Flynn (12 page)

He
sat on the floor, his back to the cupboard, cradling the photo in his hands.
Natalie was Emily’s birth mother.

Shit,
why hadn’t he seen it? That’s why she was so nice to her. It wasn’t that she
was just this stranger who’d taken a liking to her.
And to him.
Were all the looks
and the lovemaking one big act? Has she played him for a fool?

Was
she here to try and take Emily away from him?

He
bit his lip. He hadn’t gone through an adoption agency. Was Natalie in Timber
Creek to challenge the validity of it? Emily was his and no one, not even her
own mother, was going to tell him otherwise.

****

Natalie
knew Flynn well enough by now to sense when something was wrong. She could tell
by the large strides he was taking that he wasn’t in the best of moods. The rap
on her door, both quick and hard, also told her that maybe she’d done something
wrong.

She
opened it. He had some photos in his hand.
The ones of her
and her mother and father.
She could clearly see them. She hadn’t even
realized she’d lost them.

“I
think we need to talk,” he said pushing by her to get into the room.

Something
was wrong. But what was the connection to the photos? They didn’t reveal her
secret. She sat down on the bed and threw the photos on the space beside her.

“The
photo of you and the woman,” he said, pushing his hat back on his head.

“My
mother.”

He
took off his hat and slapped it on the side of his leg. “Are you Emily’s birth
mother?”

The
room began to spin. How had he deduced that from the photo? She could go on
lying, staying here and in their lives, but Marie was right. They had a thing
going on and she had to come clean or she’d lose him.

“Yes,
yes I am.”

“She’s
the baby that you lost?”

“I…”

“Is
that why you came here to Timber Creek? You’re not looking for some fucking
vacation house are you?”

Tears
welled up in her eyes. He was angry and he had every right to be.

“Flynn,
please hear me out. I was asked to come and look for Emily. That’s what I was
doing near your property when my car went into the ditch. I had every intention
of telling you who I was but then I saw her…I saw you, and I couldn’t.”

“But
you still kept up this charade. All this time me believing that you were just a
sweetheart and an angel sent from heaven for both me and my daughter. And yes,
she’s my daughter,” he said waving his finger at her.

Natalie
swallowed. “Please Flynn, come and sit down,” she said patting the spot beside
her.

He
paced up and down. “I think I’d be a lot happier standing.”

“Emily’s
birth father died recently and his final request was for me to find her.”

“So
up till then you’ve never thought of your little girl out there in the world?”

Natalie
shook her head. She didn’t want him to think that way about her. Not now, not
ever. “I’ve thought about her constantly, but I got on with my life to forget
about the pain of having to give her up.”

He
paced up and down some more and then stopped right in front of her. “You knew
that she had Down’s?”

She
shook her head as tears flooded down her face. “After the ultrasound they did
tell me something wasn’t right but I assumed that my mother had made them tell
me that because she wanted me to have an abortion.”

“Oh
yeah, I can believe that. That lady is quite something.”

Natalie
looked up at him. He’d never meet her mother so how…“what’s that supposed to
mean?”

“Forget
I said that.”

Natalie
stood. “No, I can’t. It sounds like you know my mother very well and…”

Flynn
raised both his eyebrows. She could tell by the look on Flynn’s face that he
knew something she didn’t. That’s what Marie was referring to. “I think you’ve
been hiding something from me too,” she said.

“Maybe,
but I think you’ve trumped me. What were you hoping to achieve here, Natalie?”

“I
don’t know. I thought I’d just meet Emily and leave but as soon as I saw her, I
felt a connection to her. For god’s sake, Flynn, she’s my flesh and blood.”

“Yeah,
that’s true, but I’m the one who raised her. I’m the one you’ve been playing.
Sleeping with me, making me think I’d found the woman of my dreams when all the
time you had an agenda.”

“Playing…no,
Flynn, no. What I feel for you is real.”

“Like
hell it is. Guess I was stupid enough to let another woman fool me.”

“Flynn,”
she said standing and touching his arm.

“Hey,
you mind letting go of me?”

His
words stung and hurt, but she guessed she had only herself to blame.

“How
do you know my mother so well?”

“You
really up to hearing the whole story, Natalie?”

“I
have to.”

****

He
sat in a chair, intentionally as far away from her as he could get. She’d put a
knife through his heart with her lies and deception, and the fact that he loved
her and wanted her made it all the worse for him. He put his hat on his knee
and ran his fingers around its rim.

“Guess
you should know the story from the beginning. My wife didn’t die. She was having
an affair.”
 
He took a deep breath. “I
decided to get away from this place for a bit. I began driving and I somehow
ended up in Rapid City, South Dakota.”

“I
was in this little ma and pa café having breakfast one
morning,
and there was a couple in their late thirties, early forties sitting on a table
nearby. They kept looking at their watch and finally in strolls your mother
with a baby carrier.”

He
stopped. He could still see the image as if it had happened just yesterday.
Yeah, it had stuck in his mind and never left.

“She
walked up to the couple and said
here’s
your baby and
all the papers you need for your attorney.”

He
wiped a tear from his cheek. “Shit, I’ll never forget that day as long as I
live. The couple took one look at Emily and…”

He broke
down sobbing. He couldn’t help it. He remembered the look like they’d seen the
most horrible thing in the world.

Flynn
looked over at Natalie. He was telling her this awful story about her flesh and
blood, but she’d wanted to hear it. “They told your mother she’d failed to
inform them about Emily being a retarded baby. They wanted a perfect child, and
they stood about to leave.”

He
glanced over at Natalie. Her lower lip was trembling. This was just as hard for
him telling the story as it probably was for her sitting here listening to it.
He remembered the baby beginning to cry at that point.

“Your
mother said she couldn’t take the baby back with her. She didn’t want it either
and… and, shit, they argued back and forth like Emily was something they’d
bought in the wrong color or a sweater that had a hole in it.”

He
put his hand to his mouth sure he was going to be sick like he almost was that
day. He hadn’t believed that people could be so cruel to a helpless baby.

“Your
mother told them either they took the baby or she’d have to leave it on the
doorstep of the local social services and hoped someone would give it a home.”

“How
could my mother have done something so awful?” Natalie was sobbing and he
almost weakened into rushing over to her and holding her tight.

“I
had to do something. I knew in the pit of my stomach I was that little baby’s
only hope. I strolled over to them and was about to tell them I was going to
call child protective services and have all of them arrested for being such a
bunch of assholes. And that’s when I looked in the carrier and saw her. She
looked at me and I swear she stopped crying. She smiled at me, and I knew I had
to take her. I told your mother to give me the paperwork, and I’d adopt her as
my little girl. I thought maybe the baby would bring my wife back to me, but
when I got home, but she like the couple couldn’t…. well, she left that day,
and I didn’t hear from her again until the divorce papers arrived a few weeks
later.”

He’d
done his best to block out that day and the weeks after. All he remembered now
was his Emily and the joy she’d brought into his empty life.

Natalie
stood, so did Flynn
.
“Do you want me to tell Emily who I am or will you?” asked Natalie.

“I’ll
tell her but only after you’ve left town.”

“I’m
not leaving.”

“I
think you are. I want you out of Timber Creek today. I don’t want to ever see
you again.”

She
took a step toward him. “Flynn, you can’t mean that. I love you.”

Natalie
reached for him, but he dodged out of the way.
If she touched
him, shit, if she as much as touched him, he’d give in.

“I
have Emily, and that’s all I ever really needed.”

Chapter
Twelve

“Where’s
Natalie?” asked Emily pushing the mashed potatoes around on her plate.

“She
had to go back to Florida. Now eat your food and no more playing with it.” He
tapped the table by her plate and glanced at Rory.

“Is
she coming back?” asked Emily.

He
didn’t want to hear anything else about Natalie, but his daughter wouldn’t let
it go.

“No.”

Emily
slammed her fist down on the table. “She has to because of my knitting.”

“That’s
just the way it is, and maybe when your Gran feels better she can help you,
okay? Now eat.”

Flynn
didn’t see it coming, and the next thing he knew Emily had picked up a handful
of mashed potatoes and thrown them at him.

He
stood, the mixture dripping down his face and onto his jeans.

“Get
into your room and stay there.”

She
poked her tongue out at him and ran out of the kitchen. The door once again
banged shut when she reached her bedroom.

“Shit,
shit, shit,” said Flynn wiping the mess from his clothes. He looked at Rory who
had his eyebrows raised and was tapping the table with his fingers.

“I’m
sure you’ve got some words of advice and wisdom you’re just dying to tell me,
aren’t you,” he said.

Rory
shrugged his shoulders. “What do you expect when you banish someone Emily loves?
And she does love her like she loves you. I might be the family’s old bachelor,
but I know what love looks like.”

“She’s
a liar and a…” He sat back down exhausted from fighting off his emotions he’d
been toying with since his conversation with Natalie at the motel. It had been
almost a month since he’d seen her, and he already missed her like crazy.

Rory
leaned forward. “If you didn’t have feelings for Natalie you wouldn’t feel this
strong about her not telling you that she’s Emily real mom.”

Flynn
was about to give his brother a rebuttal but didn’t because he knew his big
brother was right. Rory raised his eyebrows again and nodded.

“Okay,
I love her is that what you want to hear?” asked Flynn.

“I
already knew that and that’s why you’re stupid and stubborn to have sent her
packing, banishing her from Timber Creek and your life… from her daughter’s
life.”

“She
wasn’t honest.”

“Okay,
she probably should have owned up straight away, but she didn’t. Shit, Flynn
didn’t you know that none of us are perfect?”

Rory
was right. He always was, but Flynn never gave him credit for his wisdom.

“Well,”
asked Rory.

“Well
what?”

“What
are you going to do about it?”

****

“Have
you been listening to a word that’s been said?”

Natalie
hadn’t realized that she’d been looking out of the conference room window until
one of the senior partners spoke to her. She’d tried her best to get back to
work, but her heart was no longer in law, or Orlando for that matter. She
wanted to be working in Marie’s café, with her daughter and the Big Sky Country
cowboy she’d fallen in love with.

“Is
there something wrong?”

It
wasn’t until he spoke again that Natalie realized she hadn’t answered his first
question.

“I’m
not sure.”

“You’ve
seemed like you’re on a different planet since you got back from your vacation.”

She
twisted around in the swivel chair.
One that probably cost as
much as every piece of furniture in Flynn’s living room.
This was cold
and unwelcoming. Her condo was cold and unwelcoming. Flynn’s house was home.