Page 28 of Cinnamon Cider Whiskey
“I was reading about what happened with Charity when I realized Pete was standing right behind me. I have no idea how long he’d been there. But I had googled your name and other things about you, so when he checked the search history, at least a dozen items had Austin Sawyer in it. But what was worse, he had my journal in his hands and that’s when he went nuts. He slammed my head into?—”
“I don’t want the details of the beating.” Austin ran his thumb across her cheek. “I can see what he did to you and that’s enough.”
“For fifteen years Pete has been insanely jealous of you. There were times he’d asked me if Rosy was yours because she had blue eyes while his were brown.”
“You have blue eyes.”
“I know and Rosy couldn’t be yours because of the timing. Besides, I did a paternity test to prove it to him because I was so tired of listening to it.” She pressed her hand on Austin’s chest. “This was before he started beating me. While he was always possessive, it took a while for things to get this bad.”
“Don’t make excuses for him.”
“I’m not. I’m telling you what it was like. My marriage was never good. In the beginning Pete used to say there were three of us in our bed and the reality is that sometimes he was right. I never got over you. I tried. I focused on Rosy and believe it or not, Pete was a good dad.”
“How can you say that if he questioned if he was even her father?”
“He did that to hurt me. He never treated her badly. Only me. When she was diagnosed with cancer, he was at her bedside the entire time. He was attentive to her but blamed me for her getting sick. He would say that if I wasn’t thinking about you all the time, it wouldn’t have happened.”
Austin pinched the bridge of his nose. “I understand how hard it is to leave an abusive relationship, so this question is hard to ask. But why didn’t you leave him back then? Why didn’t you contact me if you still wanted to be with me?”
“Do you remember exactly what you said to me after you offered to raise my baby with me?”
“You mean after you told me to go to hell? Yeah. I remember. I told you that if you went through with the marriage never to contact me again and to enjoy your life.”
“It was a little harsher than that. But I took it to heart and did my best to make things work with Pete. When Rosy died, I was devastated.”
Austin took her hand and squeezed.
“I went into a deep depression and so did Pete. He was drinking heavily and I could barely get out of bed. All I wanted was to come back to Whiskey Ranch. To see my family. To call you. I tried to find you. I reached out to all my cousins, but no one knew where you were. When Pete found out I had been looking for you, that’s when the isolation really began and because I was in such a bad headspace, I didn’t even see it happening.”
“You can’t blame yourself for that.”
“Again, I’m not doing that. But there was a part of me that felt as though I deserved to be punished. I know that’s not true. However, you have to understand that when I realized what a huge mistake I had made, in my young mind, I believed that I somehow brought on all the misery. A few years went by. I sought counseling, first with Pete’s blessing, but when I started to get better and gain confidence, he took that away from me. Eventually, I became numb to it all until I couldn’t take it anymore. But even then, I couldn’t commit to leaving for a couple of years. He threatened to hurt my family. To destroy you. He told me he knew where you were and that he’d make sure you’d suffer.”
“How did you get my phone number? Because I changed it. And you never changed yours, which I find odd because I would think Pete would have wanted you to.”
“He allowed it to keep my family from freaking out, but he controlled the communication and it’s not that hard to find cellnumbers these days. Besides, I asked Irish for it once I knew you were back at the ranch.”
“Irish never told me that.”
“Because I begged him not to.”
“That man does know how to keep a secret,” Austin said. “All this time, I thought you wanted nothing to do with me.”
“I’m sorry I hurt you. I was young and made many mistakes, but I can’t say Rosy was one of them.”
He kissed her nose. “I’m so sorry about her passing. It breaks my heart that you had to go through that. I wish I could have met her.”
“She was a sweet little girl.”
“I’m sure she was.” Austin pulled her close. “I don’t know if this is bad timing or not, but I feel compelled to tell you that I’ve spent the last fifteen years thinking about you too. Every woman I’ve ever dated was never good enough because they weren’t you. I can’t tell you how many times some chick broke up with me because I was still hung up on you. The only one who didn’t was Charity, but she was cheating on me anyway.” He laughed. “Funny thing though, the second she walked onto this ranch, she bitched about all the things here that were all about Cinnamon, including the box I have under this bed.” He leaned over and pulled it out. “This has all the stupid little notes you used to pass me in the hallways at school. Some of the cards you sent me in college. Pictures. All sorts of sappy sentimental stuff. I had to hide it so she wouldn’t burn it.”
“Shit, Pete did burn mine.”
“Now I wish I had hit him,” Austin said.
Cinnamon lifted the lid off the box and pulled out one of the notes. “I can’t believe you kept all this stuff. You were always sentimental and little sappy, but I would have never expected this.”
“I’ll be honest, there were a couple of times I thought about getting rid of them.” He held an old birthday card in his hands. “But every time I tried, it felt like I was tossing away a piece of my heart.”
