Anne McAllister - One-Night Love-Child

None of it made sense to Sara.

The Flynn she’d known went to New York and Hollywood and Cannes, not Africa. And even if he had gone there, prime ministers were hardly the sorts of celebrities he wrote about. He wrote features about starlets and rock stars, actors like her stepdad and, at a stretch, soccer stars and tennis pros.

But she didn’t have a chance to ask anything else.

She hadn’t heard the back door open, hadn’t heard the footsteps pound across the kitchen floor, hadn’t heard anything until the door into the living room and dining room flew open.

And Liam burst into the room.

DEAR God, the boy was Will all over again.

And the sight of him would have sent Flynn reeling if kissing Sara hadn’t already done so.

She’d given him a shove, of course, and, with his bad leg, that had been enough to send him off balance literally. But emotionally just the sight of her had already rocked him. And the kiss, well…Flynn had kissed his share of women over the years, but none of them had been like kissing Sara.

He wanted to think about his reaction—and hers—analyze it, understand the effect she had on him. But there was no time. Not now.

Now he stood stunned and staring at this vital bouncing ball of energy, this miniature version of his dead brother.

Intellectually Flynn had known that his son would likely resemble his Murray forebears. But actually seeing it was astonishing.

The boy—Lewis, if she’d named him after her father—was the spitting image of his brother. The same black unruly hair, same fair skin, same spattering of freckles, same thin face and pointed chin. Same build, too. Wiry. Slender. There was a coltish boniness even beneath the boy’s winter jacket and jeans.

The boy didn’t spare him a glance. He came hurtling into the room, with no regard for the stranger in the living room. His eyes—as green as Will’s and Flynn’s own—went straight to his mother.

“Look!” He wriggled off his backpack at the same time he was thrusting a white box covered with hearts into his mother’s hands. “I musta got a skillion Valentines! An’ I got a real fancy one from Katie Setsma. She must like me!” He flung his backpack onto a chair, then scrambled up on it to pull off his boots.

Sara shot Flynn a quick glance, as if she were trying to gauge his reaction to this astonishing little person. The words in a crumpled letter and the living breathing bouncing reality were two entirely different things. He wondered if he looked as dazed as he felt.

“Of course she likes you, Liam,” she said to her son.

And that nearly did Flynn in.

“Liam?” he said hoarsely. The Irish shortened form of William? Flynn’s hand groping blindly for the back of a chair to steady himself.

At his voice, the boy stopped jerking off his boots and, for the first time, looked at Flynn curiously.

Instantly wary, Sara stepped between them. “That’s what we call him,” she said firmly. “I told you I named him after my father, Lewis William. But he’s not my father. He’s his own person.” She said this last fiercely as if defying him to argue.

He didn’t. Couldn’t. Could barely find his voice—or words. “I…yeah. I’m just…surprised.” He sucked in a hard breath and tried again. “It was my brother’s name—William. Will. We called him Will.”

Sara caught the operative tense. “Called? Was?”

“He died.” Flynn ran his tongue over suddenly parched lips. “Almost six years ago.”

Their gazes met, locked. Sara looked shocked then, too. And there were a thousand unasked questions in hers. He couldn’t answer them. Not now at least.

“I’m sorry,” she said quietly. And there was the sound of real regret in her voice. “I didn’t know.”

It made Flynn’s throat tighten. He gave a jerky nod. “I know that. It’s just—” he gave his head a little shake “—one more surprise.”

And then the room went silent. No one moved. No one spoke. Finally he grew aware of the sound of Liam sliding off the chair and coming around by Sara. He stopped and looked up at his mother, as if trying to figure out what was going on, as if hoping she would tell him. But she didn’t speak, didn’t even seem to see him, and her gaze never left Flynn.

The boy’s gaze followed hers. Will’s eyes—Dear God, they really were—fastened on him, then narrowed a little in the same way Will’s always did when he assessed something or someone new.

There was no doubt the boy had picked up on the current of apprehension that pervaded the room. He was like a fox scenting danger, Flynn thought.

And then, apparently deciding what was necessary, he deliberately moved in front of Sara, his back to his mother’s legs as if he would protect her. His chin jutted out as he contemplated Flynn. There was no sparkle now. Just the hard unwavering green gaze that generations of Murrays wore when protecting their own.

“Who’re you?”

It was the question Flynn had been anticipating since he’d made up his mind to come to Montana. It was the question he’d been longing to answer.

And suddenly he found the words stuck in his throat. After a hundred—hell, after a thousand at least—visualizations of the moment when he would meet his son, he didn’t have the spit to say a word.

He opened his mouth and nothing came out. For the first time in his entire life, Flynn Murray had no words.

Sara, too, was staring at him expectantly, waiting for him to say something. He couldn’t. He shook his head.

Maybe she realized he couldn’t—or maybe she simply decided that taking charge herself was a better idea. Her hands came down to rest on the boy’s shoulders and squeezed lightly. When she spoke, her voice was soft.

“He’s your father, Liam.”

Liam’s eyes flew wide open. So did his mouth. He stared at Flynn, then abruptly his head whipped around so he could look up at his mother. His whole body seemed quiver with the unspoken question: Is that true?

Sara’s smile was faint and a little wary. But she gave the boy’s shoulders another squeeze, then nodded.

“He is. Truly,” she assured him. “He’s come to meet you.”

For a long moment Liam still searched her face. But then, eventually, he seemed satisfied with what he saw there. He turned back to Flynn. His gaze was steady and level and curious as he stared at his father in silence. The silence seemed to go on—and on.

And then, finally, in a slightly croaky but determined voice, Liam asked, “Where’ve you been?”

Absolutely mundane. Absolutely reasonable.

Absolutely devastating.

Flynn swallowed. “I’ve…I’ve been a lot—” he cleared the raggedness out of his throat, glad he at least had a voice now. He started again “—a lot of places. All over the world. I’d have been here sooner. But…I didn’t know about you.”

Liam’s gaze jerked around to challenge his mother’s. “You said you wrote to him.”

“She did,” Flynn answered for her. This wasn’t Sara’s fault. “Your mother wrote me before you were born. She wrote me later when you were born…but I didn’t get the letter. Not for a long time. Years.” He picked the envelope up from the top of the bookcase where Sara had set it and held it out. “Take a look. It’s been everywhere. But I didn’t get it until last week.”

Liam’s gaze shifted from Flynn’s face to the letter in his outstretched hand. But he stayed where he was, so Flynn moved closer.

Still the boy didn’t reach out right away. But finally he plucked the envelope from Flynn’s fingers and turned it over in his hands, then studied the multiplicity of addresses on it.

“I was working a lot of different places all over the world,” Flynn explained awkwardly. “It must have missed me everywhere I went. It finally caught up with me back home. In Ireland.”

Liam didn’t look up. He was rubbing his thumb lightly over the words on the envelope, staring at the writing, which, Flynn realized suddenly, he wouldn’t be able to read yet. He wasn’t old enough. “All those addresses are places I was,” he explained.

Then Liam looked up at him. “You live in a castle?”

Flynn blinked. He could read?

Apparently so, for Liam was pointing at the one address on the envelope that hadn’t been scratched out. “That’s what it says.” He scowled at it, then sounded out, “Dun-more-ee castle.” Liam read it out slowly then looked up again. “That’s your house?”

“No, dear,” Sara began, but Flynn cut in.

“It is. Dunmorey Castle.”

He heard Sara’s sharp intake of breath. Liam’s eyes went so wide that his eyebrows disappeared into the fringe of black hair that fell across his forehead. “You live in a real castle? With a moat?”

“I live there. And it is a real castle in name,” Flynn qualified, looking at Sara for the first time, seeing accusation in her gaze. “Mostly it’s a huge drafty old house,” he went on. “Over five hundred years old. Mouldering. Damp. And it does have a turret and some pretty high walls. But it doesn’t have a moat.”

“Well, that’s something, I guess,” Sara muttered.

“No moat?” Liam’s face fell. His brows drew down. “What makes it a castle then?”

“It was a stronghold. A really old fort,” Flynn explained. “Where people could go if they needed to defend themselves against invaders. And it was where the lord of the lands lived. The boss,” he added in case that made more sense. “That’s what makes it a castle.”

Liam digested that. “Can I see it?”

“Of course you can.”

“A picture, he means,” Sara said hastily. “Can he see a picture? Of your castle.” Her tone twisted the word as if she were blaming him for it.

The damn place was no end of trouble. Flynn shook his head. “Not with me,” he told Liam. “But I can get you some. Even better, I can take you there. You can see it in person.”

Liam gaped. “I can?”

“No!” Sara said sharply.

Liam twisted around to look up at her. “I can’t?”

“It’s in Ireland,” she explained, shooting Flynn a furious glance. “That’s clear across the ocean. Thousands of miles.”

“I could fly on a plane.” Liam was undaunted. “Couldn’t I?” He glanced around at Flynn for confirmation.

“You could,” Flynn agreed. “Best way to get there, in fact. We’ll talk about it.” He smiled at Sara.

Sara’s mouth pressed into a tight line. “I don’t think we’ll be talking about it anytime soon.” She turned to her son and said firmly, “He can tell you all about his castle, Liam. But do not expect to go zipping across the ocean.”

“But I’ve never seen a real castle.”

“You’re five. You have plenty of time,” Sara said unsympathetically. “And in the meantime you can make them out of Legos.”

Liam brightened. “I already did.” He spun towards Flynn. “It’s sort of real. But it doesn’t have a moat either. Wanna see it?” He was all eagerness now, hopping from one foot to the other now, looking up at Flynn.

The expression on his face now didn’t remind Flynn so much of Will as it did of the young Sara—when he had first met her. She’d had that same sparkle, that same eager, avid, intense enthusiasm.

Right now she was glaring at him, her jaw locked.

He had made a living out of reading people, picking up their body language, understanding when to move in, when to back off. He had no trouble reading Sara. She wasn’t thrilled to see him and, he supposed, he didn’t blame her. He hadn’t been here when she needed him.