Sutherland’s Pride Read Free Page B

wadded Flynn’s handkerchief and dried her nose. Thanks to Flynn, the whole world smelled like coffee.
    “You can either take it off and put it in your drawer or you can let him play with it while we’re here,” Pride informed Flynn. “Otherwise, you won’t get a bit of business transacted.”
    “Give him my watch?” Flynn regarded Johnny doubtfully.
    Johnny bounced up and down on the edge of the sofa with both hands outstretched, clearly a child whose life would be forever blighted if he didn’t instantly receive the object of his desire. For once, Pride enjoyed the stubborn streak that would keep her son’s mind fixed on Flynn’s watch until he got it.
    “Mine,” he cried. “Mine.”
    “No, Johnny, it is not yours,” Pride said. “It belongs to Flynn. What have I told you about things that aren’t yours?”
    “Mine,” Johnny reiterated tearfully.
    “Do you want me to take you outside and explain the matter further?” Pride asked, in a mother’s rhetorical manner.
    Johnny appeared likely to expire of a broken heart at any moment.
    “What have you done to him, boss?” Killeen Ross entered and set a tray on Flynn’s desk. “I didn’t know you went in for torturing innocent little kids.”
    “It’s the other way around,” Flynn said, over Johnny’s wails.
    “He got a glimpse of a forbidden treat,” Pride said, tongue-in-cheek. “We’re lucky the others weren’t sitting where they could see it.”
    Flynn glanced at his own wrist. “Why my watch?”
    “See all those pretty little flags on the face? Kids love telling time by reading nautical flags.”
    “He can read nautical flags?”
    “It’s in his blood,” Pride said, straight-faced. “Come on, Flynn. Give.”
    “Mine,” Johnny wailed.
    “Flynn’s,” Pride corrected.
    “Flynn’s,” Johnny pleaded.
    “How old is he?” Flynn looked toward Gloria.
    Gloria made a sound indicative of someone choking to death.
    “He can’t be more than two.” Killeen handed out glasses of soft drink.
    “He was two years old on March twelfth,” Pride said. “Un-wrist that watch, Flynn, or we’ll be here all day.” Flynn unclasped the watch, removed it from his wrist, and brought it to Johnny. Johnny’s small fingers closed around it like the arms of a starfish around an oyster.
    “Johnny, what do you say?” Pride asked.
    “Flynn’s.”
    “What do you say to Flynn?”
    Johnny looked up at Flynn and said in a clear, childish voice, “Thank you.”
    “You’re welcome,” Flynn said.
    Killeen Ross, covering her mouth with her hand, exchanged gleeful glances with Pride and backed out of the office.
    Johnny got busy trying to pry the crystal off the watch so he could get to the brightly colored nautical flags on the face of the watch.
    “Now, Flynn,” Pride said, grinning. “Tell us all about our trip to Bermuda.”
    Flynn watched Johnny a moment then lifted his gaze to her. “Why didn’t you get in touch with your father before he died?”
    “What makes you think I didn’t?” Pride asked.
    “He told me as much. When I received your father’s request to handle his estate, he was in the hospital in bad shape. Before I could get there the next morning, he died.”
    “That’s too bad,” Pride said. “Obviously, he was about to make an Interesting Revelation.”
    “Don’t be flippant.” Flynn regarded her, frowning. “You’ve never been close to your father, have you?”
    She had never told Flynn any of her troubles with her father on the grounds that people who detailed their innermost pain to other human beings were deadly bores.
    “That’s probably the understatement of the year,” she replied. “He has always believed I’m not his real daughter.”
    Flynn’s brown eyes went wide. He stared at her a moment in astonished silence.
    “He never gave my mother a moment’s peace, and he was rude and disrespectful to her in public,” Pride went on. “No, I was not close to him. To tell you the truth, I didn’t like