Love’s Sweet Revenge(76)

“Some of you want to know what Jake Harkner the outlaw was like!” Jake roared.

Evie clung to Brian. “Daddy, stop!”

“You’ve just met him!” Jake finished. “Anyone comes against me right now, and this gun goes off again!” He slowly moved the gun around the room.

No one moved.

“Brian, see if my son is”—Jake’s voice wavered—“dead or alive.”

Brian moved off Evie and scuttled over to kneel beside Lloyd. Evie curled up and wept. Jake pointed his gun at a group of cattlemen. “You! If Lloyd is still alive, I’m asking some of you to please help get him”—his voice wavered again—“to his room.”

Jake watched everyone carefully as Brian ripped open Lloyd’s white ruffled shirt, now stained with blood. He checked for a pulse.

“Lloyd. Oh God, Lloyd,” Evie continued sobbing, her words and tears mixed with Katie’s.

“Tell me he’s still alive,” Jake asked Brian, his voice gruff with rage and sorrow.

“He is,” Brian answered.

“Some of you men get over here and help carry Lloyd up to his room!” Jake roared. “Brian, you go with them. Evie, Katie…” Jake took a moment to glance at Randy. The devastation they both felt hung thick between them. “Randy…all of you go with them!”

“Jake, this isn’t something I can handle alone,” Brian told him. “There is a doctor here I was just talking to. He’s one of the best. I’d like him to go with me.”

“Which one of you is he talking about?” Jake demanded, again keeping his .44 pointed at the crowd.

Dr. Graham Cook stepped forward, swallowing nervously. “Me.”

“Are you any good with bullet wounds?”

“Yes, sir. It’s my specialty.”

“Then go with my son-in-law!” Jake ordered.

“Mr. Harkner, I’ll have to run over to the hospital first and get instruments and supplies, and something for pain.”

“Then do it! And you’d better by God get back here alone! And fast! My son is likely”—the word caught in Jake’s throat, and he struggled not to break down—“dying!”

“I’ll be back fast as I can,” the doctor told him, hurrying out.

Jake looked at the cattlemen he’d asked to help carry Lloyd to his room. “Move!” he roared. “Time is important! Get Lloyd up to his room so my son-in-law can do something for him!”

They quickly obeyed.

“Jake,” Randy said softly, moving beside him. She dared to touch his arm. When he was like this, even she feared setting him off so he’d do something worse—not to her…never to her—but this was the ruthless Jake she’d first met, and when he was in that dark place, he was unpredictable. “He’s still alive,” she said in a shaking voice, wanting to scream Lloyd’s name in anguish. She had to stay calm… “Please put your gun away before someone innocent gets hurt.”

Jake looked at her, and again Randy nearly gasped at the rage she saw there. He was the Jake she’d shot thirty years ago because she was so afraid of him—the Jake who’d blown a man away in the supply store where he first set eyes on Miranda Hayes. “You and Katie go on up to the room with Brian and Evie like I told you,” he told her firmly. “And I’m damn well not putting this gun down! Not yet!”

“Jake.” She nearly groaned the word.

“Go!” It was a quiet command. Randy knew there was no arguing with him—not when he was like this. She wanted to scream and weep and collapse to the floor, but she told herself to stay strong for Katie and Evie…and for Jake.

“I’ll be along,” Jake told her, his eyes gleaming with the look of an outlaw, his voice cold.

There was nothing she could say. Evie and Katie were beside themselves, weeping over Lloyd, who truly looked more dead than alive. Randy felt stunned and helpless. With an aching heart she turned to help Evie and Katie up as the cattlemen came over to pick up an unconscious Lloyd. It took six men to lift him, and the women followed as they carried Lloyd out of the room amid whispers and gasps and weeping. Brian hung on to Evie, who was so devastated that she couldn’t walk on her own.

Randy kept an arm around Katie. She glanced at Gretta as they walked past her. Gretta was crying. “I’m so sorry,” she told Randy.

“Murderer!” Harley Wicks’s sister Arlis screamed at Jake. “You didn’t need to blow that man’s brains out! He could have been arrested!”

Randy’s heart pounded. She didn’t like leaving Jake behind when he was in the mental condition he was in right now, but she had no choice. Katie needed her. Evie needed her. Either of them could lose a baby over this.