Brian managed a hint of a smile. “I have a hell of a wife. She’s behind pretty much everything I do.”
Brian left, and Evie covered her face with her hands. “Daddy, he’s so good to me,” she said, softly crying.
Jake sighed deeply and sat down in the chair beside the bed, facing her. He set his gun on a table beside the bed. “Evie, I’m sorry for what you saw the other night.”
She wiped at her eyes and studied him, his dark eyes stricken with grief and anger. “I’ve never seen anything like what you did to that man. I know it was awful—him coming there to kill Lloyd. But when you shot him—” She shook her head. “I’ve seen you angry…but I’ve never seen the Jake you were back when you met Mother—the man you became when you put your gun to Mike Holt’s head. I’m not even sure how Mother saw through that man, but I’m glad she did. All I know right now is that I don’t like that other Jake. You still have so much rage down inside, Daddy, and I wish I could help you get rid of it.”
Jake rested his elbows on his knees. “Evie, sometimes that man has to come back in order to protect those he loves.”
“But you weren’t like that after…after you found me at Dune Hollow.”
“Baby girl, I was exactly like that! You just didn’t see the things I did before I got there. And after all the shooting and I grabbed you up, you were in too bad of shape to see the real Jake who’d come after you. The only thing that stopped me from killing every last one of them was you begging me not to, but I wanted to, Evie. I wanted to! When things like this happen, the old Jake immediately turns off all feeling. That’s the only way I know how to survive the hurt.”
Evie reached out to take his hands, but he pulled away. She studied him sadly. “Daddy, the only way I survive is to forgive. You’ve still never learned how to do that, even though God has forgiven you for everything you did before Mother came along.”
Jake shook his head, the dark bitterness still there in his eyes. “When I was a little boy, I quickly learned that loving and forgiving didn’t work if you wanted to survive, Evie. Hate and self-defense and learning not to care about anything—that’s all that helped me.” He rose and walked to the window again, lighting a cigarette. “The old Jake is still down inside, Evie. He’ll never really go away.” He took a deep drag on the cigarette. “You have to stop seeing me as perfect, because I am far from that. I can’t let myself care about anything or anyone. This is what happens when I do.”
“But that’s the whole point. You do care. It’s okay to care, Daddy. And sometimes love does hurt, but God can—”
“Evie, don’t! I can’t…allow myself to think about it.”
Lloyd let out a deep groan. Jake turned and looked at him, then faced Evie. “Do you hear that? My son is in so much pain—pain he shouldn’t be suffering! It rips my heart out every time I have to hold him down because of that pain. I can’t stand seeing him suffer! I failed him, Evie! I failed my son! All those years we rode together and had each other’s backs…and then we go to a simple, civilized affair, and he’s gunned down right in front of me! That man took my precious son in cold blood, and I killed him in cold blood! The old Jake came roaring back, and he put a gun to that man’s head and pulled the trigger! So now you know the man who fathered you, and you see why I can’t believe something as good and beautiful as you even came from my seed. I am what I am, Evie, and everything I touch gets hurt.”
He walked back to the chair and reached over to snuff out the cigarette, then faced her again. “It should be me lying in that bed, Evie. Me! It should be…me! That’s what my father would tell me, because I’m worthless. That young man lying in that bed is worth ten of me—a hundred of me!” His voice began to break, and he put his head in his hands.
Evie reached out and touched his hair, but he jerked away again. “Daddy, that man who raised you might have physically fathered you, but he’s not your real father. Your real father loves you a hundred times more than you love me and Lloyd…a thousand times more! And He doesn’t want you to hurt, and He knows you are worth all the gold in heaven. No human being can love as much as God Himself loves us, and He must love Jake Harkner an awful lot to have brought Mother into your life—and then Lloyd and me. He’s your real father, and you don’t need to put up all those walls around your heart, because God isn’t going to take away any of the good things He’s given you. Satan is trying real hard to keep you from all the love that surrounds you, by constantly bringing up the past, Daddy, but God is so much stronger than Satan…and so are you.”