Sutherland’s Pride (12 page)

Johnny rushed to her and buried his face against her shoulder. Pride put her arm around him and kissed him. From this protected position, Johnny peeped at Flynn, who smiled at him.

Johnny jerked his face back into Pride’s shoulder. She patted his back gently and whispered in his ear.

“Why don’t you give Flynn a kiss, darling?”

Johnny considered. He peeped once more at Flynn.

“Go ahead,” his mother prompted.

Flynn watched, interested, and Pride grinned wickedly at him. She had no idea how Flynn felt about receiving kisses from a child who had been indulging in what looked like chocolate pie, but as far as she was concerned, he had a right to kisses from his own son.

Johnny relented at last. He took his face from Pride’s shoulder, walked a few steps to Flynn’s side, and put his small arms up.

Flynn leaned down gravely, and Johnny put his arms around Flynn’s neck and planted his sticky mouth on his father’s cheek.

“Thank you, Johnny,” Flynn said. “You’re quite a man, aren’t you?”

“Man,” Johnny said, pointing at Flynn.

“That’s right, and so will you be one day.”

“Flynn’s,” Johnny said, and grabbed for Flynn’s wrist.

“You said it,” Pride informed the child. “It’s Flynn’s, not yours. Get your grubby little paws off it. Flynn doesn’t want chocolate pie all over his arm. Let’s go below and wash your hands and face.”

Johnny planted his feet and protested, but Pride prevailed. She swung him up and tucked him beneath her arm. His protests served only to make his mother more determined to restore him to pristine condition.

Gloria supervised her brood at the dinette. “It’s amazing how well space has been utilized. Everything you need is in this single, tiny space.”

“I used to get claustrophobic at times.” Pride scrubbed at Johnny’s face and hands at the deep sink. “Teak interiors are beautiful but dark. I spent every minute I could on deck.”

“You’re going to love my new boat,” Flynn said.

Pride glanced up, surprised. Flynn stood in the companionway smiling at her, although the lines around his mouth showed white and something about his expression betrayed tension, as if he had just received a serious shock.

“Come back on deck,” Flynn said. “Deck is the only place to be on a sailboat.”

The next instant, he looked completely normal again, and Pride decided she had been mistaken.

“This boat was designed for dedicated sailors like Flynn,” Pride told Gloria, as they followed the children on deck. “The cabin exists to sleep and cook in. Otherwise, you stay on deck.”

“I can see why you loved it.” Gloria looked out over the Gulf. “I’d love to be out here alone with Eddie.”

“No, you wouldn’t,” Pride said, laughing.

“Well, maybe for — Tracy, get away from that rail — one day. It would give us time and incentive to work on another little Boudreaux.”

Pride laughed and glanced around the deck. Johnny followed Flynn to the stern and appeared to be reviewing his arguments for obtaining Flynn’s watch. Tracy explored the port side of the boat. Eric and Sylvia explored the starboard side.

“Let’s get somewhere in the middle where we can keep an eye on them all,” Gloria suggested. “If I know Eric, we should have a man overboard any time now.”

“Johnny will beat him to it,” Pride predicted.

But the first person overboard wasn’t either of the two boys. Little Sylvia, as fascinated by the water as Johnny had been, crawled to the edge of the deck to look down at it. While her mother’s eye was to port, she slipped beneath the deck rail for a closer look and tumbled into the Gulf.

Eric gave an incoherent shout. Pride jerked her head around and noted at once the direction of the little boy’s gaze.

“Flynn,” she called.

“Sylvia.” Gloria screamed and rushed toward the rail. She tripped over a pile of rope and sprawled out on the deck with a heavy gasp.

Flynn raced toward them. “Help Gloria. I’ll get the baby.”

Before he reached the rail, Eric leaned over to try and reach his sister. He tumbled headfirst into the water beside her.

Gloria screamed again, despite her winded state, and struggled to her feet with Pride’s aid.

“Don’t worry. Flynn will get them,” Pride said.

Flynn vaulted over the rail and disappeared.

Tracy and Johnny, attracted by the shouts, ran to join them at the rail.

Johnny saw his two cousins in the water having what looked like fun. He dove beneath the rail and splashed down beside Flynn, shouting, “Flynn’s.”

“Tracy,” Gloria yelled. She grabbed the little girl and dragged her back from the rail. “He’ll never save them all.”

“Yes, he will.” Pride spoke in a deliberately calm voice. “Don’t forget, they’re wearing life jackets.”

Tears poured down Gloria’s face, but what Pride said came true. Flynn, taking his time, gathered the three children into the circle of his arms while they bobbed in the water around him.

The children loved it. The unplanned dunking turned into an opportunity to swim and play in the water, and they made full use of it.

“Take her, Pride.” Flynn held up Sylvia.

Gloria almost went over the rail herself reaching for her daughter.

“Here’s Johnny,” Flynn said, in imitation of the announcer on the old Johnny Carson show.

Pride reached down and snagged her son. She hauled him, dripping and unrepentant, onto the deck beside her.

“I’ll take Eric around to the stern and climb the ladder,” Flynn said.

Pride agreed and proceeded to scold Johnny thoroughly, not that she expected him to listen. Johnny had enjoyed his impromptu swim.

Smiling, she carried Johnny to the stern and reached out a hand to help pull Flynn aboard. This time, she hadn’t even worried when the children went overboard. She knew Flynn would rescue them.

Gloria, clutching Sylvia beneath one arm and towing Tracy, rushed up. She seized Eric, scolded him, and applied the palm of her hand to his bottom several times.

“That’s what you need,” Pride told Johnny. “If you even go near that rail again, you’re going to get it.”

“They were enjoying themselves down there,” Flynn said, smiling at the still-distraught Gloria.

“I’m sure they were,” Gloria said. “I knew I’d be totally unnerved if one of them went overboard. I don’t care what Pride says about life jackets.”

“I’m a great savior of overboard children,” Flynn protested, although the white look appeared around his mouth once more. “Pride prepared me ahead of time. So far, the only one I have yet to save is Tracy. Would you like to hop overboard and let me rescue you, sweetheart?”

“Absolutely not.” Gloria maintained her clutch on Tracy’s shoulder. “My nerves have had it.”

Tracy giggled and hid her face against her mother’s leg.

“In fact, I’m thinking seriously about locking them all in the cabin,” Gloria said.

“Don’t be mean, Gloria,” Pride said, grinning. “You’re robbing Flynn of his chance to be a hero.”

“Sorry, Flynn,” Gloria said. “If I weren’t so upset, I’d kiss you. You have singlehandedly restored two of my most precious possessions to me, but, if it’s all the same to you, I’d rather not put you to any more trouble.”

“She means, ‘Let’s go the heck home,’” Pride interpreted.

Flynn smiled at the slender, dark-headed woman. “Your wish is my command. I’m sorry about this, Gloria. I should have been helping you watch them.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” Pride said. “I warned you about this when you offered to take us out.”

“So you did,” Flynn said. “All right, crew. Let’s get to work hauling in the anchor and hoisting the sails.”

Pride, watching him, noted the faint frown that marred the smoothness of his brow. Added to the pinched, white look around his mouth, Flynn looked as if he had received a severe shock.

Perhaps he had finally put two and two together without reaching his usual five.

On the other hand, maybe it just meant he was pondering a problem presented by his sails.

• • •

Flynn focused his mind on hoisting his sails to catch the wind in the direction he wanted to go and tried to ignore the thoughts that bombarded his brain.

In spite of himself, he compared Gloria’s reaction when Sylvia fell overboard with Pride’s reaction when Johnny fell overboard at the marina. He also recollected that Gloria had thanked him for rescuing two of her most precious possessions, not three.

It couldn’t be, he told himself. Surely Pride would have said something.

A vision of the four children as he had first seen them lined up on his office sofa arose in his mind. Two brown-eyed, dark-headed little girls, one brown-eyed, dark-headed little boy, and one small brown-eyed, blond boy.

It wasn’t possible.

But during the ride back to the marina, he found himself unable to think coherently on the subject at all. His mind turned in circles, racing between hope to denial. But he would say nothing if it killed him. He was through speaking before he thought and saying things that hurt Pride.

He breathed deeply. Pride went to his head the way she always had, and he could hardly wait until the evening when he could kiss her again.

He felt starved for her kisses. He’d been starving for three years, and he hadn’t even known it.Tonight, he thought. Tonight he would take Pride someplace quiet where they could talk. Then he would ask his questions.

He looked at Johnny, asleep in Pride’s arms, and refused to let himself hope.

Just because Johnny had blond hair … Just because Pride treated the little boy like she would her own son … .

It couldn’t be true.

But somehow, he knew it was.

Flynn did not know how he managed to dock his sloop and tie up to the dock. He knew the motions in his sleep, he supposed, because he certainly felt like a sleepwalker, especially when he looked at Pride.

She smiled at him and got slowly to her feet, careful not to jostle the sleeping child in her arms, and walked toward him so he could help her step from the boat onto the dock.

He feasted his eyes on the picture she made, with Johnny snuggled against her breast and his face buried in her blouse. If it turned out not to be true, he wondered if he could live with the disappointment. He took Pride’s hand and tried to look as if he had not just had the wind literally knocked out of him.

He found he couldn’t end the day just yet.

“Let’s stop in at the café for something to drink,” he suggested. “You and Gloria could use a good cup of coffee to drive home on.”

“And how.” Gloria, herding Eric and Tracy and carrying Sylvia, gave him her hand and stepped onto the dock beside Pride while he lifted the two children off the boat and set them on the dock beside her. “I’ll need two cups if I’m to drive back.”

Pride smiled at her cousin. “Sailing and salt air are the two greatest soporifics known to man. We’ll sleep well tonight.”

Flynn led the way and held the door of the café open for them. When he had them settled at a table and drinks ordered, he wondered if he could let Pride leave. Sitting across from her, he could hardly take his eyes off her and Johnny, even though all he could see of Johnny was the back of his blond head.

“There you are,” a familiar voice said from behind him. “I hoped to catch you when you docked, but we ran into traffic.”

Flynn started and turned. “Dad? What are you doing here?”

Morgan and Bettricia Sutherland came toward them, casually dressed as befitted an afternoon at the marina. Bettricia wore a flowered sundress and white sandals, and Morgan sported a green polo shirt and plaid trousers.

“We came to invite Pride and her cousin to have coffee with us, of course,” Morgan said. “If she won’t come to us, then naturally, we will have to come to her.”

“We hope we’re not intruding.” Bettricia looked at Pride with a kind of hopeful anxiety. “But we didn’t want to miss the chance to visit with you.”

Pride smiled at them, a genuine smile of welcome and liking. “That’s very flattering, but it wasn’t at all necessary. I intended to pay you a visit sometime in the next few days.”

Flynn refused to let himself ponder the implications of that statement. He rose at once and drew up a chair to seat his mother, then introduced Gloria and the two older children.

“Gloria is holding little Sylvia, and Pride is holding Johnny,” he finished, indicating the back of the little boy’s dark blond head.

And his mother smiled and said, “His hair is exactly the color of yours when you were little, Flynn.”

Morgan studied the child in Pride’s arms. “So it is. Your children are beautiful and extraordinarily well-behaved,” he said to Gloria, and seated himself beside her. “You must be very proud of them.”

Gloria thanked him. “They’re well-behaved because they’re tired, and two of them are asleep. But we expect mayhem shortly when we get back on the road.”

Then the moment Flynn both dreaded and anticipated arrived. Johnny stirred in Pride’s arms, then jumped awake in the manner of active little boys. He sat up and turned to take in the new arrivals, and Pride turned him to sit in her lap.

Johnny’s wide-eyed brown gaze fell on Morgan’s left wrist. The big, diamond-encrusted Rolex watch his wife and son had given him for Christmas one year shot off sparkling shards of multicolored light in the afternoon sunlight.

“Flynn’s,” Johnny squealed, and launched himself across the table like a bottle rocket.

Pride caught him, but the table rocked dangerously and the various liquids splashed in all directions.

Bettricia Sutherland sat frozen. Not even the contents of Pride’s cup of coffee liberally splashing her flowered frock distracted her attention. Then she quietly closed her eyes with a faint keening sound and slumped back in a dead faint.

Morgan Sutherland also sat in stunned silence and stared at Johnny’s face. “You didn’t have a miscarriage.”

“I never said I did.” Pride cast Flynn a defiant glance. “Johnny, sit still. Just look at this mess you’ve made.”

“Flynn’s,” Johnny wailed, stretching out his little hands toward Morgan’s left arm.

“It doesn’t belong to you, and you can’t have it,” Pride said. “Excuse me, please. Johnny and I need to have a little talk in private.”