Outlaw Hearts(183)

Brian was not the least bit bothered by the fact that Evie’s father was in prison. He was a good-hearted young man who in turn saw the goodness in Evie, but Miranda knew the man also was surely taken by the girl’s exotic beauty. Evie was tall and dark, a woman now at eighteen, gracious and beautiful. How she wished Jake could see her, but he had literally begged her never to bring the girl to the prison. He didn’t even want his wife to come, had asked her several times to divorce him and get on with her life.

She looked toward the doorway again. No, she would not leave Jake Harkner. For the first thirty years of his life he had known only loneliness and desertion. She would not allow him to know those things again, and she could not bring herself to turn to Jess, as Jake had hinted she should do. Jess had remained in Laramie, worked at the stockyards in order to stay close to her and Evie. They were good friends, and she knew Jess would like their relationship to be much more than that. There were times when she had turned to Jess, only because she needed so badly to let out her grief and let someone else be the strong one. In those times he had only held her, and sometimes she felt torn between two different loves; the deep, passionate, determined love she felt for her Jake; and the gentle, abiding friendship she had with Jess, something that in another time and situation could have been much more. Jake Harkner still owned her heart. It would always be Jake, whether they could be together or not.

She rose from the bench and paced, worried about getting back in time to help Mrs. Rose at the boardinghouse with supper. Besides working for Brian Stewart, she had taken part-time jobs cleaning and cooking for the woman, in return for rooms for her and Evie, which helped keep down expenses. She also helped teach at Laramie’s little schoolhouse. She did everything she could to stay busy, so busy that she didn’t have time to think about the past and everything she had lost, no time to think about how much she needed her husband beside her, no time to think about poor Jake rotting away in that tiny cell, dying not just from malnutrition and lack of exercise, but from a broken heart over what this had done to Lloyd.

She wished that for once she had news for Jake about their son, but for three years she had heard not one word. She had promised to look for him, but she didn’t know where to begin. She had placed ads in newspapers all over the country, asking Lloyd to please get in touch with her. She had spent money on a private detective, who had come up with nothing. Jess had searched the Outlaw Trail a year ago, thinking the boy might decide to turn to men like those his father used to run with, but he had turned up nothing.

If only Lloyd would return, come and see his father, tell him he forgave him, loved him, Jake might survive this horror. It was not knowing what had happened to Lloyd that was killing him more surely than anything else, and worry over the boy was taking its toll on her own emotional health.

Finally Jake emerged from the prison entrance, four armed guards accompanying him. He limped toward her, the pain in his hip made worse by long hours in a damp cell with no exercise. She forced a smile as he came closer, and she rose from the bench to embrace him, but he just looked at her with that hopelessness in his eyes and sat down wearily on the bench.

“Why do you keep doing this, Randy?”

She sat down beside him, touching his arm. “Because you’re my husband and I love you, and I need to keep seeing that you’re all right.” It pained her to see how much he looked like the old posters now. He had a full beard, didn’t bother to shave anymore. His hair hung to his shoulders again, and the only difference between the way he looked now and when she’d first met him were the lines about his eyes, the hint of gray in his hair. “I don’t want us to be complete strangers when you get out of here,” she added.

He rubbed at his eyes. “What difference does it make? I’m not going to be around five years from now and you know it.” He moved his hand to run it through his hair self-consciously. “I hate you seeing me like this. I wish to hell you’d give up. The next time you come, I’m not coming out, so don’t even bother. This is all too damn hard on you.”

“I’ll decide what I can handle, Jake. Love doesn’t go away just because things go wrong. This would all be much worse for me if I couldn’t see you. Don’t begrudge me the only bit of pleasure I have left.”

He looked at her with the dark eyes of the old Jake, angry, full of hate for himself. “Pleasure! You call this pleasure?”

She watched his eyes, knew he was trying to discourage her. “Don’t look at me that way, Jake. I know what’s going on inside you, so don’t pretend with me.” The words were spoken almost as a command. “You say you don’t want me here, but if I didn’t show up for next month’s visit, you’d die just a little more inside.” She turned to a basket that sat on the ground. “I brought you some decent food. I’m afraid it’s been fingered over by those damn guards. They always think I’m going to sneak a weapon in to you.”