“We couldn’t just execute the ones left alive, Pa, much as we would have liked to. You would have ended up back in prison, and Evie would have never lived that down. We couldn’t let her see her father and brother deliberately murder those men. And maybe she was able to forgive them, but having to face any of them again…who knows what that would do to her? She’s happy now, and thank God she has the best husband a woman like her could ask for. If she’s having another baby, that’s a damn good sign their marriage is healed. I’m just trying to figure out if we should discuss this with her or just leave it alone and hope the bastard doesn’t show up.”
“I’ll decide when the time is right to talk to her about it,” Randy told them. “She might even bring it up herself.”
“Let me talk to Brian first,” Jake told her.
“Katie will be none too happy about this either,” Lloyd told them. “This will scare her to death after all that happened back in Guthrie. I left her in the barn and took off without even explaining anything, but she’ll find out before I get back, and she’ll be upset.”
“You probably should have stayed with her and let the other men come out here,” Jake told him.
“When my parents could both be in trouble?” Lloyd tried to make light of the situation as he gave his mother a teasing grin. “I figured I’d better try to keep this old man from getting himself into more trouble. Sometimes I’m the only one who can do that.”
Jake scowled at him. “I could make you sorry for calling me an old man, but I wouldn’t want to mess up that pretty face for Katie.”
Lloyd grinned. “That’ll be the day.”
Jake held his gaze, the look in his eyes softening. “It’ll be okay, Son. We have good men working for us. We just have to be extra alert for a while. For all we know, Holt will want to stay out of trouble, and he won’t show up at all.”
“Yeah, and fish don’t need water.” Lloyd glanced at the other men as they continued rifling through the belongings of the rustlers. “Stay here with Mom. The other men and I will get these men buried.” He frowned at Jake again. “You go wielding a shovel, and you’ll start that cut bleeding all over again.”
“Be sure to save all their trap,” Jake answered. “We’ll have one of the men take them to Denver and report this.” He saw the worry in Lloyd’s eyes at the remark. Lloyd and pretty much everyone else in the family always feared something could happen to land Jake back in prison. “I was in the right, Lloyd. They were rustling cattle. If I hadn’t shot them, they would have been hung. There won’t be any trouble over this.”
Lloyd nodded. “I know. It’s just—”
“The name. I know.”
Lloyd smiled sadly. “I’m glad we found you and Mom okay. I sure as hell know this was something you could handle, Pa, but there’s always that little worry that something could go wrong this time, and I didn’t like thinking Mom could be left out here alone.”
“So, you came back because of her, not me.”
“Of course I did. I knew damn well you’d be okay on your own.” Lloyd grinned, and Jake couldn’t help his own smile.
“Well, you did right,” he told his son. “Let’s get these men buried and get home. There’s a lot of rounding up and branding to do.” Jake called out to the other men. “Any of you recognize any of those men? Did you find something with their names on it?”
“Got names off of five of them,” Cole answered, “but I don’t know any of them. Pepper doesn’t either.”
“Any of them carry the name Mike Holt?” Jake called back.
“Nope.” Jake watched Cole limp over to his horse. The man had an old leg wound from the war, and that was all Jake knew about his background. Cole Decker was of slender build but strong as a horse, and he tended to drink too much, but he was a happy drinker, not a mean one, so that was okay with Jake. He suspected some pretty shady doings in the man’s past, not much different from Jake himself.
“You’d better go check out the one they couldn’t identify,” Jake told Lloyd. “Maybe we’ll get lucky and find out it’s Mike Holt.”
“Yeah, sure.”
Lloyd left to take a look at the bodies, and Jake turned to Randy, keeping her close. “Okay, woman, you’re right. I don’t just love you. I adore you. I worship you.” He hugged her even tighter. “And I’m glad as hell you’re all right.”
Randy breathed deeply of his familiar scent, then looked up at him. “Let’s go home to the grandchildren. Suddenly, I want very much to see them and get back to a normal routine. It helps me handle things like this.”