Joe eased back to the ground. There would be no escape for him. All he could now was make the best of things and avoid the dreaded questions.
Java rested his head on Joe’s leg. He couldn’t resist scratching behind the dog’s ear, which only had Java snuggling closer.
“He likes you.” Surprise laced Piper’s words.
“And that’s so shocking?” He’d always been good with animals. In fact, he’d always thought he’d be a cowboy the rest of his life... But, unable to remain at the ranch, he’d had to make another choice for himself.
“That’s right. I almost forgot that you grew up on a ranch.” She plucked at a blade of grass and twirled it between her fingers. “I always wondered what happened to you. You disappeared after the last day of school. You never even showed up for graduation.”
Years of avoidance started to peel away. His jaw tightened, his back teeth aching from the mounting tension. He hadn’t gone to the graduation ceremony because he’d skipped town. The fact he’d stuck it out until the last day of class in order to graduate and receive his college scholarship was no small feat. Nothing and no one could have made him stay at the ranch or in this small town a minute longer.
Joe shrugged. “I was never into ceremonies.”
“But where did you go? Why did you leave so abruptly? It couldn’t have been easy for your family—”
“My family! You’ve got to be joking.”
Java lifted his head, his eyes and ears on full alert. Piper had a similar startled look.
“Sorry.” Joe regained his composure and soothed the dog. “You don’t need to feel sorry for my family. They knew I was leaving. I shouldn’t have stuck around as long as I did.”
Piper’s gaze softened as she searched his face as though trying to understand where his burst of emotion had come from. “I had no idea there were problems. Your mother never said a word. And your father, well, he never talked much.”
“You’re lucky he didn’t talk to you.” Harsh strains of his father’s voice echoed in Joe’s head. “The only time that man spoke was to curse when he was angry, which was often. Or to bellow when something he thought should have been done wasn’t completed. Or if it wasn’t done to his satisfaction.”
Piper’s eyes opened wide. “I...I wondered.”
Her soft admission gained Joe’s full attention. “You did?”
She hesitantly nodded. “Your...your mom never came to town alone. Your father always lurked about.” Piper’s hesitant gaze caught his, as though she wondered if it was all right if she continued. When he didn’t say a word, she said, “Your mother always seemed nervous, and she never talked with the other women. It was... Well, it was like she was afraid.”
“She was.” The bold confirmation startled even him. He never ever talked about this part of his life with anyone. Not his ex-wife. Not his former best friend. He reasoned if he didn’t talk about it and no one knew, then he could go through life like it’d never happened.
It wasn’t until now that he realized he’d been fooling himself. As dreadful as those memories were, he couldn’t ignore them forever. They’d impacted him in ways he was only now starting to understand.
Here he was on this early morning, the September sun warming his neck while he sat next to this beautiful woman, about to dredge up the darkest memories of his life. And as much as he wanted to tamp them back down and stuff them in the box, he wasn’t strong enough. The images flickered in his mind like those from an old black and white projector.
Java moved closer, putting both paws across Joe’s legs. He’d heard it said that animals could sense their owner’s emotions, but how could that be possible with Java? They’d just met. Still, Joe ran a hand over the dog’s dark brown fur, taking comfort in the act.
When Joe spoke, his voice was deeper than normal. “My father was not an easy man, and his temper was lightning fast. And it burned red hot. Nothing could cool him down until he’d taken his fury out on those closest to him.”
Piper’s mouth gaped until she noticed he was staring. She pressed her lips together and glanced away. “That must have been rough. How did you manage?”
“I didn’t know any other way of life, not until I became a teenager. Then I couldn’t wait to get out of there.” Maybe this conversation was for the best. He was tired of the townsfolk thinking he’d been a bad son who’d abandoned his family. “It’s why I spent every single minute with my nose in a book.”
“Oh, I thought you just liked to read.”
“Nope. I was desperate to get a full scholarship to anywhere...anywhere but here.” The old feeling of oppression and desperation rained down, shrouding him in the grayness of his past.
“That’s why you were so quiet in school.”
He shrugged. “It was easier to keep to myself. It was tough enough being an awkward teenager. I didn’t need people asking a bunch of questions that I couldn’t—wouldn’t—answer.”
“So you made up your mind that you’d had enough of your father’s temper and packed your bags? It must have been scary leaving home for good.”
“It was better than staying there.” Joe shook his head, willing away the wave of emotions that rose up in his throat as he recalled those last days.
“Wasn’t your father proud of you for receiving a scholarship?”
Every muscle in Joe’s body tensed. How did this woman know exactly which razor-sharp questions to ask? In that moment, the years of scar tissue peeled back, and his past gaped open in his mind.
Java pulled back and stared at him. Guarded and waiting.
Piper didn’t move, but her steady gaze prodded him, begging him not to shut down.
Joe lowered his gaze to the freshly mowed grass. He didn’t want to go where she was leading him, but he couldn’t stop the crush of memories. He needed to purge them. And he trusted Piper. He knew she was a good person, inside and out. She would keep his secret, but was it fair to burden her with it?
“You don’t want to hear this.” His throat ached from the tension in his neck. In fact, his whole body was in revolt over dredging up this nightmare.
Piper reached over and squeezed his hand. “I want to hear whatever you’re willing to share. I’d like to understand why you left.”
Joe lifted his head and met her warm gaze. What he found there surprised him. He felt secure in their friendship and found strength in her compassion. Two things he hadn’t realized he’d been longing for until now.
Joe squeezed her hand. “My father was a hard man who wanted things done on his command and to his specifications. There were no such things as excuses. Ever.”
“That must have been hard, especially being a kid and wanting to hang out with your friends.”
Joe shook his head. “There was no time for friends. He didn’t believe in wasting money on hiring ranch hands when he had a perfectly capable son to do the work.”
“When did you have time to study?”
“I didn’t.”
Piper’s eye grew round as she connected the dots. “So you were always studying at school because that was the only time you had.”
Joe nodded. “If my old man had had it his way, I’d have dropped out of school to do more work. He thought school was a waste of time.”
“But what about your grades? Surely they had to impress him.”
The past washed over Joe like a dense, dank fog, swallowing him into its darkness. “He didn’t know about my grades. He didn’t want to know. All he cared about was how much I did around the ranch.”
“That’s horrible. What about your mother?”
“She had her own problems with my father and couldn’t risk angering him further by making a big deal out of my academics. My father would have blown a gasket. He did that enough without prodding.”
Piper’s head lowered, and her voice came out soft as a whisper. “And here I thought I had issues with my mother and her constant need to change me, to perfect who I am.”
“Your mother hasn’t done you any favors either.”
“I’m surprised he let you go away to college.”
“He tried to stop me...” Joe’s voice faded as those very vivid memories played in his mind like a motion picture. “In fact, one of the happiest days of my life turned out to be the beginning of a horrible nightmare.”
Piper threaded her fingers through his and squeezed. No words were necessary. He knew she was there for him. And now that he’d started down this dark, lonely road, he welcomed her warmth.
“The day the mailman delivered a big white envelope with my name on it—the one I knew just had to be my college acceptance—my father got to it first. He ripped it up and told me I’d never go.” Joe’s breath grew shallow as his heart clenched with old, familiar pain. “I had to tape the pieces together to see what it said.”
“What about your mother?”
“She stood off to the side, not saying a word. She’d learned early on, after losing a couple of teeth, not to question my father. He held her firmly under his thumb.”
“That’s awful. I’m so sorry. No wonder you left.”
Joe pulled away from her. He needed to get through this last part on his own. To prove to himself that he could do it. “That isn’t it. That isn’t why I left. I knew the way he was. I didn’t expect anything different.”
Piper’s eyes shimmered with sympathy. “No child should ever have a parent treat them like that.”
“It got worse the closer it came to my graduation.”
Piper worried her bottom lip. “If this is too difficult, you don’t have to finish—”
“Yes, I do.”
The firmness of his words caused a flash of surprise to flicker across her delicate features. It surprised him as well. For so long, he’d done everything in his power to keep his past exactly where it was, in the past. But now, sitting here with Piper, who was the most understanding person he’d ever met, and running his hand over Java’s smooth coat, he felt strangely at ease. It was as though airing out the ghosts that still haunted him would at last free him.
The thought of at last finding peace spurred him on.
“No matter what my father said or did, I wasn’t going to give up on college. It was my ticket out of there, and I wouldn’t be stopped.”
His chest tightened as he thought of his old pal Fudge, so much like Java in looks and demeanor. They could have been siblings. He scratched beneath the dog’s ear, just like Fudge had liked. His dog had been his best friend. Fudge had made the miseries bearable.
When Fudge had come to Joe’s defense during one of his father’s tirades, his father had threatened to get rid of the dog. Joe had quickly learned to keep Fudge locked up in the tack room when his father was around. There had been no love lost between those two.
Joe glanced over at Piper. How much of this should he tell her? Did he dare open up about all of it?
“I had a dog. His...his name was Fudge. He looked a lot like Java. So much so that, for a moment this morning, I’d thought I stumbled across a ghost.”
“What happened to Fudge?”
“It was right before graduation when my father found out that I’d accepted the scholarship to college against his wishes. He went ballistic. When he was coherent again, he gave me an ultimatum. Either I stayed there and one day took over the ranch like a son ought to, or I left with nothing but the clothes on my back and never came back.”
“Oh my.” Piper clamped a hand over her mouth.
Joe turned away. The anger and pain churned in his gut. He didn’t want Piper to witness all of those awful emotions on his face. It even scared him a little by the depth of anger he felt for his father after all of these years.
“I told him there wasn’t anything on that ranch I’d miss.” His voice cracked as he realized how wrong he’d been to utter those words.
“I can’t imagine—”
Joe held out his hand to silence her consoling words. If he was going to do this, if he was going to let her understand why, he needed to stay in control. If he stopped now, he’d never get it out.
His hands clenched as he tried to stem the wave of agony. “The next day I came home from school. Fudge always met me down at the road, but...but that day he wasn’t there.”
Every muscle in his body tensed as those very real, very horrid memories assaulted him. He struggled to keep his emotions in check. His throat ached with unleashed sobs, and his eyes burned with threatening tears. But he refused to give in.
His voice was hoarse when he spoke again. “I knew then and there that something was wrong. I ran to the house, but there was no Fudge anywhere. When I asked my mother where Fudge was, she became flustered. ‘Gone,’ was all she’d say before locking herself in her bedroom.”
Joe pulled his arm away from Piper and got to his feet. Java sat straight up and sent him a puzzled gaze. Joe didn’t dare make eye contact with Piper, not sure he could maintain his composure beneath her sympathetic gaze.
Right then, the pain was so overwhelming that he just needed to move. He needed a moment to suck down some of the turmoil so he could finish this nightmare. He forced a deep breath into his tightened chest, followed by an unsteady sigh. He could do this. He could get it out, and then maybe at last he’d be at peace.
“I knew something awful had happened. My mother only ran and hid in her bedroom when she was scared. And if she was scared, I knew it had something to do with my father. Something bad had happened...something real bad.”