The Collector's Edition Volume 1 (37 page)

“If you think I’d start an affair with you…” She was shocked speechless. It simply wasn’t in her to play tit for tat in the adultery game. And Keir thought he knew her?

“I don’t expect you to jump into bed with me. We could obviously spend some time together. We used to be friends, Rowena,” he pressed, giving her an appealing smile.

She stared at the smile. No, she thought, they couldn’t be friends. They had moved beyond friendship. There was no doubt now that he remembered making love to her. And his attraction was far too potent. She’d be aware of him all the time. It would muddle her up. Hopelessly. And for what gain?

“I don’t want to make Phil jealous. If he loses faith in my commitment…Don’t you see? It all becomes too destructive. We’d have nothing left.”

The smile died, swallowed up by a dark, blazing anger. “He doesn’t deserve you.”

“And you do?” The bubbling quagmire of emotions inside her erupted. “What about the women who’ve been in your life, Keir? The intimate relationships from which you’ve moved on. And on. Why didn’t any of them stick? Did they mean as little as Adriana would if you seduced her away from Phil?”

“No.” Hot colour raced across his cheekbones. He made a slashing gesture with his hand. “I wouldn’t have touched Adriana. I was only trying to see what you wanted, Rowena.”

“What about the others?” she pressed, wanting to know, needing to know how he treated the women he had made love to. “I won’t believe you’ve been celibate all these years.”

“Of course I’ve sought what I needed. No one wants to be alone,” he justified with passion. “I tried. I tried,” he repeated, then shook his head in anguished hopelessness. “There was always something missing.”

“So you dismissed them from your life.”

“No. They’re still friends.”

You dismissed me.
“Well, I won’t be your friend, Keir. I’ll never be your friend,” she decided, her hurt deepened by the thought she had been the least of his women, someone he hadn’t bothered to contact after the trauma of the accident had come between them.

“Rowena, please.” He stepped towards her, hands reaching out.

“Don’t come any closer, Keir,” she fiercely warned. “Don’t touch me. Ever again.”

“I want to help. I want to—”

“No! I suppose it’s some kind of compliment that I’m still desirable to you, but that’s all it ever was. Only sex. You don’t know the meaning of the word love. Or commitment.”

“That’s not true.” His eyes burned into hers as though he was focusing his whole life force on her heart and mind. “Is it my fault that the woman I loved married someone else? That the children I wanted with her are Phil Goodman’s?”

Her heart stopped. Her mind reeled. The world tilted, then slowly straightened. Her path was deadly clear. In a voice that shook with the strength of irrefutable knowledge, with all the pain she had once suffered for him, she delivered her judgment on Keir Delahunty, her eyes green daggers, stabbing home the fatal truth.

“I waited years for you. Years of faith and hope that gradually crumbled into the inevitable reality that what we’d shared was not important to you. Years, Keir. Years before I married Phil Goodman. Who gave me what you didn’t give.”

That stopped him. There was no comeback to those blunt facts. With a sense of having put the record absolutely straight and with adrenaline running high, Rowena moved forward, scooped her handbag from the chair where it had rested since before Adriana had arrived, skirted the shell-shocked figure of her first love and headed for the door into the corridor that bypassed the secretary’s office.

“Rowena, stop! For God’s sake! This doesn’t make sense.”

She whirled as she reached the door. “Liar! Liar!” she hurled at him.

It silenced him.

She opened the door and left him behind.

If she had to leave Phil behind her, she would do that, too. She didn’t need a man in her life whom she couldn’t trust.

But what about the children?

“W
HEN
is Daddy coming home, Mummy?”

The unanswerable question. “I don’t know, Emily,” Rowena murmured as she bent to kiss her five-year-old daughter good night. Phil had not called her since he had left late last night, reinforcing his announcement that their marriage was over by walking out on her and going to Adriana Leigh.

“If it’s soon, could I get up again? I want to show him my painting.”

Emily was very much Daddy’s girl, being Phil’s first-born and favouring him in looks. Her fair hair was long, as her father liked it, and her blue eyes looked hopefully at Rowena, making her heart ache with the uncertainties that lay ahead of them.

“Darling, your painting is pinned to the corkboard,” Rowena reminded her. “Daddy will see it when he comes home. Go to sleep now.”

She dropped a soft kiss on her forehead. Emily sighed, disappointed, and Rowena wondered how scarred her young life would be without the father she adored on hand to provide her with the ever-ready support children needed.

Then Emily’s little arms wound around Rowena’s neck and she planted a big wet kiss on
her cheek and said, “I love you, Mummy,” and Rowena’s heart turned over. Perhaps having a mother was enough if the bond was kept strong. In today’s world there were many single parents coping successfully with the problems she would face if Phil didn’t come back.

“I love you too, Emily,” she whispered. “Good night.”

Emily snuggled into her pillow, and Rowena tucked the bedclothes around her, fighting back the tears that pricked her eyes. She quickly crossed the room to check Sarah, who had dropped asleep during their bedtime story. It was fortunate that today had been one of her two days a week at a local playgroup. Sarah was quite a precocious three-year-old, and Rowena had been grateful to have her bright little girl occupied with other children while she grappled with grim realities.

A strand of long brown hair was still curled around the finger that habitually twiddled with it. Her thumb rested slackly in her mouth. Still a baby, despite her surprising astuteness. Very gently, Rowena removed the thumb and untwined the hair. Sarah didn’t so much as twitch, tired out from playing games all day. Would she miss her father as much as Emily would?

It was easy for Adriana Leigh to say the girls were young enough to get over the separation without any lasting trauma. She was far enough removed to neither know nor care. What worried
Rowena was how much Adriana was influencing Phil’s thinking about it.

Yet how could Phil not miss his family? He hadn’t been the kind of man who ignored his children. If anything, he had been on the indulgent side, leaving any disciplinary measures to her.

Best Daddy in the world.

Had that stroked his ego?

She shook off Keir’s insidious criticism of Phil’s character and walked quickly to the door. She cast one last maternal look over her daughters settled peacefully in their twin beds. They didn’t have to be told anything yet. Phil might change his mind.

Two more days and school was finished for the year. Then Christmas only a week later. There wasn’t much time for Phil to have second thoughts. How could she possibly explain his absence to three children who expected their father to be with them for Christmas?

Having quietly closed the girls’ bedroom door, Rowena took a deep breath, hoping to lower her anxiety level before facing Jamie again. Being ten, he stayed up later than the girls, and he’d been unnaturally quiet over dinner, watching her as though he sensed something wrong. She hadn’t given him much attention. He reminded her too painfully of Keir tonight. And the memories that had been evoked earlier today.

She had to shut that out of her mind, concentrate on other things. No good could come from
thinking about Keir and what he’d said and how he had reacted to her. She could not delude herself with might-have-beens. If he hadn’t lied to her…But he had, and she couldn’t forgive him that patently false declaration. She had to be strong now, strong enough to stand alone if need be.

She had left Jamie watching television in the family room. As she headed for the kitchen she realised the house was quiet, no noise at all. Perhaps Jamie had his head in a book. He loved reading. Rowena hoped that was the case. It would leave her free to ponder what course she should take next.

He was sitting on a bar stool at the counter that divided the kitchen from the family room. A book was open in front of him, a glass of milk half-drunk at hand. He looked up as Rowena entered the room, and she had an instant flash of Keir, assessing her with weighing calculation. The expression was shockingly the same.

“Good book?” she forced herself to ask lightly, crossing to the sink to fill the electric jug for coffee.

No reply.

She flicked him an inquiring look as she reached for the jug. “What’s going on, Mum?” Serious, direct and determined.

Rowena’s heart fluttered. She swiftly switched her attention to the tap, turning it on, running water. “Well, the girls are settled for the night.”

“I mean about Dad.”

Rowena’s heart squeezed tight. How could Jamie guess that something was wrong? She thought she’d covered up reasonably well so far. “What do you want to know, Jamie?” she asked, evading his keen gaze by putting the jug on to boil and spooning coffee into a mug.

“I heard you crying last night. It sounded awful. I didn’t know what to do. I thought Dad was with you and I shouldn’t butt in. But when I got up this morning he wasn’t here. And he hasn’t come home tonight, either.”

The blunt statement of facts was recited in a tightly controlled voice that tried so hard to be calm and sensible it moved Rowena to tears again. Jamie was only ten, yet here he was, manfully taking the bull by the horns in his concern for her. He must have been worrying all day, poor darling, and she hadn’t wanted to see it.

Well, there was no hiding the truth now. Jamie wouldn’t be fobbed off with soothing platitudes. Yet to tell the whole truth might damn Phil in his eyes for a long time. A surge of white-hot anger helped restore her composure. Did Phil even begin to comprehend what damage he was doing, getting his ego stroked by that woman?

“Mum?”

Jamie had to be answered. What was the best line to tread? She put down the coffee spoon and turned to face him, seeing for the first time the underlying anxiety in his eyes. It made her want to weep again. Why were the innocent made victims of other people’s desires and pain?

“I’m sorry for upsetting you with my crying, Jamie. Your father and I had an argument. Parents sometimes do, you know.”

He nodded gravely, but he wasn’t satisfied. “I’ve never heard you cry like that. It went on for a long time.”

She thought of him lying in the dark, listening, and was ashamed of letting herself go so much. It had felt as though her whole world was breaking up, ending, but it wasn’t really. It was going to be a different world whether Phil came back or not. It could never be the same again. She recognised that now. But she would cope with it. Somehow.

“Things change, Jamie,” she said sadly. “Sometimes it’s not easy to accept the change.”

His face suddenly assumed a bullish expression, and his eyes took on a fierce glitter. “Has Dad gone off to another woman?”

She was shocked. “What makes you think that?” The words tripped off her tongue, not in denial, simply in appalled wonder that he had leapt to so much. Or had he heard part of their argument?

“Half the kids in my class have divorced parents. I get to hear things.” He looked too wise. “Dad’s been coming home late and not here most of the weekends.”

“Work. He’s had a lot of work to do.” That was the excuse Phil had given.

“Why isn’t he home tonight?”

“Because he…wants to be somewhere else,” she finished limply.

“Is he coming back?” Hard suspicion, giving no quarter.

“I don’t know.” She couldn’t lie to him. On the other hand, the trouble with saying anything more was that it couldn’t be unsaid later, and Rowena didn’t want Jamie completely alienated from Phil. “If you don’t mind, Jamie, I’d rather not talk about this right now. Your father and I…We need some time to work things out. Okay?”

He considered for several moments before nodding. “Okay, Mum.” Then with a flash of fierce feeling, “I just want you to know that whatever Dad does, you’ll always have me.”

“Oh, Jamie…”

She heard her voice waver and swallowed hard. Before she could speak again, Jamie was off the stool, around the counter and flinging his arms around her waist, his head pressing against her breasts as he hugged her hard. So loyal, so protective, so intensely loving. Her hands curled around his head, fingers stroking his hair. Her son, Keir’s son. If only Keir had been worthy of him.

“I don’t want you to cry like that any more, Mum,” came the muffled plea, revealing his deep inner distress at her breakdown.

“I won’t, Jamie,” she gently promised him. “I was feeling very alone. But I’m not really alone, am I?”

“No. You’ve got me.”

“And I’ll never forget that again. Thank you for reminding me.”

“That’s okay.”

What courage he had! Courage, resolution, caring. Rowena savoured the comforting warmth of holding him, her boy holding her. For the past year or so he had shied away from “soppy stuff.” He didn’t seem to mind it right now, but she didn’t want him to start feeling awkward about it.

“What are you reading?” she asked.

His head came up and his arms dropped. “It’s a book about rabbits called
Watership Down.”

She slid her hands to his shoulders and smiled. “Why don’t you take it to bed and read it there? I’m going to watch TV for a while.”

“Will you be all right by yourself, Mum?”

“I’ll be fine,” she assured him warmly. “Light out at nine o’clock, remember.”

He collected his book, said good night and went off with the jaunty confidence of having settled what needed to be settled.

Rowena wished that life could be so simple. She made herself a mug of coffee, switched on the television, sank into her usual armchair and idly flicked through the channels, stopping at what appeared to be a documentary on train travel. What was on the screen was irrelevant, its only purpose to provide a semblance of normality to the evening in case Jamie checked on her.

Her mind ran endlessly over memories of her marriage, both good and bad, sifting through what had contributed to the highs and the lows. She found her thoughts coloured by the opinions given by Adriana and Keir, especially Keir’s, despite her efforts not to think of him.

You want a husband who needs to be rescued from another woman?

She didn’t. She wanted a husband who would always put her first. As Adriana had pointed out, she was guilty of putting the children first at times, but they were Phil’s children as well as hers. They certainly weren’t another man.

The problem was, even if Phil did come back to her, Rowena didn’t think she could ever feel right with him again. And that could only lead to more problems. Whichever way she looked at it, there were unhappy times ahead.

A noise caught her attention. Was that the front door opening…and closing?