Always Faithful

by Caitlyn Willows

  He opened his eyes and looked at her. Disbelief shadowed his face.

  “I called every day for a week. Your father answered the phone each time. He said he didn’t know where you were and to stop calling. I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t believe it.”

  “He didn’t know where I was. I didn’t tell anyone,” Phillip said. “But, Rowan, I didn’t stay gone forever.”

  “Then Daddy had the heart attack. I called again. Nothing from you. Then he died. I called again. Your father said he’d give you the message. I called the next day and the next to see when you’d arrive for the funeral.”

  She paused then took a deep breath. “I needed you so badly. He said you weren’t coming, that you said whatever problems I had were mine to deal with. He said, ‘You should realize now, young woman, that you were nothing more than a college fling. Phillip is a Stuart. Stuarts don’t marry people like you. In fact, he hasn’t wasted any time finding an appropriate replacement for you. Shall I extend your congratulations on his engagement?’”

  “He said what?” Phillip came out of the tub so fast that his cloth dropped.

  Rowan looked away and motioned him back. “Stay where you are. Please.” The pain was fresh again, ripping her heart and dreams in two.

  “Rowan, I would never… How could you believe…?”

  She swallowed the lump in her throat. “I overheard the argument between you and your father the day before you left me, how he had lied to you all those years when he said he’d been paying your law school tuition, how he’d only been paying a small portion of the money, keeping the school from telling you about your mounting debts and that another payment was due. I heard him tell you that if you didn’t go back and work for Big, Red and Thor.”

  He waved her poor attempt at old humor away as if it were a pesky fly. “Biggs, Reed and Moore.”

  “Whatever… That you were going to be stuck with that enormous tuition debt. I knew you didn’t have that kind of money. I certainly didn’t.”

  “You overheard us arguing?”

  She nodded. “I know I shouldn’t have eavesdropped, but Claudia was waiting in the car for us and she’d sent me inside to see what was taking you so long to find your keys. The door to the library was open a crack and your voices were so loud, I couldn’t help but overhear.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me afterward?” he demanded.

  “I was afraid. Afraid that what Donald said was true—that I was holding you back and that your long years of legal education would be wasted in some public school job.” She pressed her head against her bent knees.

  “So you thought I’d bow to his pressure?” He grabbed a towel from the rack and wrapped it tightly around his waist. Then he sat on the edge of the tub, his elbows braced on his knees. “Rowan, what were the last words I said to you later that same day?”

  “That you loved me.”

  “And I’d find a way to work things out in our lives, that I needed your understanding. I asked you to trust me and give me some time to solve my problems.”

  “I didn’t know it was going to be nine years, Phillip.”

  “It wasn’t supposed to be nine years. It was eight weeks. I joined the Marine Corps. I thought I’d take your father’s example, I guess.”

  “Obviously. Why didn’t you tell me then? Didn’t you think I would support you?”

  He gave a humorless chuckle. “I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to support you. It was a shot in the dark. I needed money, security for both of us. Yeah, I could have gotten by working for that law firm, but it would have meant that my father had won and I was another easily-controlled piece in his game. I honestly didn’t know if I could make it through Officer Candidate School. I didn’t want to get your hopes up only to fail you. I’m not good at failure, Rowan.” He paused and shifted on the edge of the tub. “I called you the minute I knew I’d made it.”

  “And I refused your calls.” A tear slipped down her cheek to the point of her chin.

  “Why in the name of God did you do that?”

  A sob tore from her chest. “I’d love to tell you that I was noble, that I loved you so much all I wanted was your happiness, even if that meant you wanted to be with someone else. But I’m not noble, Phillip. I hated you. I hated the very air you breathed. I hurt so bad for all those weeks you were gone and all I wanted was for you to rot in hell with the bimbo you were engaged to. Then…”

  It was too much. She buried her face in her hands and cried. Phillip was instantly by her side, wrapping her in that embrace that was so familiar, so comfortable, so right. Rowan gave in, holding tightly as she had longed to do all these years.

  “I didn’t get to finish college. The pregnancy was hard on me. I was sick a lot. Daddy’s death tore me up. On top of all that, I’d lost you. I honestly thought you had given in to Donald, married some rich socialite to pay off your debts and joined the family law practice.”

  She took a deep breath. “Mom was in such a state after Daddy died. I didn’t know what else to do, so after Ian was born I joined the Marine Corps. It was such a familiar part of my childhood and I knew from Daddy what to expect. One year became two, then three, then eight, then I re-enlisted for four more. It’s a good career.

  “I swear, Phillip, that I didn’t know you were in the Corps until a year ago when I got a promotion and switched to the legal department. It seemed like such a bizarre coincidence. I know I should have told you before now, but I couldn’t find a way. I kept putting it off and putting it off.”

  She pulled her head up to look at him, face wet with tears. “But I’ll be honest with you. If none of this other mess had happened, I can’t say that I ever would have told you about Ian. No matter how much checking up I did, I couldn’t be sure if you were your father’s puppet or not. I was frightened, for Ian as well as myself. The last thing I wanted was for Donald Stuart to get his hands on my son. And you know he’d try, Phillip. Out of sheer meanness, he’d try to take Ian and mold that child into his own image.”

  He cupped her hands in his. “I know. Don’t worry. We won’t give him the chance. Come on. You’ve cried enough tears to last a lifetime. You need to get some sleep.”

  Rowan let him guide her to the bed and tuck her in, even though sleep was the furthest thing from her mind. “I don’t expect you to understand and you do have every right to be angry—”

  “Oh, you can bet I’m plenty angry but not at you—not any longer. Sleep.”

  With one long finger, he traced the fading remains of her bruise. The tantalizing sensation of his warm skin on her sensitive cheekbone sent a shiver through her body.

  “Phillip?”

  He paused at the doorway, a perfectly sculpted statue, beads of moisture glistening on the golden hair dusting his chest. “Yes?”

  What good will it do to ask him to stay? I want more than that. “Nothing. Good night.”

  “Night.”

  Phillip shut the door behind him and walked slowly down the stairs to the living room. Nine years wasted. Nine years! He shook his head in a mixture of anger and regret.

  “Beer? Wine? Pants?” Zach’s voice emerged from the depths of the overstuffed recliner in the corner. “I thought you’d need something right now.” He offered Phillip a beer.

  He waved it away. “Rowan told you?”

  “Yes, a couple of days ago. I thought you would want to know…after you cooled down enough to listen with both ears open. So, which will it be?” Zach held out a cold beer in one hand and an extra pair of his sweatpants in the other.

  Phillip slipped the sweats on then sank into the nearest chair. “Nine years, Zach. We could have been married, raised a couple more kids—all because of a misunderstanding started by my father.”

  “I know. I’m sorry for both of you, Phillip.”

  “I thought I’d won. Thought I’d beaten him by leaving and joining the Marine Corps, by making my way without his damned money. And all this time… I’ve got to call my sister. I left my phon
e in my shorts upstairs. Can I use yours?”

  Zach didn’t hesitate to hand it over. “It’s after midnight. Do you really want to upset Claudia with this when it’s really your father you want to rant and rave at?”

  “I can’t talk to him, not right now.” He punched in the numbers and sat back. Claudia picked up on the first ring, her voice groggy with sleep.

  “Hey, it’s me.”

  “Phillip, what’s wr—?”

  In painstaking detail, he laid out the whole sordid tale. It hurt worse hearing the words the second time. Thankfully, Zach was sensitive enough to leave the room.

  Claudia listened in silence, a clue as to how furious she was. He could picture the rage in her blue eyes, her full lips thinned to a line so tight that nothing could part them. She understood the true soul of their father.

  There was also not much doubt what she would do after he’d hung up the phone. Her anger on his behalf would be the catalyst between him and his father. There wasn’t going to be any need for Phillip to call. He only needed to wait for the mountain to come to him.

  Turning, he saw Rowan sitting at the foot of the staircase, hugging her knees. “Claudia?”

  “Yeah.” He rubbed the ache from his eyes.

  “You know she’ll call your father.”

  “And he’ll call me.”

  “You’d better take it to my room. Ian might hear you if it gets ugly.”

  And it was going to get ugly. “Be right there.”

  He listened to her soft footsteps retreat. Zach walked in, beer in hand.

  “Don’t go up there, Phillip. If you do, you know you’ll wind up tangled in the sheets.” Concern softened Zach’s tone.

  “Would that be so wrong?” Phillip demanded. “Don’t we have the right, after all that’s been taken from us?”

  “You know the answer as well as I do. Is it worth the risk of losing everything that you and Rowan have worked so hard to achieve?”

  A week ago, the answer would have been an unequivocal no. Now, what was life without Rowan and Ian?

  But it wasn’t his career they were dealing with—it was hers as well. She’d asked for him to help save her and here he was, debating an action that would surely accomplish the opposite. If they had sex, they’d both be in court again, this time for fraternization.

  Scuffling in the hallway pulled them around. Ian stumbled toward him, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. Phillip knelt and gave him a hug.

  “What’s the matter, buddy? Can’t sleep?”

  He plopped his head against Phillip’s shoulder. “Oscar’s hogging the bed.”

  “Make him get down.”

  “I tried. He won’t move.”

  “Want me to try?”

  Ian shook his head. “I want to sleep with Mom.”

  Phillip pointed him to the staircase and gave him a pat on the bottom. “I’m sure she would like that. Sleep tight.”

  “Clever,” Zach said once Ian was out of earshot. “But he can’t sleep with his mother forever. Face it, Phillip. You’re a ticking bomb. You can’t have both Rowan and your career. You need to do some hard thinking before you walk up those steps. How does she feel? Where does she stand? She is a beautiful woman. Maybe there’s already another man in her life.”

  Jaw set, Phillip whirled around. “Then where the hell is he? Why isn’t he here to lend her support? If she were your woman, wouldn’t you be here?”

  “If she were my woman, I would have never let her out of my life in the first place. She would have been a part of every decision I made, even joining the Marine Corps. Nothing would have kept me from her. If she were my woman, I would have broken down the doors to her home the first time she hung up on me and demanded an explanation.” Zach flung the painful words at Phillip with deadly accuracy.

  “But you didn’t do that, did you? You called her on the carpet for not telling you about Ian, yet you’re the one who ran away to join the Corps and let her slip out of your life without a fight. Maybe you should be asking yourself if it was really love you felt for her nine years ago—or maybe your father was right. Maybe she was your flavor of the month.”

  Phillip cocked a fist and took a step forward. “That’s a lie.”

  Zach held his ground. “If she meant so much to you, if she was the love of your life, why didn’t you fight for her then?”

  Anguished, Phillip lowered his arm. He stood for a moment, looking at his friend, then clasped Zach’s arm, asking for forgiveness.

  “Rowan wasn’t the only one my father worked on. When she didn’t call, didn’t come around, didn’t write and refused my calls, he started in on me. ‘I told you she was no good. She was after the family money. As soon as she found out you were cut off without a cent to your name, she left you.’ Year after year he threw that in my face at every opportunity. What’s worse, I actually believed him.”

  “Yet she didn’t hesitate to call you when she really needed help, and you immediately went to her aid. I’d say you’ve got some serious thinking to do, my friend—about your relationship with Rowan and your continuing job as a judge advocate for the Marine Corps. You can’t have it both ways.” He yawned. “I’m hitting the rack. If you need me, I’ll be in the guest room.”

  Left alone, Phillip stretched out on the couch and draped his arm over his eyes. Why wasn’t life simpler? They had both started out with such grand, youthful plans—to become teachers, to get married. Now this. All because of a malicious, manipulative man.

  No, because they had believed in Donald’s lies instead of each other. That was the bottom line. Donald had fed the fire that had kept them apart, but they were the ones who’d let the flames burn. Call it youth or inexperience, maybe stupidity.

  Zach was right, nothing should have stood between them, but there could be no doubting the love that had existed then. And now?

  “Phillip?”

  He rose at the sound of Rowan’s voice. She leaned over the banister, his cell phone extended down to him.

  “It’s your father, and you’ll be happy to know that he’s as endearing as ever.”

  Even from where he stood, Phillip could hear his father’s barking tones echoing from the receiver.

  Rowan tossed the phone to him. Phillip caught it neatly in one hand.

  “Listen to me when I’m talking, you little bitch!” his father ranted.

  Phillip screwed up his face in disgust and pressed the receiver to his ear. “No, Donald, you listen to me. Did you think I would never find out? I don’t know who you think you are, messing in my life. All those years, gone. Thanks to you, I have a son I barely know and I’ve missed almost all his childhood. I don’t expect that you would understand the importance of being a father. All you know is manipulation and control. I put up with your authoritarian presence at holidays for Mother’s sake, but no longer. As far as I’m concerned, you’re dead to me. Stay out of my life. Out of Rowan’s life. And you damn well better stay out of my son’s life.”

  He jammed the button down to end the call then turned off the phone with a grunt of satisfaction.

  “You’re calmer than I would be,” Rowan told him.

  “You said you hated me before.” He looked at her, all too aware that his naked anguish would show on his face. “Do you still hate me?”

  Her reply was barely audible. “How can I when every day I see you in our beautiful son?” She pivoted abruptly and started to return upstairs.

  “Don’t, please.” He held out his hand to her. “Don’t leave. I need to hold you for a little while, like before. I’m so tired, Rowan. Please, stay with me. I need you beside me.”

  For a moment, he thought she’d refuse. Then she was before him, folding herself into his embrace.

  Bodies cradled together like two spoons, they stretched out on the soft expanse of the couch and drifted off to sleep.

  Chapter Twelve

  “This has got to be the most unnecessary hearing I’ve had all year.” The judge scribbled his name upon the or
der regarding custody of Ian and slid the paper to his clerk. “I can’t believe the two of you wasted the court’s time with a hearing when a stipulation would have freed valuable time for another case. Next time, talk to each other first.”

  Rowan kept quiet while Phillip apologized to the judge then walked with him out of the courtroom. A lot of problems could have been avoided if they had communicated better. Still more agony would be avoided if they could talk about the one issue they were dancing around now.

  Rowan couldn’t speak for Phillip, but she ached to renew the physical relationship they had enjoyed so very long ago, no matter how forbidden the military decreed it. Until last night, she’d considered it a moot point. A sensual caress when he was drunk didn’t mean he felt the way she did. Then she’d woken with his fingers cupped gently around her breast.

  She had tried to put off his action as second-nature, being curled up next to a member of the opposite sex, being groggy from sleep, the memories of their relationship so long ago, but there had been no mistaking the hardness pressed insistently against her, the tingling that had accompanied his caress, the thumb that had dusted along her nipple, his warm breath against her ear. It’d had nothing to do with being asleep. He had been wide awake and wanting her. Sinking backward into his unyielding hardness would have been too easy.

  Unfortunately, when she’d opened her eyes, she’d seen Zach sitting across from them in the recliner, frowning like a disapproving guardian angel. She and Phillip had broken apart, embarrassed at having been caught in an intimate moment.

  Okay, so it had been wrong. But what could they do? They’d had no control over their actions when they had been asleep, had they? At least that was the excuse she’d use if it came to that.

  The returning answer flared inside her. They’d had no business sleeping beside each other in the first place. Yet she hadn’t possessed the willpower to say no. Like a flower craving the first warm touches of the springtime sun, Rowan knew she would take any fleeting chance she could to be near the heat of Phillip’s passion.