Sutherland’s Pride by Kathryn Brocato

us.”
    “Gloria is being tactful, I think,” Flynn said.
    “Is that so? I’d better go find her. There may be a child overboard.”
    “Sit still, Pride.” Flynn tugged her hair. “I want to talk to you.” He kept a hand in her hair, and lightly massaged her neck as he tried to get her to meet his gaze. “I wanted to apologize for hurting you the way I did three years ago.”
    “Thank you.” She closed her eyes, unable to meet his steady gaze. “I accept your apology.”
    “I was so hurt, I never thought about you and your feelings the way I should have. I’m truly sorry, Pride. I see now that you were hurt far worse than I thought I was.”
    He massaged her scalp gently in a vain attempt to turn her face toward him. Pride found the gentle touch as seductive as his voice and fought to keep her attention on Johnny.
    “If you believed I was two-timing you, then naturally you wouldn’t think about my feelings,” she said.
    “I cared about you. Common decency should have led me to check on you. You might have needed someone.”
    Pride stared down at dark blue pile carpet. It had taken weeks to overcome her hurt, to accept the situation with grace and humor, and to become capable of planning for the future.
    “I wasn’t in any danger of giving in to despair,” she said, “but thank you for the thought.”
    His hand tightened in her hair, and he tilted her head around to face him.
    “I hurt you a lot worse than I thought,” he said, in grim tones. “Were you counting on me that much?”
    He probably meant that she had counted on him to rescue her from her own folly in sleeping with another man who couldn’t, or wouldn’t, take care of her, she realized.
    She answered him truthfully. “I suppose I must have. A young woman often has the idea that somewhere she’ll find a man who’s willing to shoulder all her burdens and straighten out all her problems.” She gave him a genuine smile. “It takes a few years for her to learn that she really has no one she can count on except herself. But we still go on taking chances. Otherwise, there would be no children with two parents to rear them.”
    Flynn watched her, eyes narrowed. “If it’s any comfort to you, I’ve often wished I’d gone ahead and married you anyway.”
    “It’s a good thing you didn’t. My life would have been miserable, and so would yours.” Unable to face him another minute, Pride broke loose from his light grip on her hair, leaving several long, blond strands clasped between his fingers, and stood. “If I had a miscarriage, you’d feel trapped and angry. If I had the baby, you snipe at me for the remainder of our lives together, no matter how much like you the child looked. No, Flynn, your ditching me was the best thing that ever happened to the both of us.”
    She whirled and headed toward the companionway, reminding herself that Flynn might yet turn out to be a carbon copy of her father.
    Flynn grabbed her arm and jerked her back. “Dammit, Pride, I am not your father.”
    “No, but in that situation, who’s to say you wouldn’t behave exactly like him? My father didn’t even have the extra bonus of thinking he was sterile.”
    She fought him, but Flynn held onto her. He pulled her into his arms and stared into her furious green eyes.
    “Let go of me, Flynn.” Her voice shook.
    “I don’t think so.” He shook her lightly. “Pride, I — hey.”
    Pride followed Flynn’s startled movement and looked down.
    Johnny, his brown eyes filled with tears, glared up at Flynn with his upraised fist ready to strike again at Flynn’s leg. His lower lip quivered with hurt.
    She forgot her anger and knelt, holding out her arms. It was criminal of her to forget Johnny’s presence like this.
    Johnny flung his small body into her embrace, and Pride clasped him to her, murmuring softly in his ear. “Everything is all right, darling. Flynn and I were just talking.”
    Johnny gave a mighty sniff and burrowed his face into her