Thirty-seven

Jake lit a cigarette as he watched Gretta stroll toward where he sat in his favorite leather chair in front of the fireplace. She wore a soft-green high-necked dress, and her hair was pulled back and tied into a tail at the back of her neck. Again, she wore no makeup and no jewelry. He couldn’t help respecting her attempt to look the part for the sake of the women and children.

The house was already getting noisy with family again, and the smell of fresh bread filled the air. Stephen was sent out to check with the ranch hands and find out if the side of beef they were roasting was ready yet. Lloyd came inside toting Donavan on one arm. He came over to sit down across from Jake just as Gretta sat in a rocker near them. She grinned at Jake.

“A little problem upstairs?” she asked. “That was quite a crash I heard, and the laughter was infectious. You had me laughing into my pillow.”

Jake smiled back at her as he drew on his cigarette. “Apparently, we’ve worn out our bed.”

Lloyd set Donavan on a braided rug and gave him a rattle. “What the hell is she talking about, Pa?”

Jake kept the cigarette between his lips and leaned back in the chair, putting his long legs up on a footstool in front of him. “The damn bed broke. It was funny as hell at the time, but your mother is so embarrassed, I’m not sure she’ll come down and join us. And we were not doing what you’re thinking. We were just messing around.”

“Jesus, Pa, when are you two going to get old enough to stop behaving like kids?”

“Never, if I can help it.”

Gretta laughed, looking him over with womanly appreciation. “I have a feeling your wife feels the same way.”

“Just don’t kid her about it,” Jake told her. He looked at Lloyd. “Evie was here, and she came pounding on the door like she thought somebody had died. You know Evie. I told her just now not to say anything to your mother. I’m still not sure what she’ll take as funny or what will hurt her, and I’m sure I can fix the bed myself. And don’t be thinking we were romping around like teenagers. We were doing no such thing.”

“Oh, so she really believes no one knows you two still act like damn newlyweds half the time?” Lloyd asked.

Jake took a drag on his cigarette. “Don’t talk to me about behaving like newlyweds. You’re the one who has a pregnant wife who just stopped nursing a baby not even a year old yet.”

Gretta laughed again, raising a foot and shoving Lloyd’s leg with it. “He’s got you there, you handsome devil.”

Jake drew on the cigarette again. “For once, we don’t have someone or something to worry about as far as danger or being hunted. It’s nice to be healed and finally have some peace.” He noticed Gretta’s smile fade at his remark. “Lloyd, I told Gretta about Brad Buckley. I had to. I was afraid she’d bring up his name in front of your mother. We can trust her not to tell anyone.”

Lloyd glanced at Gretta. “That’s damn important, Gretta. We aren’t even sure Mom remembers killing Brad, but he was dying anyway because of things my father did to him.” He looked away. “…things he deserved.”

Gretta glanced at Jake, seeing that hint of revenge in his dark eyes. “I’m sure he did deserve them. I couldn’t have a lower opinion of the bastard if I tried.”

Randy finally came down the stairs, looking radiant in Jake’s favorite yellow dress. Her hair was pulled back at the sides, and she’d pinned some tiny flowers into it from a bouquet in the vase on the bedroom dresser. She walked up to Jake and leaned down to kiss him. “Say one embarrassing word, and I will divorce you,” she told him.

Jake glanced at her cleavage, very tempted to do exactly what she’d ordered him not to do. “Yes, dear,” he replied with a grin.

Randy held her chin proudly and glanced at Gretta. “I’m sorry if we…woke you.”

Gretta couldn’t help laughing. “And here I thought it would be nice and peaceful on the ranch.”

Randy smiled and turned to walk to the kitchen area of the great room. Jake rose, tossing his cigarette into the fireplace. He hurried up behind her to slip his arms around her waist.

Gretta looked at Lloyd. “How old are those two?”

Lloyd shook his head as he, too, got up. “Sixteen,” he answered.

Gretta laughed lightly as she followed Lloyd into the kitchen.

“That food ready yet?” Jake asked Evie as he kissed Randy’s hair, then her cheek.

“Yes,” Evie answered, giving her parents a knowing smile. “I’m sure you two have worked up an appetite.”

Teresa giggled, and in the next moment, every adult was laughing.

“Evie, I told you we weren’t doing what it seemed like we were doing,” Jake scolded.

“Daddy, I can’t help it. And besides, it’s nice to see you and mother so happy.”

There followed more teasing, lots of eating, talk of other things, and through it all, Gretta was accepted at the table as though she was part of the family. A meal of huge steaks from the side of beef Rodriguez had cooked was served, so much food that not even the men could finish it.

“Outlaw can have the bones, can’t he, Grampa?” Sadie Mae asked Jake.

“That’s better than feeding him chicken eggs,” Jake answered with a wink.

Sadie Mae covered her mouth and laughed. “Don’t tell our secret, Grampa.”

“Oh, I won’t. I promise.”

“Who is Outlaw?” Gretta asked. “I know that’s what you call your horse, but horses don’t eat steak bones and chicken eggs.”

“Outlaw is our dog!” Tricia said proudly.

“Your dog?” She looked at Jake. “Is every animal on this ranch called Outlaw?”

“Seems that way,” Jake answered. “The horse I rode when I met Randy was also called Outlaw. Kind of fitting for me, don’t you think? To be surrounded by outlaws?”

Everyone chuckled, but Jake could feel the tension building. Why was Gretta here?

Coffee and pie followed the meal, but Gretta set her fork down early. “I can’t imagine how you women stay so slim, the way everyone eats here on the J&L,” she commented.

And through it all, Gretta looked like she’d been fighting back tears. Jake wanted to believe it was because she was being so kindly treated, but he feared it was much more than that. He exchanged a look with Randy and knew she’d noticed the same thing.

Finally, Jake ordered the boys to take Tricia and Sadie Mae to Lloyd’s house and watch them and let them play.

“Grampa, we want to stay here,” Little Jake complained.

“We have some important things to talk about,” he answered. “Just mind what I say, Little Jake.”

The boys seldom argued with their grandfather’s orders. They left with the girls, Teresa following them. Evie turned to Gretta once the children had left. “It’s time you told us what’s going on. We all can tell there is something wrong, Gretta. You helped us once, so tell us how we can help you now.”

They remained around the kitchen table. Gretta glanced at the doorway, where Jake’s guns hung high over the door frame. She closed her eyes and just sat there a moment, putting a hand over her eyes.

“I don’t know how to say this. You’re all so happy now.” She looked at Jake with tears in her eyes. “I don’t know where else to turn.”

Jake sighed, lighting a cigarette. “I’m pretty sure this involves me, so just say it, Gretta.”

Gretta swallowed, scanning every face around the table. Good people. People who’d been through enough. “I…have a daughter.”

Katie took a quick, deep breath, and they all looked surprised. Jake glanced at Randy, who seemed to wither a little at the remark. Already she suspected where this was heading, as did everyone else in the room.

Jake frowned. “How old is she?”

Gretta met his gaze, deciding she might as well get this over with. “Fifteen—the same age I was when I had her.”

Jake took the cigarette from his lips and sighed deeply. “And she’s in trouble,” he said, as though to speak Gretta’s very next words.

Gretta quickly wiped at a tear that slipped down her cheek. “Yes. She’s… I…” She sniffed and swallowed. “You all should first know how I ended up…doing what I do.”

“Gretta, you don’t need to—”

“Yes, I do,” Gretta interrupted Evie. “I’m not just some man-hungry, loose woman. I was like any other happy young girl, till my parents were killed in a fire when I was ten. An uncle took me in.” She covered her eyes. “I don’t think I need to explain beyond that. Within six months he was…using his strength to make me do things I didn’t want to do.”

“Dear God,” Katie whispered.

“By the time I was twelve, he was selling me to other men, and my career, if you want to call it that, was born. By fifteen, I had a baby, and I had no idea which man was the father. I gave her away to a decent, Christian couple who couldn’t have children. From then on, I figured I didn’t deserve a decent man, so I did what I knew best…to survive.” She put on a pretend smile. “After a while, you don’t think about the bad parts anymore. I decided that if this was going to be my way of life, I’d make damn good money from it, and I have. But all these fifteen years, I’ve kept an eye on my daughter. I named her Annette Marie—my mother’s name. She’s beautiful, and she has no idea I’m her mother.”

She took a deep breath and wiped at another tear and stared at her coffee cup as she explained about Luis Estava and Annie’s disappearance. “Fifteen-year-old girls who’ve never seen the bad side of life are easy to fool. Loretta, the woman who adopted her, said she didn’t trust this man at all. Her suspicions proved right. She hired a man by the name of Jesse Valencia to go look for Annie. He was something like a private investigator mixed with a bounty hunter.” She glanced at Jake, then at Randy. “I don’t know how to tell you this.”

“He didn’t make it back alive,” Jake said, already sure what Gretta was after.

Gretta nodded her head. “A man from Texas came all the way to Denver to tell me. He was a simple farmer, a kind, sweet man. Valencia made it as far as his place…all shot up. This farmer—Otis Clark—he nursed him. Valencia wrote down some information before he finally died of infection, and Mr. Clark brought me his notes. He was afraid I wouldn’t get them if he didn’t bring them himself.” She broke into tears. “I wanted my daughter to have a normal life and marry a decent man and never go through what I did,” she sobbed. “Now I fear the worst! Valencia wrote down the name of the brothel where he’d found her…where they take the prettiest girls. They send the rest someplace else. I’m sure Annie would be…one of the prettiest ones. She’s a beautiful girl, but so damn innocent. She knew nothing about men. God knows what they have done to her.”

Evie shivered, and Brian reached over and took her hand.

“I’m sorry, Evie,” Gretta sniffed. “I should have been more sensitive, after what you’ve been through.”

“You have no choice but to tell us all of it,” Evie replied. “We can’t help you if we don’t know everything.”

“But none of you should have to be involved in this. I saw in that courtroom last summer what a close family you are. It’s all the love that judge saw that made him let Jake go. And now I’m taking your father away from you in a different way.” She looked pleadingly at Jake. “I can’t hire lawmen to go there, because they aren’t allowed to cross into Mexico. Besides that, they aren’t about to help the likes of me, not even for my daughter. You’re the only man I could think of who actually understands and cares about women like me. And you’d fit right in down in Mexico. Those men down there are vicious. If I sent some other man, they’d know in a minute who the gringo was and why he was there. You could… I mean, you’re part Mexican, and you know the language, and you know how to behave like—”

“Like one of them?”

Gretta saw a darkness already moving into his eyes. “Yes. You know that world, Jake. You’d find ways to fit right in.” She looked down at her lap. “I’m so sorry to come here and interrupt all of your lives, but I didn’t know where else to turn. When I read that article about what you did in Boulder…it reminded me how good you are with guns, and that you were once a U.S. Marshal. And I remembered how concerned you were that Mike Holt might have hurt me.” She shook her head. “Me. A whore. And then I realized you might do this—not for me—but for a fifteen-year-old girl who doesn’t deserve the terror she must be living in right now.” She met his gaze again. “You were the only person I could think of who might be willing to help.”

Everyone remained silent for a few minutes. Jake looked from Gretta to Randy and saw the devastation in his wife’s eyes. She knew he couldn’t turn Gretta down, but he’d promised her he’d never ride off into danger again. He’d promised never to leave her for anything but a night of work on the J&L. He leaned back and rubbed at his eyes. “Did Valencia write down the name of the brothel?”

Already, Randy knew there would be no arguing. There was nothing Jake hated worse than a woman being mistreated, especially when she was an innocent young girl. Jake’s father had raped Jake’s sweetheart, after all, and she’d been only twelve. Fifteen-year-old Jake had killed him for that, and lived with a constant need to make up for his inability to help Santana. He’d been only a boy.

Randy felt her heart breaking. She would lose her Jake again. She’d watch him ride away and straight into hell for a young girl he didn’t even know. All the fun and laughter they’d shared earlier was gone now. Already, she could see Jake falling backward…spiraling into the depths of a past that had never let him go. Rage and revenge and his outlaw spirit were fast welling up in his soul. Soon, he would be unreachable.