“Don’t fuss over me,” she demanded. “I’m fine now. Get the boys in here. They need to see that I’m…all right. I want to talk to them.”
“It’s me you should be talking to.”
“No—not yet! Not yet!”
Jake grasped her arm and turned her. “Look at me.”
“No! I have to be strong now…for you…for those poor boys who tried so hard—” The words caught in her throat.
“You don’t need to be strong for anyone. I’m all right, Randy. We’ve had some good talks with the boys, and we’ll talk some more, but they’re okay. It’s over. Oklahoma is behind us. The last sonofabitch left over from my years as a marshal there is dead, and we can finally have some peace! But first, you and I have to get back where we belong.”
She kept trying to pull away. “We can’t! They…did something…they spoiled what we…had… They…made it ugly. That’s why I…shot Brad…” She sucked in her breath, obviously forcing bravery and determination. “Buckley,” she finished. “My God… I…killed him!”
Jake pulled her even closer. “You listen to me. This is you and me now. You and me! We’ve been to hell and back, and for thirty years, it’s always been you and me. It’s done now. My past and all it did to us is over now, and I can talk about it—because of you. I’m alive because of you! I’m sane because of you, and it’s likely I won’t be going to jail…because of you. But as far as I’m concerned, no one in the outside world will ever know about this. And I’m not going to lose that special thing we have because of a couple of bastards who thought they could destroy the beautiful love we share.”
“Jake!” She gasped his name. “You never… You never…asked me… You never… You’ve been with other women. Maybe you wanted…”
“Stop it! ¡Tu eres mi vida, mi querida esposa! ¡Yo te amo! Nothing has changed! We’re going to the line shack, just you and me, and we’ll stay there as long as it takes to get it all back.”
“Jake…all I could think about was…that trading post…hearing your voice…feeling you pick me up and knowing…how safe I was…but when they—” She began wiping at her mouth again. “I belong to you! I belong to you!”
He grasped both her hands in his grip. “You do belong to me, and nothing has changed! I’ll take back every single inch of you, Randy Harkner, and we’ll go home, and you’ll bake that bread and make those pies and love on your grandbabies and be my partner in everything I do. This is Jake Harkner you’re talking to, and there isn’t one thing in life I haven’t seen or experienced or been through. So none of this can hurt me, Randy. And this time I’m not strong just on the outside. I’m strong on the inside, again because of you. Now you have to let me be the strong one! You’ve been carrying the load for too many years, and it’s going to end, understand?”
She shivered. “You’re my Jake.”
“I’m your magnificent Jake.”
She jerked in a little burst of laughter through her tears and turned, burying her head against his chest. “How do you do that?”
“Do what?”
“Know when to…make me laugh.”
He grasped her hair and kissed it. “I just know women, I guess.”
She wrapped her arms tightly around him and sobbed and laughed at the same time. “That remark…should make me hate you…” She cried harder then. “Do you know…how many times I wanted…to hate you?”
“Probably at least once every day. And you’d have to get in line with quite a few other people.”
Her sobs mixed with laughter again. Jake just held her, realizing that right now her words and actions came partly from hysteria and partly from a groggy, confused state from the laudanum.
“Jake, I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”
“Sorry for what?”
“I tried to fight them. It’s always been…just you…just you…”
He kissed her hair again. “Don’t be apologizing for something you couldn’t help. It’s still just me. And you’re all mixed up right now. We’ll talk more when we get to the line shack. Lloyd is going to ride there with us, and before we even came after you, I had some of the men go there and take enough heating wood and supplies that we can stay there as long as we need to.”
“You remembered.”
“I should have taken you there a long time ago. I’ll not let anything get in the way of that again.”