Patrick's Destiny (3 page)

“Why?” she asked, barely able to squeeze the word out past the sudden lump in her throat.

“I believe he wanted to save your job if it was in jeopardy. I told him it wasn’t, but I think the attempt spoke very well of him, don’t you?”

Alice nodded, too shocked for words. Patrick had come rushing to her rescue? He’d been furious with her. Obviously someone was behind it. Molly perhaps. Of course, as fast as news spread in Widow’s Cove, it could have been anyone. Few people in town hesitated to share their opinions of right and wrong under the guise of being helpful. Someone had definitely given him a nudge, no question about it.

“Be sure to thank him when you see him,” the principal said, a twinkle in her eyes.

“I hadn’t planned—”

“The man dove into the icy water to save one of your students,” Mrs. Dowd said, cutting her off. “And then he came charging into my office to save you. Don’t you think the least you can do would be to take him some homemade soup as an expression of gratitude?”

Alice stared at her, trying to process this bit of advice. If she wasn’t mistaken, Loretta Dowd was matchmaking. “What are you up to?” she asked, stunned that the woman even had an interest in Alice’s love life.

The principal drew herself up and gave Alice one of her most daunting looks. “I am not up to anything,” she declared fiercely, but the indignation came too late.

Alice could see quite clearly now that Loretta Dowd was a complete and total fraud. She was not the strict, unfeeling disciplinarian everyone feared. She had a heart.

“If you can’t make soup, I made a fresh pot of chowder this morning,” the principal added.

Alice grinned. “I can make soup. In fact, I made some last night and there’s plenty left. I baked several loaves of bread, too.”

“Well then, what are you standing around here for?” Mrs. Dowd said with her familiar exasperation. “Get on over to that boy’s boat before he catches his death of cold.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Relieved to have an excuse to force her to do what she’d been half wanting to do, anyway, Alice walked to her house, filled a container with some of her homemade beef vegetable soup, added a loaf of her home-baked bread to the basket, and headed right back to Patrick Devaney’s private, No Trespassing dock.

Once there, she took a certain perverse pleasure in pushing open the flimsy gate and making a lot of noise
as she approached his trawler. She wasn’t the least bit surprised when he emerged from below deck with a scowl already firmly in place.

“Which part of ‘stay away’ didn’t you understand?” he inquired, leaping gracefully onto the dock and blocking her way.

“I figured it didn’t apply to me, since I come bearing gifts,” she said cheerfully, holding out the soup and bread as she took note of the fact that there were several new boards in place underfoot. “You never mentioned the fact that you were in that freezing ocean because of me—”

“Because of Ricky,” he corrected.

She shrugged at the distinction. “I thought some hot soup might ward off a chill. I don’t want it on my conscience if you get sick because of what happened. Besides, I need to thank you for going to see Mrs. Dowd this afternoon. She was impressed.”

His mouth curved into an arrogant grin that made her heart do an unexpected flip.

“I don’t get sick,” he informed her. “And I didn’t go by the school to impress Loretta Dowd.”

“Which makes it all the more fascinating that you did,” she replied. “As for your general state of good health, having some nutritious soup won’t hurt.”

“You casting aspersions on Molly’s chowder?”

“Hardly, but you must be tired of that by now.”

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.

P
atrick 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?”

“I don’t even want to think about it,” Daniel said, clearly shaken to his core by the implications.

“We have to ask Mom and Dad. You know that,” Patrick told him, feeling sick. “We can’t leave it alone.”

“Why not? Obviously, it’s something they don’t want to talk about,” Daniel argued, far too eager to stick his head right back in the sand.

It had always been that way. Patrick liked to confront things, to lay all the cards on the table, no matter what the consequences. Daniel liked peace at any cost. He’d been the perfect team captain on their high school football squad, because he had no ego, because he could smooth over the competitive streaks and keep the team functioning as a unit.

“It doesn’t matter what they want,” Patrick had all but shouted, as angered now as Daniel had been a moment earlier. “If those boys are related to us, if they’re our
brothers,
we have a right to know. We need to know what happened to them. Did they die? Why haven’t we ever heard about them? Kids don’t just vanish into thin air.”

“Maybe they’re cousins or something,” Daniel said, seeking a less volatile explanation. It was as if he couldn’t bear to even consider the hard questions, much less the answers.

“Then why haven’t we seen them in years?” Patrick
wasn’t about to let their folks off the hook…or Daniel, for that matter. This was too huge to ignore. And it could explain so many things, little things and big ones, that had never made any sense. “You said it yourself, the folks have never once mentioned any other relatives.”

Even as he spoke, he searched his memory, trying to find the faintest recollection of having big brothers, but nothing came to him. Shouldn’t he have remembered on some subconscious level at least? He scanned the pictures again, hoping to trigger something. On his third try, he noticed the background.

“Daniel, where do you think these were taken?” he asked, puzzled by what he saw.

“Around here, I guess. It’s where we’ve always lived.”

“Is it?” Patrick asked, studying the buildings in the photos. “Have you ever noticed a skyscraper in Widow’s Cove?”

Daniel reached for the photo. “Let me see that.” He studied it intently. “Boston? Could it be Boston?”

Patrick shrugged. “I don’t know, I’ve never been to Boston. You went there with some friends last Christmas. Does it look familiar to you?”

“I honestly don’t know, but if it is Boston, why haven’t Mom and Dad ever mentioned that we took a trip there?”

“Or lived there?” Patrick added. “We have to ask, Daniel. If you won’t, then I will.”

Patrick remembered the inevitable confrontation with their parents as if it had taken place only yesterday. He’d been the one to put the photos on the kitchen table in front of their mother. He’d tried to remain immune to her shocked gasp of recognition, but it had cut right
through him. That gasp was as much of an admission as any words would have been, and it had stripped away every shred of respect he’d ever felt for her. In a heartbeat, she went from beloved mother to complete stranger.

“What the hell have you two been doing digging around in the attic?” his father had shouted, making a grab for the pictures. “There are things up there that are none of your business.”

But all of Connor Devaney’s blustery anger and Kathleen’s silent tears hadn’t cut through Patrick’s determination to get at the truth. He’d finally gotten them to admit that those three boys were their sons, sons they had abandoned years before when they’d brought Patrick and Daniel to Maine.

“And you’ve never seen them again?” he’d asked, shocked at the confirmation of something he’d suspected but hadn’t wanted to believe. “You have no idea what happened to them?”

“We made sure someone would look after them, then we made a clean break,” his father said defensively. He looked at his wife as if daring her to contradict him. “It was for the best.”

“What do you mean, you made sure someone would look after them? Did you arrange an adoption?”

“We made a call to Social Services,” his father said.

“They said someone would go right out, that the boys would be taken care of,” his mother said, as if that made everything all right.

Even as he’d heard the words, Patrick hadn’t wanted to believe them. How could these two people he’d loved, people who’d loved him, have been so cold, so irresponsible? What kind of person thought that making a phone call to the authorities made up for taking care
of their own children? What parents walked away from their children without making any attempt to
assure beyond any doubt
that they were in good hands? What kind of people chose one child over another and then pretended for years that their family of four was complete? My God, his whole life had been one lie after another.

Patrick had been overwhelmed with guilt over having been chosen, while three little boys—his own brothers—had been abandoned.

“How old were they?” he asked, nearly choking on the question.

“What difference does it make?” his father asked.

“How old?” Patrick repeated.

“Nine, seven and four,” his mother confessed in a voice barely above a whisper. Tears tracked down her cheeks, and she suddenly looked older.

“My God!” Patrick had shoved away from the kitchen table, barely resisting the desire to break things, to shatter dishes the way his illusions had been shattered.

“Let us explain,” his mother had begged.

“We don’t owe them an explanation,” his father had shouted over her. “We did what we had to do. We’ve given the two of them a good life. That’s what we owed them. They’ve no right to question our decision.”

Patrick hadn’t been able to silence all the questions still churning inside him. “What about what you owed your other sons?” he had asked, feeling dead inside. “Did you ever once think about them? My God, what were you thinking?”

He hadn’t waited for answers. He’d known none would be forthcoming, not with his mother in tears and his father stubbornly digging in his heels. Besides, the
answers didn’t really matter. There was no justification for what they’d done. He’d whirled around and left the house that night, taking nothing with him, wanting nothing from people capable of doing such a thing. It was the last time he’d seen or spoken to either one of his parents.

Daniel had found him a week later, drunk on the waterfront in Widow’s Cove. He’d tried for hours to convince Patrick to come home.

“I don’t have a home,” Patrick had told him, meaning it. “Why should I have one, when our brothers never did?”

“You don’t know that,” Daniel had argued. “It’s possible they’ve had good lives with wonderful families.”

“Possible?” he’d scoffed. “Separated from us? Maybe even separated from each other? And that’s good enough to satisfy you? You’re as bad as they are. The Devaneys are a real piece of work. With genes like ours, the world is doomed.”

“Stop it,” Daniel ordered, looking miserable. “You don’t know the whole story.”

Patrick had looked his brother in the eye, momentarily wondering if he’d learned things that had been kept from Patrick. “Do you?”

“No, but—”

“I don’t want to hear your phony excuses, then. Leave me alone, Daniel. Go on off to college. Live your life. Pretend that none of this ever happened. I can’t. I’ll never go back there.”

He’d watched his brother walk away and suffered a moment’s regret for the years of closeness lost, but he’d pushed it aside and made up his mind that he would spend the rest of his life living down the Devaney name.
Maybe what that meant wasn’t public knowledge, but he would live with the shame just the same.

That was the last time he’d gotten drunk, the last day he’d wandered idly. He’d gotten a job on a fishing boat and started saving until he’d been able to afford his own trawler. His needs were simple—peace and quiet, an occasional beer, the infrequent companionship of a woman who wasn’t looking for a future. He tried with everything in him to be a decent man, but he feared that as Connor and Kathleen’s son, he was a lost cause.

He spent a lot of lonely nights trying like the very dickens not to think about the three older brothers who’d been left behind years ago. He’d thought about hunting for them, then dismissed the notion. Why the hell would they care about a brother who’d been given everything, while they’d gotten nothing?