. A lot of people know what you’ve been through, Jake, and most have a damn good suspicion you had reason to kill—”
Both men never took their eyes from each other during the entire conversation.
“My father?”
Peter closed his eyes then and finally turned away.
“Jake.” Randy finally got his attention again. “Three hundred signatures. Peter is your friend, Jake, not your enemy. I’ve been trying to tell you that.” Her voice broke on the last words and she looked ready to pass out. Jake walked up to her and picked her up in his arms. “All of you get out,” he told the others. “Just get out and let us talk about this.”
Lloyd moved toward Brian and Peter. “Come on. He’s right. They should talk about this alone.”
Jake and Peter shared a look like two men in a duel before Peter turned away and followed Brian out the door. Lloyd hesitated, eyeing his parents. “I want her to live, Pa, and you do too. I think she should go to Oklahoma City and soon. There really isn’t any other choice, is there?”
Lloyd left, quietly closing the door. Jake carried Randy into the bedroom, kicking the door shut and laying her on the bed. He crawled over her and lay down beside her, realizing already that their best and only hope was to do exactly as Peter had suggested. He hated having to admit it. He wanted to think that Randy was right about Peter having nothing but good intentions, but his heart raged with fury over the fact that the man was in love with her…truly in love with her.
They lay there stiffly until Randy took his hand. “Jake, you are always asking me who I belong to. How do I always answer?”
He sighed. “Jake Harkner.”
“And as you would put it—you bet your ass.”
He continued to just lie there quietly for several more long seconds. “Why do I feel so far away from you, Randy? I can’t stand it.”
She lay across him, resting her head on his chest. “You feel far away because you’re letting that little boy inside of you run off…far, far away where he can’t be hurt. He’s scared he will be hurt, so he’s trying to keep his feelings at a distance and pretend it doesn’t matter.”
His arms came around her. “I’m scared to feel anything, because it’s like getting stabbed in the heart over and over.” He rolled her onto her back and moved a leg over her. “I should be there to hold you. You went through having Evie all alone, and then that surgery afterward. You’ve gone through so many things alone.”
“I was never alone, Jake. I felt you with me constantly, even those two years you spent in Wyoming while I stayed in California. I knew it wouldn’t last, that I was in your mind and heart every minute, and that you’d come back. When you finally found that job in Colorado and sent for me, I was never so happy, and I never asked you about those two years because all that mattered was that we were together again. And that’s how I feel about this. I know I’ll be all right, and I’ll come back and we’ll be together again. Even if someone else holds me, it will be you, Jake. It will always be you. Always and always, Jake Harkner. How can you even consider it could be any other way?”
He grasped her hair and searched her mouth almost violently. She closed her eyes as he whispered in her ear in Spanish, and she could felt a wetness on her cheek from his tears.
“We have to do this, Jake,” she groaned. “I don’t want this wall between us. I don’t want to go away from you without feeling you inside of me and knowing who owns me and who will be right there with me. I won’t be afraid if we do this now and again and again before you go.”
“I might hurt you. That’s the reason I couldn’t make love to you earlier.”
“I’m fine today, Jake. Maybe it’s just Brian’s medicine, but I’m having no pain. I want this, Jake. We both know that this time, more than all others, it’s important. Make love to me in the way only you can, because you know everything I love. You made me want you all those years ago in that wagon, and I’ve wanted you with the same passion ever since.”