Scott kicked the ground with a sulky foot. “No one will play my songs.”
“How old are you?”
“Nineteen.”
Patrick lifted an eyebrow and waited.
“All right.” The kid’s shoulders slumped. “Fourteen. But they’re good songs and I gotta make some money. Mom is sick and Dad can’t…” His words trailed miserably.
Through the double glass doors Patrick saw a patrol car pull into the lot, but he held up his hand when the officers got out. The men nodded and waited.
“Your father is out of work,” Patrick guessed.
“Man, everyone says the economy is great, but he can’t even get an interview.”
“I know that’s rough, but you broke the law coming in here like this. You know that, don’t you, Scott?”
“I guess.”
Around the corner Maddie waited with almost everyone else in the station. From Stephen she’d learned that Patrick often worked with troubled youth, something she could have guessed from his sympathetic yet firm tone of voice.
Within a few minutes Scott was sitting in the back of the squad car, with one of the deputies promising to call his parents. A deal might be worked out with juvenile court considering the circumstances.
And Patrick, who wouldn’t take a red cent from his brother for his own needs, promised to call Kane and get Scott’s father a job.
Maddie’s throat closed around quick tears.
She’d tried so hard not to fall in love with him, but she couldn’t deny it any longer. Patrick O’Rourke had her heart in his hands, and he didn’t want it.
Chapter Ten
Maddie barely had time to form the thought before she heard one of the deputies say he needed to speak with her. She groaned. She didn’t want to say anything bad about Scott; he was just a mixed-up kid with more troubles than he knew how to handle.
When Patrick rounded the corner with the officer he cleared his throat and gave a pointed look to the assembled employees.
“Show’s over,” he said.
They drifted away with obvious reluctance.
“Ms. Jackson.” The officer, Deputy Walter Mitchell, nodded at her, then looked down at his notebook. “Can you tell me what happened?”
Maddie slipped her arm behind her back. “I was in the lobby talking to Candy. Scott came in and wanted to know why we hadn’t played any of the demo tapes he’d sent the station. He didn’t know we only play country music, not rock and roll.”
“And…?”
“And that’s about it.”
“No, it isn’t,” Patrick said patiently. “Maddie, Scott has to take responsibility for what happened. He was out of control when he grabbed your arm. Anything could have happened.”
“May I see your arm, Ms. Jackson?” asked the officer.
She reluctantly pulled it from behind her back.
Patrick clenched his jaw at the bruises already forming on Maddie’s skin. The imprint of rough fingers were perfectly aligned across her forearm.
“Damn kid, I should have killed him.” He knew he was overreacting, but everything was different with Maddie. Too big, too vital, too much a reminder of how much he had to lose. The speed at which she’d become important to him sent shock waves through his system.
“I bruise really easy,” she said. “It’s nothing.”
Deputy Mitchell wrote some notes on his pad. “Do you want to file assault charges, Ms. Jackson?”
“No.”
“Yes,” said Patrick. “Maddie—”
“He’s just a scared kid,” she interrupted. “With a lot of problems. He didn’t mean to hurt anyone.”
“That’s an excuse, not a reason.”
The deputy measured the compassionate look on Maddie’s face and the outraged thrust of Patrick’s jaw.
He tapped his pencil on the pad. “We checked. The kid doesn’t have any priors. Never been in trouble, period. We’ll make him look at Ms. Jackson’s arm, then I’ll put the fear of God into him about doing anything like it again. If he keeps his nose clean, there won’t be any charges filed. If he doesn’t, he gets an assault rap on his juvenile record.”
Patrick counted to ten, trying to calm down. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so furious. But it wasn’t just anger at Scott Dell, it was at himself. He should have had security measures in place from the very beginning, but instead he’d let a wild-eyed kid come in and hurt Maddie. It could just as easily have been a real maniac, and Walter Mitchell could have been completing his report over her dead body.
Maddie hastily agreed to the officer’s suggestion and followed him out to the squad car.
When Scott saw the bruises he paled. “I didn’t mean…oh, man. I’m sorry. I never meant to do that, I just wanted someone to listen.”
“I know, it isn’t—”
“It doesn’t matter what you intended,” Officer Mitchell said, cutting off Maddie’s reassurance. “Now, we’re going back to the station to have a nice long talk. Do you know what the jail sentence is for assault and battery? I do, and you’re going to hear all about what happens to young punks in prisons. It isn’t pretty.”
Scott gulped and huddled deeper into his seat. Maddie gave him an encouraging look, but he was too scared to acknowledge it.
Over the roof of the car, the deputy winked at Maddie.
After they left, she spun around and glared at Patrick. “Why did you have to make such a big deal out of it?”
“You’ve got bruises all over your arm. What did you expect me to do?”
“Help him. You’re still going to get his father a job, aren’t you?”
Patrick let out a harsh breath. “If he’s lucky.”
“You said you would.”
“Stop telling me what I said!” he shouted.
“You blew it all out of proportion.”
“I asked you to work at the station and put you at risk. What’s out of proportion about it?”
She rolled her eyes. “That’s a bunch of nonsense.”
“No. I’ll never be able to take care of you the way I should. That’s why I can’t get married—I’ll mess up. I always mess up. I won’t be there when you really need me, and then everything will go to hell.”
Maddie’s jaw dropped. Patrick was serious about that “take care” of her stuff. He’d said it before, but she’d thought it was just male ego talking.
Take care of her…hah! It was the most insulting thing he’d ever said. Just because she’d run away from the humiliation of her canceled wedding didn’t mean she was incapable of dealing with life. Hadn’t she been trying to prove that? Working at the station and being good at it? And she had been doing well; he couldn’t deny it.
“You aren’t responsible for what just happened, and I do not need someone to take care of me,” she said fiercely.
“You’re a baby.”
“No, I’m not. I’m a grown woman.”
This wasn’t a word game any longer, it was dead serious. She’d never intended to get her heart tangled up with Patrick, but it had happened, it wasn’t going away, and she had a dismal conviction that this time she was going to find out what a broken heart really felt like.
“I’ve done things you can’t even imagine.”
“I’ve got a great imagination,” Maddie said. “But I don’t need one. My father wasn’t always the sheriff or town mayor, he used to be a roughneck, determined to prove he was more than a kid from the wilds of New Mexico who happened to get lucky with a football. And he’s been very honest with me about his mistakes.”
“You’re not making any sense.” Patrick jammed his hands into his coat pockets. The last traces of easygoing humor had been erased from his eyes and mouth.
“Dad won a football scholarship, but his teammates called it dumb luck. They didn’t believe someone could come from a school with barely enough students to form a football team could have any talent. No matter how good he was, he had to prove it to them over and over. So Daddy decided
he was going to be the meanest, nastiest one of them all.”
Patrick was intrigued despite himself. “And?”
“And that’s what he was, until he met my mother.”
“Right, true love solves everything.” He tried to sound mocking, but it was never love Patrick hadn’t believed in. It was the agony and loss he didn’t want. Nobody had to tell him love was real, he’d seen how much his parents loved each other, and now it was the same with Kane and Beth.
Love and passion were real.
So was the pain.
“Don’t worry, I’m not hoping for history to repeat itself,” Maddie muttered. “You’re already reformed, so if I was interested in a bad boy, I’d look somewhere else. Never mind that I wasn’t looking at all,” she added quickly.
He sighed. “Fine, but I know what I was. Nothing can change the fact that I’m experienced and you’re not.”
Maddie rolled her eyes. Patrick meant sexual experience more than anything else. “There’s a simple solution,” she said in a suggestive voice. “Picking up a guy at the local bar is easy. After that I’ll just let nature take its course.”
From Patrick’s outraged expression she knew she’d struck a nerve.
“Don’t even joke about it.”
“Who’s joking?”
“You are, damn it. You aren’t the type to go sleeping around.”
“How would you know?”
“A man knows things like that.”
He was pure, unadulterated arrogance, and if she hadn’t loved him so much she would have been disgusted. As it was, she was bothered more than she should have been about Patrick’s insinuation that she couldn’t take care of herself.
“But you must admit it would be easy. Unless you’ve been lying about me being attractive.”
“I’d never lie to you. Of course you’re attractive. A guy would be crazy not to take you home, but that’s not the point.”
“It’s exactly the point,” Maddie snapped. “The kind of experience you’re talking about is easy to get. And it’s just one part of life, not the whole package.”
“Fine. It’s easy. But you don’t have any experience with anything.”
“No? I live in a small town where everybody knows everybody else’s business. Do you think I haven’t seen and heard the worst there is to see? My uncle was run over by a drunk hit-and-run driver who turned out to be a cousin. Uncle Julio won’t ever walk again, and the cousin spent eighteen months in jail. Two years ago I was on a search team looking for a lost Cessna in the Magdalenas. We found the plane, but it was too late for the pilot.” Her voice wavered, though she tried to keep it level.
“Maddie, don’t.”
Patrick felt as if he were being flayed alive. They could trade scars until they were both bruised and beaten by the memories, but it wouldn’t change a thing. She was too special, too sweet and too damned tempting. Sooner or later she’d figure out he wasn’t good enough for her and leave.
“You come from a little town no one has ever heard of, Maddie. I know real life happens there, but it isn’t like the city. People in towns that small do know other people’s business and take care of each other.”
“I didn’t realize Crockett, Washington, was the hot spot of metropolitan life,” Maddie said sarcastically. “Where I come from isn’t the issue, and you darn well know it.”
“I’m not just from Crockett…” Patrick stopped. This wasn’t getting them anywhere. “You’re right, the place we’re from isn’t the issue any more than you being a virgin. Aside from the fact you don’t have a clue how to take care of yourself outside of Slapshot,” he couldn’t resist adding.
“So you still think someone has to take care of me?”
“Yes, and I’m not the one to do it,” he snarled. “You said it yourself, I’m not involved with the family in a way that really matters. No one counts on me for anything. I’m the brother who screws up, it’s as simple as that.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Maddie looked him up and down, her chin jutting out the way it did when she was being particularly stubborn. “You may have messed up as a kid, but you can’t keep blaming yourself for it. You were at a hard age, and you were angry with your father for dying. Everyone understands that except you.”
It was the second time in less than a day that someone had suggested he was angry with Keenan O’Rourke for the mere fact of dying. Oh, Patrick knew about the so-called stages of grief, and that anger was a natural part of them, but there was no way he was angry with his dad. It just wasn’t true.
Or was it?
Was the reason he couldn’t see himself stepping into his father’s shoes because deep down he believed his dad had failed him? And if Keenan O’Rourke could fail, what hope did his screw-up son have to succeed?
Maddie looked at him narrowly, obviously expecting him to say something. When he didn’t, she shook her head.
“You’re one of the most successful people I know,” she said. “You thought of the ‘billionaire date’ promotion and made it work. You’ve taken a barely functioning radio station and turned it into one of the most popular stations in the area. You’re a responsible businessman. You work with troubled teens and make a difference in their lives. Nobody could ask more of a person, except to let go of the past.”
“Maddie—”
“And you’re a darn good kisser,” she shouted. “Everything else is an excuse.”
“I don’t need an excuse.”
“Hah.”
But even Maddie’s skepticism couldn’t stem the pleasure flooding through him. She thought he was successful, despite everything she’d learned about his past, and a tight knot of pain eased inside of Patrick. For all of Maddie’s apparent flightiness, she was smart, sincere and had solid values. She was the kind of woman whose opinion mattered.
“You really think I’m successful?”
“I don’t say things I don’t mean. And it was obvious the way you talked to Scott that you’ve got a gift with kids. But don’t get all defensive,” Maddie said quickly. “I’m still not asking you to be a daddy.”
“Because you don’t think I’d make a good one?”
“No, because you don’t want to be one. I know the drill perfectly—you’ve taught it to me well enough. Stay back, don’t get too close, and don’t start getting ideas. But you’d better start telling yourself that, because you’re the one with all the ideas. Most of them completely idiotic. ‘Take care’ of me…give me a break.”
Maddie turned and stalked back into the station, her back straight as a board.
Patrick cursed and sagged against the nearest car. He’d overreacted, handling things so badly it was a wonder Maddie hadn’t slugged him. But hell, those bruises on her arm were enough to give him night-mares. She’d said he wasn’t responsible, but he felt responsible. He wanted to keep every single possible danger away from her.
Now you’re thinking, son.
The voice.
Patrick pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes. At least he was lucky enough to remember his father’s voice. It wasn’t true of his youngest sister, barely four when Keenan died. Kathleen had only vague images of a laughing man she’d worshipped, of strong arms and a comforting presence. But no voice, no memory of life lessons taught by a patient, wise, loving man. At least the older kids had that much.
Jeez, he missed his father. Still missed him, with nearly the same aching grief he’d known in the weeks and months after the accident.
Maddie reminded him of the principles Keenan had taught him. Principles like being honorable. Lessons about what made a boy a man. And ducking responsibility because he might get hurt or fail wasn’t one of those lessons. You couldn’t always prevent disasters or keep the people you cared about from harm.
Showing up was what counted.
There were a thousand clichés to describe the way he’d been living his life, but it all boiled down to being just a spectator. The radio station didn’t count for anything—that was j
ust about money.
Real living was about loving, and he’d done his best not to love for the better part of twenty years.
“Your son is the most stubborn, unreasonable, hardheaded man ever born,” Maddie stormed.
She dropped down on Pegeen’s couch and glared at the picture of Patrick that hung on the opposite wall. He was so appealing with that killer O’Rourke smile and hidden pain behind his eyes. It made her ache to see it and know he wasn’t ever going to change. At the same time she was furious because he couldn’t see truth standing right in front of him.
Love wasn’t the enemy; it was the solution.
“He’s impossible,” she added, a litany of even less attractive descriptions running through her mind—some were words she would never dream of saying aloud.
“I can’t deny it, darlin’,” Pegeen said in her lilting Irish brogue. “He’s the way nature made him.”
“Nature has a lot to answer for,” Maddie grumbled.
She didn’t know why she’d come to see Patrick’s mother, but it had seemed like a good idea at the time. Pegeen was a lovely woman who shared the same comforting quality as her own mother. And since Pegeen knew her son, she’d understand the frustrations he visited on friend and foe alike.
Darn him.
She didn’t need to be taken care of. She was managing fine. All his nonsense over the incident with Scott Dell was just a way of reminding her they didn’t have a future together.
Take care of her…
Maddie gritted her teeth. How you could love a man so much and still want to strangle him was a mystery she’d never understand.
“He makes it sound like a man would have to be a superhero to risk marrying me,” she muttered. “And he…he has this thing about not being ‘like’ his father. As if he’s the black sheep of the family, or something. I know he made mistakes, but who doesn’t? Your husband must have been a great man, but Patrick doesn’t have to be exactly like him to be a good husband and father. Nobody wrote that into the rule book, did they?”
Pegeen sat next to her and took her hand. “Actually, of all my sons, Patrick is the most like his father.”
Surprised, Maddie tore her gaze from the photograph. “He is? Why doesn’t he know that?”
The Right Twin For Him (O'Rourke Family 2) Page 13
