She wore leather boots herself, and a split riding skirt. She shivered under the extra sheepskin jacket Jake had made her bring along, and she was glad for his advice. Mountain mornings could be very cold, even when the weather was warming in the valleys.
Jake reached her and took a last drag on his cigarette, then threw it down and stepped it out extra hard, as he always did when in the pine forest. “Get off Shortbread. We’ll walk down using the trees to keep our balance. Let Shortbread and the packhorse make their own way. The last thing I need is for you and that horse to take a fall out here where there’s no help.” He reached up and grasped her about the waist, helping her down.
“I do have help,” she teased. “You’re here.”
“Yeah, well, I’m no damn doctor.” He leaned down and gave her a quick kiss. “And why on earth would you think I’m not still attracted to you, after the three days we spent up in that cabin?”
Randy smiled, wrapping her arms around his waist. “I just like hearing you say it, that’s all.”
He yanked her wide-brimmed hat farther down on her head when she looked up at him again. “See?” he told her. “You’re distracting me again. And there’s Shortbread and the packhorse, already headed to the bottom. Come on.” He kept hold of her arm as they made their way down the escarpment, Randy voicing little squeals at a few precarious slips on wet needles. Jake kept a firm grip on her arm as they made their way over and around fallen logs and broken limbs, skinny pine branches snapping under their feet.
“What a relief!” Randy exclaimed when they reached the flatter pathway.
“Must have rained harder than we thought last night.” Jake helped her remount and handed her the reins to the packhorse again. He untied and mounted Midnight, and they headed farther along, ever downward, until they reached the vast expanse of green valley below the cabin.
Randy glanced up at the line shack, feeling a little sad wondering if and when they would go back again. Their last three days there were the sweetest, most peaceful, most satisfying days they had ever spent together. It was as though all the bad things they’d ever faced together never happened, as though he was thirty again and she was twenty and they were starting over. “Jake?”
“Yeah?” He kept riding ahead of her, heading even farther into the valley, where they would turn south and head closer to home.
“I really enjoyed our time at the line shack. We can go back again sometime, can’t we? Maybe after roundup?”
“Sure we can. It’s just that I can’t take you with me every time I leave the house. I have my ranch work, and you have work to share with Evie and Katie—and the grandkids would have a fit if Grandma was gone all the time. They are probably already asking about you.”
“Oh, I know that. I wouldn’t want to be gone all the time. It’s just that this time together seemed so special. I’m glad I came along.”
Jake slowed his horse and let her catch up. He looked her over lovingly. “I’m glad, too. But I love you, and I want you to be safe.”
“I’m always safe when I’m with you.”
He smiled and shook his head. “Well, out here it’s the unexpected things that even I can’t stop that worry me. And I like you at home because, after days of mending fence and herding and branding cattle and seeing nothing but the ass end of cows and horses, I look forward to coming home to something that looks a lot better.”
Randy laughed. “It’s nice to know you think I look better than a cow’s hind end.”
“Woman, your own hind end is the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen.” He rode off again. “And if we don’t stop this kind of talk, I’ll end up dragging you back up to that cabin.”
I wouldn’t mind, she thought. She remembered another time he’d ridden away, back in Kansas a lifetime ago after she’d nursed him back to health from a gunshot wound—when he was a wanted man and thought it was best that he leave her before things became too serious between them. She remembered wanting to beg him to stay because she’d fallen in love with him. She knew even then that Jake Harkner had lost his heart, too—that for the first time in his life, he’d begun to understand what love felt like. Back then it scared him to death.
“If you don’t stay home next time I leave, how can I come home to you all warm and comfortable and rested and baking that great homemade bread?” he called out, interrupting her thoughts.
He rode a little faster, and Randy nudged Shortbread into a faster trot to keep up. What a contrast he was to the angry, mean, unhappy, wanted outlaw he was when they met. It had been a long time since she’d seen that dark, brooding side of her husband, the look that came into his eyes when something happened to threaten anyone he loved, or something came along to wake up ugly memories. He was a man capable of extreme gentleness for his size and demeanor—but also capable of extreme violence against anyone who threatened those he cared about.