Chapter 6 #4
The irony was brutal. Another soldier, another man who’d chosen duty over family. At least Rowan had reasons—anger, and then forces beyond his control.
“I’m sorry. That must have been hard.”
“We managed.”
“You shouldn’t have had to manage alone.” The words came out rough, probably weighted with his own guilt and regret.
“We weren’t alone. We had Grandpa.”
“But not his father.”
“No.” The word carried hurt. “Not his father.”
Rowan wanted to reach for her hand again, but a gulf had opened between them. “For what it’s worth, he would be proud of the son you raised. He’s amazing, Sierra.”
“Thanks.” Sierra’s eyes shimmered with unshed tears. She swallowed. “What about you?” Sierra asked, her voice thick with emotion. “What happened after you left? Really happened?”
Yeah. Maybe it was easier to talk about his own failures than to sit with the knowledge that she’d loved someone else, had created a child with another man.
“I went through basic training, went through advanced training, became a Delta Force operator. Became someone new, someone I thought I wanted.”
She nodded. “And then?”
“Then I deployed. When it came time to re-up, I did it without looking back.” He sighed, met her eyes, holding her gaze. “I never thought I’d end up dead. At least, officially.”
“What does that mean?”
This was the part that mattered, the explanation he owed her for ten years of silence.
“We were on a rescue mission. A woman—a valuable asset—had been taken by some very bad people. My team and I went in to get her out.”
“And?” Sierra had gone completely still.
“Someone on our team betrayed us. Set us up to be ambushed. By the time we fought our way out and got the woman to safety, officially, we didn’t exist anymore.
” His jaw clenched at the memory—gunfire in a warehouse, Kane kidnapped and held, a woman who’d been used as bait in a trap designed to kill them.
It had taken them three years, all the way up until this summer, to unravel it all and find justice.
“Why were you betrayed?” Her voice barely rose above a whisper.
“Because the person who betrayed us had connections. High-level connections, and we weren’t sure what we might be walking into. It was safer for everyone if Rowan Wallace and Luca Saxon and the rest of the team died on that mission.”
And then he couldn’t stop himself. He reached out and took her hand. Held it. Then he met her eyes. “I never stopped thinking of you.”
“You could have told me.” Her voice cracked.
“I wanted to. But…” He sighed. “It got complicated.”
“You came to get Mack though. So he knew.”
“Mack was in trouble. He’d gotten into a fight with his dad a few months before, when he told him he wanted to enlist. I was worried it would go south, so after the dust settled, I circled back and grabbed him. He’s been traveling with us ever since.”
“Were you ever going to tell me?”
He nodded. “Yes.”
“When?” The single word held years of hurt and waiting.
“Today.” His eyes met hers, willing her to understand. “I came back to Renegade to tell you I was alive. To see if there was any chance—”
He stopped, the words too big, too dangerous to speak aloud.
“Any chance of what?”
“Of us. Of finding our way back to what we had.”
Sierra’s breath caught. “Rowan—”
“I know it’s been ten years. I know you’ve built a life here, that you have Huck to think about. But seeing you again, being here with you—” He lifted their joined hands, pressing a kiss to her knuckles. And here went nothing—“I never stopped loving you, Sierra.”
The words hung between them. She swallowed, her eyes wide.
Then she tore her hand away. “Oh, no…” She stood up.
“Sierra?”
She rounded on him, her eyes glazed. “You can’t just show up and say that.” Sierra’s voice shook.
“Why not? It’s true.”
“Because you left.” Ten years of hurt poured into those three words. “You promised you’d come back, and you left.”
“I had to leave. After what happened with my stepfather—”
“You could have taken me with you.”
The accusation hit harder than a physical blow. “You were eighteen years old with a full scholarship to Colorado State. I wasn’t going to ask you to give that up for a boy with no future and a lot of anger.”
“That should have been my choice.”
“Maybe. But I was eighteen too, and scared, and I thought I was protecting you.”
Sierra paced to the window, stared out into the blackness.
“Sierra—”
“I waited for you.” She turned to face him, eyes hot. “For two years, I waited. I kept thinking you’d come home on leave, or call, or write. Something.”
Her words could knock him over. She’d waited? What about Huck?
That didn’t feel like waiting.
She wiped her face. “And now you’re back, expecting what? That I’ll just pick up where we left off like nothing happened?”
“I’m not expecting anything.” He stood slowly, reading the pain and anger radiating from her small frame. “I’m hoping. There’s a difference.”
Sierra wrapped her arms around herself, suddenly looking fragile and young. “You’re going to break my heart again. I just know it, and this time…” She swallowed. Shook her head. “I can’t do this.”
“Can’t do what?”
“This. Us. Whatever this is.” She gestured between them with sharp, frustrated movements. “I have Huck to think about.”
Rowan took a step toward her, then stopped when she flinched. “What if we take it slow?”
A pause. “How slow?”
“As slow as you need. I’m not going anywhere, Sierra. Not this time.”
The promise felt like an oath, binding and absolute. He’d spent ten years running from this feeling, from the knowledge that he’d left the best part of himself in this house with this woman. He wouldn’t make that mistake again.
“You said you didn’t know. That you weren’t staying…”
“The only thing that could make me leave is if you asked me to.”
Sierra stared at him, searching his eyes, as if testing his words. He let her look, let her see the decade of regret and longing he’d carried.
“I should get some sleep,” she said finally. “Church comes early.”
Oh. Sure. What did he think—that’s she’d leap into his arms?
Shoot. Maybe. He nodded. “Of course.”
She started down the hallway, then stopped. “Rowan?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m glad you came back. Even if this is complicated, even if I don’t know what comes next—I’m glad you’re alive.”
“Me too,” he whispered.
Sierra climbed the stairs, her footsteps soft on the worn wood. Rowan stood in the middle of her living room, surrounded by the debris of their evening—empty popcorn bowls, coffee mugs, the lingering scent of her shampoo.
He moved through the kitchen methodically, turning off lights and checking locks. But his mind wasn’t on potential threats. It was on the woman upstairs, on the son she’d raised alone, on the life she’d built from the ashes of his abandonment.
Tomorrow would bring church and questions and the slow, careful work of rebuilding trust. Tonight, he just wanted to hold on to the feeling of being home, of belonging somewhere that mattered.
It was more than he’d had in a very long time.
And if he was very careful, very patient, it might be enough to build a future on.