Outlaw Hearts(218)

“I was not about to let Jake come alone. I just got him back after four years of prison. Besides, I knew you could be hurt and I might be the only one who could help.”

He reached out and took her hand. “How did you get Pa to let you come?”

She smiled. “I have my ways.”

Lloyd grinned. “Yeah, he is pretty soft when it comes to you.” His smile faded. “You must both hate me. I deserted you, walked out on Pa, left you and Evie to fend for yourselves.”

She squeezed his hand. “Lloyd, there is absolutely nothing a child can do to make his parents hate him. Nothing.” She leaned down and kissed his cheek. “You had a right to be angry with your father, disappointed in him. But you also have a special gift now that your father never had, Lloyd. It’s something I know your father would give anything for.” She stroked his hair back from his forehead, thinking how utterly handsome this son of hers was, how wonderful it felt to have him looking at her with the gentle eyes of the old, trusting Lloyd. “You have a chance to make amends with your father. That’s something Jake never had. If you think it hasn’t bothered Jake that he killed his father, you’re very, very wrong, Lloyd. That is what led to his confusion, to the desperate kind of life he led for so long. He was only fifteen, Lloyd. He didn’t know what to do, where to turn. There was no one he could go to but the outlaw friends of his father, and he got caught in a vicious circle, thinking he was no good because his father told him so every single day of his life.”

She reached over to a stand beside the bed and picked up the cross and rosary Jake had left there. She held it up. “Jake never showed you this. It belonged to his mother. She was a good and gentle woman, sold to a brutal man. Jake’s father killed her, and killed Jake’s little brother. He beat your father viciously from the earliest Jake can remember. Your father saw some terrible things when he was growing up, Lloyd, but he knew that there must be some kind of goodness in this world. It just took him a long time to find it; and he always kept this to remind him of it.”

She pressed the cross into Lloyd’s hand. “Your father is not the bad man his own father was. He has his mother’s goodness in him, and so do you. I hope to God you never believed those rape charges. The woman he risked his life to save the day of that robbery finally came forward to testify that your father had nothing to do with that robbery or her abduction that day. He actually rescued her and brought her back home. She had been living in Europe these last few years and didn’t know your father had been put in prison. It was not an easy thing for her to come forward like that, but because of it, your father is free now, and we can be a family again, Lloyd. Please, please come home with us. Evie is married to a doctor now, and she’s expecting a baby. She wants so much for her brother to come home.”

Lloyd lifted his hand and studied the cross. “I don’t know if I’d fit in anymore. There’s too much to forgive.”

“There’s nothing to forgive anymore. Don’t throw away the gift of family, Lloyd. Your father knows how important family is. He never had the love and support you have always had. To him it’s a wonderful blessing, something to be treasured. I’m not saying Jake didn’t do other bad things. It’s a fact that he did. He was an outlaw, but he was also a lost little boy just lashing out at the world that had hurt him so much. The man I married, the man who was such a good father to you, is nothing like the outlaw. You have to admit, Lloyd, that you could not have asked for a more loving, attentive father.”

Lloyd’s eyes misted, and he squeezed the cross. “That’s the hell of it. He had a right to hate his father. I didn’t. Not really. I was just so angry, I guess, that he never told me. I thought we were so close. Even at that, maybe we could have worked it out if not for Beth.” A tear slipped down his cheek and he wiped at it, embarrassed. “I loved her, Ma. I still do.” He breathed deeply and swallowed. “I don’t understand why she got married so quick. Her father must have forced her into it. I know she loved me. Every time I picture her with some other man, it makes me feel crazy, and then I need a drink, and that leads to blaming Pa all over again, makes me hate him.” He sniffed and wiped at his eyes with his fingers. “Not anymore, though. What’s done is done, I guess, and you’re right about family. I want to come home. As soon as I felt Pa’s arms around me when he cut me down out there, I knew I loved him and wanted to come home.”

He looked past her then to see Jake standing in the doorway. “I’m sorry about Beth, son,” the man told him, his own eyes looking misty. “Damn sorry.” Jake came farther into the room, running a hand through his hair, still looking tired.