Love’s Sweet Revenge(92)

“Congratulations, Jeff,” Jake told him with a grin. “That’s good news. It won’t be long before babies are popping out all over the place.”

“Yeah, well, Peter is here to see that you’re around to welcome all of them.”

Randy put a hand to her forehead and turned away. Jake took her arm and led her to sit down on the edge of the bed. “Jeff, pour us some coffee. Sorry, but there are only a couple of chairs in here. If we’d known you two were coming…” He sat down with Randy on the bed. “You can take the chairs.” He put out his cigarette in an ashtray on the bed stand, noticing how Peter looked at Randy with love and concern. Jake moved an arm around her. “How’s married life, Peter?”

Peter smiled at the instant possessive embrace and the obvious hint in his question. “Very good. Katrina is a beautiful woman. I knew her when she was married to a friend of mine, a business acquaintance who died a few years ago. Katrina hired me for some legal work involving one of his businesses, and, well, one thing led to another, and now we’re married. We have a home north of Chicago, and my practice is flourishing.”

“I’ll say!” Jeff put in. “His home is more like a stone castle.” He handed some coffee to Jake and Randy. “I visited him there once when…” Jeff hesitated. “Well, when Mike Holt was released, I thought I’d go talk to Peter about it. We were both a little concerned, Jake. Turns out that concern was well placed.”

Jake sobered. “Yeah.” He drank some of the coffee.

Randy did the same, clinging to the cup and closing her eyes to enjoy the warm steam that helped her relax. “It’s been a nightmare,” she said softly. “That man walked right up to poor Evie and…”

Jake tightened his arm around her. “Evie nearly passed out,” Jake continued. “I don’t even know yet what he said to her, but you can bet it was something that brought all that ugliness back for her. Lloyd noticed what was happening, and so did Brian. Both ran to help her. By then, I couldn’t shoot because they were both in the way. It all took place in maybe three or four seconds. That sonofabitch turned on Lloyd and fired.”

The room hung quiet for a moment until Peter spoke up. “And you, being a man used to dealing his own justice, decided then and there to be judge and jury and executioner of the shooter.” He spoke the words more with sorrow than condemnation.

Jake stared at his coffee cup. “I thought Lloyd was dead. He’s my son! All I could think of was that sonofabitch robbed me of the chance to even…” His voice caught in his throat. “¡Me quito a mi hijo y ni siquiera tuve la oportunidad de despedirme de él!”

“I know you sometimes turn to Spanish when you’re upset, Jake, but I need English,” Peter told him.

Jake breathed deeply and rose, walking to a window. “He took my son from me, and I didn’t even get a chance to say good-bye. That’s what I was thinking. I didn’t get to…hold him and tell him I love him…before he died. That’s what was going through my mind. ¡Debería de haber sido yo!”

Peter looked helplessly at Randy.

“He said—” Her eyes teared. “It should have been me.”

Jake wiped at his eyes while his back was to the rest of them, and Randy put her head in her hands. Jake cleared his throat before continuing. “The man deserved to die!”

“Of course he did,” Peter answered. “But you’re no longer a U.S. Marshal, Jake, and even if you were, that wouldn’t give you the right to hold the man down and blow his head off. That’s just a fact that I know is hard for a man like you to live with.”

Jake turned, the “outlaw” back in his eyes. “I didn’t kill Holt the other night just because he’d shot Lloyd. I killed the man who blindfolded my beautiful, angelic, Christian daughter and raped her! No man who does what he did should exist!” He took another deep breath. “And then there lay my son…my life! Lloyd and Evie are the only good things I’ve ever contributed to this world. If I didn’t know Randy like I do, I’d swear they came from someone else’s seed, but they’re mine—something I did right! So, yes, I shot the bastard who didn’t hurt just one of my children. He hurt both of them! If Evie hadn’t asked me to spare their lives, I would have killed every last man back there at Dune Hollow, and this thing wouldn’t have happened, because Holt would already have been dead.”

Jake’s wrath permeated the air to the point where the room began to feel much too small.