“If there is good cause, yes. But I know you, and you’d like to kill that man on sight even if he doesn’t do one thing to provoke you.”
“He’s already provoked me, just by existing! Randy, I can’t promise what I’ll do if I see him.”
“Then you have to prepare yourself, and you have to hope it never happens.”
Jake gently pushed her away. “Go sit with Evie and ask Brian to come over here. I need to talk to him for a minute.”
Randy leaned up and kissed him. “Evie will get through this. She has Brian, and she’s a strong, tough young woman. She gets that toughness from you.” She detected tears in his eyes.
“Maybe she’s like me in toughness and strength, but in no other way is that angel anything like her father, thank God. Inside, she’s much stronger than I’ve ever been or ever will be.” He kissed her forehead. “Go get Brian like I asked.” He stepped back, and Randy reached out and squeezed his hand before walking off the veranda and out to where Evie and Brian played with the girls.
Jake watched Evie, her beautiful smile, her long, dark hair, the way she hugged the girls. She was genuine goodness, and the thought of what she’d suffered made him feel physically ill. He lit yet another cigarette, wondering how he was going to deal with the fact that a man like Mike Holt had been freed from prison instead of hung. He contemplated all the ways he might be able to kill the man and get away with it.
Brian left the women and walked up to the house. The medium-built, good-looking, and always-dapper Dr. Brian Stewart was as different from Jake and Lloyd as a man could get, and that was fine with Jake. He was a soft-spoken man of incredible patience and kindness, and he barely knew how to use a gun. He’d never even gone hunting.
“Randy said you wanted to talk,” Brian told Jake as he came up the steps. “I take it it’s about Mike Holt.”
Jake took a drag on his cigarette and met Brian’s gaze. “What do you want me to do?” he asked Brian.
“Do?”
“If the man shows his face anywhere near Evie or anybody else in this family, I can make him disappear, if you want me to,” Jake told him.
Brian studied the darkness in his father-in-law’s eyes. He’d seen that look before. “Simple as that?”
“You bet. Just don’t tell Randy or Evie what I said.”
Brian sighed as he moved beside Jake and joined him at the railing. “Jake, you never cease to amaze me with your candid admissions. You said that like it was as easy for you as shooting a rattler.”
“No difference, as far as I’m concerned.”
Brian shook his head. “The last thing Evie needs is for her father to go back to prison, Jake. Nothing is worth that. If that man shows his face, you’d better have a damn good reason to kill him.”
“I already do.”
“You know what I mean. It would just bring it all back for her. And I doubt he’s crazy enough to come anywhere near this place. The trouble is, Evie wouldn’t know it if he stood right next to her.”
“Someone should have told me all of it a long time ago.”
“We figured he’d be in prison too long for it to matter, and Evie knew what it would do to you if you knew everything. Her biggest fear, Jake, is you or Lloyd going off the deep end over it. That’s why she forgave them and wanted you to know it.” Brian rested his elbows on the railing and watched Evie and their tiny daughter Sadie. “This isn’t any easier on me than it is on you. Even I wouldn’t recognize the man. That day…there was so much confusion…and after I took her behind the cabin to tend to her, I never looked at any of those who were left alive. I couldn’t.” His hands moved into fists. “That’s the only time in my life I wanted to kill men rather than save them, so don’t think I don’t understand this time how easy it is for you to consider doing so yourself. Part of me wants to tell you to do it, but we live in different times now, Jake, and all the healing Evie has done would be for nothing if something happened to you. She adores you, and your well-being is far more important to her than any kind of revenge. Just keep that in mind.”
Jake kept his cigarette at the corner of his mouth as he spoke. “She really all right now?”
“Most of the time.” Brian cleared his throat. “I have to tell her sometimes to just…look at me and think about how much I love her and treasure her. Look at me and know who she belongs to.”
“Shit,” Jake muttered. He closed his eyes and turned to lean against a support post. “I’m worried about Lloyd, too. Mike Holt vowed that if he was ever free, he’d get Lloyd for shooting his brother.”