The Last Outlaw(3)

“Of course I’m okay. You just made love to me. How could a woman not be okay after that?”

Jake took a Lone Jack from a tin on the hotel’s bedside table. “You know what I mean.” She didn’t answer as he lit the cigarette. He took a long drag. “Did I hurt you?”

“Of course not.”

Jake ran a hand through his hair. “Randy, I mean it about your weight. If you don’t start eating, I’m not making love to you anymore. Sometimes when I’m on top of you I envision every rib breaking. We made this trip to Boulder because it was time you started getting away from the ranch, doing a few things amid strangers without being glued to me.”

Be patient. Don’t yell at her. She might go to pieces.

He heard a sniffle, and it felt like his heart was breaking. He took another long drag before setting the cigarette in an ashtray and turned, moving back in beside her. “Baby, I’ve done everything I can to help you. When you’re like this, it makes me sick with guilt. I should have realized what was happening when that barn caught on fire…the way it burned so rapidly. Lloyd suffers with the same guilt. We shouldn’t have left the house unguarded.”

“No! No! No!” Randy threw her arms around him. “Don’t ever blame yourself. You blame yourself for everything bad that happens to this family, but you never asked for any of it, Jake.”

He held her close, being careful not to use too much strength. “Randy, I want my wife back. The woman I’m holding right now isn’t her.”

“I will be. I promise. Tomorrow, Teresa and little Tricia and I will go shopping. I won’t be quite so terrified without you at my side if I at least have Teresa with me. Thank you for bringing her along.”

Jake was grateful for the Mexican woman who was such a help with the cooking as well as cleaning the big log home he’d built for Randy. It was still filled with noise at meals, some of the grandchildren or all of the family gathering, especially for Sunday meals. Before last winter, Randy had been a vital part of those gatherings—the one most in control, who loved all the cooking, who loved teaching and reading with Evie and the grandchildren. Living on a remote ranch meant no schools nearby, after all.

Randy now left it all to Evie. She was no longer her joyful self at the dinner table, although she put on a good show. He knew her every mood, and he could tell she was still suffering inside.

“Tell me what you need, Randy. How else can I help? You aren’t here with me when we make love anymore. I can sense it in your kisses, in the way you respond when I’m inside you. I won’t make love to a woman who’s doing it out of duty.”

She buried her face in his neck. “Jake, I still love it when you make love to me. It’s just…” She hesitated again. How many times had he come close to getting out of her what was really bothering her?

“Just what? Talk to me, Randy.”

She curled into a little ball against him. “That…ugly thing they did. That ugly thing. I can’t…get past it. I’m so sorry, Jake.”

Jake struggled against insane rage every time he thought about it. His precious Randy. Of all the intimate things he and his wife had done, asking her to perform oral sex on him had never been one of them. She’d never suggested such a thing or made an attempt, and he’d never asked. What they had together was enough for him. His first desire was always to give her pleasure, and that alone gave him pleasure in return. It would be disrespectful to ask this beautiful woman to do something he knew in his gut she wouldn’t want to do. He still had the blazing memory of his father forcing himself on his mother that way right in front of her sons while she resisted. Sometimes, such childhood memories still made him wake up with screaming nightmares.

It all came down to his father…his ruthless, brutal, drunken father…the man he hated worse than all the dredges of humankind, more than the filth he used to run with when he believed he was the worthless sonofabitch his father had always told him he was.

“Don’t be sorry.” God help keep me sane. “We’ll work it out.”

“Don’t stop making love to me.”

“I won’t stop.”

“You do still love me, don’t you?”

“Stop asking me that. You know better.” He wiped at her tears with his fingers. “Get some sleep, Randy. Tomorrow is a big day.”

“You won’t ever be too far away, will you, even when I leave you to shop?”

“I won’t be too far away.”

“You’ll watch for me?”

“You know I will.” He’d never felt so alone. Ever since he’d found and fallen in love with this woman, he’d always had her to lean on, to keep him from the abyss of blackness that beckoned. Tough and able as he seemed to others, she was his strength. And now that strength was gone. The tables had turned, and he had to be strong for her. He secretly begged God to help him remember that. He wasn’t sure he had it in him to last much longer this way. “Randy, when you figure out what more I can do, or what it is that will help you get better, you tell me. Don’t ever be afraid to tell me—anything—all right? You know I’ve seen it all and done it all and nothing surprises me. And I love you. I’ll do whatever it takes. Understand?”