The Right Twin For Him (O'Rourke Family 2) (8 page)

“You’re full of it.”

“Pegeen is worried,” Maddie added softly. “She thinks Kane getting married has something to do with you not coming around so much.”

Patrick’s jaw was rigid as he shook his head. “That’s a bunch of nonsense. I took a risk when I switched KLMS to country music, and then Kane’s romance with Beth helped put the station on the map. I’ve been busy, that’s all. There’s no mystery or deep psychological stuff going on, it’s plain-and-simple economics.”

“But—”

“No.”
He seemed ready to explode, a far cry from the smiling, nonchalant guy she’d first met. “Not
wanting things to be complicated means just that,
not complicated.
”

Maddie blinked, trying not to cry. Patrick had a wonderful family, but he didn’t want to get too close, or admit he cared that much, because something might happen. The way something had happened to his father. She hadn’t needed Kane’s explanation that the death of Keenan O’Rourke had come at a terrible time for Patrick—a time when he was too young to be a child and not old enough to be a man.

She didn’t want to be like that, did she?

Alone?

It was something to think about. Because no matter how much it could hurt to love someone, the alternative might be worse.

“Jeez,” Patrick muttered. “I apologize, and then blow up again. It’s just that I feel so guilty.”

It was the last thing Maddie expected to hear. “About what? If you’re going to apologize for being in a bad mood you’d better apologize to everyone at the station. Stephen says he’s never seen you so surly.”

“He’s seen me plenty surly.”

“Since when?”

“Since I was a dumb kid doing my best to get arrested or killed.
All right?
”

Her breath seemed frozen in her lungs. She didn’t know Patrick that well, but the dark glitter of his eyes and intensity of his voice was…surprising. Or maybe it wasn’t, because she’d known all along that Patrick wasn’t quite as comfortable as he wanted the world to think.

“I said I was a teenage tough, but you can’t imagine what that really means, can you?” he asked furiously.
“I drank, smoked, slept with every skirt I could catch and fought dirty. I even tried to steal a truck. It’s a miracle I didn’t end up in prison or juvie, and even more of a miracle that my family didn’t have to see me lying on a table in the morgue. What a treat
that
would have been after burying my father.”

“You were angry because you missed him.”

“Damned straight. So I became the toughest, meanest kid you ever met. I’ll demonstrate.” He reached out and deliberately, crudely, put his hand over her breast. “I’m not the kind of guy who would have waited for a wedding band to get you under me. And I wouldn’t have cared if it happened in a bed. A car seat would have been just fine.”

She wanted to be furious, to slap his hand away, but a rebellious heat spread out from the fingers moving over her nipple, shimmering into the deepest recesses of her abdomen. And some instinct she hadn’t known she possessed told her that Patrick was hurting himself far worse than he could hurt her.

“Do you hear me?” he demanded in the silence.

“I hear you.”

“Good. Then you understand.”

Instead of shrinking farther away, Maddie unsnapped her seat belt and leaned into his hand. Her tummy was turning to shivering jelly, especially when his touch gentled, his thumb brushing over the sensitive peak.

His heavy-lidded gaze dropped to her breasts. He couldn’t help but see and feel the responsive hardness of her nipples. The shivering turned into an internal earthquake.

She still wasn’t confident of her feminine appeal, but she did know there was more to life than watching
it go by. And she knew Patrick had elected to sit on the sidelines. He kept trying to scare her away and she didn’t know why. It wasn’t a secret how he felt about marriage and children; he’d made it abundantly clear he planned to spend his life as a bachelor. If anything happened between them, it wouldn’t be without her knowing the score.

“Actually, I
don’t
understand,” Maddie whispered.

“Then I should explain it better.” With a muttered curse he pulled her across the transmission. He tugged her astride his hips, and for the second time in her life his arousal was pressed hard and intimately against Maddie. Only this time it touched a place that turned to fire at the contact. A low moan escaped, and her fingers dug into his shoulders.

“Oh, for pity’s sake,
why aren’t you stopping me?
” Patrick bellowed. “After what happened with your wedding you’re supposed to hate men.”

“Just men who cheat. My problem is not being able to tell the difference.”

He was trying to shock her enough to say “No,” but it wasn’t going to work since she knew saying “no” would end the conversation. And she was perfectly safe because Patrick was too scrupulous about the O’Rourke “code” to force a woman. She’d heard all about that code from Beth.

Maddie squirmed on Patrick’s lap, adjusting her legs into a less-strained position, only to hear him groan.

“Is something wrong?” she asked.

“Nobody’s that innocent,” he growled.

“So, can you fake that?” she asked brightly. There wasn’t any question of what “that” was, not with it
snuggled into her feminine heat, separated by only a few layers of clothing.

Patrick hit his head against the window in frustration. He had his hands full of a sexy lady who was rapidly turning the tables on him. Maddie was understandably curious about sex and men and her inhibitions were dissolving at the speed of light. What she lacked in experience she made up for in sheer instinctive guile. It ought to make him furious, but instead he wanted to kiss her.

“No, I can’t fake it.” He wished to heaven he
had
been faking his arousal, because it wouldn’t hurt so much. “And I can’t believe you asked that on the radio. We’re a country music station, not true confessions.”

“I didn’t come right out and say it.”

Patrick swallowed the chuckle rising in his chest. “Close enough. You’re a hazard, you know that? Someone ought to declare you off-limits.”

“I thought you already did.”

“To who?”

“To you, of course. Two weeks and you’ve barely said good morning to me.”

She’d melted bonelessly over him, the way only a woman could manage, and he was having trouble keeping his hands away from the obvious battlegrounds of sexual conquest. Actually, he found all parts of a woman’s body sexy, from the arches of the foot to the sensitive place behind her ears. He finally settled for Maddie’s waist. It seemed like a compromise, but it also reminded him of the sweet curves above, and the tempting warmth below.

“I’ve said more than good morning,” he said.

“Yeah, you added ‘good night’ a couple days ago. What a shock.”

His laugh was both a release and exquisite torture as she rocked with him. He sighed. “What am I going to do about you, Maddie?”

“I don’t recall asking you to do anything.”

“Mmm, yes.”

The mental picture he carried of Maddie as a ditzy airhead was fading into something more complex, more worrisome and infinitely tempting.

They were on opposite poles, a woman who felt too much and a man who didn’t want to feel at all.

What was happening to him? He was the unflappable one in the family, the kidder, the comfortable brother who didn’t get stirred up along with everyone else. He just sat back and let everything flow by. And he liked it that way.

So why should his peace of mind be threatened by a “nice” girl from a town he’d never heard of before?

Good question, son.

Oh, be quiet, he ordered crossly.

If his father
was
talking to him, then he was way off base when it came to Maddie. She was a luscious bundle, but she’d never be
his
luscious bundle.

Let his brothers and sisters get married and give his mother grandchildren.

Grandchildren?

Patrick broke out into a sweat, realizing he’d subconsciously associated Maddie and children together. It was probably because they’d talked several times about babies, though he couldn’t be certain.

He closed his eyes, but he couldn’t shut out Maddie’s warmth, covering him like a blanket. Hell, he’d cultivated a comfortable laid-back attitude toward
women over the years. A “treat them nice, but take them or leave them” sort of perspective.

Now he didn’t know what to think.

Maddie unsettled him in a way he hadn’t felt in a long while, and it didn’t feel nearly as terrible as he’d thought it would.

W
hen they got back to the station Maddie gave him a faint smile, then disappeared down the corridor to the ad office.

Oh, man. He hadn’t even kissed her, and she smiled like the first Eve, reminding Adam of the fundamental differences between man and woman.

“Patrick, we have to talk,” declared Dixie Saunders, grabbing his arm before he could get farther than the reception area.

“What is it, Dix?”

“It’s about Maddie’s new show.”

Damn.

“Don’t worry, it was a mistake, Dix. Maddie doesn’t have a new show, she was just filling in when Mack had to run for the rest room. He’s the latest victim of the flu.”

“But it was a wonderful mistake,” Dixie exclaimed. “The phones haven’t stopped ringing. The men are calling just as much as the women, so there’s
cross-gender appeal. You know how hard that is to get. Everyone wants to know who the mysterious kisser is and offer Maddie advice.”

The knowing look in Dixie’s eyes made Patrick grit his teeth. He’d never fully appreciated how private he was, and having Maddie talk about him like that, albeit anonymously, was galling.

“Forget it, Dix.” He headed for his own office with Dixie tagging along at his heels.

“But you could have a huge hit on your hands. Let Maddie do a segment on advice for the lovelorn. People could call in and explain their problem, then others could give their opinion, say what worked for them, and she could just…”

“What? Be herself?” Patrick finished, his tone ironic.

He opened the door of his office and Dixie scooted in ahead of him.

“You have to admit she’s a sweetheart.”

He gave Dixie a repressive look. Not that he expected it to do any good. She was a great producer and extremely ambitious. And she might even be right about Maddie becoming a success on the radio; he just didn’t want it to be on
his
radio station.

Thankfully his phone rang and he pointed toward the door. “I appreciate the input. We’ll talk about it another time.”

Dixie left reluctantly, and Patrick had to smile at her reproachful expression. It wasn’t every day a radio station was flooded with phone calls about one of their programs, and he was probably missing a great opportunity. But his nerves couldn’t handle the idea of Maddie broadcasting to the greater Puget Sound area.

He lifted the receiver on the fourth ring of the phone. “KLMS Radio. O’Rourke, here.”

“Hey, I caught your new approach to talk radio,” said Kane. “I’m not into that sort of thing, but the show was really interesting. Quite illuminating, if you know what I mean.”

For a moment Patrick froze. He hadn’t thought about his
family
hearing Maddie. They would think he’d been putting the moves on her, when he really hadn’t. At least, not in the way it must have sounded.

“Kane.”

“Yup. Beth and I were working down at the Crockett Crisis Center, listening to the radio to pass the time. Then Maddie’s program came on. I must say it generated a fair amount of interest.”

“It wasn’t a program, it was an emergency. Mack got so sick that someone had to drive him home, and Maddie ended up with the headphones and mike.”

“Nice of her to help out.”

Kane’s chuckle sounded faintly evil—a sound Patrick recognized. It was the same chuckle Patrick had used when Kane and Beth were courting. Not that Patrick was courting Maddie or anyone else, but it was payback time for his brother.

“Don’t you have better things to do than harass a hardworking radio station manager?” he asked. “You should be making love to your wife, not bothering me.”

“Any reason I can’t do both?”

“Stop teasing him,” said Beth in the background. Her soft laugh was followed by the rumble of Kane’s voice, low and intimate, the way it always was when he talked to his wife.

Patrick sank back in his chair, shocked by the swift
envy he felt. He’d never envied his brother, though once upon a time he’d resented the way Kane had tried to take the place of their father. But it was pure, unadulterated envy filling him now, envy of the way his brother and sister-in-law lived in their own special world, loving each other beyond reason.

No.

His head shook in instant denial. What Kane and Beth shared might be nice, but it wasn’t for him. He wasn’t interested in the usual things, like love and marriage and children. He’d never let emotional chaos into his life again, which is exactly what would happen if he fell in love. Maddie was a dangerous influence, thinking with her heart rather than her head, running headlong toward pain and hurt and pulling him along with her. By nature the O’Rourkes were too passionate and driven by their emotions; he couldn’t let that part of him take control, ever again.

“Look,” Patrick said finally. “I wouldn’t hurt Maddie, you know that. Something happened between us that shouldn’t have, but I’m handling it.”

“I know.” Kane sounded surprised, as if he hadn’t needed the reassurance. “Are you coming to dinner on Sunday? Maddie is teaching Mom and Beth how to make homemade tamales and green chili stew.”

Patrick hesitated. He hadn’t planned on going, but staying away would convince Maddie even more that he had a problem when it came to being with the family.

“Sure, I’ll be there.”

With a fire extinguisher,
he added silently, remembering the Tabasco sauce Maddie had shaken over her French fries. He made a mental note to bring a couple
of pizzas and a carton of chicken with him, just in case.

Spicy was one thing, suicide by fire was another.

“Canned peppers don’t really taste the same as New Mexico chilies,” Maddie said, frowning into space as she sampled the green chili stew. “They don’t have any heat.”

Patrick made a choking sound behind her, but she ignored him, the same way she’d ignored his teasing about everyone needing an asbestos mouth to eat her cooking. She’d noticed him sneaking more than one bite of the fresh salsa she’d made to go with the nachos, so he obviously liked spicy food better than he claimed.

Ostensibly the O’Rourkes were all in the kitchen “helping” with dinner, but it didn’t take twelve people to cook a meal. They were mostly joking around, chatting and catching up on the week’s news. A favorite topic was Beth and Kane’s baby, and though it still gave Maddie a twinge to think about babies, she enjoyed the give and take of the family.

Her own family was the same—big and boisterous, full of laughter and nosy about everyone else’s business. Boy, were the Jacksons nosy. Everyone kept calling, asking how things were going, and generally trying to be supportive. They were driving her crazy, but it was really very sweet. Her uncle had even offered to help tar and feather Ted if it would make her feel better, but she’d assured him it wasn’t necessary.

“We should have gotten some beer to go with all this spicy stuff,” said Patrick.

Pegeen fixed him with her sharp eyes. “Not in my house, young man.”

Beth and Pegeen had caught on quickly to the art of making tamales. They’d declared Shannon a disaster in the kitchen and relegated her to setting the dining room table, while Patrick and his four brothers were assigned salad duty. Kathleen was working on dessert, a chocolaty Mexican concoction that Maddie particularly loved.

“A master’s degree in business, an executive of Kane Enterprises, and here I am, chopping tomatoes,” grumped Neil O’Rourke.

“Better than onions,” complained Kane good-naturedly. His attractive nose wrinkled at the pungent scent rising from the cutting board.

“Hey, I’m the only one who’s really working here,” Patrick said. He sat in the corner, lazily shaking the cruet of tart salad dressing Maddie had assembled more than twenty minutes before. Tiger Lily, Pegeen’s butterscotch tabby cat, was perched smugly across his legs. She seemed to know she’d found the most indolent lap in the house.

“Hah!” the four other male O’Rourkes snorted in unison.

Amidst the laughter, Maddie glanced at Patrick, wondering if she was the only one who saw the darkness in his blue eyes. He smiled at her, yet it didn’t reach further than his mouth.

This was the first time they’d been at his mother’s house together since the evening he’d reminded her that he wasn’t a marrying kind of man. She swallowed the irritation that popped up whenever she thought about it. Talking to her about marriage had been ridiculous when they barely knew each other, and it was insulting to be warned off so quickly.

I want to be honest with you, because your ex-fiancé obviously wasn’t.

The memory of Patrick’s words tightened her mouth. She didn’t care about Ted anymore, and she rarely thought about him except in connection to Patrick. As for being up-front and honest, she couldn’t help thinking that Patrick wouldn’t have been so anxious to warn her off if she’d been prettier and better endowed. From the bits and pieces of information she’d gleaned from his family, she knew he had a taste for spectacular brunettes with endless legs and salon-toned bodies.

Maddie mouthed a silent curse she never would have spoken aloud. Basically, it didn’t matter if a man found you attractive, not when he obviously didn’t think you were attractive enough.

She deliberately trained her gaze away from Patrick, only to have it drawn to him again. Restless, she walked over and held out her hand for the container of dressing.

“I think it’s mixed enough,” she said evenly.

One dark eyebrow lifted. “Don’t want to take any chances.”

“Right, you don’t want to take a chance of being asked to do something else,” called Neil, dumping the last of the tomatoes into the salad bowl. “Can’t fool me, little brother.”

Little?

Maddie’s gaze drifted over Patrick. The O’Rourke brothers bore a striking resemblance to one another, and he was equal in size to the others, with a lithe, quick grace that belied his size and strength. She’d felt that strength beneath her fingers, and clenched
between her thighs when she’d sat on his lap and learned something about sensual teasing.

He was annoyingly, frustratingly,
gloriously
male, but there was nothing little about Patrick. But it was more than his sex appeal that troubled Maddie’s sleep at night, it was his smiles and silences, his intelligence and the frustrating way he kept the world at arm’s length.

“Do you have something else?” he asked.

“Something else?” Her tongue flicked unconsciously across her upper lip.

“For me to work on.” Patrick swallowed, trying to control the instinctive reaction of his body to Maddie’s frank appraisal. He doubted she even knew what she was doing, which made it even more frustrating. He shouldn’t be so quick to get hot, particularly in his mother’s kitchen, but it was undeniable.

“You can eat it.” She took the cruet and started to turn away, but he caught her arm. “What?”

“I just…nothing.”

Patrick didn’t know what he’d wanted, except for the need to touch Maddie in some small way. It was confusing to have her working at the station, an employee, yet also intimately connected to his family. Every day he was reminded of things he’d rather not think about—of laughter and kisses and the way she’d upset his peaceful world.

He was having more and more trouble staying away from her. Even later, as everyone sat in the backyard bundled in coats and watching the vivid fall sunset, he found himself sitting on the step next to Maddie. She was shivering, still unaccustomed to the damp cold of Washington.

“I’ll get you a blanket,” he murmured.

Maddie shook her head. “I’m fine.”

“Like hell.” Telling himself it was the gentlemanly thing to do, Patrick tucked her closely to his side, his arm snug about her slim waist. Except for a small gasp, she didn’t protest.

“Dixie has been bugging me to give you a show on the radio,” he said after a long moment.

The KLMS audience had not lost their enchantment with Maddie Jackson, and he was running out of excuses why she couldn’t go back on the air.

“Doing what?”

“She’s calling it the Heart-to-Heart hour. Callers would tell you their romantic troubles, and others would phone in their advice. That sort of thing. It would air in the early afternoon. You’d play some music, and take a few calls in between.”

“Oh.”

“Any problem with that?”

“I thought you didn’t want me on the air. You said I made a mess of it.”

He was getting sick of hearing what he’d said. “I also apologized.”

“Uh-huh.” Maddie stood up and went back into the house.

Sighing, Patrick followed and found her at the door of the playroom his mother kept for his nieces. Amy and Peggy were sound asleep, curled up on oversize pillows. The longing in Maddie’s eyes as she watched the twins dragged another sigh from his gut.

“Maddie, don’t,” he said. “You’re only hurting yourself.”

“And you’re not?”

“We’re not starting that again.”

She stepped into the hallway. “I’m not a child,”
she whispered. “I know I must seem immature the way I run off at the mouth and don’t know squat about men, but I’m a grown woman, and I know what I see.”

“I’m aware of that.”

“Are you? You keep warning me to stay away, and I’m sure you think it’s for my benefit. But you’re protecting yourself, not me. You don’t want anything to happen that could possibly upset your boxed-up life. Everything else is just an excuse.”

“My life isn’t boxed up,” he denied defensively.

“Yes, it is. I can already hear the hostility in your voice and the warning to stay away—don’t get too close, because Patrick O’Rourke won’t have it. He knows exactly what he wants, and having to depend on someone else isn’t part of the package.”

“Wrong,” he said tersely. “I don’t want anyone depending on
me.
I’m not like my dad—I can’t be everything to everybody.”

“So you don’t even try, because you’re afraid you’ll fail.”

“I know I’d fail.” Patrick’s jaw hardened. “Look how I’ve screwed up with you. For once I could do something for Kane by looking out for his wife’s sister, instead I’ve made things worse.”

“That’s all in your imagination. I don’t need to be looked after.”