He dusted the sand from his clothes. Laughing, he walked over to retrieve Oscar before the boy drowned under all those kisses.
"I think you’ve made a new friend—"
Phillip froze at the first glimpse of that small face—a mirror-image of his own. His knees buckled from the shock. He forced himself to stand upright.
"What the…"
Phillip’s jaw worked but no words came out. It was a mistake, wasn’t it? A crazy coincidence. No. This child was his son. His son! But how in the world—
"Mom! Mom! Whose dog is this?"
The boy’s shining face, alight with pleasure from Oscar’s enthusiastic welcome, looked directly at Rowan.
A frown wrinkled the space between his eyebrows as his gaze focused on her bruised face.
"What happened?"
Rowan strode forward and welcomed her son with a loving kiss. This was it. There was no turning back. And it definitely wasn’t going to be pretty. She never expected it would. "I had a little accident. I’m all right now."
"I’ll bet you cried." Ian tentatively touched her face with the pads of his fingers.
"Yes, I did. It hurt a lot."
He tossed a hug around her, then planted a kiss to her cheek. "Are you all better now?"
Rowan hugged him back while she worked to hold back threatening tears. "Much better. Thank you."
She warily glanced over his shoulder at the shock on Phillip’s face. She didn’t even have that now-or-never option. Taking a deep breath, she gathered what few wits remained. "Sweetheart, there is someone here I want you to meet. This is Phillip Stuart, your father."
Phillip refused to look at her. He kept his gaze riveted to the son he never knew he had. All these year she’d lied! She still lied to him.
Silence surrounded them. The office staff stood frozen with shocked fascination. They had to have seen the resemblance. Had to have known. But did they conspire to help Rowan keep her horrid secret or think that by his presence Phillip already knew? Then he remembered the missing page from her record book.
Confusion turned to rage. The bitch! The lying, cold-hearted bitch! With hands clenched at his sides Phillip took a rigid step toward Rowan.
Mike hooked his elbow. "Not here, Phillip. Not now."
Phillip let this common sense direct him and looked down at the boy, who was gazing up at him with a mixture of wide-eyed awe and undisguised hero worship. He didn’t even know the child’s name. Thankfully, Mike helped out.
"Ian, why don’t you and your dad take Oscar inside and give him some water. He looks pretty thirsty from his long trip through the desert. There are some plastic bowls in the supply closet."
Ian. At least she’d done something right, using a name they’d chosen for their first-born son. That tiny pleasure did little to ease the agony of her deception.
Eyes still wide, Ian nodded, slipped his hand through Oscar’s collar and tugged him inside.
Rowan caught Phillip’s arm before he could follow. "Phillip, please. Be gentle with him. He’s just a little boy. He doesn’t understand."
"That makes two of us."
"He worships you and has since he was three. He’s convinced you’re a crime fighter and you’ve been on a secret mission. Please don’t hurt him."
He jerked free of her hold. "What kind of a person do you think I am?"
Rowan gasped at the pain in his eyes. "Phillip, please." The pupils in his eyes were huge with shock, only the thinnest rim of silver showing around the edges.
"A crime fighter? What kind of half-assed story have you concocted, Rowan?"
"I was afraid—"
"Right about now you should be. And if you think I’d actually hurt a child, you can damn well go to hell. That’s where you deserve to be anyway for keeping me from my son all these years."
He shoved past and marched into the building.
Chapter 9
* * *
Phillip was still in shock, unable to string two coherent thoughts together. Fortunately, he didn’t have to—Ian did all the talking.
The child sat on the floor near Phillip’s feet and scratched Oscar’s neck. He watched the boy with a sense of amazement. A son. His son. Ian babbled on about his trip, talking incessantly to cover his nervousness. Phillip remembered he had done the same thing as a child.
How could she do this to me?
The question screamed to be answered. Just thinking about it made Phillip’s heart twist with an indescribable pain. Losing Rowan all those years ago was nothing compared to this.
He feathered his fingers across Ian’s shoulder, trying in vain to quell their shaking. Seeing the child explained Rowan’s association with Kemp through Little League. Her need to have a van. The crayon melted against the side of the seat of the vehicle.
His son. She had stolen his son from him. Denied him the joy of watching him grow in her belly. Of seeing him born. Holding him as a baby. Being a part of his life. Of truly being a father. And she would have continued to do so if she hadn’t gotten herself into trouble. She would have continued to lie, knowing full well where to find him, never giving him the opportunity to know his son.
With each thought Phillip felt his eyes tear. Another alien event. He didn’t cry. Men didn’t cry. But that’s exactly what he wanted to do. Cry. Shout. Rage. Take Rowan’s pretty little neck and—
"Is your undercover job done now?"
"My what? Oh, yes. All finished."
"Mom said you were very brave. Don’t worry. She never told me about your job. I guessed and then she had to tell me."
At least she had told Ian something no matter how ridiculous, and didn’t let Ian think badly of him, or pretend he was dead. "Yes, well, it’s all very secret."
"I understand. You can trust me. I’m real good at keeping secrets."
Obviously a trait he learned from his mother.
"Can you come home and live with me and Mom now?"
"We’ll have to see about that. But I’m back in your life to stay and we’ll be able to spend lots of time together."
"That’s good. Your dog, too?"
"Our dog."
"Great. I’ve always wanted to have a dog, but we move a lot. Mom said she would worry about a dog if we had to go overseas and couldn’t take him. She said it wasn’t fair to leave a member of the family behind ’cause that’s what we might have to do."
Ian was right, moving overseas with a pet was a problem, and Phillip was a little ashamed of himself for not having considered the issue before. What would happen to Oscar if he got orders to Okinawa or Korea? Again, he thought only of himself and the fun of owning a pet, not the pet’s welfare if he received orders to a far-off Marine base.
It was like Rowan to plan for future events. He had never known her to be less than precise. With some sick realization he wondered if his father had been right about her all along. Was his share in the Stuart fortune too big a temptation? Perhaps get pregnant to keep him at her side? Would Rowan have done anything to get a piece of it? His disinheritance from the family fortune had been about the time she deserted him and their relationship.
Phillip shook his head. No. As angry as he was, he couldn’t believe that. He was as responsible for Ian’s conception as she—too lazy to make a trip to the drug store. A Stuart grandchild would have been blessed with everything and anything money could buy, whether or not Phillip inherited. It made no sense. None of this made any sense.
Was this all a part of some need for revenge because he hadn’t contacted her when he enrolled in Officers’ Candidate School all those years before? Or because he failed to appear for James’ funeral—even though he’d never gotten the message in the first place? At the time, he thought their relationship stronger than that.
Yet if revenge was her motive, why hadn’t she bothered to turn the child against him? A child’s hatred was the most potent weapon a mother could wield. The more he thought about it, the more questions he created.
"What’s our dog’s name?"
Phillip smiled. Finally, a question he could answer without much thought. "Oscar."
"What kind of dog is he? I’ve never seen a silver dog before."
"He’s a Weimaraner. They’re originally from Germany, bred to hunt and retrieve." Phillip rubbed one of Oscar’s silky ears. "The only things Oscar retrieves now are cans out of my garbage pail."
"I think he likes me."
"I know he does, and I do, too."
As if to reply, Oscar flicked his tongue across Ian’s face then gave Phillip a lopsided puppy grin when Ian giggled in response.
How old was Ian? Eight, of course. If Phillip really thought about it, he could probably figure out the exact time he was conceived.
Tall for his age, lean. He was tanned, his reddish-blond hair almost golden from days in the sun. All boy, judging from his appearance after the camping trip—he was filthy.
Phillip ruffled the boy’s hair. "You could use a bath."
Ian’s blue eyes brightened. "So could you."
Glancing down at his sweat-soaked workout gear, Phillip had to laugh. "You’re right about that. Let’s go to my room and clean up."
"I don’t have any clean clothes."
Of course he didn’t. He’d just come back from camping.
"We could go to my house," Ian suggested.
Rowan wouldn’t like that in the least, and Phillip knew it. He narrowed his eyes. Why should he care what she liked?
"Good idea. Let’s get your backpack and the house key from your mom." He grabbed a clean change of clothes from his locker, and grinned down at the boy. His son.
Ian sprung forward and tossed his arms around Phillip’s waist. "I’m so happy you’re finally home. I love you."
Those damnable tears popped into his eyes and he wrapped a tight hug around his son. He had never expected to hear those words from a child, at least not anytime soon. Yet strangely, he found a void in his life suddenly filled.
"I love you, Ian." No hesitation. No question. He loved Ian with a fierce joy that made him tremble with its force.
Ian hopped back, a broad, impish smile cutting his features. A smile very much like Rowan’s. Their child.
Phillip bit back the urge to smash his fist against the wall. Damn her.
"Let’s go." Ian hopped to the door. "I can’t wait for you to see my room. Come on, Oscar."
Oscar tagged faithfully by Ian’s side, letting Phillip follow in their wake.
* * *
Rowan felt like throwing up. In the fifteen-minute eternity since Phillip and Ian walked into the other building, she cried gallons of tears. They showed no sign of letting up any time soon.
The unraveling of her secret caused a sensation in the office. Not that everyone wasn’t already aware of the relationship, which obviously existed between her son and her newly acquired defense counsel. But most never guessed that Phillip didn’t have a clue about Ian.
She’d heard the gasps of shock at that pivotal moment. Whispered comments followed. Then there were the looks—questioning, accusing, and condemning.
"Here they come."
At Ellen’s words, Rowan leaped to her feet and peeked out the window. Phillip and Ian were coming from his office in the other building. They crossed the basketball court between the structures and walked in the door to Legal Services.
"He looks like he’s calmed down."
Fat lot Ellen knew. Phillip’s smile was for Ian, but the ice cold fury in his eyes was reserved for her.
He slowed his pace to match Ian’s stride while Oscar trotted faithfully alongside his new playmate. As they neared her office, Ian dropped Phillip’s hand and skipped ahead.
"Mom, me and Dad need the key to the house. We’re gonna take a bath and I’m gonna show him my room."
She swallowed the lump in her throat. "Sweetheart, I don’t think…"
Phillip walked very close to Rowan and kept his voice pitched low, so as not to alarm Ian in any way. "Give me the key, Rowan."
His tone left no room for argument. Resigned to the hole she had dug for herself, she retrieved the key and placed it in Phillip’s outstretched hand. His fingers snapped over it.
"Phillip, I—"
He cut her off with one swift slice of his hand. "Don’t." He turned to Ian. "Why don’t you get Oscar settled in the car?"
Ian smiled. "Okay. Where’s my—"
Before he could ask the question, Ellen handed him his backpack and scooted him out the door.
Once he was out of earshot, Phillip whipped around to Rowan, all pretense of civility gone. "I’ll deal with you later. You can count on that. And let me give a little warning. If you even so much as think of leaving this base to follow us, I’ll have you back in that detention cell so fast it will make your head spin."
He pivoted on his heel and marched away. Rowan took a step and would have run after him had Ellen not held her back.
"Not now, honey. It’s going to be bad no matter how you look at it. At least you have a hope that when he’s ready to have a piece of your hide, it’ll be in private."
Rowan moved to the door, watching Ian and Phillip cross the now empty court and walk to the parking lot. So much the same.
Ian’s eyes widened at the Mustang’s white leather interior. "Wow, those seats are cool."
"They sure are," Phillip replied. "But I have one rule—no crayons in my car." He flashed Rowan a dark glare, then slipped into the driver’s seat.
It was all Rowan could do to keep from following. But she knew Phillip well enough to know he did not give threats lightly. One foot off this base and she’d be behind bars.
She watched them drive away. The license plate caught her gaze, bringing more tears. Lil Red.
Nothing more than a shambles held together by rust and will when they found it all those years ago. A hint of the original red color remained and Rowan dubbed it the little red car. She was by Phillip’s side when he ordered the personalized tags. With him when Donald raged at the rusted heap leaking oil on his pristine brick driveway. Sat enthralled while Phillip planned each step of restoration. Then actually crawled under the car and helped him with the work.
Now look at it. Another reminder of the years lost…no, the years stolen. She had to find a way to make Phillip understand that.
Ellen squeezed a hug around her shoulders. "It was inevitable. Too many people knew. Someone was bound to slip up sooner or later. Maybe you should call your mom."
Rowan shook her head. The last thing she needed at the moment was an I-told-you-so lecture.
* * *
Phillip hoped he would be able to find his way back to base after negotiating all the turns and back roads it took to get to Rowan’s house. According to Ian, they lived in the boonies—a charming phrase for out in the middle of nowhere.
He should have guessed as much. With Rowan’s uneasiness about closed-in places, living in town or base wouldn’t hold much appeal. As it was, he was surprised at how many houses there actually were out of town.
"There it is." Ian pointed excitedly at a turnoff. "Where the trees are."
Philip jolted off the pavement onto a dirt road and winced at the cloud of dust and pings of rocks as they bounced off the undercarriage of the Mustang.
So much for a clean car. Not to mention the paint job.
Rowan’s two-story house was on a rise about a mile down the road. Even from this distance, Phillip could see light glinting off the windows of the smaller second story, which offered a 180-degree view. An abundance of trees and other greenery provided a welcome break from the stark landscape and shade from the desert sun, but not enough encroachment to make Rowan feel shut in.
A twinge of guilt hit him at the memory of his threat to have her locked up. A dirty tactic. In retrospect he couldn’t say that he really would have carried it out.
Who was he fooling? He meant it. She deserved to suffer after the lies she told. He longed to see her disabled by panic and fear. To crawl on her hands and knees and beg him�
��beg him to have her released. His revenge would be in saying no. This small fantasy gave him a modicum of satisfaction.
Pulling to a stop before the house scattered the birds, ground squirrels, and jackrabbits lounging in the welcome shade near the front entrance. Ian shoved open the door before Phillip could stop him. In less time than it took to blink, Oscar was out of the car, hell-bent on chasing down the closest offenders, barking madly.
"Oscar, no!"
The dog charged on, plowing through rows of carefully manicured pansies, marigolds, and geraniums. A bed of irises became casualties of his zeal. With each pound of the dog’s big paws, flower after flower ripped from its bed. Finally, free of the obstacles of civilization, Oscar tore off across open landscape.
Chasing him was out of the question—Phillip knew that from experience. Oscar would come back when he was done romping, successful or not.
He surveyed the damage left in his wake. Emma’s garden was destroyed.
"Your grandmother is going to kill me when she sees what Oscar did to her garden."
"That’s not Grandma’s garden. It’s mom’s." Ian pointed to the house on the next acreage. "Grandma lives there. The people died and it was for sale so she bought it." He lowered his tone to that of a conspirator. "Mom says she thinks Grandma might have a boyfriend. We see a car there from time to time."
It was hard to imagine Rowan gardening and harder still to think of Emma with anyone but James. He had to forcibly recall that James was dead and had been for… "Did you know your Grandpa McKinley?"
Ian shook his head. "He died before I was born."
That would explain why James didn’t call and tell him about Ian. He never would have stood for this nonsense had he been alive. It still didn’t excuse Emma and certainly not Rowan.
"Shouldn’t we go after Oscar?" Ian asked.
"He’ll come back when he’s ready." And not a minute sooner. "What we do need to do is try to fix your mom’s garden."
No sense in setting a bad example for his son. The very air Rowan breathed might infuriate him, but he still had to show the boy a good example.
Always Faithful Page 10