“Well, I’m certainly not going to let her be court-martialed for it.” Phillip’s voice bordered on a snarl. He forced the anger down.
“I’m not saying you should. I’m saying, let the hearing on Monday go without presenting this evidence.” Jess’ eyes glittered like two chips of blue ice.
Mike braced himself against the wall and crossed his arms over his chest. “What will that accomplish?”
“Maybe it will give the person responsible some breathing room to hang himself. He’ll think he’s successfully framed Rowan for his crime and become lackadaisical. Then we nail him.”
“And if not?”
“Then by the time the court-martial goes, Phillip will have doubled the evidence to clear her beyond anyone’s doubts—ballistics reports, the autopsy report, forensic evaluation from the crime scene…”
Phillip massaged the ache in his forehead. “I don’t know. It sounds like we’re using her as bait.”
“Then talk to her. Ask her. I’d be willing to bet she’d agree,” Jess said.
That was the problem. He knew she’d agree. Phillip was the one who didn’t want to take the risk. He looked at Mike.
Mike shrugged and adjusted his glasses. “Wouldn’t hurt. I don’t think she’s back from the doctor yet. Probably went to grab a bite of lunch.”
Reluctantly, Phillip found himself nodding. “I’ll talk to her after lunch then. If she agrees, that’s how we’ll proceed.”
“All right then.” Mike swung open the door. “You look like you need to burn off some stress. Want to join us in a little basketball?”
“Be right there.”
* * * *
Humiliated. It didn’t matter that the examination had been done for her benefit. Rowan had still felt violated when she’d been forced to strip down. Having photographs taken of her body had added to her discomfort. Yes, the doctor had remained sympathetic and courteous, but still…
She pulled her van to a stop at the office. As usual, the men were engaged in their noon ritual of basketball. The sand between the two legal services buildings had been packed down into a rough basketball court. Not NBA regulation, but still popular with the Marines. To her surprise, Phillip was in the thick of things.
He was as good at athletics as she remembered, sinking shot after shot with precision and flair. Adding to his skill was the glorious wonder of watching his sleek body in motion, something the other women in the office had definitely noticed as well.
Rowan wandered to the shaded bench where Ellen and another woman sat, ogling the men—one in particular. Their appreciation of the male physique could run a little bawdy at times, and judging from the giggles, she knew now was no exception. However, this time silence descended when she approached.
She said nothing but simply squeezed onto the end of the stone bench to watch the action. A beep from a car horn turned all heads toward the adjacent parking lot.
A tan, darkly attractive man in a cherry red Mustang waved. Phillip shouted back and the car door opened. In a flash of gray fur and floppy ears, Oscar the dog zoomed toward his daddy.
Phillip had little time to prepare. The minute he squatted down to Oscar’s level, the dog pounced, knocking him flat in the sand and smothering Phillip’s face with doggie kisses. The basketball game halted while players laughed at Phillip and the wiggling mountain of gray fur pinning him down.
Rowan gave her first genuine smile in a week.
Another horn sounded from the parking lot, followed by a voice that normally brought joy to Rowan’s heart.
“Mom!”
The blood drained from Rowan’s face as she lurched to her feet. Rather than take Ian home, the Cubmaster had brought him to her. Another plan ruined. Somehow, she had to salvage the situation.
She forced her legs to move. Phillip mustn’t see Ian. But Ian, in his delight at seeing his mother and longing to share every tidbit of his adventure, had already started to run her way.
If she could get him into the building before— Too late.
Distracted from his joyous reunion with Phillip, Oscar whipped around toward the noise and made a galloping beeline for Ian.
Dog and boy met in the center of the makeshift basketball court. Ian shrieked with delight as Oscar transferred his tongue-licking to the boy’s hands and face. The silence surrounding them was deafening. Everyone seemed to be waiting to see what she said and Phillip did. Her well-known secret was seconds away from implosion.
Phillip chuckled and rose to his feet. Nothing like the love of a dog, no matter how exuberant. Judging from the boy’s laughter, he thought so too. Oscar loved children.
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…?”
His jaw worked but no more 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, whose dog is this?”
The boy, alight with pleasure from Oscar’s enthusiastic welcome, looked directly at Rowan. A frown wrinkled the space between his eyebrows as he focused on her bruised face. “What happened?”
Rowan strode forward and welcomed her son with a hug and a kiss. “I had a little accident. I’m all right now.”
“I’ll bet you cried.” Ian 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 blinked away tears. “Much better. Thank you.”
She glanced over his shoulder at Phillip. Taking a deep breath, she stood and faced him, putting the boy in front of her. “Sweetheart, there’s 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’d never known he had. All these years she’d lied.
Silence surrounded them. The office staff stood frozen with shocked fascination. They had to have seen the resemblance, had to have known. But had they conspired 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. Not now.”
Phillip let this common sense direct him and peered 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.
“Ian, why don’t you and your dad take Oscar inside and give him some water,” Mike said. “He seems 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 and smile 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.”
“A crime fighter?”
“I was afraid—”
“Right about now you should be. And if you think I’d actually hurt a child, you can damn we
ll go to hell. That’s where you deserve to be, anyway, for keeping me from my son all these years.”
He shoved past her and marched into the building.
Chapter Nine
Phillip couldn’t 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. My son. Ian babbled on about his trip, probably 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 had been 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.
My 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’s eyes teared. Another alien event. He didn’t cry. Men didn’t cry, but that was 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, 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, 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’d 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 the future. 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? Would Rowan have done anything to get a piece of it? Perhaps get pregnant to keep him at her side? His disinheritance from the family fortune had been about the time she had deserted him and their relationship.
Phillip shook his head. No. As angry as he was, he couldn’t believe that. He had been 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’d enrolled in Officers’ Candidate School all those years before? Or because he’d failed to appear for James’ funeral—even though he’d never gotten the message in the first place? At the time, he’d thought their relationship stronger than that.
Yet, if revenge had been 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. At last 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 is 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 tan, 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 I care what she likes?
“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 sprang 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 boy. He had never expected to hear those words from a child, at least not anytime soon. Yet 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 had walked into the other building, she’d cried gallons of tears. They showed no sign of letting up any time soon.
The unraveling of her secret had caused a sensation in the office. Not that everyone hadn’t already been aware of the relationship that obviously existed between her son and her newly acquired defense counsel, but most had never guessed Phillip hadn’t had a clue about Ian.
She’d heard the gasps of shock at that pivotal moment. Whispered comments had followed. Then there had been the looks—questioning, accusing and condemning.
“Here they come.”
At Ellen’s words, Rowan leaped to her feet and peeked out of 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 a
head.
“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’d dug for herself, she retrieved the key and placed it in Phillip’s outstretched hand. He snapped his fingers 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 of 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, sweetie. 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.” His voice carried across the short distance.
“They sure are.” Phillip’s voice carried as well. He flashed her a dark glare. She braced herself for what he might say next.
“But I have one rule. No crayons in my car.” He helped Ian into the backseat 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.
Always Faithful Page 10
