Miranda watched Jake saddle up while she held the two
gunnysacks full of supplies she had prepared for him. He
gave Outlaw’s stomach a light punch. “Suck it in, boy,”
he barked. “You don’t fool me, filling yourself up with
air like that.” The horse’s belly contracted, and Jake
tightened the cinch. “All I need is to be on a hard ride
to get away from some marshal only to have my saddle slip
on me.”

Miranda saw him wince, knew he was still in pain. “Jake,
can’t you wait one more day?”

Jake kept his eyes on the cinch, thinking about the
restless night he had had, lying awake and wondering what
Mrs. Miranda Hayes would have done if he had gone out to
her cot and planted his mouth on her sweet lips. “No,
ma’am. Too dangerous for you having me here, what with
that sheriff sweet on you and all. Hard telling when he
might show up again.” He let down a stirrup and turned to
meet her eyes. Was that a trace of tears he saw there?
No. He would not believe that. “If you had any common
sense at all, you would stay here and marry the sheriff
and let him take care of you.”

Miranda stiffened with indignation, glad he had said
something that made her momentarily forget about wanting
to cry. “Why do all men think a woman needs ‘taking care
of’? I’ll be just fine on my own. And if I did have
common sense, you would be sitting in prison or hanging
from a tree by now, and I would be five thousand dollars
richer.”

Jake grinned. “You’ve got me there.”

Miranda thought how he looked even more handsome now in
the morning light. It was the best he had looked since
the first day she saw him in the supply store, bearded
and mean-looking, then so sick after that. He had a fine,
square jaw and dark, wide-set eyes that were perfectly
outlined with dark eyelashes. Even his nose seemed
perfectly matched to the rest of his face, and when he
smiled, his teeth were straight and clean. She surmised
that in spite of his cruelty, Jake’s father must have
been as handsome as his mother was beautiful, for they
had produced a son that was the best of both. How sad
that they had never given that son a decent home.

A faint scar on Jake’s left jaw and another tiny one on
his upper lip only seemed to make him even more handsome,
lending a ruggedness to his looks that was accented by
his tall frame and broad shoulders. She found herself
wondering how his full, firm lips would feel on her
mouth, how a man like Jake Harkner kissed a woman…”