The Right Twin For Him (O'Rourke Family 2) (10 page)

There was a knock on the door and Patrick sighed. Never a moment to think in the radio business. If it wasn’t one thing, it was another.

“Come in,” he called out.

Stephen nudged the door open and wrestled his wheelchair into the closet-like space.

“You need a bigger office,” he said.

“We all do.” Patrick waved his hand dismissively. He’d taken the smallest room in the station as his
office, because he wouldn’t ask his employers to take less than he would himself.

Stephen smiled. “The ad office space works better now that Maddie rearranged everything. She’s certainly a multitalented young lady.”

Maddie.

Patrick tried to keep his face impassive. Maddie had insinuated herself into every part of the station, every part of his thoughts and life. And she’d done it unknowingly, because she didn’t have a calculating bone in her body. The only time her innocent fire was subdued was when they were in the same room. The other employees and his family must have noticed, though no one had said anything.

“I know it’s inconvenient having her do the show. I’ll look into getting more help in advertising,” he said.

“She’s keeping things up. Maddie has a rare gift with people—we’re selling more airtime than ever before.”

Oh, yes. Between Maddie’s new program and her honest approach, they were practically at the point of turning advertisers away. Air rates had gone up, especially during her show, and revenues were pouring into the KLMS bank account.

“I know Maddie was supposed to be temporary, but have you discussed a long-term contract with her?” Stephen asked. “It would be a shame to let her return to New Mexico in a week…when Jeff returns.”

Patrick stared at his friend. Time had passed so quickly that he’d forgotten Maddie was temporary, and that the employee she’d replaced was coming back to work shortly.

Hell, they’d launched her new show without a single thought of what would happen when her temporary employment terminated. And he couldn’t even claim he’d believed Heart-to-Heart would flop, because deep down he’d known the rest of the world would find her nearly as irresistible as he did.

“I’ll start thinking about it,” he muttered. “But there’s no need for her to leave right away. She can stay on, helping out wherever she’s needed.”

“Good. In the meantime, I wanted to tell you…” Stephen paused, showing a rare moment of indecision.

“Yes?”

“Well, lately I’ve been spending quite a bit of time with Candace Finney. I’ve always known she was a special lady, and the long and short of it is that I’ve asked Candy to marry me,” the older man said.

It was the last thing Patrick had expected to hear. “You have?”

“Yes.” Stephen smiled, clearly pleased. “I might have courted her years ago, but I knew she was nursing an invalid mother and I didn’t think she’d be interested in a man in a wheelchair. Especially before her mother passed.”

“It would have been her loss,” Patrick said quietly.

He meant it. Stephen Traver was strong and fit, with a keen eye for human nature. The accident that put him in a wheelchair might have happened when he was in his early twenties, but no one could ever make the mistake of thinking he was helpless. Courting the Formidable Finn was probably the only thing he hadn’t done, including sky diving.

Stephen was living proof that when bad things happen they didn’t have to ruin or control your life.

As the sense of his thoughts sank in, Patrick winced. He might have had a great example of courage and fortitude to follow, but he hadn’t learned much from it.

“I hope you’ll both be happy,” he said sincerely. “You deserve it.”

“So do you.”

Patrick looked sharply at Stephen, but could read nothing in the other man’s expression.

“That’s a matter of opinion,” he murmured.

“Your opinion, your life—your decision.”

“I made that decision a long time ago.”

Stephen’s eyes were grave now, and he shook his head. “And what about Maddie?”

“Maddie…” Patrick set his jaw. Everyone believed they were having an affair, but he’d be damned if he’d explain that nothing had really happened between them, even to his friend. “I’m not like my father. I can’t be everything to everybody.”

“He wasn’t anything of the kind. In fact, you’re still pissed that he failed.”

Patrick shoved away from the desk, furious. “My father never failed at anything.”

“He failed the worst way a father can fail,” Stephen said, looking oddly pleased. “It was the ultimate failure. He died. When you needed him the most, he was dead. And you’ve never forgiven him for it. Isn’t it about time you let it go?”

“You don’t know what in hell you’re talking about,” Patrick snarled.

Sure, he’d been angry about his father’s death, but dying wasn’t Keenan O’Rourke’s fault. It had been an accident, pure and simple.

Just then the blue light alarm on his desk rang
sharply, startling both of them. For a fraction of a section Patrick stared at the blinking light. He’d installed it as a precaution, a few days after buying the station from C. D. Dugan—a way for the Formidable Finn to alert him of trouble at the front desk. Until now it had never been used.

With an agility that testified to his powerful shoulders and arms, Stephen maneuvered his wheelchair aside far enough for Patrick to get out the door.

Patrick hit the corridor running, only slowing a few feet before turning the corner into the lobby. He didn’t know what he’d find, maybe an upset client or listener, or a thief who didn’t know the station didn’t keep money on the premises. The possibilities were endless and it didn’t pay to burst into the situation, making it worse.

“Gosh, you must really like to sing.”

It was Maddie’s voice, and Patrick’s heartbeat stopped for a long moment, then jumped into triple digits.

“Yeah…yeah, and you haven’t played a single demo I’ve sent.”

Demo?

Patrick thought about the hundreds of demo tapes sent to KLMS by aspiring songwriters and singers. Most of them were pure junk, desperate dreams of the untalented. Very rarely they found a gem in the bunch and played it, giving full credit to the artist.

He stepped slowly, noiselessly, into the small lobby and saw something that hit him like a sledge-hammer—Maddie, her arm held in a tight grip by a young man with stringy hair and a hard set to his profile.

“What kind of songs do you write?” Maddie
asked. She sounded friendly and interested, the way she did on the radio. Yet Patrick could see her wince as her arm was jerked.

“Rock and roll. Great rock and roll, not that this pissant station would know the difference.” He sounded even younger than Patrick had originally thought.

“Oh. No wonder we didn’t play your songs,” she said, making it sound as if the answer was so logical and understandable that even a maniac could understand.

A maniac…Patrick had trouble drawing air into his chest. An angry listener was one thing, an unhinged singer-songwriter was another. He eased farther into the lobby, ready to tackle them both if necessary. The one thing in his favor was that he wasn’t in the guy’s direct line of sight. The bad part was that he couldn’t see if a knife or gun was involved.

The thought of deadly force being pointed at Maddie made ice run through his veins.

“What do you mean?” snarled the intruder.

“We’re a country music station now. It used to be rock and roll, but we changed. Haven’t you heard our motto? ‘KLMS, we’re
your
country music.”’

“Maddie, that’s ‘We’re KLMS, your station for country music,”’ Candace Finney advised. She’d acknowledged Patrick with a slight flicker of her eyes, but not enough to alert the intruder.

“I always mess it up. Actually,” Maddie said in a confiding tone, “we have a lot of mottoes, like not having dead air on the radio and being the prize-winningest station, but all radio stations are probably the same. I don’t know, what do you think?”

The guy seemed distracted. “About what?”

“Radio. I don’t know very much about it. My name is Maddie, and you’re…?”

He blinked and shook his head. “Scott Dell, but my band’s name is the Puget Busters. You’re that girl who comes on in the afternoon, Heart-something-or-other, aren’t you?”

Patrick could tell the man’s grip had eased on Maddie’s arm, but he didn’t seem ready to let go anytime soon. Actually, he could hardly be called a man. He looked to be in his mid-teens, with low-riding jeans and feet too big for his lanky body.

“Hey, I’m not a girl,” Maddie said, exasperation in her voice.

“Yes, you are.” Patrick took a step forward as if he’d just arrived and everything was calm and normal.

“Patrick—”

“Maddie,”
he mimicked back. “You’re a girl, we’re guys, and we don’t know why it’s such a big deal.”

“My girlfriend says it patronizing,” said the teenager.

She gave them both a narrow look. “It’s the difference between being a child and being an adult. Would you like it if I called you a boy?”

Patrick didn’t feel the least bit like bonding with the youngster still keeping Maddie prisoner, but his gaze met the intruder’s, and they both shrugged.

“Men,” she fumed. “How about if I call you ‘nice.”’ I bet
that’s
a different story, isn’t it?”

“There’s nice and there’s nice,” Patrick said.

“Yeah.” The kid nodded. “Nice is all right.”

“If you’re a puppy dog,” Patrick qualified.

Scott laughed and dropped Maddie’s arm. With a
clear view of both his hands, no weapons, and no bulges in his pockets, Patrick immediately put himself between the two of them.

“Go back to work,” he ordered over his shoulder.

“But, Patr—”

“
Now,
Maddie.”

“Uh…it was nice meeting you, Scott,” she said as she turned and headed for the back of the station. “The boss says I have to go back to work now. Work can really take the fun out of a day.”

“It’s better than not having any,” Scott muttered, looking both sad and angry.

Patrick waited until Maddie was out of sight, then fixed the teenager with a stern eye. His first urge was to throttle the kid, but he knew what it was like to be young and angry, and how important second chances could be.

“What in hell were you thinking, young man?” Jeez, he sounded just like C. D. Dugan the night he’d been caught trying to hotwire the truck.

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.

M
addie 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 just about money.

Real living was about loving, and he’d done his best not to love for the better part of twenty years.