Love’s Sweet Revenge(56)

“Thanks,” Jake answered quietly.

“Jake, it’s like we told you the other night,” Cole told him. “Your wife is one fine woman. We hold you and your whole family in high regard.”

“That son of yours is a hell of a man,” Moses put in. “He’s got his head on straight. And your daughter is like a damn angel. I ain’t never met a woman more gracious and kind. It’s just a reflection of the kind of woman who mothered her, and you raised a fine son.”

Jake glanced over to where Lloyd was still walking away. “He is. We’ve had our differences, though, as you just saw.”

“You know, Jake, that’s how sons are about their mothers,” Pepper told him as he rose. “If they have to choose which one to defend, they’ll always choose the mother first. Ain’t nothin’ much more sacred to a boy than his ma.”

Jake thought about his own mother, murdered before his eyes by his father when he was too little to defend her. He took another drag on the cigarette. “Yeah,” he said quietly.

“I’ll go get you that fresh horse,” Pepper told him. “Time to get moving.” He stopped in front of Jake. “And your son was right. You look like shit. You okay?”

Jake smiled sadly. “I’m okay.” He rose with a deep sigh, aching all over, both his heart from regrets and his body from the raging fight and no sleep. Men began cleaning up as he walked out to where Lloyd stood next to his horse. Lloyd was untying his hair, which hung nearly to his waist now. “Someday you’ll get mistaken for a renegade Indian and get yourself shot,” Jake told him.

Lloyd smoothed back his hair and retied the strip of leather at the nape of his neck. “You keep telling me that. And with this dark skin from the sun and my Mexican blood, I guess I do look like I should be wearing buckskins.” He turned and faced his father, his eyes still showing anger.

“Are you going to forgive me anytime soon?” Jake asked. “I’d like us to have a good time in Denver, for the women’s sake.”

Lloyd closed his eyes and shook his head. “Pa, when you disappear like that, it hurts mother, and that hurts Katie and Evie. And it hurts me. And it makes me wonder sometimes who the hell Lloyd Harkner is. I’m always Jake’s son, and that’s fine with me. You know how I feel about that, but I’m also my own man, and I have a son and a daughter and a good wife and a ranch to run. I can’t always be there for my mother when you decide you’re not good enough for her and think she’s better off without you. She’s loved you for thirty years, Pa, so accept that love. She’s nowhere near as upset about what Clem said as she is about you leaving without talking to her after yelling at her like that.”

Jake took a last drag on his cigarette and stepped it out, turning away. “Lloyd, there are things about me I try to change but can’t. That’s just me. And you are damn well a lot like me except for that real, real deep ruthlessness that I lived with the first fifteen years of my life. You have my temper, but you know how to check it when things get really bad. I don’t. Randy knows that.”

“But it still hurts her, Pa, especially this time, because of how you yelled at her.”

“And I never will again.” Jake removed his hat and ran a hand through his hair before replacing it and turning back to face his son. “You asked who Lloyd Harkner is. Apart from being my son, I see him as a damn fine man who is all the good things I never was, the man I wish I could have been at your age if not for the kind of life I fell into. Someday the J&L will be yours, and it’s most likely I’ll go before your mother, considering the kind of life I’ve led. I have enough aches and pains for ten men. You have no idea how comforting it is to know you’ll be there for your mother when I’m gone.” He looked away. “God gave you to me to make up for my own lost years, and I can’t figure out why He thinks I deserve such things.”

Lloyd took his hat from where it hung on his saddle horn and put it on. “Well, maybe you should just face the fact that the Good Lord saw the good in you, but He couldn’t figure out how to make you see it yourself.” He mounted up. “So he brought Mother into your life. Accept that and be happy. Not everything bad that happens is your fault.” He leaned down a little. “And I love you, but you cast a long shadow. I’m moving out from under that shadow. I’ll always have your back, and I’ll never desert you like I once did, but when you told Stephen and Ben about your father, I knew you’d moved on from the horror of that man and were a lot stronger—on the inside. God knows how strong and able you are on the outside, but it’s the man on the inside that is wearing Mother down. It hurts her to see you like that, because she can’t stand to see that little boy in you come out all lost and alone. The woman in her loves the man you are. She’s your wife and proud of it. So nothing anybody else says is going to bother her one bit. Understand?”