Sutherland’s Pride (16 page)

“We already know who sent them.” She opened the small envelope enclosed in the box and read aloud a date. “That was almost two years ago. What on earth do you think it means?”

She opened the five other cards Gloria brought her. Each one bore the same date, but no signature.

Gloria shrugged and shook her head. “You were staying with us then, and Johnny was only a few weeks old, so it can’t be an anniversary between the two of you. Can you recall anything important from that period of time?”

“Other than my miserable battle to breastfeed Johnny? At that time, I was one of the living dead, so my memory isn’t the best.”

“Think about it,” Gloria said. “In the meantime, Flynn awaits.”

“Oh, no.” Pride raced for the shower.

She thought on the date during the drive to Houston. Beside her, Johnny chattered about the upcoming delights at the zoo, and Pride wondered what on earth she missed. That date must commemorate something.

She still hadn’t remembered anything when she pushed open the door to Flynn’s office and smiled at Killeen Ross, who grinned back. Her portentous expression reminded Pride of Gloria’s expression earlier that morning.

“Come in, Miss Donovan,” Killeen said. “He’s expecting you. Go right on in. Hello, young man. I hear you’re going to the zoo this afternoon.”

“Zoo,” Johnny agreed. “Monkeys. Tigers.”

“That’s right. You can tell me all about it when you get back.” Killeen stood and opened the door for Pride to pass into the office.

Pride stepped inside and wondered if she’d come to the right place. Six trays of diamond rings, mixed with emeralds, sapphires, and pearls, sat on Flynn’s desk. The jewels caught the light and reflected it back in rainbows of sparkling, shimmering color.

“Pretty,” Johnny exclaimed and struggled to get to the desk.

“Come in, Pride.” Flynn stepped forward to take Johnny from her arms. “Step right up and take your pick.”

Pride stared at him, even as she noticed the three other men in the room, two wearing the uniforms of various security firms. Flynn wore a tan jacket over a plaid shirt and a pair of khaki trousers, which seemed incongruous among all the uniforms and the dark suit of the third man, who regarded the jewels in a proprietary fashion.

“What?” she asked, in blank astonishment.

“I’m showering you with diamonds,” Flynn said in grave tones. “You get to pick and choose the one, or ones, you want.”

“Showering me with — ”

She broke off, eyes widening. At last she recalled the significance of the date and the roses. On that date, she had struggled to breastfeed a colicky baby who cried all night, while writing a weekly “Single Mommy” column. She’d been so exhausted and so frustrated that she tackled the subject of what she’d do if her ex-lover suddenly appeared on her doorstep, wanting her to take him back.

Pride turned to stare at Flynn. She wrote that first, before she would so much as listen to him, he would have to shower her with roses and diamonds. Then he’d have to beg her on bended knee, in the proper fashion, to give him another chance.

Of course, the column had been tongue-in-cheek, and her readers understood that, although they agreed wholeheartedly with the sentiments expressed. But Flynn couldn’t possibly have been reading Tracy Eric all this time … could he? He didn’t even know she wrote the Tracy Eric column.

She sighed. Killeen read the column faithfully, and she might have showed Flynn a column that contained something Flynn would recognize. Flynn had probably recognized her writing style.

Obviously, he had done some fast reading. She glanced at him. He kissed Johnny’s cheek while his brown eyes followed her.

“If you dare try the bended-knee bit on me, Flynn Sutherland,” she said, “I won’t be responsible for my actions.”

Flynn bounced Johnny in his arms to keep him from leaping onto the trays of sparkling diamonds and laughed.

“Hush up and choose, Pride,” he said. “Or does showering you with diamonds mean you want all of them?”

“Neither. Send them back.”

“Not until you choose something. Get over here, woman. These men are busy.”

Pride glanced at the three men. All three hid smiles.

“They’re enjoying the break from routine,” she said. “It isn’t every day they get to see a woman brain a man with a sheaf of roses and a tray of diamonds.”

“Flynn’s,” Johnny squealed and pounced on Flynn’s wrist.

Flynn caught the child and tucked him under one arm while he removed his mariner’s watch. “Sorry. I forgot about my watch. You guys didn’t happen to bring a selection of watches, did you?”

Johnny registered a loud complaint about Flynn’s bare wrist and twisted to eye the trays on Flynn’s desk with lustful brown eyes.

Under the cover of this by-play, Pride advanced on the desk and bent over the trays. Who wouldn’t be fascinated by the display of multi-colored, sparkling gems? She found them all spectacular.

“Try this one,” Flynn tapped a glittering emerald.

Pride couldn’t resist. She took out the emerald and slipped it on her finger.

“Wrong hand,” Flynn said. “It goes on the left hand.”

“It’s too big.” Pride removed the ring, surprised at her own reluctance to part with it.

“It can be sized. Do you like it?”

“Like it? Who wouldn’t like it?”

She studied the tray and selected another ring like a person in a dream then tried on several more rings. She reached for the emerald again. The square-cut stone surrounded by diamonds sparked with shafts of multi-colored light, yet didn’t overwhelm her hand. She loved it.

“I thought so.” Flynn looked satisfied. “With your eyes, emeralds are perfect.”

“Jewels like these don’t go properly with my outfit.”

She wore a pair of dark blue slacks and a middy blouse, probably in honor of Flynn’s nautical leanings. Emeralds called for a slinky white dress. A dress, period.

“We’ll take this one.” Flynn held up the emerald. “Size it to this size.” He held out another ring that had fit her third finger perfectly.

“Flynn, I forbid you to buy that ring,” Pride said.

“Hush, Pride. You don’t want to air our dirty linen in public, do you?” He dropped both rings into one of the suited man’s hands.

The man slipped the two rings into an envelope and stowed it inside his jacket. Then the men packed all the trays into a box and left the office.

“Flynn, don’t you dare buy that ring.”

“I’m fulfilling all your conditions,” Flynn said. “Therefore, you have to listen and come back to me.”

“That was journalism,” Pride informed him. “Tracy Eric has her act together. Pride is still in a state of uproar.”

“So is your ‘ex-lover,’” Flynn said. “For your information, as far as I’m concerned, I’m still your lover.”

Pride blinked at him, still bemused by the trays of diamonds and Flynn’s evident intention of buying her a ring, whether she accepted it or not.

“Have you been involved with anyone since you left Houston three years ago?” he asked.

“No, I have not.” Pride frowned at him. “As you can see, I haven’t had time.” She indicated Johnny.

Flynn set Johnny’s small feet on the thick carpet, and Johnny took off at once for a colorful globe that sat on a stand in the corner of the room.

“Sit down, Pride. Before you sign the papers concerning your father’s property, I’d like to talk to you a moment about us.”

“There is no us,” Pride insisted, but she followed Flynn to the sofa where she’d sat with Gloria and the children only two days ago.

“There is still quite a lot between us, whether you want to admit it or not.” Flynn sat down beside her.

Pride watched Johnny spin the globe while she reminded herself that Johnny was the only thing between them now.

“I want to be a father to my son,” Flynn said. “I want to be with him as much as I can.”

Pride respected that. “You might as well know I’m thinking about moving back to Houston. Most of my contacts are here, and the freelance market is definitely bigger — ”

“That isn’t what I meant. I want to live in the same house with Johnny. I want to help you put him to bed at night, and hear his prayers, and teach him to pitch a baseball.”

“You’ll have plenty of opportunity for all those things.”

“Not if I live a mile or two across town from him. Pride — ”

“I’m not ready to discuss this any further today, Flynn.” She doubted she’d ever be ready to discuss it. “Johnny’s going to get impatient before long.”

Flynn made a sound of frustration. “We had something good together, once. As far as I’m concerned, we still do. Don’t you think we could have something even better if we both tried?”

She closed her eyes and turned her face away. “I don’t know, Flynn. Sexual attraction is very different from what’s needed to make a successful marriage, if that’s what you have in mind.”

“You know very well it is.” Flynn smiled at her. “Are you saying you still feel sexually attracted to me? Well, that’s something.”

Confused, Pride flushed and kept her face turned away. It was harder than she’d dreamed to sit beside the man she still loved with all her heart and pretend she felt only bare hints of the powerful physical and emotional attraction that she once hadn’t bothered to hide.

Because he still attracted her in all the old ways, and in a new and even more meaningful way. It had to do with how he looked at Johnny, she realized. Flynn wanted them to be a family. She considered it a step in the right direction.

Or the wrong direction if there remained no love between them. She had to be very careful, or she would find herself in the same situation as her mother.

She saw Flynn watching her and swallowed hard.

He took her hand and rose, pulling her up with him. “Let’s take our son to the zoo before he figures out how to take that globe apart and eat it.”

Johnny had a ball at the zoo. Pride walked beside Flynn and kept a close eye on Johnny as he toddled ahead of them on the walks. She noted the way Flynn kept his hand at her waist in his old, protective manner. The very warmth of his hand sent a thrill over her entire body.

Later, they sat together on a bench beneath a tree and rested. Johnny climbed into Flynn’s lap and laid his head on Flynn’s chest. Flynn draped his other arm over the back of the bench behind Pride and stretched out his legs.

“Enjoying yourself?” he asked.

“I’m having a wonderful time,” Pride said in all honesty.

“It could be like this all the time.” After a moment, he indicated the child’s head beneath his chin. “Did you breastfeed Johnny?”

Pride cast her mind back frantically to the Tracy Eric columns from that era of her life. Yes, there had been one on breastfeeding. It had been a doozey, thanks to her experiences during that time.

“Why don’t you read Tracy Eric and find out?” she asked.

“I have, thank you. Tracy Eric has a way of drawing together both her experiences and other people’s. I’m interested in your experience — what really happened. Once you get going on paper, something else takes over.”

“Are you saying I get possessed by an evil spirit?” she teased, lifting her brows.

Flynn chuckled and kissed Johnny’s forehead. “Actually, the Pride who writes intimidates me. I can’t sift through your deathless prose and distinguish between what you really felt at the time and the relationships you saw days later, after you had time to think about it and pull everything together.”

Pride quivered with pleasure. Then she caught herself. Flynn could easily seduce her with appreciation — the praise she had never gotten from her father.

“The relationships are the reason editors buy my stuff,” she pointed out.

“Well, I’m not an editor. All I want is honest answers to my questions. I have three years of your life and two of Johnny’s to catch up on.”

“It wasn’t very interesting,” Pride muttered. “I wrote and Johnny grew.”

“Your column on the womanly art of breastfeeding gave me a whole, new concept of child-rearing. Did you succeed?”

“I tried.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means I couldn’t. I didn’t produce enough milk, and Johnny fretted constantly until I started supplementing the breastfeedings with a bottle.”

“You must have been exhausted.” Flynn studied her.

She kept her gaze forward and made no comment. That particular era of her life wasn’t one she cared to remember.

“It must have been rough,” he observed. “Trying to earn a living and care for a colicky baby by yourself — ”

“I wasn’t by myself,” she interjected. “I had the benefit of Gloria’s experience.”

“I wish you had called me then. What you probably needed was rest and care.” Flynn touched her face with his fingertips. “Pride … ”

“Better change the subject, Flynn. You’re in over your head when it comes to the womanly art of breastfeeding.”

“I’ve been in over my head ever since I saw you again.” He smiled. “You were exhausted, weren’t you?”

She might as well tell him. “Yes, I was, if you want to know. Johnny cried all night for weeks, and I was at my wits’ end. If it hadn’t been for Gloria telling me to quit listening to the doctor and start bottle-feeding the baby, I’d have probably gone berserk.”

Flynn thought on this a moment. “Are you saying Johnny was crying because he wasn’t getting enough to eat?”

“That’s the logical conclusion.” Pride pinpointed a male cardinal in the tree over their heads and focused all her attention on it. “At any rate, the day I listened to Gloria, I had the first uninterrupted night’s sleep I’d had in a long time. It was wonderful.”

Flynn stared at her. Cradling Johnny in one arm, he drew Pride closer with the other and kissed her temple.

“Those days are over,” he said. “From now on, I’ll always be there to help you.”

The words were a vow, and Pride registered them in her heart as well as her mind, even while she reminded herself that vows were often made to be broken.

People passed by in a constant stream. One older couple paused to smile on them and to admire the sleepy little boy lying across Flynn’s chest.

“What a lovely child,” the elderly woman said. “He looks exactly like his daddy.”