The Last Outlaw(134)
“Randy, it’s okay. I shouldn’t have mentioned Pepper. I apologize.”
She sniffed and put away a few more dishes. “It’s all right.” She moved the coffee pot off the hot burner. “If this sits here too long, it will be bitter,” she said. She wiped at her eyes again and came to sit down, then just stared at her coffee cup. “Jake has a way of making everything better,” she repeated. “When he holds me, all the terrors of the world go away. And he has a way of making a woman feel like she’s the most beautiful and perfect thing God ever created.” She drank some coffee, then looked at her hands. “I am still too thin, aren’t I? Jake says I need to fatten up. He says he’s scared to hold me too tight or he might break a bone or something.”
She suddenly burst into tears, covering her mouth as she wept. “Peter, something is wrong! Something is terribly wrong! I’ve felt it all morning! Jake needs me! He needs me!”
“Randy!” He reached out to touch her arm. “Should I go get Evie?”
She shook her head. “I need you to hold me, Peter. I haven’t felt this way since…since I knew something terrible had happened back in Guthrie…when we found out those awful men took Evie and Little Jake!”
Peter rose and pulled her out of her chair, holding her close and letting her cry on his shoulder. Ben came in just then and looked at him questioningly.
“Go get Evie and Lloyd, Ben,” Peter told him. “Something is wrong.”
Ben left, and Peter kept his arms around Randy. “Honey, it will be all right. He’ll make it back.”
“He won’t! Not this time. I feel it, Peter. Something has happened. Something really bad.” She threw her arms around his neck and clung to him.
She needs holding sometimes, so I guess I’ll have to let you do it. He remembered Jake’s words back in Guthrie, when Jake had to leave on a mission as a marshal and Randy needed to go to a hospital for surgery. That was the first time he and Jake had faced off over the fact that Peter loved her too. There was no way Jake Harkner was going to let another man try to move in on his wife, but the man had somehow known that he could trust Peter for that very reason—that Peter loved her enough to take care of her without even considering anything more.
This was one of those moments when he figured Jake wouldn’t care if he held her. The woman was falling to pieces. In two minutes, Lloyd and Evie were both at the house, followed by practically everybody in the family, including Brian, who came over and touched Randy’s back.
“Randy, what is it?” he asked.
She continued to sob against Peter’s shoulder until Lloyd grasped her arm. “Mom, what’s going on?”
She turned and fell into Lloyd’s arms. “It’s Jake! It’s Jake!” she carried on. “Something awful has happened. I feel it! I feel it!”
Evie turned away. “Daddy,” she groaned.
Lloyd just held her, not sure what else to do. “Mom, let Brian give you something to help you sleep. I know you’re not sleeping. The boys told me you’re up pacing half the night.”
“I don’t want to sleep. I want Jake. He’s in pain, Lloyd.”
Lloyd led her to Jake’s chair. “Mom, he knows how to take care of himself. And he has Cole with him.”
She shook her head. “It’s worse than anything before,” she wept. She grasped Jake’s pillow and curled into the chair, holding the pillow close. “Evie needs to pray for her father. He needs God’s hand right now, Lloyd. He’s got no one else. Cole isn’t with him. I feel it. He’s alone. He’s alone and in pain.”
Everyone just looked at one another. Lloyd’s hands moved into fists. “I should have gone with him.”
“Lloyd, you did the right thing,” Evie reminded him. “It’s what Daddy wanted you to do. We have to have faith. Mother is right. We need to pray Daddy out of whatever fix he’s in. And maybe he’s just fine.”
“He’s not! He’s not!” Randy sobbed.
Peter suddenly felt like the odd man out. He walked over to Randy and knelt in front of the chair. “Randy, do you want me to leave?”
“No! No, please stay.” She reached out and grasped his hand. “I need you to stay till we know. I’m so sorry, Peter. I know you need to go home.”
“I said I’d stay till Jake and Cole got back, remember? So I’ll stay. But you aren’t the woman I once knew, Randy. That woman was strong, and she believed in her husband’s abilities and in his promises to always come back to her. And he always did, didn’t he? Didn’t Jake always come back?”