“You have to stop thinking about me and just take care of yourself, Sheriff McCleave; but I do appreciate your concern. You’re very kind.”
McCleave sighed deeply, bringing the pie to his face to smell it. “Well, you can’t blame a man for trying.” He shook his head. “What a waste. Not only are you a right handsome woman, but a good cook on top of it. It smells wonderful in here.”
Miranda put a hand on his arm and walked toward the door. That’s it, Jake thought. Get him back outside. You’re real good, Randy Hayes.
“Well, now you can take some of that wonderful smell home with you,” she was saying. “And thank you, Sheriff, for coming out here to make sure I’m all right.”
The sheriff followed her out, holding the pie, and Jake thought what an easily fooled man he was. He listened as Miranda talked sweetly to all three men. Finally he heard the horses riding off, heard the door close.
He peered through the curtains again to see Miranda leaning against the door, looking relieved. “They’re gone,” she said loudly.
Jake stepped out and walked past her to look out a front window. He saw the three men riding off in the distance. “Good work,” he told her.
“I didn’t do it for you,” she answered, going back to stir the dumplings, not wanting to believe in her heart she cared anything for Jake Harkner. “I did it for them. I have no doubt you could have shot down all three of them in the blink of an eye if they tried anything. Men like that are no match for you, and I didn’t want to see them die.”
He turned to her. “Then if you thought they could take me, you would have told?”
“I didn’t say that. I only meant that if there was trouble, if they had perhaps seen you or some sign of you, they would have foolishly tried something and they would all be dead or at least hurt. I won’t have that on my conscience.” She tested a dumpling. “You might have been hurt too,” she added, so softly Jake barely heard her. “Sit down and I’ll give you something to eat.”
Jake moved to the table, still watching her, wondering at the way she had of ordering him about, wondering more at why he felt compelled to obey. It touched him that she seemed to care he might have been hurt again. He studied the lovely form that her yellow dress fit so well. The sheriff was right. It did smell wonderful in the house. She was a “right handsome” woman and a good cook. What man wouldn’t want someone like her for a wife?
The thought so startled him that he drew in his breath and looked away from her, picking up his gun and whirling the chamber again to remove the bullets. He reasoned he had better get out of here as quickly as possible, before he lost his mind completely, if it was his mind he was losing. Maybe it was something else, though—maybe his heart. Did he still have one? He almost laughed out loud at the ridiculous thought and directed his attention to the gun then, warning himself to stop thinking about women altogether. When he was out of here and on his way north he’d find some whore who could get a few things out of his system. He reasoned that was why he thought about Miranda Hayes more fondly than made sense for a man like him. He’d just been too long without.
Miranda was setting fresh bread on the table now, and he struggled to ignore the soft look of her as she moved about the room, the way she was softly humming. The crazy woman actually seemed happy! She had just sent away a man who could have gotten a notorious outlaw out of her house. She’d just turned down an opportunity to make five thousand dollars for herself, and she was walking around humming! She poured both of them some coffee and set a bowl of dumplings and vegetables in front of him, then took a chair across the table from him.
“Well, it’s nice to have someone to share a meal with,” she spoke up, “and good that you can sit at the table instead of me having to carry a tray to the bed. Just go easy on that stomach of yours. Don’t eat too much too fast. It will be nice to see you hold something down for once.”
Jake set the gun aside and picked up a fork. He stabbed a dumpling and took a bite. “Real good,” he told her. “A couple more meals like this and a little more rest and I’ll be out of here. You can return to whatever kind of life is normal for you, get yourself to Nevada, whatever.”
Miranda looked at him, again surprised at herself for thinking how she would miss having him around. “You still going to Indian Territory? Sheriff McCleave says that’s where that Bill Kennedy probably headed.”
Jake swallowed more of the dumpling stew. “I’ll go north, then maybe west to Oregon or California. It’s not likely anybody out west will know who Jake Harkner is. I’ve got a little money—might even figure out a way to live on the side of the law, kind of start over. What do you think of that?”