“Have I told you how you fit this land?” she told him, urging Shortbread up beside him. “When I watch you from behind, I see a big, tall man on a big horse, handling a big ranch in big, big country. You fit this land, Jake. It’s like Jeff said in his book.”
Randy loved Jeff’s description of Jake, saying that he had a way of filling up a room with his bold presence—that sometimes it seemed he filled up the whole land.
Jake turned and bridled closer, then reached out and pulled her off her horse and onto his own horse in front of him. “Ma’am, if you don’t quit your flirting, we’ll never make it home. I’ll end up making camp early, and we’ll be cavorting right out in the open. Some of my men could show up any time and catch us in a very compromising position.”
Randy laughed and sat sideways, removing her hat and resting her head on his chest as he kept his horse at a slow walk. Jake reached over and grasped Shortbread’s bridle, pulling the horse close enough to grab the reins. “Here.”
Randy wrapped the strings of her hat around Shortbread’s saddle horn, then took the horse’s reins. Jake urged Midnight around so he could grab hold of the packhorse. “Hell, between hanging on to the packhorse and handling my own reins, I can’t put my arms around you.”
Randy wrapped her own arms around his waist, still clinging to Shortbread’s reins. “I’ll just hang on. I know we can’t ride like this for long, but I like it.”
Jake kissed her hair. “So do I.”
“I love you, Jake.”
He didn’t answer right away. Finally, he said, “To this day, after almost thirty years, I still have trouble figuring out why you love me. I’ve put you through so much.”
“You’ve loved me as deeply as any man can love a woman, and that’s all that matters. After all these years, I feel like we’re not just husband and wife, but lovers. Does that make any sense?”
He laughed lightly. “You are determined to make this ride difficult for me, aren’t you?”
She leaned up and kissed him. “You’re fun to be with when you’re like this, all relaxed and happy. And you didn’t answer when I said I love you.”
He kissed her hair again. “That’s because I love you isn’t good enough for the likes of you. I was trying to think of something better than that.”
She threw her head back and looked up at him. “Worship? Adore?”
“Something like that.”
They both laughed, and she hugged him again. But even without looking at him, she felt the sudden change. He halted his horse, and she felt his whole body stiffen. She leaned back again and saw the darker look of the old, defensive Jake Harkner, the wanted man always on the alert. He was looking past her.
“Jake?”
“Rustlers. They’ve seen us. Hang on to Shortbread.” He turned Midnight toward the foothills. “We’re heading for those rocks to the west!” He urged the horses into a faster lope toward an outcropping of rocks that looked as though they’d tumbled there from nowhere. “Get down!” he told her when they reached cover. He hung on to her arm as she slid off his horse. Jake dismounted. “Tie the horses farther into the trees.” He yanked his rifle from its boot.
Randy pulled the horses into the trees, her heart pounding. In moments like this, she trusted her husband to know what to do. She obeyed every order.
Jake ducked behind a huge boulder. “Get the shotgun and my leather pack with the extra cartridges and buckshot,” he told her, cocking his repeating rifle.
Randy took the shotgun and ammunition from the packhorse and carried them over to him.
Jake set both rifle and shotgun against the rock while he checked his Colt .44s, the guns that had brought him so much notoriety…and often too much heartache. “You stay down, and I mean down,” he told her.
Randy knelt beside him and peeked through an opening between the boulder and another rock. In the distance a good six or seven men were herding a fair number of cattle south.
“How do you know it’s not Pepper and some of the other men?”
“None of my men would be riding in bunches like that this time of year. They’re spread out—a couple here, a couple there. And we aren’t rounding up yet, at least not in this area. They wouldn’t be out there with that many cattle.” He rested on one knee, picking up the Winchester and positioning it in the same opening to watch. “They’re still a little too far away, damn it!”
“Jake, please don’t take them on by yourself.”
“I don’t think I’ll have any choice. Take the shotgun and keep it handy. If anything happens to me, use it!” He handed her one of his six-guns. “And then shoot the rest of them with this if you have to.”