“Well, just the same, I’ll let you handle it.” He nodded to Randy. “I’m sorry I didn’t do something sooner, ma’am, but you seemed so bent on not leaving your husband’s side that I didn’t have the heart to try to force you into anything. I’ll send word to the hotel. I’m sure that little girl over there wants to see her grandfather.”
“I’ll bet she does,” Jake said with a smile. “And I want to see my Button. This whole thing must have terrified her. I wish I could give her a hug.”
“If I were you, I’d just lie still, Mr. Harkner, for another couple of days anyway. Relax until your son gets here. I’ll try to keep reporters and the mayor and others who’ve been clamoring outside my door out of here.”
“Thanks. I don’t want to talk to any of them.” Jake looked at Randy again. “Little Jake will have a fit over not having been here to see his grandfather in a gunfight.”
“Oh, he’ll be beside himself,” Randy told him.
The doctor took a moment to listen to Jake’s heart, then felt for fever. “You’re going to be fine as long as there is no infection.” He looked at Randy. “Don’t take that tonic until you get some food in your stomach.” He straightened, turning his attention to Jake again. “You say your son-in-law is a doctor?”
“Brian Stewart,” Randy answered for Jake, “and he’s a very fine doctor. He travels around to other ranches to help with everything from broken bones to birthing babies and doctoring spider bites. I’m sure he’ll come here with Lloyd so he can be with Jake on the way home.”
“Well, if he’s along, maybe Jake can leave sooner than I would normally let him go.” Doctor Snow glanced at Jake on those words, an obvious expression of “I’d like you off my hands” on his face.
Jake grinned. “I know. You can’t wait till I’m out of here.”
The doctor chuckled and walked out for a moment, coming back with Jake’s gun belt. “This damn thing is heavy with both guns in it.” He hung it over the bedpost near Jake. “There you go. I have no desire to touch those things.”
“I’d advise you not to.”
“After all that shooting, the guns are likely empty.”
“I’ll load them myself once the nurse returns with that food and I see my wife eating.”
“Suit yourself.”
The doctor left, and Jake turned to his wife. “This whole thing of not eating has to stop. I can’t stand to watch you wither away like this.”
She blinked back tears. “I’ll try to eat when they bring the food.”
“You’ll do more than try.” Jake studied the circles under her eyes and reached out to touch her about the ribs. He grimaced from pain as he urged her to sit closer to him on the edge of the bed. “You’re just bones,” he told her. “I’m afraid to even hold you anymore.”
Randy laid across his chest again. “You have to hold me. I need you to hold me.”
There it was again. How many times had she asked him not to let go of her? How she’d managed to get through this current horror, he couldn’t understand. He could only take hope in the fact that she did get through it. It meant some of the old, strong Randy was down in there somewhere, keeping her from completely falling apart. “I’m serious, Randy. I don’t care if you eat so much you get fat. You’ve got to take care of yourself. Do it for me if for no other reason, but don’t forget we have six grandchildren who adore you and need you.”
“I’ll try, Jake.” She closed her eyes and leaned down to kiss his hand. “You won’t take any of those jobs, will you? The range detective? Or sheriff here in Boulder?”
“And be away from you or make you worry? Hell no. You’ve been through enough for ten lifetimes, and I’m damn sorry for that. Why would I leave you now?”
“When you’re better, can we go back up to the line shack?”
“What about the fund-raiser here in Boulder you wanted to go to?”
“Right now, all I want is to go home and then go up to the line shack. When we’re there, I have you all to myself. I feel so safe when it’s just you and me alone.”
“What about the grizzlies and mountain lions?” Jake took heart in the way she smiled.
“They’re afraid of you,” she teased.
Jake grinned, squeezing her hand. “They should be afraid of me.”
The doctor walked in. “Jake, Constance is back with a tray of food.”
Jake kept his eyes on Randy. “I intend to watch you eat every bite, and after that, I want you to clean up, and I want you to sleep. Maybe the doctor can bring in an extra cot so you can stay close to me.”