The Right Twin For Him (O'Rourke Family 2) Read online

  “We’re going now,” he said, grabbing Maddie’s arm and dragging her toward the door. It would probably take the entire drive to Seattle—Maddie in her rental and him in the Blazer—to get his head back together. Maybe they should take the long way around through Tacoma, avoiding the ferry, then he’d have more time.

  “You’re mad,” she said, trying to shake free.

  “No, I’m not.”

  “It’s all right. I’ll just keep the rental until Beth feels better.”

  He stopped and sighed. “I don’t mind helping out. I have a lot on my mind, that’s all.”

  Maddie could relate to that, she had a lot on her mind, too. Namely Patrick. He was the most frustrating, annoying, wonderful man she could imagine, and no matter how often she told herself they didn’t have a future together, she’d spent a lot of time daydreaming in the past few days.

  Dumb. Just plain nuts. Patrick might own a country music station, but he wasn’t going to fall for a country girl.

  She tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear. Leaving in the middle of the day smacked of special privileges from the station owner, but she wasn’t going to bring it up at this late date.

  “I need my purse and the keys if we’re going into the city. I left them in the office.”

  Patrick chuckled ruefully. “A little hard to drive without keys. Go ahead, I’ll wait outside.”

  Maddie hurried to her desk, her heart thumping loudly. His smile tended to disturb the steady rhythm of her pulse, and today was no exception. Willing herself to calm down, she picked up the phone and dialed her sister’s number. It was the polite thing to do and would buy her a little time.

  “Beth? It’s me,” she said when her twin answered. “We’ll be there earlier than I thought. Patrick wants to go to the airport now, instead of waiting until this evening.”

  “I thought someone else was bringing you.”

  “No.” Maddie craned her head to see if Stephen was at his desk. She’d been so distracted she hadn’t even looked before. Thankfully, he was gone for the moment. “Patrick insisted.”

  “That’s interesting.”

  “Uh, Beth, about that thing with the closet. You know he…that is, we aren’t dating or anything. But he’s been very…uh, I don’t know how to describe it.”

  “Attentive?”

  “Not exactly. It’s more like trying to get acquainted with a yo-yo.”

  “Patrick has had some tough times, but he’s a really good person,” Beth said earnestly. “Kane is so proud of him. And even though he’d like to help out, he respects how independent Patrick wants to be.”

  “It’s more than being independent.”

  “I know, but he’ll come around. Don’t give up on him.”

  Maddie swallowed. “There isn’t anything to give up on. Patrick has made it very clear he isn’t a marrying kind of man and he doesn’t want children. He keeps warning me not to get ideas about us. And I’m not his type,” she added.

  Her sister didn’t say anything for a long minute. “I wasn’t Kane’s type, either. Now he thinks I’m perfect. I’m not, but he makes me feel that way.”

  “You’ve had two men in love with you,” Maddie said. “My fiancé cheated, then admitted he never really loved me, and Patrick has a thing for svelte brunettes.”

  “Bet you could make him forget all about those brunettes.”

  “You’d lose. Look, he’s waiting for me, so I’d better go. See you later.”

  Maddie put the receiver down and pressed her palms against her eyes. Her trip to Washington hadn’t turned out the way she expected. It was satisfying to know she was good at her job. It was terrific having a sister; she and Beth were getting closer every day. She loved the O’Rourkes and the fact that Pegeen was trying to mother her, even though she had a wonderful mom of her own.

  But Patrick…

  He frustrated her so much she wanted to scream. There was such a wonderful guy inside him, a man perfect to be a husband and daddy. But no, he wanted to be free and single, standing square on his own two feet and needing no one else.

  She’d never met such a mouthwatering man. His brothers were attractive, but Patrick had a mix of laughter and raw sexuality that was positively breathtaking. In all honesty she couldn’t blame Patrick for wanting someone who was prettier and more experienced, but the part she found so hard to take was that he didn’t want to want her. He even resented the extent to which he did find her attractive.

  A hand on the back of her neck made her jerk upright. But it wasn’t Stephen with his warm, sympathetic eyes looking at her, it was Patrick.

  “I’m sorry, I meant to come right out.”

  He leaned on the edge of the desk. “Maybe we should wait if you have a headache.”

  “It’s nothing. I was delayed because I called Beth to let her know we’d get there early.”

  “I should have thought of that.”

  “It was my responsibility.” She took her purse from the drawer and fished out the keys. “I’m ready when you are.”

  “Maddie.” He paused and seemed to search for words. “I appreciate you taking on the new show. It’s really popular, which doesn’t happen very often.”

  “I like talking to people.”

  “That’s why it works. You just talk without trying to be clever at the cost of the caller’s feelings. People know you care about them.”

  She opened her mouth, then shut it just as quickly. They weren’t going to get into another discussion that tore at them both. She cared about people, he thought he was immune from those feelings. He wanted to be alone, satisfied with his radio station, she wanted…everything.

  Love with the right person wasn’t a myth or impossible or anything else. It was worth the risk of a broken heart, even a broken soul. She knew that now. But crying because Patrick refused to understand wouldn’t help either one of them. Neither would talking about it.

  “I’m ready,” she said, standing. She automatically reached for her jacket, and just as automatically Patrick took the garment and helped her into it.

  His old-fashioned manners were as deeply ingrained as the air he breathed. Too bad some old fashioned commitment wasn’t mixed in with those manners. It wasn’t as if he was a wolf, dating a different woman every night. Apparently Patrick wasn’t dating anyone at the moment. His entire focus seemed to be on his business and making it the number-one country music station in the state.

  “Would you prefer following me?” he murmured as they stepped outside. It was a beautiful day filled with the colors of leaves turned yellow and bronze. “I won’t let you lose me.”

  “Sure.”

  Maddie started her car and waited. Patrick probably knew the way to the airport far better than she did and would negotiate the freeways and ferry without the consternation she would feel.

  He did everything well.

  Everything except let someone love him.

  The following week Patrick decided he didn’t need to sit in the control booth and monitor Maddie’s broadcasts, mostly because it made him ache to listen to her.

  In some strange way it seemed she was slipping away from him. He saw her just as much and could see her even more, but the feeling had more to do with the guardedness of her smiles and the way her mouth didn’t run away with itself when they were together. There were a dozen subtle changes in the way Maddie responded to him, though she was herself with everyone else.

  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 spac
e 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 g
o 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.