Patrick's Destiny

The grin faded. “Meaning?”

She faltered. She hadn’t meant to admit that she knew anything about his habits. “She says you’re there a lot, that’s all.”

“You asked about me?” He didn’t even attempt to hide his surprise.

The arrogant tilt to his mouth returned, and Alice saw a faint hint of the charming boy he’d once been. She wasn’t here to inflate his already well-developed ego, though. “I most certainly did not,” she said. “Molly tends to volunteer information she thinks will prove helpful.”

He sighed at that. “Yeah. I keep talking to her about that. She seems to think she can save me from myself if she gets enough people pestering me.”

“What do you think?” Alice asked curiously.

“That I don’t need saving.”

She laughed. “I keep telling her the same thing. It hasn’t stopped her yet. Now we’ve both got Loretta Dowd meddling in our lives. She’s the one who insisted on the soup. We’re probably doomed.”

“Don’t remind me,” he said. “I imagine Mrs. Dowd will want to know exactly how polite I was when you came over here. She and Caleb Jenkins will probably compare notes.”

“How on earth did Caleb get involved in this?” Alice asked.

“He thought I should speak to Mrs. Dowd on your behalf.”

“Ah, that explains the trip to the school. I guessed it wasn’t your idea.”

“Oh, I suppose I would have come around to it sooner or later on my own,” he claimed. “The point is, there are any number of fascinated bystanders in this town. I’ll hear about it if I act ungrateful and send you away.” He pushed off from the railing and held out his hand. “You want to come aboard and share a bowl of that soup? Looks to me like there’s plenty for two.”

Alice hesitated. Wasn’t this the real reason she’d come, to see if she and Patrick Devaney had as much in common as it seemed? Wasn’t she here because of that feeling of kinship that had sparked to life in her earlier?

“Are you sure?” she asked. “You don’t seem very receptive to company.” She nodded toward the No Trespassing sign.

He gave her a steady, intense look. “It doesn’t apply to invited guests, and where you’re concerned, I’m not sure of anything,” he said in a way that sent a surprising shiver of awareness racing over her.

“Want to wait till you are?” she asked, startled by the teasing note in her own voice. She almost sounded as if she were flirting with him. Of course, it had been a long time, so maybe she wasn’t being as obvious as she thought.

“Hell, no,” he said, grinning. “I’ve gotten used to living dangerously.”

Alice laughed, then reached out to accept his outstretched hand as she stepped onboard. She noted that unlike the previously decrepit dock, the boat was spotless and in excellent repair. Every piece of chrome and wood had been polished to a soft sheen. Fishing nets were piled neatly. Apparently Patrick Devaney used the time he didn’t spend socializing or shaving to pay close attention to his surroundings.

Below deck in the small cabin, it was the same. The table was clear except for the half-filled coffee cup from which he’d apparently been drinking. The bed a few feet away was neatly made, the sheets crisp and clean, a navy-blue blanket folded precisely at the foot of the bed.

Moving past her in the tight space, Patrick took a pot from a cupboard, poured the soup into it and set it on the small two-burner stove, then retrieved two bowls and spoons from the same cupboard. Alice was all too aware of the way he filled the cramped quarters, of the width of his shoulders, of the narrowness of his hips. He’d filled in since his football-playing days, but he was definitely still in shape. It was the first time in ages she’d recognized the powerful effect pure masculinity could have on her.

From the moment she’d lost her parents, nearly a year ago, she’d gone into an emotional limbo. She let no one or nothing touch her. She even kept a barrier up between herself and her students, or at least she had until Ricky Foster had scared the living daylights out of her this afternoon. Nothing had rattled her so badly since the night the police had called to tell her that her parents had driven off that road they’d traveled a thousand times in all kinds of weather.

Don’t go there, she thought, forcing her attention back to the present. One appreciative, surreptitious glance at Patrick’s backside as he bent to retrieve something from the tiny refrigerator did the trick. It was all she could do not to sigh audibly at the sight.

Don’t go there, either, she told herself very firmly. She was here for penance and for soup. Nothing more. A peek at Patrick Devaney sent another little shock of awareness through her and proved otherwise.

Oh, well, there was certainly no harm in looking, she decided as she sat back and enjoyed the view. Even a woman living in a self-imposed state of celibacy had the right to her fantasies, and any fantasy involving Patrick Devaney should definitely not be dismissed too readily.

Chapter Three

Patrick wasn’t sure what had possessed him to invite Alice Newberry aboard the Katie G., a boat he’d named for his mother as a constant reminder that people weren’t to be trusted. For eighteen years he’d considered his mother to be the most admirable woman he’d ever known. Now, each time he caught a glimpse of the name painted on the bow of the boat, it served as a reminder that everyone had secrets and that everyone was capable of duplicity. It was a cynical attitude, but experience had taught him it was a valid one.

Maybe he’d invited Alice to join him because he was getting sick of his own lousy company. Or maybe it was because he had a gut instinct that she’d learned the same bitter lesson about humanity’s lack of trustworthiness. Not that he planned to commiserate. He just figured she was probably no more anxious than he was to start something that was destined to end badly, the way all relationships inevitably did.

Oddly enough, for all that they’d had going against them, his own parents were still together. He supposed there was some sort of perverse love at work, if it could survive what they’d done to their own family. Funny how for so many years he’d thought how lucky he was to have had parents who’d stayed together, parents who preached about steadfastness and commitment and set an example for their sons.

He and Daniel had had a lot of friends whose parents were divorced, kids who’d envied them for their ideal home. Not that Patrick or Daniel had shared the illusion that everything was wonderful in the Devaney household. There were arguments—plenty of them, in fact—mostly conducted in whispers and behind closed doors. And there were undercurrents they’d never understood—an occasional expression of inexplicable sorrow on their mother’s face, an occasional hint of resentment in their father’s eyes—just enough to make him and Daniel wonder if things were as perfect as they wanted to believe.

In general, though, he and Daniel had had a good life. There had been a lot of love showered on them, love that in retrospect he could see was meant to make up for the love their parents could no longer give to their other sons. There had been tough times financially, but they’d never gone to bed hungry or doubting that they were loved. And in later years, his father had settled into a good-paying job as a commercial fisherman, working not for himself but for some conglomerate that guaranteed a paycheck, even when the catches weren’t up to par. After that, things had been even better. There were no more arguments over rent and grocery money.

He and Daniel had been eighteen before they’d discovered the truth, and then all of those whispered fights and sad looks had finally made sense. Not that their parents had confessed to anything in a sudden flash of conscience. No, the truth had been left for Patrick and Daniel to find discover by accident.

Daniel had been digging around in an old trunk in the attic, hoping to use it to haul his belongings away to college, when he’d stumbled on an envelope of yellowing photos, buried beneath some old clothes. It was apparent in a heartbeat that the envelope was something they’d never been meant to see.

Patrick still remembered that day as if it were yesterday. If he let himself, he could feel the oppressive heat, smell the dust that swirled as Daniel disturbed memories too long untouched. To this day, if Patrick walked into a room that had been closed up too long, the musty scent of it disturbed him. It was why he’d chosen to live here, on his boat, where the salt air breezes held no memories.

He remembered Daniel shouting for him to come upstairs, remembered the confused expression on his twin’s face as he’d sifted through the stack of photographs. When Patrick had climbed the ladder into the attic, Daniel looked stunned. Silently, he held out the pictures, his hand trembling.

“Look at them,” he commanded, when Patrick’s gaze stayed on him rather than the photos.

“Looks like some old pictures,” Patrick had said, barely sparing them a glance, far more concerned about his brother’s odd expression.

“Look at them,” his brother had repeated impatiently.

The sense of urgency had finally gotten through to Patrick, and he’d studied the first picture. It was of a toddler with coal-black hair and a happy smile racing toward the camera at full throttle. He was a blur of motion. Patrick had blinked at the image, thoroughly confused about what Daniel had seen that had him so obviously upset. “What? Do you think it’s Dad?”

Daniel shook his head. “Look again. That’s Dad in the background.”

“Okay,” Patrick said slowly, still not sure what Daniel was getting at. “Then it has to be one of us.”

“I don’t think so. Look at the rest of the pictures.”

Slowly, Patrick had worked his way through the photos, several dozen in all, apparently spanning a period of years. His mom was in some of them, his father in more. But there were happy, smiling boys in each one. That first toddler, then another who was his spitting image, then three, and finally five, two of them babies, evidently twins.

Patrick’s hand shook as he studied the last set of pictures. Finally, almost as distressed and definitely as confused as Daniel, he dragged his gaze away and stared at his brother. “My God, what do you think it means? Those babies, do you think that’s you and me?”

“Who else could it be?” Daniel had asked. “There are no other twins on either side of the family, at least none that we know of. Come to think of it, though, what do we really know about our family? Have you ever heard one word about our grandparents, about any aunts or uncles?”

“No.”

“That should have told us something. It’s as if we’re some insular little group that sprang on the world with absolutely no connections to anyone else on earth.”

“Don’t you think you’re being overly dramatic?” Patrick asked.

“Look at the damn pictures and tell me again that I’m being too dramatic,” Daniel shouted back at him.

Patrick’s gaze had automatically gone to the top photo, the one of five little dark-haired boys. “Who do you suppose they are?”