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He had to leave them; if he didn't, he ran the risk of hurting the people he loved more than life itself. Maybe next time he wouldn't be so lucky as to grab Lissa's wrist in his sleep; maybe next time it would be her throat.
A shudder wrenched through him at the thought. If only he could believe?even for a moment?that he was innocent. But he couldn't. The evidence pointed to him, but that wasn't what convinced him. The evidence was simply that: evidence. Jack had something stronger to go on. He knew himself, knew the dark, twisted torment that was his mind, knew the violence he was capable of inflicting without even a hint of memory to mark its passing.
Tomorrow he'd ask Ed Warbass to arrest him. Cage him. It wasn't much, he knew; he deserved something colder and infinitely worse. But it was all he could do, the only way he could keep his loved ones safe. The only way he could atone for the atrocity he'd committed on that poor, innocent family.
He sank again to his knees, barely feeling the cold
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dampness of the floor. His chest ached with the need to cry, but his eyes remained painfully dry.
I'm sorry, Lissa. The words churned through his mind in a litany of agonizingly sharp regret. With each repetition he was reminded of how meaningless and stupid the apology sounded, how hollow. In the past weeks, Lissa had given him things he'd thought long gone. He'd even started to think he wasn't such a failure.
Memories and moments crystallized in his mind, lodged like shards of glass in his soul. Lissa, soothing the sweat-dampened hair from his eyes and touching his cheek, guiding him through the pain-filled darkness of the near blackout; Lissa sitting in the big rocker on the porch, with Katie curled in her lap, drawing pictures of letters in the cool night air; Lissa naked, astride him, bending down for a slow, lingering kiss.
Regret and shame coiled together, tasting acrid and bitter in the back of his throat.
Christ, it had felt good to finally be a father. A husband. It was better than he'd ever imagined it could be, and he'd spent a lifetime imagining it. So many nights he'd lain on his lonely couch bed, staring at the darkened ceiling, breathing hard, aching to be invited into a loving circle that existed only in his mind.
Until Lissa had made that circle a reality. She'd brought the children together and formed a strong, lasting bond of love. And, miracles of miracles, she'd held her hand out to him.
Fool that he was, he'd taken it, clung to it, held it to his heart and let himself believe... .
The selfish act had hurt them all. He'd let the girls, and Lissa, believe in the circle, and then he'd ripped the shit out of it and stomped on all their hearts. With each breath he took now, he saw his dream?their dream?slipping be-
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yond his grasp, slipping through fingers too numb and useless to know how to hang on.
He never should have tried to be a father and husband. He had failed, and the failure had caused the horror he'd always known it would. That and so much more. His failure was worse than not trying. He'd let them all down and left them with the most painful memory of all. Happiness.
Chapter Twenty-six
The schoolhouse bell clanged in a slow, melancholy march. Tess pulled the heavy shawl more tightly around her shoulders and glanced uneasily around.
Low-slung clouds slid through the robin's-egg blue sky, casting dark, sinister shadows on the ground. On either side of the dirt road, giant cedar trees reached toward the heavens, their deep green coats rustling softly in the breeze.
The horses plodded methodically onward, their hooves striking the hard-packed earth in a muted march that accentuated the throbbing echo of the bell. With every rumbling, clanking turn of the huge metal wheels, Tess's anxiety increased. She couldn't put her finger on what was wrong. She tried to tell herself it was just the horror of the crime, but she couldn't make herself believe it. There was something else, something dark and dangerous eddying around her family. Something that scared her to death.
The schoolyard was crowded and silent when they finally arrived. Jack expertly maneuvered the wagon amidst the mass of people and horses, and pulled up alongside the fence. Many faces turned their way. None of them called out a greeting or waved hello.
Tess glanced sideways at Jack. He was sitting as straight as a bowstring, staring dead ahead. The battered Stetson was drawn low on his brow, as if to shield his face from
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the townspeople. On the reins, his hands were tight, white fists. His mouth was a tense, colorless line.
He looked like a man on the verge of exploding.
She reached out for him. "Jack, are you?"
He turned to look at her. Tess gasped at the raw, unmasked pain in his eyes, and for a moment she was left breathless. It was more than loss, more even than grief. Something darker, deeper, more akin to terror than mourning.
He started to speak, then changed his mind and jumped down from the wagon. The girls followed.
Tess got down from the wagon and stood beside Jack. Holding Caleb close, she stared up at her husband, feeling a strange sense of foreboding. Something was wrong. Something different and infinitely more dangerous than a murder.
