Sutherland’s Pride (9 page)

Pride started across the room then glanced at Gloria, who was also starting forward. They exchanged grins and halted.

Flynn grasped each little boy by his collar and hauled them apart.

“If you want to sail on my boat,” he said, with stern emphasis, “you have to fight the sails, not each other. Crewing a sailboat requires teamwork. Is that clearly understood?”

Eric said meekly, “Yes, sir.”

Johnny sniffed and pouted, hanging his head.

“I don’t want to come out here in fifteen minutes and find the two of you fighting again. Understood?”

The boys indicated their understanding.

“Pride, will you step into my office, please?”

Flynn kept a stern eye on the children as he ushered Pride into his office until he shut the door behind him. The moment the door closed behind him, he grinned at Pride.

“Well? Do you think I rate as a strict disciplinarian?”

“That was fantastic,” Pride said, pleased. “I didn’t know you had it in you.”

“I have lots of hidden talents. You’d be amazed.”

“I’m sure I would.” Pride covered her smile. “What is it you want to show me, Flynn?”

Flynn went to his desk, where a folder awaited his attention. He opened it and pulled out a long, white, sealed envelope with her name on it and handed it to her.

“It was in with your father’s legal documents.” He reached into the folder and began laying out several legal documents in a row along the desk. “These are ready for your signature. If you like, I’ll explain each one to you. Killeen is a notary. When you’re ready to sign, we’ll have her in.”

Pride stared at the documents. “Am I signing away my birthright or something?”

“This is your birthright,” Flynn said. “This one is the deed to the house in Anahuac. This one transfers several blocks of stock to you. This one is the deed to five beach cabins in Crystal Beach that your father kept as rent property.”

Pride swallowed. She had no idea her father owned beach front property.

“Do I have to sign these?”

“Yes, if you wish to inherit the property. However, you can, if you so desire, refuse to inherit.”

“What would happen then?”

“Your father’s next-of-kin would inherit. I’d have to scrape around in your genealogical tree and find out who that would be.”

Pride sighed. She could have told him the person he wanted was, at the moment, getting into trouble of some sort in his outer office.

“Never mind. I’ll sign.”

The property would be Johnny’s inheritance in the end. Her son would be assured of a good education and property of his own when he reached adulthood.

Flynn smiled at her and used his intercom to request Killeen Ross’s presence. She came in, bearing her notary book and seal and laughing.

“Johnny has discovered the pleasures of my computer keyboard,” Killeen said. “He’s banging away on it.”

Pride groaned.

“Obviously a talented kid,” Flynn said. “Just be sure he doesn’t eat some of the keys.”

Pride signed the documents, conscious all the while of the wild clacking of a computer keyboard in the outer office. When she had finished, and Killeen affixed her signature and the notary seal to the papers requiring it, Flynn nodded at the white envelope Pride had laid on his desk.

“I don’t know what’s in it,” he said. “I think your father was going to tell me, but he died before I could come to him.”

Pride opened the envelope and extracted the document it contained. “It’s my birth certificate, and an old letter from my mother to him.”

She studied it in silence, conscious of Flynn’s regard as she read the names of Alan Donovan and Elizabeth Bernard Donovan. There was nothing on the certificate she didn’t already know, and she wondered why on earth her father had retained her birth certificate among his legal papers.

The old letter, written before her parents had married, very likely contained the answer. She replaced the letter and birth certificate back in their envelope and tucked it in her tote. She didn’t dare read the letter until she was alone, if then. Maybe she would have Gloria read it.

“I think he was trying to tell you something,” Flynn said.

Pride looked at him, conscious of a swirl of conflicting emotions in her heart and an equally conflicting swirl of thoughts in her brain.

A loud wail sounded from the outer office. Pride recognized Tracy’s voice, and an instant later, heard Gloria putting down the insurrection.

“I think I’d better change clothes so we can go,” Flynn said. “Otherwise, the children may kill each other.”

“You’re so right,” Pride said. “Believe it or not, all that fighting means they’re learning how to get along.”

“True,” Killeen said. “All too soon, they’ll quit speaking to each other. Mine are at that stage.”

“How old are your children?” Pride asked, interested.

“Thirteen and fifteen. The thirteen-year-old is jealous of the fifteen-year-old, and the fifteen-year-old thinks the thirteen-year-old is too gross for words. It’s an interesting development, after all the fighting they did the previous twelve years.” Killeen smiled warmly at Pride and left the office.

Pride filed away the fact of Killeen’s single parenthood of two teens. Writers tended to collect people who were experts in a wide variety of fields.

“What are you thinking, Pride?” Flynn asked.

She looked up to see his warm, brown gaze on her face.

“I was wondering how Gloria was going to get along when her kids get into their teens,” she improvised.

“She seems to have her children well-in-hand. Want to step outside while I change?”

Pride went and plucked Johnny off Killeen’s computer. She held him in her lap and sat down to engage Killeen in a discussion of Tracy Eric’s thoughts as applied to single parents of teenagers.

Flynn appeared, now clad in old khakis and a plaid shirt, and Pride studied him from behind Johnny. He looked like the Flynn she remembered, far more enticing to her eyes than the suit-clad lawyer.

He led the way to the parking garage, carrying Sylvia and Johnny both, while Pride and Gloria herded Tracy and Eric.

“We’re going to Galveston,” he said. “Who wants to ride with me?”

All the children wanted to ride with Flynn, which would be possible if all the safety seats designed for children were transferred to Flynn’s Bronco. Grinning, Pride personally saw to the transfer. It was high time Flynn received an overdose of eager children. They’d keep him hopping all the way to Galveston.

She and Gloria rode alone in Gloria’s SUV and experienced incredible silence. Pride drove and enjoyed herself both in watching the scenery and in conducting an uninterrupted conversation with her cousin.

“He seems so intelligent,” Gloria mourned. “How can he possibly think Johnny is my son?”

“When Flynn gets an idea into his head, it’s a major impossibility to get it out,” Pride said. “I’ve decided to go ahead and tell him the truth tonight. Not that it’ll change anything,” she added. “He’ll still think I was running around with someone else.”

“What would be interesting might be Flynn’s parents’ reaction to Johnny,” Gloria said, in thoughtful tones. “I’ll lay a bet Flynn looked just like Johnny when he was two.”

“Children look alike at that age. They’re all adorable.”

“True. Is Tracy Eric going to explore her feelings upon seeing the father of her child once more?”

“Tracy Eric has already done so,” Pride said, in dry tones. “With Killeen Ross reading every word Tracy writes let’s just hope Flynn doesn’t catch sight of that particular column.”

“Maybe I’ll mail it to him, all underlined.”

Pride laughed. “Now that would really be interesting.”

“I still think you ought to have told him two years ago, when Johnny was born,” Gloria said. “However, no one ever listens to me.”

“At the time, I couldn’t have handled it.” Pride gave her cousin a wry smile. “If Flynn had made one of his scathing remarks, I might have brained him. Then Johnny would lose his mother as well as his father.”

“Do you know what would really be funny?” Gloria began to chuckle. “What if Johnny starts screaming for ‘Mommy,’ and you automatically come running?”

“Nothing would change,” Pride predicted. “Mark my words, Flynn would assume it was because I’m playing favorites among your children.”

“I can’t wait to tell Eddie about this,” Gloria said, shaking her head.

They sped along the Gulf Freeway, heading directly into downtown Galveston. Salt water marshes surrounded the highway as they approached the bridge across the bay that would take them into the city.

They reached the city of Galveston and followed Flynn to the marina. Pride pointed out various historically important, Victorian structures and savored the once-familiar surroundings as she parked beside Flynn’s Bronco.

She hadn’t been here since the morning she’d driven to this same marina and sat all day waiting for Flynn, who had taken his boat out to get away from her. When he had finally docked, salty and weary, she had been standing on the dock. While he tossed his lines to a dock official, she had shouted that the problem was not going to go away if he ran from it.

Flynn had absolutely congealed with fury. The scene that had ensued was one she preferred not to remember.

Pride gripped her hands on the steering wheel and fought off the memory as Flynn climbed out of the Bronco and cast a helpless glance their way.

“He looks shell-shocked, poor man,” Gloria said, and hurried toward him.

Pride closed her eyes and sought to blank her mind, only to discover Flynn standing beside her when she opened them. His narrowed gaze told her he remembered also.

“Forget that,” he said, and lifted her bodily from the car seat. “From now on, we start fresh. Pride, will you marry me?”

Her mouth fell open. “What?”

“You heard me. I still love you, as much as ever, it seems. Marry me, and I’ll make everything up to you. I promise.”

Her mind went blank. She struggled to remember exactly why she should say no, which in itself warned her that she was in deep, deep trouble.

“Say yes,” Flynn urged, and kissed her.

Pride found herself caught in a vortex of thundering, roiling emotions. She trembled in his arms, and for an instant veered between a longing to strike him and a longing to make love with him. He deepened the kiss, holding her against him so tightly he left her in no doubt how much he wanted her.

He lifted his head at last. “This is what I should have said to you when I found you waiting for me on the dock.”

Jolted back to reality, Pride turned her face away. “That would have been nice. Too bad it didn’t happen that way.”

“It can happen that way now.” Flynn crushed her against him and kissed her temple. “Just say yes.”

“I can’t, Flynn. There are,” she hesitated when her scattered wits refused to supply any reasons, “some things that I have to tell you. Things you need to know.”

“And are any of these ‘things’ something that would make us ineligible to marry?” He tensed.

“If you mean, is there another man in my life, the answer is no.” Pride got her hands between them and pushed away until she had managed to put two inches between them. “But they could very well change your mind about marriage.”

“In that case,” Flynn said, “maybe you’ll let me take you someplace to eat tonight so we can discuss the wedding.”

She waited a moment before replying, while her pulses settled and her mind cleared somewhat. “Maybe I will. In the meantime, I need to help Gloria corral the children.”

Now that Flynn no longer touched her, she let her gaze pass over boats of all descriptions that lined the marina docks while her emotions settled. She noted sailboats with short masts and tall masts, motor yachts, fishing yachts with flying bridges, and many smaller motorboats. She had missed the sights, sounds, and the smells of diesel fuel, fish, and salt that marked the marina.

Much to her amazement, she suddenly realized Flynn had erased her one bad memory of the marina.

“Let’s go,” Flynn said, recalling her attention.

Sounds from inside the Bronco indicated that the children feared being left behind. Pride and Gloria grinned at each other as they opened the car doors and began extracting children.

“Did you have a peaceful drive?” Pride asked, all innocence, and placed Johnny in Flynn’s arms.

“Surely you jest.” Flynn ruffled Johnny’s hair. “I had to quell three major clashes and two minor skirmishes. I didn’t know they could still reach each other in those seats.”

“My husband and I have been considering walls between each seat,” Gloria said, straight-faced. She cradled Sylvia in her arms. “Pride and I had such a quiet, peaceful drive.”

Flynn watched Pride take Eric’s and Tracy’s hands. “I’ll bet you did. I can see motherhood is a vastly underrated profession.”

“Too true,” Pride struck in. “Let’s go, Flynn. The kids are fed up with driving. They’re ready to see some boats.”

“This way,” Flynn said. “I called ahead and asked them to be ready for us.”

The children loved the marina. Eric asked one question after another, and Johnny was so busy craning his neck to see the boats, he nearly fell over Flynn’s shoulder.

“This one is ours.” Flynn stopped beside a large, blue and white motor yacht bearing the name, “Farah.”

Pride studied the yacht. “Who’s Farah?”

“I was afraid to ask. Come aboard, folks.” He urged them up the boarding ladder. “I can’t wait until you see the galley, Pride. You’ll love it.”

This boat was Flynn’s business, Pride decided, assessing the size of the boat. What did he care whether she loved it or not? It had to be at least a forty-footer, which meant the cost would start somewhere around two or three-hundred-thousand dollars.

The moment she stepped on the deck, she mentally raised the price. This boat had been planned with luxury at sea in mind. The aft deck resembled a patio, and there was even a swimming platform complete with ladder. Gloria promptly tried out a chair, holding Sylvia in her lap, and her two older children ran to stand at the rails.

“Look around at your leisure,” Flynn told them. “Come on, Pride. Let’s take a tour.”