Sutherland’s Pride (11 page)

Pride stood absolutely still, staring blindly at the water before her. Did Flynn mean that he wanted a son so much he would be willing to accept her baby even if he believed some other man had fathered the child?

Nothing made sense anymore.

She felt certain of only one thing, however. Until Flynn knew and accepted that Johnny was his son, she could not even think about marrying him.

The man was diabolical. He was deliberately messing with her mind.

“This is some boat, isn’t it?” Gloria approached, still carrying Sylvia. “It’s amazing how well they used the space.”

Pride relaxed slightly. “It’s an art.”

“Eric Boudreaux, get away from that rail,” Gloria called. “If you want to go sailing, you have to obey the rules. The rules say, stay back from the rails.”

Excited chatter from Gloria’s three children ebbed and flowed as they raced from one side of the deck to the other. Pride noted the lack of comment from Johnny and looked down.

“Johnny,” she shrieked.

Johnny, who had climbed through the rails to peer down at the water, tumbled headfirst off the deck at her cry and splashed down into the water some five feet below.

Pride, panicked, flung a leg over the rail.

“I’ll get him,” Flynn said, blocking her.

Pride, shaking with fright, hung over the rail and searched for Johnny’s blond head beneath the surface of the oil-slicked, dark water. The little boy surfaced, coughing and flailing at the water with his hands.

Flynn leaped over the rail, hung by his hands for a moment until he spotted Johnny surfacing, then dropped lightly into the water beside the child. He lifted Johnny high above the surface and glided easily through the water to the nearby dock.

Pride forgot everything, including the frightened tears that rolled down her cheeks, as she raced across the deck to the boarding ladder. Seconds later, she stood on the dock to receive Johnny when Flynn held him up to her. She collapsed onto the wooden walkway and hauled Johnny, dripping and coughing, into her lap, almost crushing the child in her arms.

Flynn pulled himself onto the dock and knelt beside her while she held Johnny and alternately scolded and hugged the little boy while she cried.

“Take it easy, Pride,” Flynn said. “He just thought he’d see how close he was to the water.”

Pride looked at him through tear-filled eyes and laughed. “He has to learn everything the hard way. You see?” she asked the little boy. “Now you’re all wet, so we’re going to have to go home instead of go sailing.”

Johnny, safe and brave, set up an incoherent protest.

“Don’t be silly,” Flynn said. “It’s a warm day. He’ll be dry in no time. We can take off his clothes and let him run around the boat naked until they dry.”

Pride focused on Flynn. His shirt and trousers clung to him, and water dripped from his heavy, sun-bleached hair. He looked wonderful to Pride, especially after saving her son, so she covered her emotion by joking.

“Is that what you’re going to do?” She tilted her head up to find her cousin. “Get ready for a thrill, Gloria.”

“I’m used to being wet when I sail.” Flynn laughed and looked up at the boat rail, where Gloria and the three dark-headed children had gathered. “Johnny’s fine. Just a little wet. Come on, Johnny. Let me carry you for a little while, okay?”

Johnny regarded Flynn with a serious demeanor but raised no objection to riding in Flynn’s arms. Flynn reached down a hand to help Pride to her feet.

“You’re almost as wet as Johnny,” he observed. “Would you like to take off your clothes and — ”

“Shut up, Flynn Sutherland,” Pride interrupted. “If you hadn’t been so heroic just now, I’d kick your kneecap.”

“Heroic?” Flynn repeated, and laughed. “Oh, Lord. If the others behave like Johnny, I ought to get plenty of opportunities today to show off my gallantry. I’d better change.”

“Do that,” Pride said. “We can hang your clothes off the halyards to dry.”

Gloria, herding the other three children, met them on the dock beside the boat.

“Here’s your errant son,” Flynn said, placing the puzzled Johnny into Gloria’s arms. “He’s wet but wiser, we hope.”

If Flynn had been given to analysis, Pride thought, he might have wondered at the incredulous glance Gloria gave him. Knowing Flynn, he probably interpreted the stare as thankfulness that Johnny was all right.

She shot a grin at Gloria, and Gloria shook her head and rolled her eyes.

Johnny reached for Pride, and Pride thankfully clasped his small, beloved body to her breast.

She pinched his cheek and hissed, “Don’t you ever get near that water again.”

Flynn spoke to a dock official, who regarded Flynn’s waterlogged state with interest.

“Our boat is ready,” Flynn said. “Let’s stop by the car and get our lunch sacks.”

“Don’t tell me you packed a picnic lunch,” Pride said. “I thought I was going to have to cook.”

“Wait till you see what I have in the sacks,” Flynn said mysteriously. “We’ll have a late lunch, once we get out into the Gulf.”

“Is this where I get to see Pride in that cute little harness she described to me?” Gloria asked.

“We’ll see,” Flynn said, grinning. “Come on, Johnny. You’re getting Aunt Pride wetter than she already is.”

Gloria grimaced, but Flynn didn’t notice. He took Johnny from Pride’s arms and Sylvia from Gloria’s and led the way to his Bronco, where two paper sacks sat in the rear. Pride and Gloria each took a sack and followed Flynn to a slip where a fairly large, single-masted sailboat was tied to the dock.

“All ashore who are going ashore,” Flynn declared and instructed the children where to sit.

He went below to put up the sacks then returned with a handful of life jackets, two bottles of sun screen, and two hats. He insisted that everyone present don life jackets, including himself, although Pride knew he usually dispensed with that precaution when sailing by himself. She felt greatly relieved, knowing Flynn was setting an example for the children by wearing a life jacket.

Pride and Gloria rubbed the children down with the lotion and tied hats on themselves. She applied sun screen to her own pale skin and thankfully tied a hat over her hair. The excitement of going on Flynn’s sailboat once more had been so intense, she forgot the precautions against sunburn.

She studied him appreciatively. He had shed his wet clothes and wore only a pair of swimming trunks. His tanned, muscular chest and arms rippled in a way Pride found utterly enticing, although she tried hard not to stare.

Pride sat in the small cockpit beside Gloria and held Johnny in her lap while Flynn, working alone, prepared to hoist the mainsail.

While he worked, he lectured his captive audience on the physics of the wind as interpreted by boat sails. All four pairs of children’s brown eyes followed his every move when he untied the lines holding them to the dock and started the boat motor, which would serve to get them away from the dock and headed away from the wind.

“Any questions?” He cut the motor and hoisted the sail.

Wind filled the mainsail and the sloop leaped forward. Silence reigned. The boat sliced through the water under wind power, silent and smooth.

“I’m so glad you asked, Eric.” Flynn smiled at the silent, big-eyed little boy. “The jib is the sail we’re going to hoist next. Come over here, and you can help me hoist the jib.”

“Me,” Johnny shouted, and struggled off Pride’s lap.

At that, all four children shouted for a turn and gathered around for Flynn’s lesson in jib-hoisting. They listened avidly as he described the aerodynamic effects of the two sail-design.

“I can’t believe you’re going to trade all this for a motor yacht,” Pride called.

“Nothing doing,” Flynn said. “I’m hoping to form a two-boat family. Hold this rope, boys. You two girls hold this rope.”

Flynn did most of the work, but the four children had a wonderful time thinking their efforts had hoisted the working jib, especially when the boat responded with a noticeable increase in forward speed.

“Now, everyone sit back and let the skipper take over,” Flynn said.

Flynn enjoyed teaching the children, Pride saw. The thorough wetting hadn’t affected him in the least.

She watched her son. The warm sun had already partially dried his clothes. In another half-hour, he wouldn’t show the effects of the dunking at all. He wouldn’t even catch a cold, knowing Johnny. He was a wonderfully healthy little boy.

“I wouldn’t believe this if I weren’t seeing it for myself,” Gloria said, in low tones. “No one but a mother has hysterics when her kid falls in the water.”

“Maybe he thinks you’re burned out,” Pride said, grinning. “Four of them would probably do that to a woman.”

“Sure. Just wait till Tracy or Eric, or, God forbid, Sylvia, goes overboard. Then he’ll see hysterics.”

“Okay, kids,” Flynn said. “Come here and sit down. This is where we let the wind take us out.”

Flynn joined the two women, keeping his hand on the wheel as they sailed briskly out of the yacht basin toward the open Gulf of Mexico. The children followed, fascinated by the boats they passed. Flynn lectured them about the differences between fishing yachts, luxury trawlers, ketches, sloops, and cutters.

The further out into the Gulf they went, the bolder the children grew. Soon they ventured around the deck and fought over whose turn it was to handle the wheel.

“It’s my turn.” Flynn effectively ended the small battle. “We’re about to heave to and eat lunch. Who wants to help me lower the sails and set the anchor?”

“With that many helpers, it’s a wonder the poor man can do anything,” Gloria commented.

“This can’t go on any longer,” Pride said, in a low voice. “He’s taking me to dinner tonight. I’m going to tell him then.”

“The sooner, the better. I hate to say this, Pride, but I’m just about at the point where I’m going to deny publicly that Johnny is my son.”

“I can understand why.” Pride laughed. “Not many mothers would care to claim him after he’d ruined a pair of white shoes with black shoe polish.”

Flynn lowered the sails and set the anchor, then hustled everyone below into the boat’s tiny cabin. He had stopped at a take-out delicatessen and picked up a variety of sandwiches and desserts, which he set out on the dinette on paper plates.

Gloria professed herself fascinated by the small galley, and the harness the cook had to wear when the boat was under sail. Even the single berth in the forward area of the small cabin caught her interest.

Pride turned away, unable to remain in the cabin another minute. That berth was where Flynn often made love to her, and she would always remember everything that had happened there.

She glanced surreptitiously at Flynn, discovered his gaze upon her, and knew he remembered, also.

She grabbed a tuna sandwich and hastened back on deck.

“What’s wrong, Pride?”

Flynn joined her, at the side of the boat. She hung her legs over the edge and kept her back to him, but he sat down beside her and hung his legs over beside hers.

“Nothing’s wrong. It’s such a beautiful day, I thought I’d come up here and enjoy it.”

“You never did like the dark cabin on this boat, did you?” Flynn gave her a sympathetic smile. “You’ll like the new boat a lot better.”

“I thought you hadn’t bought it yet.”

“I’m afraid I’m guilty of thinking it’s already mine. I’ve even picked a new name for it.”

“Take care it doesn’t get sold to someone else,” Pride recommended.

Flynn reached absently into his pocket, fished out his watch, and reclasped it on his tanned forearm. It looked so dear and familiar Pride had to turn her face away.

“Are you sure you want to wear that?” she asked. “Johnny is sure to see it.”

“He hasn’t forgotten his desire to taste the nautical flags?”

“His memory is worse than an elephant’s,” Pride said, in solemn tones.

“I’ll take it off if he notices it,” Flynn said, smiling. “I want to keep tabs on how long we’ve been out.”

She stared out over the gray-green Gulf waters. The afternoon sun was warm on her skin, in spite of the sun screen she’d applied liberally, and she turned her face up to it.

“Are you making your freckles bloom?” Flynn asked. “Good. I’ve really missed those freckles.”

Three dolphins broke water nearby and leaped along. Smiling, Pride pointed toward them.

“Pride,” Flynn said.

She automatically turned her face toward him.

The next instant, he took her in his arms. He used one hand to tilt her chin up and the other to lock her against him while his lips took hers in a hot, hard kiss.

Startled, Pride gasped. The moment she parted her lips, his tongue entered her mouth and stroked hers. The steady, salty wind blew his hair into her face, and the scent of his favorite citrus aftershave still clung to him in spite of his unplanned swim.

Every one of Pride’s five senses came awake to the fact that the man holding her so tightly was Flynn, whom the very marrow of her bones had once responded to.

And still did, she admitted to herself, in spite of everything. She trembled, and her arms went around his neck.

Flynn felt her acceptance. He brought her body even closer to his and deepened the kiss. Gasping for breath, Pride responded with everything inside her. Her fingernails dug into his back, and her breasts flattened against his chest. If she could have melted into him, she would have done it.

“Flynn’s,” an aggrieved, childish voice exclaimed.

Pride started and broke the kiss to peer over her shoulder. Johnny stood about three feet from them, lower lip protruding, clearly unable to decide between hitting Flynn with his upraised fist or latching onto the coveted mariner’s watch. His mouth and chin were smeared with chocolate.

“He isn’t hurting me, darling.” Pride held out her hand to the child, although Flynn still retained her in his embrace. “Come give me a kiss.”

Johnny glared suspiciously at Flynn.

“He’s very protective of you, isn’t he?” Flynn said, grinning. “I don’t think I’d better turn my back on him.”

“Johnny, come here, darling. You don’t want Flynn to think you’re mad at him, do you? When he’s been nice enough to bring you sailing on his boat?” She moved, with slow, deliberate motions, out of Flynn’s arms.