Love’s Sweet Revenge(89)

“No. Just us.”

Jake opened the door and quickly let in the two men while Randy opened a carpetbag and retrieved the papers they needed. The men glanced around the room nervously, feeling uncomfortable in Jake’s private room. Pepper looked Jake over as though fearing he might pull a gun on him.

“Relax,” Jake told them. “I only blow the heads off my enemies, not my friends.”

“Well then, I reckon we’re glad you consider us friends,” Cole joked, trying to lighten the moment.

“We’re damn sorry about Lloyd, Jake,” Pepper told him. “It’s a goddamn shame. I ain’t never had a kid—none that I know of anyway—but anybody can see how close you two are. And Lloyd is a damn fine man.”

Jake nodded. “Thank you.” He took a cigarette from a tin on a nearby dresser and lit it.

Pepper and Cole removed their hats and nodded to Randy. “Ma’am, this must be awful hard on you and Jake both,” Cole told her.

“We are all praying for him,” Randy answered, “and you know God will certainly listen to Evie’s prayers, if no one else’s.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Pepper told her. “No doubt about it.”

“Lloyd woke up and moved his legs last night,” Jake told them, “so we’re hopeful.”

“Good! That’s damn good,” Cole told him.

“And right now you need to run a few errands,” Jake added, taking a drag on the cigarette. “Randy already told you what you need to do. She has a note to give you for the bank. After you pick up supplies, I want you to go to that garden supply place over on Eighteenth Street and buy as many yellow rosebushes as they have. Take them home and have Rodriguez plant them all around the veranda of the main house. A few red ones are okay, but mostly yellow. I want them there for Randy when we get home.”

“Yes, sir.”

Randy felt like crying over the fact that in the midst of all that was happening, Jake remembered her roses.

Pepper watched Jake tie his holsters to his thighs. “You okay, Jake?”

“I will be when Lloyd is up and walking. He spoke last night and moved around quite a bit.”

Cole nodded. “You’ve got everybody scared to death after what you did to Mike Holt,” he told Jake. “Not even Denver’s finest police want to come up here and try to arrest you.”

“Good.” Jake took a drag on the cigarette as Randy handed Cole the papers.

“Lloyd has a long way to go,” Jake told them, “and I still might be facing an arrest, so I don’t know what’s going to happen or how soon we’ll make it back to the J&L. Make sure the men there are taking proper care of everything, and give my baby girls hugs for me.”

“You trust us no-goods to be huggin’ those little angels?” Pepper asked.

“Of course I do. And I don’t want them to know that anything bad has happened. Make up whatever story you want to tell them, and make sure Stephen and Ben and Little Jake understand they’re not to tell those girls anything that would make them scared or make them cry.”

Cole nodded. “We’ll tell them.”

Pepper shook his head. “I never knew a man who could blow—” He hesitated. “Who could do what you did and then worry about somebody givin’ hugs to two little girls.”

“Yeah, well, I guess I’m two different men, and my poor wife has to live with both of them. I try to be the good Jake, but the bad one just can’t help some of the things he does.”

“They surely won’t send you to jail, Jake,” Cole assured him. “For God’s sake, the man shot your unarmed son. Lord knows if Lloyd had had his own gun with him, that never would have happened. He’s as good with a gun as you are.”

“I just wish I’d realized what was happening sooner. That sonofabitch should never have been allowed into that dance. I’ll see to it that the woman who let him in goes to jail herself for aiding in an attempted murder.”

Pepper nodded to Jake then. “Well, in the meantime, we’ll get those roses and other supplies to the ranch and come back here with the grandsons. I’m sure by now the rest of the men will be glad to give Little Jake over to us for a while.”

That got a grin out of Jake. “I don’t doubt that one bit.” Jake took another drag on the cigarette. “You don’t need to be in a big hurry. After a couple of days of excitement at seeing a city, those boys will get bored real fast, and we know Lloyd has a good two weeks of recovery ahead of him, maybe a lot longer. Nothing is going to happen anytime soon.”