Miranda touched her cheek where he had kissed her, a kiss that had sent pricks of fire through her bloodstream. “You take care of yourself. Don’t do too much riding the first day. Promise?”
“Promise.”
“I’ll watch the newspapers—maybe read something about you once in a while.”
“It will all be bad, I can guarantee. Just don’t believe most of it.”
Again the tears wanted to come. “I won’t. God be with you, Jake.”
He gave her the familiar sarcastic grin. “I doubt he takes time for the likes of me.”
Miranda suddenly couldn’t find her voice.
Jake tipped his hat to her then. “Vaya con Dios, Randy Hayes.” He turned Outlaw, heading north. Miranda wanted to call out to him to stop, beg him to take her with him, or just to hold her for a little while. She put up her hand to wave, but he did not turn around to look back. She watched man and horse move up a distant rise and disappear on the other side.
“Good-bye, Jake,” she said again, this time softly. He had spoken to her in Spanish, and it had sounded beautiful. She wondered how much of his mother’s language he remembered, how often he used it.
Tears blurred her sight as she walked back to the cabin. She told herself those tears were just because of her father’s recent death, from all her losses, and her fear of heading into an untamed land. The tears couldn’t possibly have anything to do with Jake Harkner riding out of her life.
***
Jake started awake when an owl hooted. In an instant his revolver was drawn and cocked, but there was only silence in the darkness around him. The owl hooted again, and a soft night wind rustled the awakening spring leaves of the trees in the hollow where he had made camp. He waited a moment, listening intently, finally deciding it was only the owl that had disturbed him. He put the gun back in its holster and sat up straighter, bracing himself against his saddle. By the dim light of his fading campfire he could see that Outlaw was still tied where he had left him.
He had made camp in a hollow somewhere on the plains of southeastern Nebraska, had been there for several days now. Miranda had been right, he thought. He was not healed enough to have left when he did. An overpowering weakness had forced him to go slowly and finally to camp for several days in this one spot so he could rest. He felt good now, much stronger again. He just wished he could sleep better. He figured sleep should come easy, now that he was healed.
He sighed with disgust, knew the reason he was so restless and so easily awakened. It had nothing to do with worrying about being followed and bushwhacked, and it had nothing to do anymore with his injury. It had to do with a woman, a little slip of a woman with honey-blond hair and gray-blue eyes who had told him all human life had value. Miranda Hayes was probably on her way to Nevada by now, and it would be a miracle if she made it alive. Even if she did, survival after she got there would be another matter. He wanted to kick himself for not taking her himself, had given himself all kinds of good reasons why he just couldn’t do it; but none of his arguments had convinced him he had made the right decision. The fact remained that he would always wonder if he should have taken her, always feel guilty for not doing it.
The guilt was what really frustrated him. He hadn’t felt guilty about anything in years—except for the unending guilt over his father that had stolen his desire to ever make anything of himself. That guilt made sense, but to feel guilty for not taking a woman where she wanted to go made no sense. On top of that, after being around her, he had begun to feel guilty about what had never bothered him before, his past life of raiding and robbing and killing. He thought he had long ago accepted the way he lived as just the way things were, had determined in his own mind that such things could never be changed; but that damn woman had made him think about things he had not cared about since he was in his teens. The strange thing was, she had never really preached to him, or even raised her voice. She had just dropped subtle hints, had gotten that damned disappointed look in her eyes at times that made him feel like an ass.
There had been another look in those eyes that haunted him even more, especially at night. If he wasn’t so sure it couldn’t possibly be true, he would bet the way she looked at him the day he left meant she had feelings for him that ran deeper than friendship. Even friendship seemed unbelievable, considering the differences between them; but to think she might have wanted more…
He shook his head. Damned if Mrs. Miranda Hayes didn’t act as if she needed holding, and damned if he didn’t want to hold her. He could not forget how soft her cheek had been when he kissed it, how good she had smelled. He had wanted to lick that cheek, taste her skin, her mouth, all the pretty places on a woman that made a man hungry. He couldn’t help picturing how firm and pink her breasts must be, how hungry she might be herself to have a man share her bed again. Lord knew he would certainly like to accommodate her, but what was strange was that he didn’t want it so much in a lustful sort of way he thought of most women. After all, the kind of women he had always known didn’t create much of any other kind of feeling in a man. They were just there to satisfy physical needs.