Sutherland’s Pride (8 page)

Gritting her teeth, she said, “I’m not upset with you.”

He ignored that. “I did promise to take care of you.” He stared at the ground. “When you said you were pregnant, I was so angry, I — forgot all my promises to you.” His gaze met hers squarely. “I went back on everything I said. I’m sorry, Pride.”

Now that it was too late, Pride wished she had never pushed things to this extreme. “Lots of men promise a woman everything so they can get her into bed.”

“Is that what you thought I was doing?”

She managed a shrug. “What do you think?”

Flynn’s brown eyes flashed. “I meant everything I said to you.” He reached out and grabbed her shoulders so suddenly, she didn’t have time to step back out of reach. “I loved you.”

“I loved you, and look what it got me.”

“What did it get you?” The anger left his face suddenly as his gaze slid over her too-slender figure and locked on her face. “I’d really like to know.”

He produced his keys and unlocked the car door, then helped her step inside. Stunned, Pride buckled on her seat belt while her gaze followed Flynn as he walked around to slide in beside her.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“I’d like you to tell me everything that happened after you closed out your Houston apartment and left the area for good.”

Pride shook her head numbly. Did that mean he wanted to hear all about her alleged miscarriage?

“I’ll do that, if you can answer one question for me.”

Flynn sat silently, staring out the windshield and making no move to start the engine.

“Do you still believe my baby wasn’t yours?”

“Dammit, Pride, look at it from my point of view,” he exploded. “You claim that one unprotected incident resulted in your pregnancy, and you totally ignore the fact that, even if I have a very low sperm count rather than total sterility, it would still require a lot of luck and a lot of effort before I could get a woman pregnant.”

“You forgot the compatibility check.” Pride grappled with a sudden desire to bop him with her purse. “You also forgot that all it takes to make a baby is contact between one sperm and one egg. Sorry, Flynn. I don’t feel the need or the desire to tell you what happened after I left. I’m surprised you’d even want to hear it.”

She clenched her fists in her lap as Flynn started the car with an air of suppressed violence. After all the time she’d spent ridding herself of the anger and despair she’d felt at Flynn’s refusal to accept the truth, Pride was astounded to find herself literally shaking with fury.

She wanted to beat at him with her fists. She wanted to scream at him, the way she had three years ago. She wanted to force him to listen while she recited all the likenesses between Flynn and Johnny.

Drawing in a deep breath, Pride deliberately began the process of calming herself. If Flynn was so determined to ignore the truth, none of those things would convince him.

Tomorrow, she told herself. She would tell him tomorrow. If that didn’t run him off, nothing would.

Yes, she had better do it tomorrow. If Flynn kissed her again, she might go up in flames and seduce him. If that happened, what were the odds that she’d get pregnant again?

But if she told him Johnny was her son, not Gloria’s, Flynn might take to his heels, thus saving her from the proverbial fate worse than death.

Pride smiled to herself in a shaky way. What a way to go.

• • •

Flynn Sutherland opened his office door and peered out at his secretary. Killeen Ross had the
Chronicle
open on her desk, avidly reading a column.

Grinning, Flynn walked out and bent over Killeen’s shoulder, aware that she hadn’t heard him, so engrossed was she in her reading.

Flynn studied the column. The slightly out-of-focus photograph of Tracy Eric, dark-haired and beautiful, followed the “Single Mommy” header. Beneath the photograph, the column bore the title, “Home Again Memories.”

“Listen to this, boss,” Killeen said. “
‘Now that the last permanent man in my life is gone forever, I wonder how my son will feel when he learns of the father he has never had a chance to know. Will he blame me? Will he blame my former lover? Will he understand the short-lived love that brought him into being?’
” Killeen heaved a tragic sigh. “I was wondering that very same thing. I found out last night my father is terminally ill. He was the one real, dependable man in my children’s lives. Without him, who will they have to look up to?”

Flynn skimmed the remainder of the article, wherein Tracy Eric examined the feelings her father’s death had brought into being, and most of all, the effects of that death upon her too-young-to-understand son, who had never known his grandfather.

Tracy’s son would never know a grandfather’s love now, and she mourned that fact. Flynn read the passage and mourned along with Tracy, then told himself he was a fool.

Once more, he wondered why he hadn’t gone ahead and married Pride. Then he reminded himself it wouldn’t have made any difference, since Pride had suffered a miscarriage.

He had realized last night when he watched her face as she spoke to his father that Pride had suffered. Whatever else she’d been lying about, Pride had been pregnant. Or had thought she was pregnant.

Now, he would probably never have a chance to present his parents with a grandchild to love and spoil. He regretted that almost as much as the thought that he’d never have a child of his own to love and spoil.

“
‘I’ll always wonder what would have happened if my lover had lived up to his promises,’” Killeen read aloud. “‘Would my father have accepted my son if he had been what my Dad considered a “legitimate” baby? It’s too late now for anything except regrets.’
”

“Her father was an idiot.” Disturbed by the similarity of Tracy Eric’s situation to Pride’s, he scowled down at the columnist’s photograph. “That baby was still his grandchild. What kind of man could ignore that?”

“He was probably a religious freak,” Killeen said.

Flynn considered, frowning. Pride’s father hadn’t been a religious freak. Alan Donovan had impressed him as a self-righteous jerk who had approved of Flynn because of Morgan Sutherland’s wealth and social standing.

He straightened and rubbed the back of his neck. He’d thought Pride was exaggerating when she said her father thought she wasn’t his daughter.

Perhaps Pride hadn’t exaggerated about certain other assertions she’d made.

Flynn drew in a bracing breath. “Well, did you glean anything from today’s column that helps with your children?”

Killeen got out a pair of scissors and began cutting out the column. “You bet I did. She hit the nail on the head when she wrote about the promises her lover failed to live up to.” She clipped viciously. “Men are weasels. They’ll say anything to get a woman to bed with them. Or into the kitchen cooking and cleaning for them. Not a single thought for the children.” She whacked at the paper with the scissors. “They don’t seem to realize that there’ll come a day when God is going to ask them how they treated the little ones assigned to their care.”

On that note, Flynn retired to his office, shaken. If Pride had given birth to the baby, then had presented herself and the baby before him, would he have accepted the role of father?

Probably, Flynn realized wryly. He was a sucker for babies.

He wished he’d had the chance to prove it.

A disturbance in the outer office gave notice that Pride and her cousin had arrived, with the four children in tow. Flynn opened his office door, eager to see Pride again.

Dressed in jeans and a loose-fitting blouse, she stood beside Killeen’s desk, nodding over the Tracy Eric column. Although she still looked too white and frail in his opinion, the casual attire pleased him. She looked more like herself.

Gloria bent over one of her dark-headed children, gently scolding. Two of the children had fanned out, in search of something to get into trouble with.

The fourth child regarded him out of huge, brown eyes from Pride’s arms.

“Flynn’s,” Johnny said, holding out his arms.

Flynn glanced at his wrist involuntarily, but his sleeve hid the watch. That meant Johnny wanted to be held by him. The idea was both touching and irresistible.

“May I take him, Pride?” he asked.

Pride started and looked up. “Of course. Behave yourself, Johnny. If possible.” She transferred Johnny to his arms.

“Impossible,” Killeen said. “He wouldn’t be a normal little boy if he behaved himself.”

“True,” Pride agreed. “He’s had quite a morning already.”

Flynn listened, grinning, as Pride described a hilarious incident wherein Johnny had applied black shoe polish to a pair of Gloria’s white leather tennis shoes.

“He’s still got it under his fingernails,” Flynn said, spreading one of Johnny’s small hands for inspection.

“Flynn’s,” Johnny squealed, in triumph.

Too late, Flynn realized he had inadvertently exposed his watch to Johnny’s covetous view. He almost dropped the struggling child, who literally fought to get his hands on the watch.

“That kid loves your watch, boss,” Killeen said. “You wouldn’t withhold a treasure like that from a little bitty child, would you?”

“Flynn, if you dare to give him that watch, I’ll choke you with it,” Pride said. “Take it off and put it in your pocket.”

Flynn’s incredulous gaze focused on Pride while he balanced the wriggling Johnny on his arm. “Pride Donovan, this is between me and Johnny. Kindly stay out of it.”

“Now, Flynn, recollect that I have yet to return your watch stem. If you let him get his hands on that watch again, there’s no telling what he’ll swallow next. Maybe the face, with all those pretty little flags. Or the crystal. Now that would require an operation to remove it, I think. Glass shards … ”

“It’s shatter-proof,” Flynn said, straight-faced.

“Hah. Don’t you believe it,” Pride said. “Would you like me to tell you what he did to an ‘unbreakable’ plastic bowl?”

Flynn, laughing, bounced Johnny in his arms to distract him and slipped the watch off his wrist and into his pocket.

“Flynn’s,” Johnny complained, searching Flynn’s wrist.

Flynn watched as the child’s small hands explored his forearm, where a band of white skin signified the former presence of the watch. The feel of the little hands on his arm aroused feelings of fierce possessiveness in him. What would he give to be able to call a boy like this one his son?

He looked up to find Pride’s gaze focused on his face.

“Flynn’s?” Johnny demanded.

Flynn blinked. Johnny’s frustrated little face hovered six inches from his.

“Flynn’s has been put up for the duration,” Flynn said gravely. “Your aunt’s orders.”

Killeen blinked and looked puzzled.

Pride laughed outright.

“Gloria would be the first to say she has no wish to ruin her afternoon rushing him to the hospital for ingested watch gears,” she said.

Johnny didn’t care about that.

“Flynn’s,” he wailed, and dissolved into loud sobs.

“Johnny,” Pride said, in stern tones. “If you mean to carry on like that, you won’t get to go on the sailboat. I’ll have to take you home. Alone. With me.”

In the face of the sinister implications of this speech, Johnny sniffed his way into silence.

“Don’t listen to her, old buddy,” Flynn said. “I won’t let her take you home to the dungeon in chains.”

Johnny sniffed and focused trusting brown eyes upon Flynn. He crawled higher in Flynn’s arms and fastened his small arms around Flynn’s neck.

“Sailboat,” he said.

“That’s right,” Flynn said, unaccountably thrilled. “Ever been sailing before, old buddy?”

Johnny watched him with grave interest.

“Never mind. Everyone has to start somewhere. I’ll let you raise a sail yourself. Ever hoisted a sail before?”

“Sail,” Johnny said, in tentative tones.

“You’re going to love it,” Flynn promised. “Just watch yourself. Otherwise, the wind will catch you and you’ll land in the water like your Aunt Pride did one day.”

“Aunt Pride?” Johnny repeated, glancing at Pride.

“Has she been lying again and telling everyone what a great sailor she is?” Flynn asked, grinning at Gloria.

Gloria, who had been keeping well out of the discussion, smiled back. “She said we should put on life jackets and sit still and let you do all the work, because you will anyway.”

Flynn laughed. “True. I’m not used to sailing with a crew.”

“Is that what we are?” Gloria asked, with foreboding. “A crew?”

“Right,” Flynn said, with considerable satisfaction. “This is my first mate.” He indicated the big-eyed Johnny. “Anyone refusing to follow orders will walk the plank.”

“Careful, Flynn,” Pride said. “Your crew is liable to start planning a mutiny.”

Flynn felt a tugging at his trousers leg and looked down. Eric stood there, asking silently to be taken up into Flynn’s arms with Johnny.

He bent to lift the older child then faced Pride, laughing.

“That isn’t likely,” he said. “In another few minutes, I’ll have won most of the crew over to my point of view.”

By the time Flynn became willing to put the two little boys down, Pride wondered if he’d try to adopt both of them from Gloria. It lifted her spirits immeasurably to see Flynn so obviously enchanted by her son and by Gloria’s children.

“You’d better come to the office a few minutes, at least, Pride,” Flynn said, at last. “There is one thing in particular I need to give you.”

Whatever it was, Pride thought, scowling, she didn’t want it if it came from her father. Why spoil a perfectly good day?

Flynn watched her. “What on earth do you think it is?”

“I really haven’t the faintest idea.”

“All right, men, I’ll be back out in fifteen minutes. If there are any signs of mutiny in my crew, I’ll keelhaul the lot of you. Got that?”

Johnny thought keelhauling sounded like fun. He grabbed Flynn’s leg and looked up at him, laughing.

“Especially you,” Flynn promised.

Jealous, Eric dealt Johnny a surreptitious poke in the ribs. Johnny let out a howl and swung wildly at his tormentor. The two little boys clinched and rolled across the floor, yelling imprecations at each other.