The Right Twin For Him

Chapter Three

“Maddie, wait.” Patrick caught her arm and swung her around. “I’m sorry.”

She gave him an innocent look. “About what?”

Hell, he was going to pay big-time for his big mouth. “About being a jerk, all right? I’ve got four sisters and I’ve seen them get hurt even more when they’re…well…”

“On the rebound,” she finished, her mouth turned down. “I hate that word, it sounds like something out of a basketball game. But you seem to have forgotten that you’re the one who keeps following me. So even if I did have ‘ideas,’ which I don’t, it wouldn’t be my fault.”

“You’re right.” Patrick held up his hands in surrender. He must have sounded incredibly arrogant, but he’d hate to see a sweet kid like Maddie get hurt again, and he’d hate it worse if he was the one responsible. “If I abjectly apologize and say I was out of my mind, will you forgive me?”

Maddie sighed. She wanted to be furious, but maybe she’d sounded wistful, or admiring, or had indicated in some way to Patrick that she was getting starry-eyed over him. He probably had women falling all over themselves to catch his attention, and she had gotten tingles and a racing pulse over him. It didn’t mean anything. He was a gorgeous hunk with a body chemistry that could make any woman weak in the knees.

“Maddie?” Patrick prompted.

“It’s okay.”

It wasn’t, but she didn’t want to admit it was her ego on the rebound, not her heart. When she’d been growing up, her mother and father had always made her feel beautiful, but now she was left wondering what she actually had to offer a man. Did big breasts really matter that much? Maddie glanced down at her not-so-generous bustline and sighed again.

Maybe Ted would have found a kinder way to tell her he didn’t want to get married if she hadn’t surprised him with the punch girl. He wasn’t mean. And if she’d been able to tell him first that she was having second thoughts, they probably would have laughed about it, bypassed the church and had a great party with all that food and cake.

“You don’t look okay. You still look upset,” Patrick murmured. His eyes were more serious than she’d seen them since they’d met. He put on a good show of being easygoing, but she suspected there was a whole lot more going on beneath his nonchalant exterior than even he wanted to admit.

Maddie summoned a smile. “I’ve had quite a few shocks over the past couple days. I have a reason to be upset. But don’t worry about the other thing. I overreacted, that’s all.”

“About the ‘other thing,’ I should explain,” he said, a determined expression creeping into his face. “You’re so trusting and everything, I didn’t want you to start thinking I was some nice guy without ulterior motives. I’m a guy—of course I have ulterior motives. I’m loaded with them. Hell, I didn’t put in all that time as a rebellious teenage tough for nothing.”

“Oh, sure, you were a teenage tough. I believe that.” She made a disbelieving gesture.

“Take my word for it, I was one of the worst.”

Maddie still didn’t seem convinced, and Patrick thought about rolling up his sleeve and showing her the gang tattoo he sported on his upper arm. Oh, he’d gotten out of it quickly enough—thanks to a tough old coot whose car he’d tried to steal—but not so fast he didn’t have some scars and a broken nose from fighting. Not even his family knew everything about his escapades.

God, he’d been so angry after his father’s accident it was a miracle he hadn’t gotten himself killed.

But it wasn’t any wonder Maddie didn’t believe him. The closest thing to a gang in her hometown was probably the crew down at the local hamburger stand. He’d driven through some of the small, off-the-beaten-track towns in New Mexico. They were terrific…and about a million miles from the city.

Oh, but she did have a very sweet mouth.

Reaching out, he traced his forefinger across the fullness of Maddie’s bottom lip. Her breath caught and her golden-brown eyes widened, the pupils expanding until nearly all the gold specks disappeared, leaving a ring of velvet brown.

“I’m not nice,” Patrick whispered. “If I was, I wouldn’t be having so many notions about nibbling on parts of you. But I’m decent enough not to get involved with a woman who wants different things than I do.” He dropped his hand before he could be tempted to demonstrate exactly how much touching her appealed to him.

Maddie flicked her tongue against the spot he’d just caressed. He was certain it was an unconscious reaction. Any flirting on her part was almost certainly unintentional: she didn’t seem to have a clue about the usual games between a man and woman.

“Different things?”

“Marriage, family, permanence. That isn’t me, Maddie.”

“It isn’t me, either. After what happened with Ted and the punch girl I’m never getting married,” she said immediately.

It was Patrick’s turn to be skeptical, but he wisely kept from smiling. Maddie might say that now, but she’d change her mind quickly enough. She would meet the right man and forget all about Ted and the punch girl.

A small twinge of pain went through him at the thought. It was the same sort of feeling he’d had watching her at the cemetery, her face turned to the sky. Hell, he’d thought Beth was an innocent, but compared to Maddie, his sister-in-law was a sophisticate. Patrick had never realized it before, but innocence could be very appealing.

He cleared his throat. It wouldn’t help to start thinking that way.

“Maddie, I really am sorry.”

“Let’s not talk about it any longer,” she said quickly. “I don’t think I can take any more apologies. You wouldn’t believe how many times Ted said he was sorry.”

Patrick studied the stubborn jut to Maddie’s chin; she reminded him of an eight-week-old kitten spitting at a big old tomcat. And as the tomcat in question, he thought it was pretty funny.

And sweet. But if there hadn’t been such a gulf between them in experience, then he wouldn’t have to be so careful.

“Ted is the fiancé, I take it?”

“Ex-fiancé.”

“I hope you smashed a cake in his face, or something equally appropriate.” Patrick wished he could visit a little frontier justice on “Ted.” He might have been a troublemaker as a kid, but the O’Rourke men had always had a strict code when it came to the female half of the human race, and Ted had broken the code.

To his surprise, Maddie giggled. “Not quite. I did throw my engagement ring at him, though. I think it cut his lip.”

“Good for you.”

“That’s what Dad said. He wanted to shoot Ted, but Mom said it wouldn’t help, and we were lucky I caught him before the wedding instead of after. And there I was in the middle of it, listening to them and feeling so strange—like it wasn’t even me.” Maddie bit her lip and looked up. “You probably noticed I tend to cry easily.”

Great, another opportunity to say something stupid. That was another thing to be angry with Ted about—if Ted had been a decent guy, then Maddie would have come to Washington as a bride and he wouldn’t be having so much trouble with foot-in-mouth disease. Married women were strictly off-limits.

“There’s nothing wrong with being emotional,” he murmured.

“I don’t mean to cry. The waterworks just happen,” she said matter-of-factly. “But it was funny—after I blew up at Ted I felt frozen. Here I’d grown up expecting we’d get married and have a family, then all at once the whole course of my life was unraveling and I didn’t even cry.”

“You were in shock.”

“I guess.” Maddie rubbed the back of her neck. “It was like driving along a road with everything okay one minute and in the next minute the road and signs have all vanished and you don’t know what to do. Have you ever felt that way?”

“When my father died,” Patrick admitted. “It’s a hell of a feeling.”

Maddie got very still and solemn. “How old were you?”

“Fourteen—old enough to get in trouble and too young to understand why this terrific guy I worshipped was suddenly gone. I sure got pissed off at the world.”

“It must have been hard.”

“Like getting a knife in your gut,” he muttered.

Patrick thought about the way Keenan O’Rourke had always been there for his wife and children, at the same time working two jobs to keep food on the table and a roof over their heads. How had his father done that?

“So, what do you do in Slapshot?” he asked deliberately.

Maddie gazed at him a moment longer, then lifted her shoulders, accepting the change in subject. She might be innocent, but she wasn’t dumb.

“A little of everything. Mom owns the local newspaper and I answer phones, sell advertising, take orders for the classifieds…whatever needs doing. I’m not necessary, but she likes having me around. Now I have to go right back, and everyone will come in to gossip about the wedding being canceled. It’ll be worse than if I’d stayed.”

“Why do you have to go back so soon?”

She wrinkled her nose. “I cashed in Ted’s airplane ticket to pay for the room at the bed-and-breakfast inn, but the money won’t last forever.”

“Good for you. I hope he’s the one who paid for the tickets.”

The corners of her mouth twitched. “He paid for them, but unfortunately we didn’t prepay our room reservations. I thought about getting a job here, only I don’t have any real skills, and saying you’ve worked for five years as your mother’s gofer isn’t impressive on a résumé.”

Renewed sympathy went through Patrick. He knew what it was like to worry about a résumé that way. If Kane had his way, the entire family would be working for O’Rourke Industries—at an exorbitant salary. As his sister, Shannon, always said, nepotism didn’t bother Kane. He was a great brother, but he had an overprotective streak that wouldn’t quit.

Kane had even wanted to buy the radio station or at least invest in it, but it wouldn’t have been the same if Patrick hadn’t earned it for himself. You had to earn success or it didn’t mean anything. He had every intention of going it on his own and proving he didn’t need anyone else to get by.

“Tell you what, I’ll give you a job,” he said, hardly able to believe he was opening his mouth. Having Maddie in such close contact was asking for trouble—it would be bad enough if she ended up spending time with Beth and Kane.

Maddie blinked. “You’ll what?”

“Give you a job. I own a radio station. You said you sold advertising for your mom’s newspaper, and I’m temporarily short in my ad department. It works out well for both of us.”

“You hardly know me.”

“That isn’t true, you might be Beth’s—”

“I know, I might be her sister,” Maddie interrupted. “It’s nice and I appreciate the thought, but it’s hardly a reason to hire me.”

“Well, you could save money by staying with Beth. She did offer,” he suggested, hoping Maddie would reconsider the invitation from his sister-in-law. It would get him off the hook with the job offer and make his brother’s wife very happy.

Maddie shook her head. “Would you want to stay with newlyweds?” She didn’t have to add after catching your fiancé cheating three hours before your own wedding?

Patrick scratched his jaw. He was uncomfortable around newlyweds and he hadn’t just gotten his heart stomped on by his fiancée. And he didn’t know why he was offering Maddie a job. He could claim he was just helping his brother and Beth, but deep down he suspected old-fashioned chivalry was responsible. Maddie wasn’t ready to face the scene of her humiliation, and he wanted to help.

He was in big trouble.

If he tried to climb on a white horse and play the hero he’d get bucked off faster than he could say, “Wounded pride.” Hadn’t he already screwed up where Maddie was concerned?

Patrick looked at her hurt eyes and surrendered. Something about Maddie reminded him of the old-fashioned values his father had once taught him. He didn’t have any choice, he had to help.

“So your option is to go home and face the town gossips, or stay here and sell advertising for a few weeks while we figure out whether you and Beth are related,” he murmured, ignoring the warning his survival instincts kept screaming. “I know which option I’d prefer, but you’ll have to decide for yourself.”

Maddie touched her left ring finger with her thumb. She’d worn her engagement ring there for so long it felt funny without the diamond solitaire. She hadn’t really liked the single diamond—it stood too high on her finger and constantly caught on things, but it still seemed strange.

Jeez. Everything was so mixed up.

Between Ted and his big-chested punch girl, a possible long-lost sister and that sister’s handsome brother-in-law, Maddie didn’t know what to do. She needed time to think, but Patrick was waiting for an answer and she didn’t want to go back to Slapshot. At least not for a while.

As for the stuff with Patrick and him warning her about getting ideas, she had overreacted. Her pride was battered and highly sensitive. She might have laughed at any other time.

“It shouldn’t take that long to find out about Beth and me,” she said uncertainly.

He gave her a charming smile that made her stupid heart skip some more. “It’s hard to say, but you’ll want to get to know each other and it’ll be easier to do that if you’re here in Washington.”

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.