Jake sank back into the chair beside Lloyd’s bed. “Go ahead and send her in.”
“I don’t want her to see Jake the outlaw when she comes in here, Jake.”
Jake reached for a cigarette on a table beside him. “I’ll do my best,” he told Brian with obvious sarcasm in his voice. He lit a cigarette, and Brian moved an arm around Randy. “Come on, Mom. Get out of here for a little while. Get cleaned up and change. Pepper is out in the hallway. He wants to talk to you.” He looked at Jake. “In case you hadn’t noticed, your wife also needs you. Lloyd is her son, too.”
“Brian, don’t,” Randy protested. “I’ll be all right.”
“No, you won’t—not without Jake’s support. You’re suffering, too. You need each other.”
“We’re all suffering,” Randy told him wearily. “Let it go for now. I’ll go talk to Pepper.”
Brain cast Jake a warning look and started to leave.
“Randy.” Jake spoke her name with a tone of agony. “I’m…sorry.” He didn’t look at her. He just sat there staring at his .44. “I know…” He didn’t finish. “I just…can’t right now. Lo siento. Favor perdóname.”
“I know, Jake. I’m here. You come for me…or you send for me. I’m here.” Her voice choked, and she hurried out.
Brian glanced at Jake once more. “You be careful how you talk to Evie,” he warned again. He left to get Evie.
Out in the hallway, Randy found Pepper and Cole waiting for her, both with obvious sincere concern in their eyes.
“I’m going to get Evie,” Brian told Randy. “Will you be all right?”
“Yes.”
“Promise me you will go into your own room and clean up and change. I’ll bring you something to help you sleep.”
“I shouldn’t leave Lloyd—or Jake, for that matter.”
“Your son needs you healthy and rested, and Jake can make his own decisions. Lloyd needs him healthy and rested, too. I’m hoping Evie can make him see that. He usually listens to her.”
“I hope so, Brian. I want him to get out of there for a while.”
Brian left her with Pepper and Cole, both of whom stood there in the hallway, looking a bit lost. Pepper nodded to Randy. “Ma’am? We, uh, we got rid of a couple of reporters who were still hanging around.”
“We came by to see what you want us to do, Mrs. Harkner,” Cole added.
Randy walked up and hugged them. “Thank you for coming,” she told Pepper with the embrace. “Right now it makes me feel better to see someone from the J&L.” She spoke the words brokenly. “I wish we could just go home and have all of this behind us.”
When she embraced Cole, he gingerly hugged her, as if not quite sure if he should, considering the mood Jake Harkner was in. He looked at Pepper with wide eyes. Both men looked at her a bit sheepishly when she pulled away.
“Ma’am, I just… I mean, me and Cole was wonderin’ if you want us to go back to the ranch and tell everybody there what’s happened,” Pepper told her. “Them kids back there will be awful upset, especially the oldest ones. They might have already got the news.”
Randy glanced at the door to Lloyd’s room, then pulled Pepper farther away, motioning for Cole to follow. She thought how strange it was to be relieved to see men who were likely from the outlaw world, just like Jake was. It was even stranger that she felt she could trust them implicitly. “Just the thought of the grandchildren helps my heart.” She wiped at tears with a shaking hand.
“Ma’am, you look so tired,” Cole told her. “We heard what happened and what Jake did and… God, we’re awful sorry, Mrs. Harkner, for what you’re goin’ through. We waited a couple of days to let things calm down, but the gossip outside this hotel is pretty wild. A lot of people keep millin’ around to find out what’s going to happen next, and if Jake is gonna go on some kind of shootin’ rampage or somethin’. Is it true, how bad Lloyd is?”
Randy broke down, and Cole and Pepper looked at each other. Pepper took her arm. “Come over and sit down on this bench here,” he told Randy, indicating a bench in the hallway. He sat down next to her. “Ma’am, Lloyd is a big, strong kid with a lot to live for. Just think of all the things Jake has been through. Lloyd is just like him, maybe even stronger, because he’s got a wife and kids and a big ranch to run. Jake didn’t even have them things when he was Lloyd’s age.”
Randy nodded, blowing her nose into a handkerchief that was already overused. “I have to hope you’re right.”