Love's Sweet Revenge Read Free

seem like worthless drifters to someone on the outside, but I know a good man when I see one, and Cole and Pepper and the rest of them are good men.”
    â€œI suppose, but that cattle buyer’s wife who flirted shamefully with you when they visited the ranch a few weeks ago also wanted to be a real friend.”
    Jake frowned as he rolled her onto her back, then moved on top of her again. “You jealous of that cattle buyer’s wife?”
    â€œMaybe.”
    â€œHell, you know I’m a good boy. There isn’t a woman in all of Colorado who can hold a candle to you.”
    â€œAnd there isn’t a woman in all of Colorado who can resist your gloriously fetching smile.” Her eyes teared. “It’s so nice to see you smile more often, Jake.”
    â€œWell, for once I have plenty to smile about.”
    Randy traced a finger over his lips. “I so love lying here in your arms, everything so quiet, me so safe right here with you.” She wrapped her arms around his neck. “Make love to me again.”
    He kissed behind her ear. “That an order?”
    â€œYes. You’re a hard man to give orders to, but you’re so obedient when I get you in bed.”
    â€œI aim to please.”
    â€œAnd you please me just fine.”
    There was no foreplay this time, just a slower buildup of kissing and touching that led to the ecstasy of mating again. Jake took her with a little more deliberateness, his way of making sure she knew she was the only woman in his life, his only reason for existing. He loved this new peace they’d found, prayed it would not end this time and that nothing could separate them ever again. He still had trouble with blaming himself for the hell his son went through after learning about Jake’s past and losing him for the four years he spent in prison—or the guilt over what Evie suffered at the hands of his enemies back in Oklahoma.
    But that was all behind them now. Surely the worst was finally over.

Two
    Peter Brown set his pipe aside when he heard the jangle of the doorbell. As he rose from the mahogany-colored leather chair behind the desk in his den, his wife walked past the doorway. The several slips under the taffeta skirt of her deep blue dress rustled with each step.
    â€œI’ll get it,” she told Peter.
    â€œWe have servants for that,” he reminded her.
    â€œI am perfectly capable of answering a door, Peter,” she answered.
    Peter smiled sadly. After losing his first wife, and then falling in love with the wrong woman back in Oklahoma—a woman who would never belong to anyone but Jake Harkner—he felt protective and possessive of Treena, a woman in her forties who was quite beautiful and who understood lost love. She’d been widowed for two years when he married her within a year after returning to Chicago—a move he’d made in an effort to forget Randy Harkner.
    â€œPeter, it’s Jeff,” his wife called to him.
    Peter walked into the hallway, over the oriental rugs that decorated the hardwood floor of the mansion he’d purchased on the north side of the city, wanting to afford Treena every luxury he could. She came from wealth, and his law business was thriving. Treena was sweet and understanding and just as lonely as he when they first realized they were both ready to love again.
    Peter grinned and put out his hand to greet Jeff Trubridge, also now a married man since coming back to Chicago. Their friendship was a strange one indeed, created by the very wild adventure of being brought together because of their association with U.S. Marshal Jake Harkner back in Guthrie, Oklahoma—an experience neither of them would ever forget.
    â€œJeff!”
    Jeff grasped his hand, smiling but also looking oddly concerned. “Peter, it’s good to see you. It’s been a year since we got together for dinner after I won that writing award.”
    â€œAnd a well-deserved award it