Forty-six

Jake paced…and smoked. He’d planned on buying Annie outright and taking her home, but he’d ended up having to buy her for just one night, which created a problem for tomorrow morning. Getting her out of the brothel would be more difficult than he’d planned. Thank God Don de Leon hadn’t come for her yet.

The door finally opened, and someone shoved a young girl inside. She stumbled from being pushed. The door was slammed shut behind her. She stood there in a negligee so thin Jake could see right through it.

She was incredibly beautiful, more so than he’d expected. Now he understood why Sidney Wayland considered her worth a lot of money. Her long, blond hair was brushed out and hung in thick waves nearly to her waist. She was tall for her age, her legs slender, her breasts almost too full for a fifteen-year-old.

She folded her arms over those breasts and stood there, staring at Jake, her beautiful blue eyes as big as saucers. The look she gave him reminded him of how Randy had looked at him the first time she’d met him—and shot him—in that supply store back in Kansas. The story was a family joke now, because she’d later found him dying and had taken the bullet out, saving his life. If she had been smart, she would have left that bullet inside of me, Jake liked to tell others.

“Get away from the door,” he told Annie.

She hung her head as she walked closer on unsteady bare feet. She shivered so badly Jake thought she might pass out. He walked to his gear and took out one of his shirts. “Look up here,” he told her.

She raised tear-filled eyes. My God, she looks just like a young Gretta. “Put this on,” he told her, handing her the shirt.

Her eyes remained wide and her lips quivered. She swallowed before answering. “Why?”

“Because I don’t think you want me seeing right through that thing they put on you.”

She looked down again. “Isn’t that what you want?”

“No.” Jake draped the shirt over her shoulder and walked to the door, noticing there was no lock. Most whorehouses didn’t have locks on the bedrooms. That was so a pimp or a guard outside could burst in if it sounded like a woman was being beaten, although he knew some places that actually accepted extra money from men who preferred to beat a woman first.

He yanked the door open, revealing a local man wearing a gun. “Get the hell away from here!” he ordered.

“Señor, it is my job to—”

In the blink of an eye, Jake’s gun was under his chin. “I paid three thousand dollars for that girl in there, and I’ll have some privacy,” he ordered. “I don’t want anybody standing out here listening or trying to peek under the door or barging in on us. Got that?”

The man swallowed. “Sí, señor.”

The man left, and Jake slammed the door shut again. He shoved a rug under the bottom of it so no one could try looking inside, then propped the back of a chair against the doorknob so no one could barge in. When he turned, the girl had his shirt on. It was so big on her it came to her knees. Jake suddenly remembered little Sadie Mae. “I don’t wanna be bare,” she’d said when he’d taken her nightie off and given her his shirt. This girl had had the same devastated look on her face.

“You Annie?” he asked. He knew he had the right girl, but he wanted to hear it from her own lips.

She nodded. A tear slipped down her cheek. “You…paid three thousand dollars for me?”

“I sure did.”

“Luis said…you were going to…rape me. He said I have to do whatever you say, but…I don’t know about…those things.” She backed away when he stepped closer. “I think I’m gonna be sick.” She burst into tears. Jake grabbed her up and whisked her into an adjoining washroom, hanging on to her as she leaned over the bathtub and threw up. He grasped her hair and held it behind her neck.

“Annie, I’m not going to do anything to you. I’m here to help you.” He hung on tightly as she threw up again, after which she couldn’t stop the tears.

“Don’t…tell Luis. He’ll do something bad to me if he…thinks I disappointed you.”

Jake turned on the water and cupped some in his hand, rinsing her face with it. “Rinse your mouth under the faucet, Annie. I have some peppermint candy that will make it taste better.”

She jerked in a sob and rinsed her mouth. Jake hung on to her the whole time, then picked her up when she was through and carried her to the bed, laying her on it. She instantly curled into a ball and cried again. Jake took a handkerchief from his gear, along with the clothing Gretta had given him. All he could think of was what Gretta’s uncle had done to her. He dearly wished he could have killed the man. He grabbed a stick of peppermint and brought it to the bed, laying the clothes on a nearby chair.

He crouched beside the bed and handed her the handkerchief. “You have to stop crying, Annie. Use this. And when you stop crying, suck on this peppermint.” He laid the candy on the stand beside the bed, thinking about the peppermint he’d left with Randy. God, he missed her. He kept his voice low as he tried to explain. “I promise I’m not going to touch you, Annie. I bought you just to get a night alone with you so I can explain what’s happening. I’m taking you home, understand?”

She took the handkerchief. “How do I know you’re telling the truth?” she wept. She blew her nose and wiped at her eyes.

Jake remained crouched in front of her. “Look at me, Annie.”

She remained curled up when she met his gaze. “I have a wife, Annie, a son and a daughter, a pack of grandchildren, and an adopted son. I own a big ranch up near Denver. Your—” He hesitated. She still thought Loretta was her mother. “Your mother hired me to come and find you. I’m taking you out of here in the morning. I have a friend along who will get you over the border while I hold off anyone who tries to stop us. His name is Cole. You can trust him.”

She wiped at her eyes again. “I don’t believe you.”

Jake nodded toward the chair. “I brought those clothes for you. They’ll probably be too big, but it’s better than a man’s shirt, and there is even some lady’s underclothes there. Don’t get dressed till morning, mind. If for some reason anyone knocks and wants to come in here, it has to look like we’re doing what we’re supposed to be doing, which means you can’t be dressed.”

She watched his eyes. Jake was in a killing mood, but he smiled for her. “Everything is going to be okay, Annie,” he told her.

Annie noticed his guns. “Who are you?”

“My name is Jake. Your mother knows I’m good with these guns. I used to be a U.S. Marshal, so she figured I could get you out of here.”

Her eyes filled with tears again. “Another man already tried. They shot him a whole bunch of times.”

Jake smoothed her hair back from her face. She jumped at first when he touched her, then curled up even tighter. “It’s okay, Annie. I’m not lying to you. As far as that other man, he wasn’t experienced enough in these things. I know people like the ones who run this place. I’ll get you out of here. That’s a promise. You just have to do everything I tell you, without hesitation, understand? That’s very important. Once we get out, you don’t look back. You stay with Cole, and you ride hard for that border, understand?”

She reached for the peppermint and put it in her mouth, a gesture that reminded Jake of Sadie Mae and Tricia begging him for candy. And then there was Randy. Their reason for sharing peppermint sticks was something very different. He turned away and rose. Would they ever have the chance to eat another peppermint stick until their lips met?

He lit another cigarette, then moved the clothes to the bed and sat down in the chair next to it. He leaned his elbows on his knees and studied the flowered carpet on the floor. “I need to know if you’re… Your mother will want to know if you’re still a virgin, Annie. Do you know what I mean?”

She didn’t answer right away.

Jake sighed, feeling like an ass. He drew on the cigarette before speaking again. “Your mother will need to know, Annie, so she knows how to help you when you get home. Nothing that has happened is your fault, understand? There’s no shame in any of it.”

Annie pulled a blanket over her face. “I don’t know.”

Jake frowned. “How can you not know?”

“I’m not sure,” she wept. “Luis made men hold me down, and he…touched me.” She started sobbing again.

Jake stood up and paced again, so full of rage he was sorely tempted to charge out of the room and start shooting people. He ran a hand through his hair. “Is that all he did?”

“He made me touch him.”

Keeping the black rage away was giving Jake a headache. “Then you’re still a virgin, Annie, unless there is anything else you aren’t telling me.”

“No. That’s all.” She shook under the blanket. “I think I’m gonna be sick again.”

Jake set his cigarette in an ashtray and hurried to her side. He pulled away the blanket and picked her up in his arms to carry her to the bathtub once more, where she threw up. He helped her wash her face, his headache now more of a searing pain from a need to hit someone, shoot someone, scream out his rage. When Annie was through being sick, he kept hold of her and half collapsed to the floor, leaning against the wall and pulling Annie into his arms. He held her tight as she continued sobbing.

“Baby girl, you’ll be all right,” he again assured her.

“He said he loved me! He said he was rich and would marry me and I would live in a beautiful hacienda!”

“I know what he said. And I know your father died and you were all mixed up. You haven’t done one thing wrong, Annie. I want you to believe that, because it’s true.” He stroked her hair. “Do you want to hear a funny story about one of my little granddaughters?”

“Please don’t hurt me.”

Jake sighed. “Am I hurting you now?”

“No.”

“And I won’t. I’m just holding you to help you feel safe.”

She sniffed and wiped her tears with the sleeve of his shirt that she wore. “You can tell me the story.”

Jake told her about the ranch where he lived, and about Sadie Mae and the chickens. He needed to think about happier things or go crazy. “I came out of that damn chicken coop with hen scratches on my face and feathers in my hair. And I told my wife I was never going in there after eggs again.”

Annie actually laughed softly. “That’s really funny. Did you keep Sadie Mae’s secret?”

“I sure did. But she didn’t. She told everybody about how I used a lot of bad words when I was inside that chicken coop.”

Annie smiled. “If we really get out of here, can my mother and I come and see where you live?”

God, she was so innocent. She was reacting like the child she was. “Of course you can. My wife and children and all the grandchildren would love that.”

Annie moved her arms around his neck. “Please don’t be lying. I don’t know who to trust.”

“I have something to prove you can trust me. Let’s go back into the other room. I have a couple of biscuits in my gear. Maybe you’ll feel better if you eat something.”

Annie wiped at tears again, then got up. Jake reached up for her. “I’m getting old, Annie. You have to help me up.”

She smiled and reached out her hands. He grabbed them and grimaced with the pain in his hip as he rose. “It’s hell getting old, Annie.” He put an arm around her and led her back to the bed, then went to his gear and pulled out two biscuits and Evie’s Bible. He brought them to Annie, setting the biscuits on the table beside the bed. “My daughter gave this to me and said to give it to you. She thought it might help you feel better, and show you that you can trust me.” He handed her the Bible.

“She did?” Annie’s beautiful blue eyes widened as she took the Bible and opened it. She sucked in her breath. “She even put my name in it!”

“See? How can I be lying when I already knew who you were when I left Colorado? And if I have a daughter who thinks of things like this, would I be such a bad man?” Jake sat down in the chair again, smiling inwardly at his own words. Little did Annie know just how “bad” he could be.

“I guess not.” She met his gaze. “But you have kind of a mean look on your face.”

Jake rubbed at his eyes. “That’s because right now I very much want to kill Luis and Sidney. I’m very angry at what they did to you, and I intend to make sure they’re dead before I leave here.”

Annie glanced at his guns. “Are you a hired gunfighter?”

Jake smiled sadly. “I guess you could say that. But I’m not doing this for money, Annie. I’m doing it because I can’t stand to see a young girl like you, or even a grown woman, abused.” He glanced at the Bible. “You keep that with you all the way home, and you remember what a good person you are. You must remember that God doesn’t blame you for one thing you’ve been through. Promise me.”

“I promise.”

Jake sighed and rubbed at his eyes again, still having trouble staying calm. “Annie, I have to make this look good. Someone will probably come around later to see if we want food in here. You’ll need to stay under the covers when they do, and don’t let them think for one minute I haven’t…that you aren’t afraid of me. They’ll want to see the terrified look on your face, because men like that find enjoyment in hurting young girls. I’m going to have to be in my underwear, so don’t be afraid when I undress. If they for one minute realize why I’m really here, I’m a dead man, understand? I’ll have to crawl into that bed with you tonight, but I won’t touch you.

“We’ll get up and dressed before sunrise, and after that, you have to do everything I tell you, do you hear me? You can’t waver for one minute. And don’t be afraid of Cole. He’s a little rough-looking, but he’s a damn good man. He knows where to take you when you get out of here.”

Annie picked up a biscuit. “But what about you?”

“I’ll be with you if things go right. I’m just telling you that no matter what happens…no matter what…you keep going with Cole. I promised your mother I’d get you home, and I’ll damn well do it. In four or five days you’ll be back home in Denver.”

She shook her head. “But what if they kill you like they did that other man?”

Jake smiled sadly. “Sweetheart, I’ve lived a long life. Things have happened to me that should have killed me a long time ago. Believe me, dying won’t be such a bad thing.”

“But you have to go home to Sadie Mae. She’ll cry if you don’t come home. And what about your wife?”

Jake closed his eyes and looked away. Randy. He’d promised her he’d make it back. “My wife has been through all those bad times right alongside of me, Annie. She knows I’m ready to meet the Good Lord, if that’s how this ends up. She has my son and daughter and all those grandchildren to love her and take care of her. And she knows she and I will be together again, someplace better than anywhere here on earth. Of course, that depends on if God takes me in. He just might order me out of heaven.”

Annie shook her head. “No, He won’t. You’re helping me. He’ll remember that. He’ll let you go home to your wife and to Sadie Mae.”

Jake rose, wondering how he’d make it through this night without losing his mind. “I guess that’s for Him to know and for us to find out, isn’t it?”

“I guess.” She ate a little more of the biscuit. “You really love your wife, don’t you?”

Jake walked to a window that faced north. He carefully peeked through the curtains. Colorado seemed so far away. “Yeah, I really love my wife, Annie.”

“I’m not scared of you anymore.”

“Good.” Jake watched one of the whores walking with Luis. He was laughing. Jake quickly closed the curtain and remained turned away. “Annie, I get really angry inside sometimes at men like Luis Estava, and sometimes it shows in my eyes. I don’t want you to be afraid of that, okay? Sometimes I scare my own family when I get like this. Things have happened in my life that…It just brings out a rage in me, but never at good people, so don’t be worried when I get that way.” He started undressing, and Annie looked away as she ate the second biscuit.

“It’s okay,” she told him.

Such innocence. How did a man take advantage of something like that, like what his father did to Santana?

Jake stripped down to his underwear and hung his gun belt on the bedpost on his side of the bed. “If anybody comes to that door later, you scoot under the covers. Act like you’re crying, make them think something went on in here. They can’t think otherwise for one minute, understand? I can’t stress that enough.”

“Yes, sir.”

Jake propped some pillows against the headboard and crawled into bed but remained sitting up against the pillows. “I don’t intend to sleep much. I’m too worked up, and I don’t trust those men outside the door.”

Annie scooted back into bed and curled into a ball again, facing away from him. “You’re a nice man, Mr. Harkner.”

Jake snickered and lit yet another cigarette to help keep himself calm. “Call me Jake, and no, I’m not a nice man at all. Even my wife says that sometimes. I like to embarrass her, and when I do, she just frowns and says, ‘Jake, you are a mean man.’ Even my daughter says that sometimes. And my son has been known to call me a mean, stubborn sonofabitch.”

“They don’t really mean it, I’ll bet.”

Jake took a long drag on the cigarette. “Come morning, you’ll find out how not nice I can be, Annie. Speaking of which, I want to be sure you understand what will happen.” He explained again what he intended to do, wanting to be damn sure she was ready for the morning. “I wanted to buy you outright, which would have made things easier,” he told her, “but they already sold you to someone else. They will expect me to leave alone in the morning, but I’m not leaving here without you. And the worst thing you can do is hesitate, Annie. Hesitating could cost me my life and maybe Cole’s as well, and leave you a prisoner here. I’m sending you out that window in the morning, and you’re going to run to Cole, and he’s leaving with you. We’ll have the element of surprise on our side, as well as sleepy guards who won’t be expecting what I have in mind. I’ll stay here and create some havoc of my own to take their attention away.”

Annie lay very still for a few minutes, then jerked in a sob. “What if you get killed and I never see you again?”

“You just keep that Bible. Think of me when you read it, and pray for me. God knows I’ll need all the help I can get if I’m going to make it to heaven, Annie. I’ve never been very Christian in my ways or my words, but my daughter seems to think I have a good chance of reaching the Hereafter—the cool one—not the hot one.”

Annie laughed through tears. “You tell funny stories.”

Jake grinned. “I could tell you a lot of stories that aren’t quite so funny.”

Annie remained turned away. “Jake?”

“What?”

“What’s she like? Your wife, I mean.”

Jake laid his head back and closed his eyes. “She’s beautiful. She was the most beautiful woman I ever saw when I met her, and she’s still beautiful today. She’s gone through years of hell with me, Annie. When we met, I was a wanted man and we lived on the run. I can’t begin to tell you what she’s been through because of me.”

Annie turned onto her back and looked at him. “Then she must love you a whole lot.”

Jake looked at her and noticed she was clinging to the Bible. “I guess she must.”

“And you love her a whole lot.”

Jake smiled. “Yeah. A whole lot.”

Annie sat up, keeping the covers over her bare legs. “I’m scared about tomorrow. Can I sit up by you?”

Lord, help me. The girl had no idea what she was asking. It was a good thing he was sixty-two and not sixteen. “Sure.”

Annie scooted against him, nestling her head on his shoulder, much like Randy did practically every night. You come back to me, Jake.

He’d damn well try. He had to smile, though, at the jabbing comments Randy would think of to tease him. If she only knew he was sitting in bed with a beautiful fifteen-year-old girl wearing nothing but his shirt, and snuggled up against him like he was a damn stuffed toy.

And I suppose that didn’t faze you at all, he could hear her saying.

Of course not. She wasn’t you.

Jake, I’ll never be fifteen again.

Why would I want a girl-child when I have a beautiful, voluptuous, grateful woman in my bed?

Grateful?

Grateful for how I make her feel when I make love to her.

Could you be any more egotistically confident?

Isn’t it true?

Randy would smile at that one. Of course it’s true…and you’re too damn sure of yourself, Jake Harkner.

I’m sure of how much I love you.

He leaned back and closed his eyes. He wished he were equally confident about getting Annie out of there come morning.