Seeing is Believing (22 page)

“I busted my balls and got it all done. I’m pulling into town now. Can you meet me at Shelby’s?”

The relief she felt in hearing his voice, in knowing he was almost back, kind of scared her. She shouldn’t be that dependent on his presence. “Why are you going to Shelby’s?”

“I want to show you something.”

It was hard to read his voice. He didn’t sound flirtatious. More tired and agitated. “Okay. I can be there in twenty minutes.” She wanted to eat her sandwich and brush her teeth.

“Good. See you soon, sex kitten.”

“Okay—” Piper frowned when she realized he’d already hung up. “See you then. Bye,” she told the dead phone. Then she made a sound of exasperation when her phone buzzed with a text message alert. It was from an unknown number.

It’s on you bitch.

Piper dropped her phone. That couldn’t be for her. She didn’t get messages like that. She quickly deleted it and went for her purse, deciding to forgo the sandwich. She just wanted to see Brady. Get some reassurance.

Which made her wonder if she still was that needy little girl she’d been.

* * *

BRADY WAS IN SHELBY’S DRIVEWAY, CURSING THE FACT
that he’d asked Piper to meet him here. Shelby and the kids weren’t home, having stepped out for dinner at the Italian restaurant at the outlet mall thirty minutes away. Shel had told him where to find the spare key but suddenly he was wishing he’d just gone back to Swallow Street and taken a shower with Piper. This could wait until he wasn’t exhausted.

But it was too late now. She’d be there any minute. He went into the house, and on cue, there was a knock at the door. Opening it, the smile fell off his face when he saw a thin brunette looking at him, not Piper. She was wearing a huge hooded sweatshirt and her hair was limp, her eyes frantic.

“Is Piper here?”

“No.” Brady felt alarms going off. “Can I help you?” This did not look like the type of woman Piper would associate with.

“Yeah. Can you tell me where she is? I’m her brother’s girlfriend and I really, really need to talk to her.”

Piper had mentioned her half brother Marcus to him, had expressed how sad it made her that he had taken a bad path. Brady studied this girl, wondering whether he could trust her. “Where is Marcus?” he asked her.

“Jail. Possession of a controlled substance. That’s why I need to talk to Piper.”

By this time, she had entered the house. Brady cursed as she wandered into the parlor, her shaking fingers reaching out to stroke the end table. He sensed this girl was in desperate need of a fix. Great. He’d let a drug abuser come into his cousin’s house. Thank God they wouldn’t be home for another hour.

But Piper was going to be there any minute, and he did not want her to see this girl. “What’s your name?” he asked her.

“Trina. Who are you?”

“Piper’s boyfriend.”

It took her two seconds to process this. “Got any money?”

“No. I lost my job.”

“Oh.” Standing in front of the fireplace, her eyes traveled over the array of brass decorative items.

No doubt she was gauging what she’d score in a pawnshop. Brady felt sorry for her but he was already thinking he’d call the cops if he had to. “Why did you think Piper was here?” He was suddenly afraid. Had she been to the farm? He was sure she hadn’t because Danny would have called the cops, no doubt about it.

The girl was young, no more than eighteen, and now that he could see her in the light, it was obvious she was rail thin under that massive sweatshirt.

“The old lady in the diner told me.”

Marge? Or more likely his grandmother. She was the only one who had known he’d asked Piper over to his cousin’s. He had called her for her advice and she’d given him the thumbs-up.

“Listen, Trina.”

She knew he was about to dismiss her. Her eyes shifted, and she came closer to him. Brady stepped backwards, but he was caught by the fireplace.

“I’ll blow you. Just ten bucks, that’s all I need. I’m pregnant. I need to get something to eat. Please. Everyone says I give good head.”

It felt like it was happening in slow motion. Her hands going for his zipper. His hands reaching out to stop her. Her bending over. His hands on her shoulders, ready to push her away forcefully.

Piper in the doorway of the parlor, jaw dropping.

His thought that this could not be happening. His strangled, “Piper, it’s not what you think.”

Trina’s hand continuing into his pants.

His jerking away, shocked, the blow coming to his head, and his going down like a ton of bricks.

* * *

PIPER HEARD THE VOICES AS SHE CAME ONTO THE
porch, wondering why on earth the front door was open. One of the kids must have left it open, but she didn’t see Shelby’s minivan in the drive. She wondered again what it was Brady wanted to show her.

“Just ten bucks, that’s all I need. I’m pregnant.”

Who the hell was that?

Piper turned towards the parlor, and then what she saw made all thoughts vanish from her head. She couldn’t move. She couldn’t breathe. A thin girl with dark hair was unzipping Brady’s pants. He was holding her like he was going to shake her.

And Piper was six years old again and watching her stepfather force her mother onto her knees to do things that seemed dirty and wrong to her, especially since Mark always said her mother owed it to him for paying for her pills. If he spotted Piper, he’d lock her in the closet, so she always tried to run away and hide first when it happened, to cover her ears so she didn’t hear the sounds that were so strange and foreign.

Now there was this girl and she was clawing at Brady’s pants, her thin, pale fingers reaching inside to touch what she should never touch.

Piper ran. She thought Brady said something but she wasn’t sure what it was. She just ran. She got in her truck and she drove home, to the farm, sobbing.

She fell out of the cab and tripped in the gravel before she made it to the door. When she got inside, she ran up the stairs as fast as she could and locked herself in her empty bedroom.

Chapter Fourteen

BRADY GLARED AT THE POLICE OFFICER. HE VAGUELY
remembered him from his childhood. “Can I go now?”

The officer nodded.

Thank God.

“You should go to the hospital,” Gran told him.

“I’m fine. She just hit me with a vase. It’s not that big of a deal.” He didn’t have time to go to the hospital. He needed to find Piper. He’d called her three times and texted her twice, and she hadn’t answered. He had no doubt that she had gone to the farm, but he was worried about her driving so upset. Terrified that she might actually think he was on board with getting a blow job from a drugged-out teenager.

It must have looked bad from where she was standing, and he wanted to make sure she knew what was really going on.

“I can’t believe it took the cops so long to get here.” Gran glared at the two officers who were talking in the foyer. “I called them as soon as I realized what that girl was about.”

“You shouldn’t have told her where Shelby lives, Gran.” Brady couldn’t help but reprimand her even though he knew she felt terrible. Usually his grandmother was super savvy, but for some reason she had gotten her wires crossed and thought Marcus’s girlfriend was one of Piper’s friends. It made Brady concerned that she wasn’t as sharp as she used to be.

“You don’t need to tell me that, punk. I am well aware of that fact. Feel bad enough already.”

Brady felt guilty instantly. His grandmother looked shaken to the core, her skin pale, her usual bravado missing. “I’m sorry, Gran, I know. I’m just worried about Piper.” He was more than worried. He was freaking out on every level.

“I know, I know. Go get her. Fix this. The cops will have the girl picked up before the night is over, so don’t worry about her.”

Brady figured Trina was long gone and they wouldn’t see her again anytime soon. After beaning him with a vase, she’d managed to snag five bucks from his pocket and a brass snuffbox off the mantel during the thirty seconds he’d been down. That smacked of serious desperation. He wasn’t even sure he wanted to press assault charges unless he thought it might get her a spot in rehab. Otherwise, he didn’t feel good about watching a young girl with some serious problems go to jail. But then he reminded himself that if she was willing to hit him on the head, she wasn’t fit to be walking around with innocent people.

It wasn’t his pressing concern right then, though. He kept thinking about that moment, turning and seeing Piper standing there . . . It made him sick. He loved her more than he could ever have imagined. He wanted to protect her, to take care of her, to love her day after day until he was a wrinkled old raisin of a man with erectile dysfunction. The thought that it could be slipping through his fingers, that he might have inadvertently hurt her, was killing him.

Kissing her grandmother on the cheek, he said, “Wish me luck.”

He was going to need it.

* * *

PIPER HAD MANAGED TO STEM HER TEARS BUT SHE
couldn’t bring herself to explain to her parents what she had seen, despite their coaxing concern. Her mom had finally left her alone after stroking her hair back and washing her tears off with a washcloth. Piper wrapped her arm around Prada when the dog leaped into bed with her and cuddled the dog close against her chest, her head hurting, her sinuses swollen from sobbing, her stomach sick.

But nothing hurt as much as her heart. She felt like she had been kicked and stomped, like her soul had been wrung from her body and flung into a ditch. She wasn’t sure what she had seen in Shelby’s living room, but she kept hearing Brady tell her over the phone that he wanted to show her something. Why would he want to show her that?

Almost as disturbing to her was the realization that she had completely forgotten about seeing her stepfather using sexual favors as a control tool with her mother. Maybe she had blocked it out because she hadn’t really understood what she was seeing. Or maybe she didn’t want to remember that her mother had been subjected to such humiliation.

For all she knew, it was a game her mother and stepfather had played. Foreplay. That didn’t change the fact that she hadn’t remembered it. What did that say about her?

It said that the first eight years of her life weren’t something she could easily shake off.

There was a knock on her open door. “Piper, Brady is here to see you,” her mom said.

“I can’t see him,” she said. She felt too vulnerable, too hurt, too much of an idiot. How dumb was she to think that Brady Stritmeyer, who had access to a whole city of single women, would want her?

“Are you sure? He looks really upset, and you’re clearly upset. You might want to talk about it.”

“Not tonight.” She would humiliate herself. She would show him the truth—that no matter how much she wanted to believe she could be like everyone else, she wasn’t. She never would be.

“Okay.”

While Piper lay there stroking Prada’s soft flank, she heard murmured voices downstairs and the door firmly closing. A second later there was pounding. Then pounding again. And more pounding.

A tear rolled down her cheek.

* * *

BRADY KNEW HE WAS BEING IRRATIONAL. PIPER DIDN’T
want to see him. Amanda had gently but firmly closed the door in his face. But he couldn’t leave. He just couldn’t. He hit the door with his fist again.

It flew open, and this time it wasn’t Amanda, but Danny, looking furious. “My daughter does not want to see you right now, so I suggest you go on home.”

Knowing he had only seconds before he was facing a solid wood door again, Brady put his hand on the doorjamb and started talking, desperate. “Danny, look, I really need to talk to her. It’s just a misunderstanding. Please, just let me go up there and talk to her for two minutes.”

“Don’t make me throw you off my porch. I don’t want to have to do that, but I will.”

Given the look on Danny’s face, Brady didn’t doubt it for a second. Despite his hours logged in at the gym, there was no way he could match Danny in strength. But he had plenty of determination. Ignoring Danny, he pulled out his phone and dialed Piper again. For a second, he thought Danny was going to yank it out of his hand, so he turned, keeping his shoulder wedged in the door. He didn’t have a plan, exactly, but he’d sleep on this goddamn porch all night if he had to in order to get Piper to talk to him. He’d risk Danny calling the cops on him because he was not going to just roll over and let the best relationship he’d ever had die.

“Piper,” he said to her voice mail, knowing he was pleading. “Piper, please talk to me. I need you.”

He didn’t care whether Danny heard, what he thought of him. He just knew that he had finally come home with Piper and he didn’t want to lose that.

“Brady, that’s enough. You’re disturbing my whole family. If Piper wants to talk to you, she will.” With that, Danny gave him a firm shove on the chest, sending him back onto the porch, and the door closed.

Brady heard the lock tumble into place.

Shit.

He figured he had maybe ten minutes before the cops showed up. Sitting down on the steps, he sighed. The urge for a cigarette was strong again. The drive down from Chicago had been long, and he had a bit of a headache behind the eyes from the girl beaning him with a vase. Resting his arms on his knees, he tried to think, to plot a strategy, but nothing came to his weary and panicked mind.

It just felt like he’d been given a winning lottery ticket, then lost it. A sense of hopelessness settled over him, and he stared out into the driveway, to the cornfield beyond, and wondered what the fuck he was supposed to do now. It didn’t seem right that the older he got, the less sure of his future he was.

His phone rang. Glancing down, he saw it was Piper. Heart thumping painfully, he answered with a careful, “Hello?” His urgent need to explain had dissipated. If Piper wanted to talk, he wanted her to control the conversation, not feel like he was pressuring her or verbally vomiting on her. She had told him once that liars over-explain, so he wasn’t going to do that, because he wasn’t lying.

“Hi. Where are you?”

Her nose sounded stuffed, like she’d been crying. A lot. “On your front porch. I imagine your dad has called the cops by now.”

There was a rustling, and her voice was muffled. “No, I don’t think so. I’m coming out.”

“Okay.” He didn’t say anything. He wanted her to look in his eyes when he told her the truth. He wanted to see that she believed him. He wanted to know that something wasn’t so broken between them that she wouldn’t accept the truth he told her.

The door opened with a slow creak and a dog came running out ahead of Piper. It blew past Brady and headed out into the yard. Piper came and sat next to him on the steps. Brady searched her face. What he saw made his heart break. Her face was swollen from crying, cheeks blotchy, eyes red.

“Piper, it wasn’t—”

She cut him off, with a hand placed on his knee. “Shh. It’s okay. I know. That was Marcus’s girlfriend, wasn’t it? I think she’s been calling me because I’ve had missed calls from a blocked number, and today I got a weird text.”

Relief surged through him. “Yeah, she was looking for money. It’s pretty obvious she’s doing drugs and she said Marcus is in jail for possession.”

Piper sighed. “I’m sorry to hear that. But I don’t imagine he’s had a good life. I’m sorry for freaking out, but when I saw you like that, it just really shocked me. She was bending over, her hand . . .” Piper shuddered.

Brady took her hand in his and squeezed. “I understand. I’m sorry you had to see that. Bad timing. I was trying to get her out of the house without it escalating into something, but clearly I didn’t succeed.” Did this mean they were okay? He couldn’t tell. Something about Piper didn’t look quite right.

She nodded. “Seeing that, I remembered something I hadn’t before. I remember my stepfather forcing my mom to give him oral sex, telling her she owed it to him for buying her pills. It just was an overwhelming moment for me, and I’m sorry I ran off.”

Jesus. What did he say to that? “I’m sorry, that’s terrible. And I’m sorry that you had to see what you did. No matter what the circumstances, it’s awkward.”

Something was still off, and he didn’t know what it was, so he just waited.

“You know how I told you once that you’re insecure? The thing is, it’s really me who is insecure. I care too much what other people think of me. Why should I care that I was abandoned at eight, looking like a total ragamuffin? That’s not on me. That was my mother and Mark’s fault. Actually, mostly Mark’s fault. Yet I still want to fit in, be like everyone else, not see ghosts. I shouldn’t care.”

“I think it’s understandable that you do, but you’re right, no one thinks any less of you for your parents’ mistakes.”

Piper looked at him, tears shining in her eyes. “I know what everyone has been saying, that you’re not stable enough for me. But the truth is, I’m not stable enough for you. Woman-child, that’s me. I’m a clinger, and I’m going to suffocate you.”

That wasn’t the sound of them being okay. That was the sound of nails being driven into a coffin. “I don’t believe that. And it’s my choice whether to risk it or not.” The emotion of what she saw, her memories springing back to life, had her overreacting. She would be fine. They would be fine.

But she shook her head. “You didn’t want any of this. It was me who talked you into an affair even after you said it wasn’t a good idea. It’s ironic, really. We both thought the biggest obstacle to our relationship was that I lived here and you lived in Chicago. That was never it at all. It’s that we’re both afraid and I still am. I . . . I did something I shouldn’t have.”

“No, you didn’t.” Brady wanted to shake her. This wasn’t the Piper he knew. This was defeatist and resigned and he didn’t like it.

“I did. I told you I was going to send that picture of the portrait of me to Amanda’s cousin Stuart in New York at the art gallery, but I didn’t. I put it off because I was worried that if you had some success, you’d want to move to New York.” Her voice caught on a sob. “I was afraid you’d leave me, but that was such an awful thing to do, to hold down your dream.”

Brady was stunned. It
was
an awful thing to do. He never would have thought her capable of such a thing.

“You deserve better than me.” She paused, like she was waiting for him to argue with her, but Brady was so freaking stunned he couldn’t think of a single word to say.

So she pulled her hand from his, walked into the house, and closed him out.

Brady stared out into the darkness for a minute, then stood up. There was nothing here for him.

Which made it horribly ironic that he was driving a truck full of all his worldly possessions. One of which was a ring he’d been planning to use to propose to her with.

* * *

PIPER WATCHED BRADY DRIVE AWAY, KICKING HIS
truck tire first before he got in and started the engine. She had closed the door, gone into the dining room, and watched him, needing to see him leave. It hadn’t been her intention to go out there and make him feel bad, but she was starting to realize that she hadn’t been fair to Brady all along. She had asked things of him that were unrealistic, like moving back to Cuttersville, living her dream in the house on Swallow, not his dream. It seemed so obvious now, and she’d be right to feel insecure. How long would it be before he resented being stuck in a small town with her?