The Right Twin For Him (O'Rourke Family 2) (6 page)

“Well, it probably would have worked out all right if it hadn’t been for that punch girl.” Maddie scowled. “We should have never hired someone from out of town, but there isn’t a caterer in Slapshot.”

“I don’t think you can blame the punch girl for Ted being a louse.”

“No, just my flat chest,” Maddie retorted.

Patrick turned and rested his hip against the Blazer.
A lock of Maddie’s long hair blew across his shoulder and he reached up, smoothing it back against her cheek. It was pretty in the sunlight, with glints of gold and red, catching on his rough fingers like spun silk.

“Stop saying that. You don’t have a flat chest,” he said. “It happens to be a very nice chest.”

“That’s not what Ted—”

“I don’t
care
what Ted said,” Patrick interrupted harshly. He already wanted to grind the little toad beneath his heel, and hearing more of what Ted had said about Maddie’s chest wasn’t going to relieve that desire. “And nothing justifies him saying something mean.”

“He was just being honest.”

“Like hell.”

Patrick deliberately planted his hands on either side of Maddie, caging her between him and the vehicle. They were on a little-used back road, shielded on either side by tall mounds of blackberry vines and the tinted windows of the Blazer. It was secluded enough to offer privacy, and public enough to keep him from getting carried away.

“Maddie, he was trying to push his inadequacy onto you. Not every man requires an exaggerated version of womanhood to get his jollies. Some of us even enjoy a figure built on more elegant lines. Like yours. So don’t tar us all with the same damned brush.”

“But I’m not very generous up—”

Patrick gave up and fastened his mouth over hers. Quite possibly it was the only way to get Maddie to be quiet, and right now he needed her to be quiet.

He needed…oh, hell, he needed something he shouldn’t need.

For a fraction of a second Maddie was frozen in
shock. She might have wondered what kissing Patrick O’Rourke would be like, but she’d never expected to find out. One thing was certain, there wasn’t a single easygoing thing about his kiss—it was pure electricity.

Maddie raised her arms around Patrick’s neck and held on for dear life. Heat poured through her veins, making her aware of every part of her body. The sensations seemed so strange and unexpected, shivering through her body with a power that reminded her of lightning over the desert.

“That’s it…yes,” Patrick muttered into her mouth.

His hands moved, stroking her back, his fingers gliding over the curve of her bottom. It made her insides jump in response and she stretched more fully against him, feeling small and fragile and protected within his embrace, though she wasn’t the least bit small and fragile and didn’t need protection.

Patrick was a tall man, equal in size to his older brother, and so similar in appearance to Kane O’Rourke it was uncanny. She couldn’t imagine wanting Kane touching her, but she’d wanted Patrick’s kiss, maybe even from the beginning when he’d mistakenly bussed her cheek and shocked the socks off her.

Fool,
a voice whispered in her head.

Getting tangled up with another man was not the way to discover what to do with her life, but it felt so good having his hard length pressed against her, she couldn’t stop. In five minutes, perhaps, but not now. She might be a fool, but she’d missed so much in her twenty-six years that she wasn’t going to miss
this.

The sound of the breeze and the lapping of water
blended with the roar of blood in her ears. Patrick’s lips trailed down her check and pressed to the side of her throat. He was lightly sucking the skin and she wondered if she’d have a mark there when he finished—something that branded her, however temporarily, as belonging to Patrick O’Rourke.

The thought didn’t displease her as much as it should have. She didn’t belong to him, and wasn’t likely to in the future. The man she kept glimpsing below Patrick’s charming, easygoing surface was as appealing as he was unattainable. Whatever demons drove him, they weren’t the ones he told the world…they probably weren’t even the ones he told himself.

If she hadn’t been able to understand Ted, how could she possibly understand a man who was a thousand times more complicated? And she…a sigh escaped as Patrick began flicking her skin with the tip of his tongue. The velvety, moist caresses made her squirm again, and she threaded her fingers through his dark hair.

“Maddie.” Her name was more a vibration, than a sound. “Do you understand now?”

Understand?

For an instant she wondered if Patrick had read her mind about understanding him.

“About…what?” Maddie managed to get out.

“About what I was saying.”

It took another long minute to process the question, partly because she was so muddled. Patrick was still holding her, but he wasn’t doing anything, and she really wanted him to keep doing what he’d been doing, which was kissing and touching her in all kinds of lovely places.

She remembered they’d discussed Ted being a louse. She wasn’t entirely certain her ex-fiancé was a louse, just immature and thoughtless. They should have talked more over the years, but sometimes talking meant honesty, and neither one of them had really been willing to admit their teenage passion had fizzled like a wet firecracker. Even to themselves.

“Maddie?”

Jeez, why did Patrick have to start talking
now
of all times.

“What?” she said crossly.

“Do you believe me now, that you’re attractive?”

Maddie’s mouth tightened. So, he’d just been trying to demonstrate she wasn’t such a dog when it came to being desirable, which meant nothing at all. She decided she was right after all. Men were…
men.
Maybe they couldn’t help being rotten. She stiffened and tried to step backward, but she was trapped by the car, and Patrick’s fingers still curved around her bottom.

Fine, she would just shove him away, that’s what.

Her fingers were more reluctant than her mind to let go of such an attractive male, but she managed to free them from Patrick’s hair.

“Sure, I believe you,” she muttered, and pushed at his chest. He didn’t budge, of course, it was like pushing at a rock face in El Morro. There wasn’t any justice in the world.

She heard him sigh.

“What’s wrong now?

“You,” Maddie snapped. She tried to wiggle sideways and met with no more success than her previous efforts. “Let go of me.”

“Not until we talk about it.” Patrick wasn’t about
to admit he was having trouble bringing his body under control, something he didn’t want Maddie to see. Not that she couldn’t have figured it out for herself, but she was so riled up—for reasons he couldn’t begin to imagine—she obviously wasn’t paying attention to the physical evidence.

Unless…there was another possibility he didn’t want to think about. Maddie couldn’t possibly be a virgin at the age of twenty-six. Her fiancé might have been a skunk, but he couldn’t have been
that
slow off the mark.

Could he?

Patrick shook his head. He hadn’t tried to seduce a virgin since he was a teenager. Not that he’d had a particular interest in virgins, but when you’re a kid, the choices are limited. If Maddie was really
that
inexperienced, then she was even more vulnerable than he’d imagined.

God, Maddie lived with her feelings visible to everyone, making her doubly vulnerable to all the pitfalls and dangers in the world. He’d managed his emotions for so long it was unsettling to be around someone who felt both joy and sorrow with such abandon.

She wriggled, doing devastating things to his self-control. “I said to let me go.”

Patrick raised one eyebrow. “I didn’t just fall off the turnip truck. You’re probably itching to slap my face, and this way you can’t get much English into your swing, even if you do try.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“Not really. I bet you were too stunned to slap Ted, so you probably have a lot of pent-up anger to take out on someone. If I show up at dinner tonight with
a bruise on my jaw, they’ll all wonder who I’ve been fighting.”

“Like I could ever bruise you,” Maddie snapped. “I’d break my hand trying.”

“You never know. So talk to me.”

“All right,” she said. “Let’s talk about a guy who kisses a woman as some kind of stupid ‘demonstration.’ How would you feel if I’d kissed you to demonstrate something?”

“Guys aren’t like women. We like kissing for any reason,” Patrick said without thinking.

“That isn’t…you aren’t…you…” She let out an inarticulate shriek.

Jeez.

What was that cliché about the difference between men and women and their views on sex?
Men don’t need a reason, they just need a place.
Right. To a certain extent it was true, but he could see Maddie’s point. If he’d wanted to bolster her self-confidence, he should never have claimed he had a rational reason to kiss her. Especially when it was just an excuse—nothing about kissing Maddie was rational, he’d just wanted to make it sound that way after the fact.

“I guess we’ll have to do it over again,” Patrick said, his voice rumbling through the tightness in his chest. He didn’t want to hurt Maddie; she’d been hurt enough.

“Do what?”

“Kiss. And I could try some other forms of persuasion.”

Ignoring all the reasons he shouldn’t take things further, Patrick slid his finger down Maddie’s jaw, then her throat, settling on the first button of her dress. He hadn’t been a wild teenage boy for nothing, and
first thing he’d noticed about her dress that morning was that the buttons were
not
the decorative variety.

With the skill he’d developed by the time he was sixteen, he unfastened the first button one-handed. Beneath his fingers Maddie drew a sharp breath but remained silent. Three more buttons slid from their holes, and a satisfied smile curved Patrick’s mouth when he eased his hand inside the opening. He liked front-clasp bras.

The pupils in her eyes dilated as the hooks were dispatched with equal dexterity.

“Anything to say?” he muttered.

“Like what?”

Like stop.

Patrick couldn’t quite bring himself to suggest it—not when he didn’t want to stop—so he lifted one shoulder. “I told you I wasn’t the least bit nice, and this should prove it. What would your father say if he knew what I was doing?”

“He wouldn’t say anything, he’d just shoot you. Daddy believes in the direct approach.”

A grin pulled at Patrick’s mouth. “And how would you feel about me getting shot?”

“That…he should have waited. At least for a minute.” A peculiar mix of anticipation and dread filled Maddie’s golden-brown eyes. She wanted to know what he thought of her body, and at the same time was afraid of finding out.

The chance that Maddie was a virgin was rapidly becoming a certainty in his mind, but he pushed the thought away. There were some things it was safer not to know.

Patrick leaned closer and pressed a kiss to her mouth as he eased his fingers around the feminine
territory he’d uncovered. Freed of the silk bra, her breast plumped into his hand, her nipple hardening as he rubbed his palm across the sensitive tip. The sensation nearly drove him to his knees. It wasn’t as if he’d never touched a woman before, but Maddie’s scent and taste and essential innocence were an aphrodisiac.

No longer thinking of privacy or the fact he didn’t have any business kissing Maddie, Patrick thrust his tongue deeper into her mouth. He’d always enjoyed kissing—long slow kissing that went on forever, and Maddie had a mouth he could spend a lifetime getting to know. Inexperienced or not, she had a natural talent for kissing that made a man appreciate being alive.

And her fingers…hell, he loved the feel of her curious fingers, touching him at the same time he explored the satin skin beneath her dress. He should have realized she’d be so sensual. Everything about Maddie was sensual, from the full curve of her lips to the pleasure she took in a bird crying as it soared across the sky.

He was on the verge of losing complete control when a bawdy shout and whistle from a passing motorboat brought him back to reality.

“Damn,” he growled, taking a quick look over his shoulder. The boat was moving on, the occupant’s interest already focused on something else. His body had blocked most of their view, so the person couldn’t have seen anything more than a man kissing a woman. Thank heaven. At his worst he’d never been an exhibitionist, and despite Maddie’s emotional candor, he didn’t think she was, either.

He turned back and saw Maddie leaning against the Blazer, her dress in disarray. His body, still tight,
turned up the pressure, trying to wrest control away from his mind and conscience. It probably wouldn’t take much to seduce her, but he wasn’t that kind of man.

“In case you didn’t get the message,” Patrick said deliberately, pressing his hips closer, “I happen to think you’re very sexy. Incredibly sexy. And these…” He stroked a pert nipple. “Are the prettiest I’ve ever seen.”

He meant it, too. Maddie’s breasts were small, but they were round and up-tilted, with the loveliest shape. His father had always said more than a handful was just a waste, and Maddie was the sweetest of handfuls.

“Understand?” he asked roughly.

Maddie bobbed her head. The sensations cascading through her body were still so overwhelming she didn’t know whether to be glad or upset he’d broken off the kiss. It had never been like that with Ted, both alarming and delicious and exciting at the same time.

Nothing had prepared her for Patrick O’Rourke. She wasn’t certain she believed him about her breasts being that pretty, but the hard bulge pressed against her stomach was evidence he found
some
thing attractive about her.

Until she was a little less confused, it would have to be enough.

“I
can’t get over how much you two look alike,” declared Kathleen O’Rourke, staring from Beth to Maddie and back again.

Kathleen was the youngest of the O’Rourke siblings, and mother of darling three-year-old twin daughters. After dinner they’d started a game of Candyland with the girls, but Amy and Peggy had fallen asleep in the middle, their dark, curly heads on their mother’s lap. It turned out that Patrick had four brothers, two older than him, and four younger sisters, but only Kathleen had any children.

“It shouldn’t be so surprising, your girls are identical,” Maddie said comfortably. She was used to her own extended family, so the ebb and flow of people in Pegeen O’Rourke’s old house was dear and familiar.

What wasn’t comfortable was seeing Patrick in the dining room. He was seated at the table, drinking coffee and debating football tactics with his brothers, and
looking so darned gorgeous it made her wobbly all over again.

Had she really let him touch her like that?

It didn’t seem possible, yet the imprint of his hard, knowing hands was still on her breasts, and she still felt a hot rush of blood whenever she thought about it. He hadn’t said much afterward, just helped her back into the Blazer and returned to the radio station with a grim expression on his face. An hour later he’d stopped by the ad office, as impersonal as a stranger, and asked if she was ready to go. They’d barely talked on the ferry ride and long drive to his mother’s place, and she didn’t think he’d so much as glanced at her since arriving.

Maddie shifted restlessly, focusing on the cheerful game board lying on the floor. In a few years she might have been teaching her own children to play Candyland—if things had been different. She bit down on her bottom lip, wondering if she’d ever feel normal again.

“I recognize that look,” Kathleen said in a low voice.

“What look?”

“That ‘my world just fell apart’ look. I’ve seen it often enough in the mirror.” She sighed. “You see, my husband ran off with my best friend when I was pregnant with the girls.”

Maddie’s eyes opened wide. She felt horrid about finding Ted with another woman
before
the wedding, but she’d gotten off lightly considering what had happened to Kathleen. “That’s awful. What happened to me…it wasn’t…” Her voice trailed.

Kathleen shrugged. “Betrayal is betrayal.”

“Have you ever considered getting married
again?” Maddie blurted out, then bit her lip in consternation. She didn’t know Kathleen well enough to ask that sort of question, and it certainly wasn’t any of her business.

But Kathleen didn’t seem offended. She stroked Amy’s sleep-flushed face and shook her head. “It might be different if it was just me, but I have to think about the girls,” she said. “I can’t take the chance of them getting hurt.”

“That wouldn’t happen with the right man,” Beth said, clearly distressed for her sister-in-law. “At least stay open to the possibility.”

Kathleen and Maddie shared an understanding look. Beth was expecting a baby, had a husband who adored her, and was probably the happiest woman alive. They may as well argue the earth wasn’t round as try to convince her that the risks of falling in love might outweigh the benefits.

As if directed by an internal radar, Maddie’s gaze was drawn again to Patrick. From her position on the floor, she mostly saw his profile. He seemed relaxed except for the hand splayed tautly on his thigh, out of sight beneath the dining room table.

He’d tensed earlier, almost imperceptibly, when Kane had suggested giving him a loan to expand KLMS. Of course Patrick had laughed it off with a joke about being independent, yet his underlying reaction puzzled Maddie. Independence was important, but it was as if there was a transparent wall between him and the rest of the O’Rourkes, one he didn’t want anyone to get through.

Patrick turned his head and caught her watching him before she could look away. For once he was somber and unsmiling, and she squirmed uncomfortably.
Was he thinking about how she’d looked with her dress unbuttoned, with his fingers teasing her nipples?

Maddie shivered.

Doubts were already creeping back. Nothing could change the fact he’d initially kissed her for reasons that had nothing to do with thinking she was attractive. He’d said as much. And just how much did it take a man to get aroused? She didn’t know enough about men and sex to be sure of anything, much less about a man like Patrick.

All at once Patrick pushed back from the table and stood up. “Maddie, how about taking a walk with me?” he asked.

“Good idea,” said Shannon. She was the eldest O’Rourke daughter, and so drop-dead glamorous that Maddie felt dowdy in comparison. “I need some exercise. I ate too much.”

He looked pained. “Shannon, don’t be ridiculous. You can’t walk in those high heels.”

His sister wrinkled her nose at him as she twirled her elegantly shod foot. “Always the charmer, aren’t you, dear brother?”

“I can’t help myself, I was born to be charming.” Patrick looked back at Maddie. “How about it?”

“Uh, sure,” she said, trying not to see the other O’Rourkes grin and nudge each other with their elbows. It must have seemed he was trying to get her alone, but Maddie didn’t think so. Not for romantic reasons, anyway. It was obvious what happened that afternoon had been an accident he didn’t want repeated.

Outside, the night air was crisp and frosty, though it was still early in the fall. The scent of wood smoke
mingled with the fragrance of evergreen and damp earth. It seemed familiar, tickling something in the back of her mind. She’d lived in Washington until she was two years old, so it must be from the time in her life she didn’t consciously remember.

“Warm enough?” Patrick asked as they strode down a dark, tree-lined path.

“I’m fine.”

Before leaving he’d made sure she put on a jacket, though he’d decided not to wear one himself. She’d thought it was part of his macho male act, but maybe not. She wasn’t used to the damp air in the Northwest; he might be.

“I wanted to talk to you,” he murmured after several minutes of silence.

“Could have fooled me.”

“What’s that supposed—Never mind.” Patrick stopped and stuck his fingers in his pockets. “I keep thinking about this afternoon.”

“Me, too. It seems strange to visit your family so soon after we…uh, did
that.
”

“We didn’t do anything, that’s the point,” he said sharply. “It just happened.”

Maddie rolled her eyes. Maybe things like that “just happened” to Patrick, but it seemed more dramatic to her. It wasn’t every day a girl found out what she’d been missing when it came to kissing and other extracurricular activities.

“It seemed like something to me,” she muttered.

“Right, and that’s what I’ve been worried about.”

“Oh.”

“The thing is, I shouldn’t have kissed you in the first place. It wasn’t right after everything you’d been through.”

“I would have objected if I didn’t like it.”

Patrick smiled wryly. Yeah, Maddie would have objected. She had a mind of her own and said whatever she thought.

“I want to be honest with you, because your ex-fiancé obviously wasn’t,” he said. “I think you’re terrific, but I’m not a marrying kind of man. Even if I was, I couldn’t think about it until I was sure the station was a success. I’ve been afraid you might have gotten the wrong idea.”

The wrong idea? What was it with Patrick and “ideas.”

She straightened. “You
what?
”

Warning tension sneaked up his spine. “You’re so innocent, I thought you might have read more into us kissing…like that. It should never have gone that far. Not that it went anywhere, just not where it should have.” He shook his head, knowing he sounded like an idiot. Maddie did that to him, driving sane thought from his brain and replacing it with drivel. “I take full responsibility.”

“Isn’t that nice of you.”

“Maddie—”

“No.”
Maddie poked her finger in Patrick’s chest. She didn’t know whether to laugh or be furious. “I am not a child and I don’t need you trying to protect me or apologize for something I could have stopped on my own.”

“I’m older and should have known better.”

“So being ‘older’ makes you think I want to marry you because of one little kiss?” She deliberately made her voice incredulous.

“It wasn’t so little.”

“It was a kiss, that’s all. Isn’t that what you’ve been saying? How dumb do you think I am?”

He winced. “I don’t think you’re dumb.”

“Could have fooled me. We barely know each other, I just got cheated on by my fiancé, and you keep thinking I’m going to get ideas about us spending the rest of our lives together. At the moment I’m not even sure I like you, why would I want a lifetime?”

“I guess I deserve that.”

“I’m trying to figure out what to do with my life,” Maddie continued irately. “I’m certainly not thinking about marrying anyone. I thought I made that clear.
You
certainly have, so I don’t know why we’re having this discussion again.”

“Yeah, right.”

Her reaction was stinging Patrick’s pride, but he was smart enough to keep his mouth shut on the subject. It
had
been an arrogant assumption, but Maddie was different from other women—innocent and idealistic, despite what happened with her fiancé. She was exactly the type to start seeing him through rose-colored glasses. If only she could understand that he kept doing and saying the wrong thing because he was afraid of hurting her. And now he had a sneaking suspicion that he’d wounded her in some other way.

“Beth and Kane offered to take me back to the bed-and-breakfast place. I’d better see if they’re ready to leave,” Maddie said.

There was a stiff dignity in her voice that didn’t suit the Maddie he knew, but Patrick just nodded. He didn’t know what would happen if Kane found out about the way he’d kissed Maddie. His brother adored
his new wife, and if Maddie was Beth’s sister, then Kane would be protective of her, as well.

For a guy who liked to keep things simple, his life was going to hell in a hurry.

His best bet was to keep out of Maddie’s way. It would be hard with her working at the radio station, but that’s the way it had to be.

Maddie typed a few words into her computer, then put her chin on her hand and stared at the screen without really seeing the display. In the past two weeks Patrick had barely spoken to her. He’d treated her exactly the way she’d first wanted, like any other employee. Kane and Beth had taken her home, and while she’d spent time with the O’Rourkes since then, Patrick had been conspicuously absent.

Her mother always said to be careful what you asked for, and this might be one of those occasions. How could she begin to figure him out when he barely said good morning to her?

I think you’re terrific, but I’m not a marrying kind of man.

Thinking about Patrick’s absurd “warning” still annoyed Maddie. How many times did he think she had to be warned? He’d said he wasn’t “nice,” he’d said he didn’t want to get married or have children. As a matter of fact, he’d said a whole lot of things that were perfectly irritating.

“Darn him,” she said beneath her breath.

Heaven knew she had plenty of things to think about besides Patrick, like the fact she had a new sister and brother-in-law, when she’d lived her whole life as an only child. Though the O’Rourkes had treated her connection to Beth as a foregone conclusion,
they’d gone ahead and done the research to confirm it. Kane had even paid for some expensive genetic tests, the results coming back the same day his investigators got their hands on the adoption records for both Beth and herself.

So now she had a twin sister. An identical twin.

Her parents planned to fly out soon to meet Beth and had talked to her by phone several times. Once they’d gotten over their dismay over the girls being separated, they’d been thrilled that Maddie had found a sister. Some adoptive parents might have been threatened when their kid went looking for a birth family, but not her mom and dad. They were the greatest.

Sighing quietly, Maddie corrected a typo in one of the graphics. She needed to concentrate on the new advertising campaign. Stephen seemed to like her ideas, so at least she was doing all right in the employment department.

Just not in the heart department.

Maddie gave up and gazed out the window. It was a stormy day and everyone had been complaining about it raining for the past several days. They’d also been coming down with stomach flu in record numbers, leaving the station short staffed.

“Is the weather getting to you?” Stephen asked, breaking her reverie. “You don’t get this much rain in New Mexico.”

She pasted a smile on her lips and shook her head. “No. I like it, it’s what keeps everything green.”

“That’s what Patrick always says.”

Patrick.

Great. Couldn’t she go one minute without thinking about the man? He was driving her crazy with his
polite nods when they passed in the hallway or met in the break room. It wasn’t that she wanted him to kiss her again, but why had he suddenly started treating her like a contagious disease?

“You’re doing an excellent job. I told him you were responsible for those new advertisers. He was pleased.”

Oh, goody.

“I’m going to take a break and get a cup of coffee,” she said, unable to contain her restlessness. “Can I bring you anything?”

“No, I still have some of Candy’s French roast in my thermos.”

This time Maddie’s smile was genuine. There had been a few raised eyebrows when the Formidable Finn started making the advertising director a thermos of coffee every morning, but her stern demeanor kept everyone silent. It had been a simple matter to suggest Candy make an extra thermos for Stephen, with the excuse it was just going to waste at home. And it shouldn’t take more than a few nudges to get them together, especially since she’d learned Stephen was the source of Candy’s whimsical cat jewelry—all from years of Christmas gift exchanges and “gestures of appreciation.”

Going into the break room she saw Candy making a cup of tea. “How are you? Any sign of the dreaded flu?”