Page 104 of Love’s Silver Bullet

Only in his soul, a man lost forever …

Sheridan sat there like a statue. She might have been dead except the rapid rise and fall of her chest, horror wet in her eyes, but something else, too, that he in no way deserved.

Compassion?

“What h-happened, Jake?” Her voice was hoarse, her words a papery whisper.

The shivering began—inside, if not out—when his gaze drifted back to the fire into a time he would never forget, and he knew now that this was his punishment, his own personal hell to pay for what he had done. A piece of his life he could never change, never escape.

Never be free.

“Jake?”

The flames of the fire licked the logs like sweat licked the back of his neck while his lips curled into a hard smile. “But that spawn of Satan finally got what he deserved when Montana Vigilantes figured out why the high and mighty Sheriff Conroy never could catch the marauding bandits that terrorized Bannock and Grasshopper Creek. Turns out the so-called upstanding sheriff was the ringleader for a ruthless gang of highwaymen who committed hundreds of robberies and murders across territorial Montana. So, the Vigilantes captured and lynched him from a tree in the center of town, making my ma and me watch while people applauded.”

A nerve twitched in his cheek when Sheridan gasped, but he didn’t look at her. He couldn’t. The horror in his mind was bad enough; he sure didn’t need to see it in her face. “Turned out lots of people in town hated him as much as Ma and me, but the problem was, they hated us too. When the local preacher told folks I was bad seed from the spawn of Satan, they banished us from the town. Ended up in the town of Hell Gate, where we changed our name to Sullivan so no one would know we were related to the monster who gave me life.

“Oh, Jake …” Her voice broke on a heave.

“I was only six at the time,” he whispered, gaze lost in the flames as his voice faded to near numb, “but I’d lived a lifetime of hell by then, so Hell Gate was almost a pleasure after that. Ma had no trouble getting work in one of the saloons, what with the goldrush and all the miners flooding the town, which left me alone a lot, so I fell in with a rough crowd.”

A harsh laugh erupted from his lips. “Thunderation, I was the ‘rough crowd,’ the son of the infamous Sheriff Conroy to some of his gang who still lived in Hell Gate. Took me under their wing right quick, and before I could blink, I was following in my old man’s boots with stealing and drinkin’ at the ripe old age of eight.”

He chanced a glance at Sheridan and wished he hadn’t. She looked so much like that little girl of four he first fell in love with, her body small and hunched in the chair with arms clasped to her waist so hard, it could have pinched off her air. Blue eyes stared back in grief, rimmed red and raw from silent weeping.

He rose from the chair and started pacing, barely aware he was clenching and unclenching his fists over and over. “And then things changed for the better, only I was too angry inside to know it. One of the Montana Vigilantes that finally cleaned up Hell Gate by catching the rest of my pa’s gang, became sheriff and married my ma.”

His tone softened as the memory came back. “He was a good man, a godly man, but I was too far gone with hate and bitterness to accept him, no matter how hard he tried. Actually treated me better than my own ma, who almost couldn’t stand the sight of me because she said I looked too much like my pa.”

He gave a listless shrug. “That and I was nothing but trouble, a sassy hellion who refused to mind. But Dirk”—he paused to shoot Sheridan one of the few glances he’d sent her way since he’d begun, the barest hint of a smile on his lips—“that was my stepfather’s name, you know, Dirk Wheeler. Well, he was the one who taught me to shoot, insisting I needed to know how to watch over my ma and new baby sister whenever Dirk was away, which was a lot in the wild Montana Territory back then.”

Jake returned to his chair, hunching over with hands clasped as he gazed at the fire with a tender smile, not seeing it, but the little sister he had loved. “Josie was the one bright spot in my life back then, a beautiful little girl with glossy curls black as night and a pretty little smile that was pure sunshine to my soul.” His lips curved higher as he spoke, almost feeling that very sunshine flooding his soul while her memory danced in his mind. “I called her Moonbeam because she took to cuddling with me at night from the age of three, so we could watch the moon and stars together while I made up stories about them.”

He glanced up at Sheridan, heart constricting over how easy it had been to transfer the love he’d felt for Josie over to a little girl with hair like corn silk. Blue eyes that adored and revered him like Josie always had. “You reminded me of her, Sheridan, from the first moment I saw you, and I suppose that was why I fell in love with you at first sight.” He swiped at the moisture in his eyes, barely aware it was even there.

“And I, you,” she whispered, but his smile died along with his hope as he turned back to the fire.

“Josie was the world to me,” he whispered, gaze trailing into the same painful past he relived so many nights in his dreams. “Until the week Dirk asked me to keep watch over her and Ma while he would be away on a posse. Word was that some of Ace Conroy’s gang members vowed vengeance on the families of the Vigilantes who’d hung their brothers, and he didn’t want to take any chances. Told me flat out not to leave the house for any reason except to empty the chamber pot, and that I was to keep guard day and night with my rifle.”

A spark popped in the hearth, but Jake barely heard it. The flames blurred into an inferno while saltwater welled in his eyes, his own personal hell as alive and real as the day it had happened. “But I was an eleven-year-old hooligan, selfish to the core. So when Dirk didn’t come back for three days and my friends came by to talk me into fishing”—emotion swelled in his throat until he could barely breathe—“I did,” he rasped. “Then yelled at Josie to boot, for trying to follow.”

His eyelids weighted closed like they were made of lead as he swiped at his face, slick with regret. “I can still see her, so wounded and hurt while tears rolled down those tiny cheeks.” A sob caught in his throat as he put his head in his hands, heaves wracking his body. “I … I … heard shots … and then screams … b-but I was t-too late. When I g-got back, bullets had riddled the c-cabin, and they …” His voice broke on another sob, all the grief he’d buried over the years flooding from his eyes.

“Oh, Jake, no …” Sheridan’s arms surrounded him then, and he hung on tight, eyes squeezed shut as he wept from his very soul. “God help me, I didn’t deserve to live, Sheridan, but I did, instead of them.”

He glanced up, then, a man in the crosshairs of contrition as he bludgeoned a thumb to his chest. “It should have been me that died that day. And as God is my witness, there isn’t an hour goes by that I don’t wish,” he whispered, voice hoarse and nasal with grief, “that it was.”

CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE

No! The thought of no Jake in this world pierced Sheridan’s heart anew as she knelt beside him to cling with all of her might, wishing more than anything she could set him free from his agony of guilt and grief. But there was only One who had the power to do that, and she had no doubt whatsoever that somehow, someway, that was exactly what God intended to do.

But till then … she could relay God’s love through her own …

“Jake,” she whispered, eyes closed as she rested her head against his shoulder, “I fell in love with that very boy, and now I love the incredible man you’ve grown to be in spite of a beginning no child should ever have.”

Sitting up with a sniff, he fished his handkerchief from his pocket to swab his face before expelling a weighty sigh. With a sad smile, he gently cupped her face with his hand, the love in his eyes as raw and real as the grief he’d just revealed. “I love you, too, Sheridan, which is why I need you to understand why I can’t promise anything more than friendship.”

“But that’s just it—I don’t understand!” Sheridan stood, dislodging his hand from her face as she locked arms to her waist, hurt brimming in her eyes. “We love each other, Jake, and we’re attracted to each other, too—a lot—so explain to me, please, why we can’t fall in love and marry like normal people do?”