“This feels so good I could cry,” he told her as he settled into the quilts.
Randy smiled and undressed. “That bed will feel good to me too, because I haven’t slept in it since you left. That peppermint stick is still lying there on the nightstand.”
Jake rolled over and grabbed the candy. Randy climbed naked into bed, and he studied every curve, every slender line, the flow of her hair, the fullness of her breasts. He threw the covers over them and pulled her close. “My God, Randy, this is the longest we’ve been apart since I went to prison for four years.” He put the peppermint stick into her mouth and kept the other end in his. They licked it until their lips met. Through it all, he moved his hand over her breasts, her soft belly, her hip bones, her sweet bottom, her slender legs, drifting his fingers past the blond hairs of her love nest, up to her neck. They finished the candy together, kissed deeply, settled against each other…and fell asleep in each other’s arms for the first time in months.
Deep in the night, Jake ignored his pain. Bad memories woke him: the whip lashes, the desert, his broken leg, the boiling sun burning up his naked body. When he roused to consciousness, it took a few seconds to realize where he was…and that his beloved Randy was lying right beside him. She’d saved him from the darkness of hell over and over again. She lay here now in the flesh, not his imagination—naked and beautiful—still the woman he loved beyond measure, the woman who’d given up so much for him. He had to know this was real. It had simply been too long.
“Randy,” he groaned. “Tu eres mi vida, mi querida esposa. I need to be inside of you.”
She turned, rubbing at her eyes by the soft light of a low-lit lamp in the washroom. “I want that more than anything,” she answered softly. “I just wanted you to be rested.” She threw her arms around his neck. “I haven’t even slept yet, Jake. I was just lying here enjoying the feel of your strong arm around me.”
He moved on top of her, and she gladly opened herself to him.
“I don’t want to hurt you. It’s been such a long time, Randy.”
“It doesn’t matter.” She helped guide his hard shaft into her depths, drawing in her breath at the feel of him, the realization that he really was here and all in one piece and making love to her. Usually he took his time with foreplay, but right now, they both needed this…just this…anxiously, desperately. She smiled at how glad she was that those men who took Jake into the desert hadn’t cut off what gave her so much pleasure now.
He grasped her arms and moved them over her head. He moaned as he buried himself hard and deep, nuzzled her neck, and kissed her ear. “Who do you belong to?” he asked.
“Jake Harkner,” she answered.
“Every last inch of you.”
Epilogue
July 1898
It was the grandest cookout the J&L had ever held. The whole family was there, of course, Katie holding six-month-old Jeffrey in her lap and Sadie Mae pushing around a pram that held Evie and Brian’s new baby, just two weeks old—a son named Cole, for the man who’d been such a good friend to their father. Sadie Mae beamed with pride over mothering her new baby brother.
Most of the ranch hands were there. Teresa, Katie, Evie, and Randy had been cooking and baking for days. Tables made of sawhorses and planks of wood were covered with checkered tablecloths. An entire steer was roasted over an open fire. A few neighbors came. The guest list was long, and included Peter and Treena, Jeff and his wife and two children. Loretta and Annie came, and so did Gretta and Sam. Annie knew the truth now and understood her real mother’s sacrifice. Cole rode in for the affair, and he and Gretta announced they were getting married, which brought rousing cheers from everyone.
Randy started out of the house with another pie in her hands just as Jake came from the upstairs bedroom. He walked up to her and grabbed her from behind before she could get out the door, making her let out a little scream. With the pie in her hands, she couldn’t stop him from moving his hands over the square-cut bodice of her dress.
“Jake Harkner, do you know how many people are out there? Get your hands off my breasts.”
“But I love these babies.”
“And between three weeks at that line shack and what just went on upstairs this morning, you should be able to keep your hands off of me long enough to welcome everyone and sit down and eat.”
“You taste better than any of the food.”
Randy turned her head and looked up at him. He met her mouth in a deep kiss, gently squeezing her breasts at the same time. Randy grinned and wiggled away from him. “Stop!”