Love’s Sweet Revenge(25)

“Is it?” He glanced at Evie and Brian. “Did you talk to Evie about that telegram?”

He’d asked the dreaded question. Jake practically worshipped their daughter, considered her an angel sent from God. What had happened to Evie just about killed him, spiritually and physically. “You said you’d talk to Brian and that I should wait,” she told him.

“Randy, I know how close you two are, and I can tell you’ve been holding back on me. When Evie announced at dinner that she was carrying, there was plenty of joy around the table, but I saw something in her eyes that reminded me of the terror I saw there that day at Dune Hollow. And I saw how you looked at each other. What are you keeping from me?”

Just then, Tricia got up and climbed onto Jake’s lap, interrupting their conversation when she threw chubby arms around his neck and gave him kisses. Not to be outdone, Sadie did the same, both girls giggling as Jake growled and tickled them. They lavished him with more kisses, Tricia shouting “Poppy” and Sadie squealing “Gamps.” Considering the fact that Jake had shot seven men just three days ago, Randy thought the sight of him doting on his little granddaughters extremely comical.

Jake grabbed both girls about the waist and carried them down the steps, setting them on their feet. “Go find Grandma some flowers,” he told them, “and take some to Evie, too, but don’t pick any of Grandma’s roses. The thorns will poke you.” He ran a hand through his hair to straighten what four small hands had made a mess of and came back up the steps.

“Jake, when we go to Denver, I want to find that place where they sell rosebushes. I want to plant more roses around the porch…yellow ones, of course. The ones we bought last year look beautiful, don’t they?” She studied her roses, proud of her green thumb.

“You’re avoiding the subject we need to discuss,” Jake answered as he walked over to his chair and sat down again, his smile fading as the girls ran off. “Let’s hear it,” he told Randy.

Oh, how she hated having to reopen old wounds. She stared at the blooms on a nearby rosebush as she spoke. “I asked if there was anything Evie wanted to tell me. At first she said she didn’t want to because she was scared how you would react. Jake, she’s so afraid of you going back to prison.”

Jake took yet another cigarette and match from his shirt pocket. “I’m not going anywhere. I just need to know what’s got her so upset. It’s more than the fact that Holt is out of jail.” He struck the match and lit his cigarette; his smoking was almost constant when he was upset. He glanced sidelong at her as he inhaled. “Just tell me, Randy.”

She closed her eyes. “It isn’t the news itself that upset her, Jake. I mean, she’s healed from the horror of what she went through, and things are good now between her and Brian. Thank God for that man.”

Jake stood up with a deep sigh and leaned against the railing, facing Randy. “And?”

Randy hesitated, hating to tell him anything that could bring back the old Jake, the dark and ruthless Jake…the Jake who still had to remember that if he stepped too far out of line, he could be arrested again. He had to remember he was no longer a U.S. Marshal. He was Jake Harkner the citizen, a man whose reputation could be used against him.

“Randy, talk to me.”

She sighed. “What’s bothering her is…something she never told any of us. Brian knows, but she didn’t tell us because… Well, mainly because she’s embarrassed about it, and because she’s worried how you’ll take it, but she thinks you need to know because it could be important.”

Jake folded his arms. “I promise not to do anything crazy. Just tell me what I’m dealing with.”

Randy rose and stood beside him, watching Evie sweep little Sadie into her arms when the child ran up to her. “They, uh…they blindfolded her, Jake.” She didn’t have to touch him or look at him to know his whole body had stiffened with an oncoming rage.

“They what?”

“When some of the other men with Marty and Hash came to take their turns, they blindfolded her so she wouldn’t know who was…raping her…and they told her that any minute they would…bring her terrible pain and…they would kill her and she wouldn’t see it coming. They said that so she’d be even more terrified.”

“Jesus God Almighty,” Jake muttered under his breath, seething.

Randy reached over and grasped his arm without looking at him. His bicep was as hard as a rock. “Please stay calm, Jake. It will break her heart if she sees you explode.” She squeezed hard, thinking how silly it was to think she could physically stop this man from anything he might decide to do. “Jake, she only told me because she thinks we need to be aware that she doesn’t even know what Mike Holt looks like. He could walk right up to her, and she wouldn’t even realize he was…one of them. That’s what scares her.”