The people they had met in the little town three miles to the east called Desert, were some of the kindest, warmest people Miranda had known, even friendlier than the people she had known back in Kansas City. Some of them, as well as ranching neighbors, had helped build this lovely cabin she called home, as well as the barn and two sheds out back. Life was good, better than she had ever known it to be. She realized this was the happiest she had been since her mother died nine years ago. It seemed life had been a matter of turmoil and wandering and loss ever since then.
Her family was gone, but she had a new family now, a beautiful son. She hoped there would be more children. She suspected she might finally be pregnant again, but she didn’t want to get her hopes up too much, so she had said nothing to Jake yet. Maybe she would tell him today. She had been trying for two years for a second child but had had trouble conceiving after Lloyd’s difficult birth.
She walked over and opened the door for Jake, and a sweet fragrance from the rose bushes she had planted around her front porch penetrated the air. Lloyd toddled in ahead of his father, and Jake followed behind, setting the bucket of water on the counter he had built along one wall for her. “I took Lloyd to see the foal, set him on Outlaw for a few minutes. The kid isn’t afraid of a damn thing. I swear he’d take off riding if I let him.”
“Like father, like son,” Miranda teased.
She picked Lloyd up and glanced at Jake whose eyes had quickly changed from joy to a look of deep hurt. “Don’t ever put it that way, Randy,” he said, scowling.
“Oh, Jake, I only meant that you aren’t afraid of anything either. If our son is daring and full of adventure, it’s because you’ve put that spirit into him. It’s a good thing, not bad. I want him to be like his father. I’m proud of his father.”
Jake walked over and took Lloyd from her, setting him into a high chair he had made himself. “He’ll be a thousand times better than me,” he said quietly. He leaned down and kissed the top of the boy’s head, and Miranda turned to retrieve a pot of coffee from the stove, realizing how delicate the subject of fatherhood still could be for him sometimes. “How many horses will you take to the auction at the fair next month?” she asked, deciding to change the subject. She poured the coffee and set a little plate of boiled and buttered potatoes in front of Lloyd, then served more potatoes to Jake.
“I don’t know. About ten, I guess. Next week I’m going hunting for more mustangs, now that the crops are in. I’d like to catch that black stallion that keeps getting away from me. He’d make a hell of a stud horse if I could ever get a rope around his neck and get him back here.” Jake stabbed three pieces of ham and laid them on his plate with the potatoes, cutting into the meat zealously. He was a big man who always had a big appetite, and Miranda enjoyed cooking for him. He always made her feel appreciated, made anything she did for him enjoyable because it was all so new and pleasurable to him. “Joe Grant wants to go after the mustangs with me. I want you and Lloyd to go stay with his wife while we’re gone. Joe’s brother will come over here to tend to our place.”
“Jake, I can stay here alone. There has never been any trouble around here.”
“Well, there’s a first time for everything.” Jake cut up some meat into smaller pieces and gave them to Lloyd. “This is still pretty lawless and remote country. We’ve offered food and water to enough migrant Arizona prospectors who wander this way that I wouldn’t want you alone here when another one comes along. No arguments. You’ll go stay at Joe’s.”
She sighed and shook her head. “Are you going to enter the shooting contest again this year?”
“I don’t know. I suppose. I didn’t really want to last year. It isn’t very fair to the others.”
“Maybe not, but the fifty-dollar prize will come in handy.”
Jake glanced at her and scowled. “It’s a hundred dollars this year, but it doesn’t seem right, us knowing the rest of them don’t have a chance against me. If they knew the truth—”
“Well, they don’t. They just think guns are your hobby and you happen to be an excellent shot. You shouldn’t worry so much, Jake.”
“I can’t help it. If Joe Grant hadn’t seen my Peacemakers hanging in the barn last year, none of this would have started. He kept after me to show him if I was any good with them, put me in that contest at the fair last year against my will. I tried to miss a few, pretend I wasn’t any better than anybody else, but then I started thinking about the money and how much we needed it. I hope I don’t answer for not leaving well enough alone.”