Page 103 of Love’s Silver Bullet

He grinned, no mistaking the gleam of pride in his eyes now as he cast a loving glance at the small but tidy cream clapboard house with its rust-colored door. The same color trim was carefully painted around a three-window bay topped with a steel half dome. “Well, it’s not Finn’s ranch house by a long shot, but it sure beats sleeping with twenty hands who snore and smell. All it took was a few coats of paint inside and out, and it’s good as new.”

Hopping out, he tied the reins to the fence post and hurried around to help Sheridan down, palm to the small of her back as he guided her to the house.

“Oh, wait!” She whirled around, darting back to the rig to pull his gift out of her suitcase, then followed him up the steps to the front porch, sliding past him as he held the door open.

“It’s small, but it’s cozy,” he said, closing the door again, “and it’ll take a few minutes to warm up, so you’ll want to keep your coat on.” Striding to a modest stone fireplace, he squatted to add a small log to the banked fire in the hearth, coaxing the flames to life like Sheridan hoped to do with their relationship.

“Oh, Jake, it’s wonderful!” she breathed, sweet chills warming her more than the crackling fire that this was where Jake now lived and slept. Clutching his wrapped gift to her chest, she slowly perused the comfy parlour and snug kitchen with delight, stopping short of entering a neat bedroom where a cast-iron double bed sported a patchwork quilt in masculine colors.

“Can I warm you up with a cup of coffee?” He moved a spindle-back chair from the kitchen table to smack dab in front of the hearth.

“No, the fire is perfect and more than enough.” Although a kiss would be better … Settling into the chair with her wrapped gift in her lap, she waited as he repositioned his own spindle-back chair in front of the fire also, albeit too far from hers.

He finally angled to face her dead-on. “It’s good to have you home, Half-Pint,” he said, and the minute the words were out of his mouth, she knew it wouldn’t be good news. She long since figured out that Jake called her Half-Pint whenever he wanted to distance himself, and the pinch of his lips told her she was right.

“Here.” She stood to awkwardly thrust the gift at him before sitting back down, clasping her hands tightly in her lap. “I brought you a house-warming gift,” she whispered, hoping and praying it would provide the springboard she needed to delve into Jake’s soul.

“Thanks, Sher, but you didn’t have to do that …” Shaking his head, he nudged a finger beneath the open end of the brown wrapping paper.

“But that’s just it, Jake”—her voice was barely a whisper—“I did have to do it because I felt like God wanted me to.”

He paused to stare at her for several seconds with a half-smile, a wrinkle above his nose indicating his confusion. “O … kay.” Carefully removing the paper, his smile grew as he held up a picture frame backwards, tossing the paper aside. “How did you know I need pict—” His words tapered off when he turned it around, Adam’s apple ducking hard in his throat.

“I made it myself,” she said quickly, hoping to deflect the unease of his sudden silence. “Grace’s grandmother taught us needlepoint this semester, so when I heard you moved into your own house”—she shrugged, the motion awkward—“I wanted you to have this to hang on your wall.”

Nodding slowly, he swallowed hard once again, and before he looked down at the sampler, she could have sworn she saw a sheen of moisture in his eyes. “It’s … beautiful, Sheridan,” he said quietly, his voice gruff with emotion. He slowly skimmed a finger along the Scripture she’d sewn, and with a silent prayer, she begged for God to use it to heal his heart.

“As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us.” Her whisper filled the silence between them like a prayer as she watched the man she loved to the depth of her soul, longing for him to be free even if it meant freedom from her. “I thought it would be a good place to begin, Jake … to talk about your past.”

Eyes fixed on the sampler, he gave a short nod before his gaze rose to meet hers. “This is … the best gift I’ve ever gotten, Sheridan, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart.” Rising, he carefully set the framed sampler in the center of a cedar mantle, head bowed as he rested his palms beside it. “This won’t be easy for me to say,” he whispered, keeping his back to her, “or for you to hear, Sheridan, but it’s time.”

Turning around, it was as if he’d aged ten years in the span of only ten seconds, shoulders slumped while he sagged back into his chair. “My father owned every vice a man could have—drinking, carousing, gambling, abuse, stealing, you name it—and I hated him,” he began, his voice taking on a monotone quality that made him suddenly seem so far away, as if he were traveling into the past while he stared glassy-eyed at the fire. “And he hated me. He was the sheriff of Bannack, Montana, but don’t let the title fool you. He was a hardened criminal through and through, the mastermind behind hundreds of robberies and murders across his territory.”

She gave a harsh catch of her breath, but it was as if he hadn’t heard, continuing on in a lifeless drone that seemed to sap all energy right out of his soul.

“Why Ma ever married him I’ll never understand, but rumor has it she had no choice. Some said she was loose, others said he raped her.” His words twisted like a knife in Sheridan’s heart. “But either way, I was the result, and there isn’t a day goes by that I don’t regret having Ace Conroy’s blood in my veins.”

“Oh, Jake …” Hand to her mouth, there was no way she could stop the tears that welled as she rose to go to him.

“No—stay back!” Tone harsh, he held up a palm with eyes as wild and hard as the tale he told, his face contorted into a man she didn’t even know.

Hunching over the edge of his chair with his head in his hands, he continued, his voice so distant and flat he might have been talking to himself. “Oh, he put on a real good front for the town folk, of course, to hide a heart as black as night. But at home, he was Satan incarnate, a drunken devil who wailed on me and my ma for pure sport. Never on our faces, mind you, or wherever folks could see, but black and blue underneath all the same.”

“Oh, no …” Tears streamed Sheridan’s face as she stared at him, numb with grief.

“I was full of rage from little on, crazed with hate and fury—at him because he was so vile, and then at Ma because she married him. And the only way I could strike back was to make him look bad, to reflect the evil in him by being evil myself. Awful things I … don’t want to go into, but all fueled by pure hate. Too awful for a boy so young, I can tell you that. Got so bad, Ma hated me as much as she hated him, because I was his demon seed, she’d say, and somehow I knew that deep down inside she was right.”

“Oh, Jake, no—you’re not!” Sheridan rasped, her words nasal with grief for a little boy so brutalized and betrayed.

He looked up, and she sucked in a harsh breath at the total despair in his eyes. “But that’s just it, Sheridan, I am.”

“No!” She rose, hands fisted hard at her sides, the stark warning in his face the only thing keeping her from rushing to his side. “You are not your father, Jake Sullivan!”

“No, Sheridan, I’m his son.” He stared at her with a hopelessness so potent, a darkness shivered across her soul. “And,” he continued in a tone as vacant as his eyes, “the sole reason my mother and sister are dead.”

CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT

He was reliving it all over again. Just like his nightmares, only this time he was wide awake. In his dreams, he always woke up screaming, pulse racing and body layered in sweat, but although his heart hammered in his chest and parts of his shirt were damp, this time he didn’t have the luxury of waking up or even screaming out loud …