The copper taste of fear flooded her mouth, but she didn’t reach for the water bottle strapped to her waist. Instead, she gripped the pepper spray in her fist and ran faster. Two more blocks until she reached busy Devon Avenue and relative safety.
Behind her, his shoes slapped harder against the pavement. Faster. She wasn’t going to make it to Devon. After adjusting the pepper spray to point out, she slowed to let him pass.
His footsteps sounded louder as he came up behind her. “Darcy?”
Patrick. Only one word, and she recognized his voice.
She stumbled again, then fell into a walk, scowling at him. “You scared the crap out of me.”
“How did I do that?”
“You followed me for a long time. Then all of a sudden, you caught up.”
“When you turned the corner, I recognized you.” He pulled out his earbuds and let them dangle from his hand. “Cut me some slack, Darcy. I’m barely awake. I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“You sped up and slowed down when I did.” Damn it, he wasn’t going to make her feel guilty because she’d been alert.
“Just falling into a rhythm. Easier not to think about what I’m doing if I’ve got another runner in front of me.” He whipped off his sunglasses and stuck them on top of his cap. Dark circles shadowed his eyes, as if he’d barely slept.
Maybe she’d overreacted. “A woman has to be careful, running alone,” she said. She slipped the pepper spray into the tiny pocket inside the waistband of her shorts. Patrick noted the action.
Let him watch.
“Yeah, I get that. Sorry I snapped your head off.” He wiped sweat off his face and sighed. “I’m not a morning person.”
She glanced at him again. “There’s a news flash.”
He grinned. “Sounds like you’d rather be home in bed, too.”
A whisper of suggestion hovered in the air and made her already flushed face hotter.
She turned abruptly and began running again. He fell in beside her.
“I got a phone call early this morning,” he said. “That’s why my cheerful self is out here. What’s your excuse?”
“Was it about Nathan? Is he okay?” Concerned about her boss, she began to reach for Patrick, then snatched her hand back. Again, his gaze followed the movement.
After a too-long pause, he said, “Nathan’s fine, far as I know. This was from my office. About a case I’m working.”
“Do you have to go back?” She tried not to sound too hopeful, but when he gave her a sharp glance, figured she hadn’t succeeded.
“I wouldn’t do that to Nate. Or Marco and Frankie,” he said quietly. “I’m here as long as they need me.”
Damn it. But she wasn’t surprised. She felt him studying her face and sucked in a deep breath.
As she started to run harder, he said, “So why are you out here so early?”
“I always run early in the morning.” It was the best time to check out the neighborhood. Notice anything unusual.
She started to turn down a side street, and he nodded in the opposite direction. “Don’t you take the underpass?”
There was a pedestrian walkway beneath the railroad tracks, connecting the two parts of the neighborhood. She avoided it at all costs. Ugly surprises could wait at the ends of tunnels. “No, I live on this side. No reason to.”
“Not even for fun?” He glanced toward the tracks, but his feet kept up a steady beat with hers instead of veering off. “I like it—the ramps down and up, the way the tunnel echoes, the weird green lighting.”
“Have at it, then.”
“I’ll stick with your equally cheerful self this morning.”
“Get lost, Patrick. I run by myself.”
“Then I’ll run by myself, too.”
He continued beside her. No matter how fast or slow she went, Patrick kept pace. Her chest tightened and her skin tingled. After a few minutes, he said, “So. This is your neighborhood?”
“I live a mile or so from the restaurant.”
“Grow up here in Wildwood?”
She ran a little faster. “Moved here.”
“Where from?”
A yellow school bus rumbled past, and she edged closer to the shoulder. He did, too. His arm was almost brushing hers as they ran. “I thought you weren’t one of those chatty morning people. What’s with the third degree?”
“Just being social.”
“Too early for that.” Time to lose him. “See you at work, Patrick.”
She began to sprint away from him. He kept up for a minute, then let her pull ahead. She turned a corner, then another, and lost sight of him.
She wasn’t fooling herself, though. She wasn’t running away from him. He was letting her go.
* * *
PATRICK WATCHED Darcy streak away from him, her legs pumping steadily. They were sleek and surprisingly long for a woman who couldn’t be more than a few inches over five feet tall.
Her dark red hair was damp with sweat, and so was the T-shirt she wore. It clung to her chest and the sports bra beneath it. The slight bounce of her breasts as she ran burned into his brain.
The air had quivered with tension as they ran, and it wasn’t all coming from him. She’d felt the sizzle, too. Her face had flushed, and not just from exertion. She’d breathed harder. Her eyes had dilated.
It didn’t matter.
He wasn’t here to get involved with a woman, especially one who worked for Nathan. He was here to help his brother until Nate was back on his feet. He had enough to worry about.
Even if Darcy was willing to have a fling, that’s all it would ever be. He wasn’t getting involved in a long-distance relationship. They never worked out.
Once burned, twice shy.
He had to go back to Nathan’s house and work on one of his cases, a bank robbery gone bad. A teller and a customer had died, and one of the other agents had received a tip this morning. It was beginning to sound like an inside job, and Patrick had offered to work through the bank’s accounts. See if anything was off.
He clenched his teeth as he began running again. He needed to be in Detroit, interviewing the tellers and managers, looking for that tell.
Instead he was here in Chicago, running a restaurant.
He headed for the underpass to return to the other side of the tracks, bracing himself for a long day. He organized a list in his head—how to start the search through the bank’s records, when he needed to go into Mama’s.
In spite of all he had to do today, all he needed to think about, the picture of Darcy, running in the opposite direction, stuck in his head.
CHAPTER THREE
TWO AND A HALF weeks later, Patrick walked in the back door of Nathan’s house, dropped his gym bag on a kitchen chair and used the towel draped over his shoulders to wipe the sweat from his face. The faint sound of Nathan’s voice came from the other room. His brother must be on the phone.
When Nate stopped talking, Patrick stepped out of the kitchen. “Hey, Nate. How’s it going?”
“Good. I’m good,” Nathan said. He gripped the joystick control of his wheelchair and lurched forward. The footrest caught beneath the coffee table, and with a vicious curse, Nathan tried to work it loose. The motor groaned as it started and stopped. Started and stopped.
Patrick laughed and hurried over to help.
Nathan scowled at him. “Laughing at the cripple. Nice, Paddy. You want a few puppies to kick?”
Patrick separated the table from the wheelchair, then stood, still smiling. “No, thanks. You provide more than enough entertainment.”
His brother held up a one-finger salute. “So glad I can make your day brighter. Loser.”
“Moron.”
“Tool.”
Bumping
fists, they grinned at each other. Nathan’s smile faded as he studied his brother. “You at the gym?”
“Yeah. Sparred a little with one of the instructors.” He rubbed the spot beneath his right eye that still hurt. He’d let down his guard for a moment and the guy had nailed him.
“Looks like you’re going to have a shiner,” Nathan said with a hint of a smile.
“Wouldn’t be the first time,” he said, understanding his brother’s satisfaction. He knew it was hard for Nate, stuck in a wheelchair, watching his brother out running every morning and going to the gym to box.
If Patrick was a sensitive, caring guy, he’d exercise more discreetly. Make sure he changed his sweaty gym clothes before Nathan saw them. But he was too busy to be tactful.
“You’re gonna scare the customers,” Nathan said, scowling at him. “I need to get back to work.”
Nathan had spent a week in the hospital, and when he’d first come home he’d been doped up on painkillers, spending most of his time sleeping in the hospital bed in the den. Finally, this week, the hardware in his limbs had been exchanged for cumbersome casts. He spent his waking hours in the wheelchair, an electric one because he could only use his right hand. His left leg was extended in front of him, his left arm bent at an awkward angle.
He’d been fidgety this week. Impatient with the awkward casts and his inability to function by himself.
At least Nate could laugh at himself again. That had to be a good sign. “You know you can’t do that,” he said, knowing exactly how Nathan was feeling. Patrick missed his own work just as much. “You need to take it easy.”
“You want to know what I need?” Nathan leveled his gaze on his brother. “I need a knife in my hand, need to feel the oven blasting heat when we’re really busy and I have to help in the kitchen. I need to have a glass of wine after we close. That’s what I want. Not you and Frankie waiting on me.”
“Sorry, pal. You’re stuck with us for four more weeks, until those casts come off.”
“You think I don’t know that?” Nathan’s phone was facedown in his lap, and he jerked the lever that ran the wheelchair back and forth a few times. “I’ve got to get back to the restaurant. I have things to do there.” He used his good leg to kick the coffee table out of his way, and the computer slid toward the edge. “God! Can’t you get me out of this house?”
Patrick’s gaze rested on the phone. Had his brother gotten a call that upset him? “You know we can’t do that. That was the deal. Minimal movement until the casts come off.”
“I know that. I just don’t like it.”
“You’ll be back in a few weeks.” He stared at the phone. Who had Nate been talking to? And what had made his brother suddenly so frantic?
“Not soon enough. I’m responsible for Mama’s. I appreciate what you’re doing, Paddy, but I should be there.”
“I’m handling it, Nate.”
“Yeah, I know.” He jiggled the control of his wheelchair again. “But I also know you want to get back to your life. Your job. We appreciate how you’re helping out.”
“‘Helping?’” Patrick sank into one of the leather chairs by the window. “I’m part of this family, too. This is as much my job as it is yours. So why would I go back to Detroit and leave the rest of you in the lurch?”
“Your life isn’t in Chicago. You had to rearrange everything to stay here. Marco and Frankie are just adjusting a little.”
“Not a problem.”
And it wasn’t. He was glad he could help. But he still felt like an outsider.
His sister and two brothers were tight. Interwoven in each other’s lives like the three strands of a braid. He’d been separate from them since the day their parents had died in a car accident while he was driving. Guilt put the distance between them initially. Living five hours away widened the gulf.
All these years later and he still didn’t do well with the family dynamics.
This time, he couldn’t run back to Detroit.
“You wouldn’t be worrying about the restaurant so much if you’d made some contingency plans,” he said.
“Like I knew I was going to be hit by a car?” Nathan spun the wheelchair around and steered it into the kitchen. In a moment, Patrick heard ice dropping into a glass, followed by the sound of water splashing. When Nathan returned to the living room, a glass of water sat in the cup holder attached to the chair.
“So what’s Marco cooking today?” Nathan asked.
“How the hell should I know?” He leaned closer to his brother. “Why don’t you want to talk about contingency plans?”
“Back off, Paddy. I don’t need plans.”
“Shit happens, Nate. You can’t control everything. You need a backup plan.”
“Fine. I’ll work on one.”
“You should hire a manager.”
“I am the manager.”
“Exactly. And you don’t have a life. You need to take some time away from the restaurant.”
“Have you been talking to Frankie?”
“About this? No. Why?”
Nathan rolled his eyes. “I told her I needed some time away from Mama’s. That I wanted to do some other stuff.” He stared at the cast on his leg. “I’ve got ‘time away’ now, and I hate it.”
“It’s not a bad idea. You’ve been doing this for a long time. You raised the rest of us.” Patrick tried to smile. “Not me, of course. I was a perfect kid. But you spent a lot of time with Marco and Frankie.”
“And I wouldn’t change a thing about what I did with those years,” Nathan said.
“Maybe you were right. Maybe you need to get away after you’re out of the chair.”
“Not happening. Not now.”
“Maybe you should hire a manager.”
“No one knows that place better than I do.”
“Agreed, but you could teach someone.”
“Who? Some stranger who knows nothing about Mama’s?”
“What about Darcy?” The waitress was never far from Patrick’s mind, but this was actually a good idea. “She’d do a great job.”
“Frankie suggested that a while ago. Darcy wouldn’t take it on.”
“Have you asked her?”
“No,” his brother said, not meeting his gaze. “I don’t have to. I know what her answer would be.”
“Really?” Patrick studied his brother, but Nathan didn’t look at him. “She’s bright. Capable. Works hard. Why wouldn’t she want a promotion and a raise?”
“Leave it alone, Paddy,” Nathan said.
“I’m going to ask her tonight,” he replied. “Perfect solution. I’ll stick around until you’re on your feet, of course, but she can work with me in the meantime. Start getting ready.”
“No. Don’t ask.”
“Why the hell not? Is there something I don’t know about her? Some deep, dark secret that would prevent her from being the manager?”
“Don’t be an ass.” Nathan shifted in the chair. “I know her better than you,” he said. “She doesn’t want to manage Mama’s.”
“How do you know if you haven’t asked?”
“Drop it, Paddy,” Nathan said. “Tell me how Marco’s doing handling all of the cooking.”
Patrick stared at Nathan. He wasn’t ready to abandon the discussion about Darcy. It was a perfect solution. “Tell me about Darcy.”
“There’s nothing to tell. For God’s sake, Patrick. I know Mama’s. I know the people who work there, what needs to be done, how it needs to be done. You don’t. Why would you? You don’t come home.”
Familiar irritation and guilt shot through him. Patrick stood and paced the small room. “How come, no matter what we talk about, we always come back to the fact that I don’t live in Chicago? That I have a job in another city?”
“We don’t have a big family,” Nathan said quietly. “Only the four of us. We’d like you to be here, too.”
He hadn’t felt like part of a family for a long time. “It doesn’t work that way. In the Bureau, you go where they send you.” But Patrick couldn’t look at his brother. He’d had an opportunity to transfer to Chicago. He’d refused. If he lived here, spent time around his siblings, he would be a constant reminder of the parents they’d lost. And why.
He wouldn’t do that to them. Or to himself.
“You haven’t even asked, have you?”
“Nathan. My job is not up for discussion.”
Nathan held his gaze. “Fine. Then neither is mine.”
That was fair, Patrick conceded reluctantly. But it didn’t mean he had to like it.
He studied his brother more carefully. Yeah, this was hard for Nathan. Forced inactivity was a bitch. But the anxiety in Nathan’s eyes was more than frustration.
He leaned closer. “You’re worried about something.”
“I’m stuck in this goddamned house!” Nathan spun the wheelchair around. “I’m not at my restaurant. Of course I’m worried.”
His brother’s back was tense, and he leaned forward, staring out the front window. “Is something wrong at Mama’s?” Patrick asked. “You’re acting like it’ll be the end of the world if you don’t get back there.”
Nathan’s knuckles whitened on the wheelchair joystick but he didn’t move. “Nothing’s wrong. You’re doing a great job, Paddy. Everyone says so. But you don’t know the place like I do. You can’t do everything.”
“Tell me what I’m missing.”
“Nuances,” he said after a long pause. “Things you get after running a place for a long time.”
“Like what?” Patrick edged closer to his brother. Frowned. Nathan was trying to distract him.
“Get out of my face! Don’t give me those cop’s eyes. I’m your brother. Your older brother. Not some criminal you’re interrogating.”
Patrick leaned even closer. “Why would I interrogate you? I’m just asking.”
The Woman He Knows Page 3
