to know about their health history in case you decide to have children.” Patrick lifted an eyebrow. “Then you promptly announced you weren’t having any kids.”
“Oh.”
Maddie’s teeth sank down on her lip and Patrick regretted ever bringing up the subject. It was somewhere between babies and adoption that she’d started crying the first time.
“Not that I blame you,” he said quickly. “Who wants to get tied down with a bunch of rug rats?”
Her eyes narrowed. “I thought you were pleased your sister-in-law is pregnant. Children are wonderful.”
Damn it all, he knew better than to get into a discussion about kids with a baby-hungry woman. “Let’s go see Beth,” he said quickly. “Who knows, maybe you’re sisters. She was adopted, too.”
Maddie hesitated.
Her first instinct was to say “yes,” but her instincts weren’t all that great when it came to men, so she needed to think it over. On the other hand, Patrick wasn’t asking her for a date, he just wanted to visit his sister-in-law. How much trouble could she get into, especially since she’d already planned to go see the other woman?
Besides, it wasn’t her business if the man didn’t want a family. She didn’t even know why his dedication to bachelordom was so annoying.
“All right,” she murmured. “Do you want to go now?”
“Sure. You’d better follow me in your car.”
She made a face. “You think I’m going to get lost?”
“We’ve got a lot of twists and turns around here.”
“I’ll be fine.”
She turned on her heel and headed back up the hill to the parking lot. When she didn’t hear footsteps behind her, she looked over her shoulder in time to see Patrick put his bouquet on one of the graves, right next to the flower she’d left.
Her heart skipped a beat.
It was obvious he’d been embarrassed about those flowers, but instead of throwing them away, he’d left them on someone’s long-forgotten grave. Carefully. With respect.
Darn.
She didn’t want her pulse jumping over Patrick O’Rourke. Her life had just gotten completely scrambled, and he was completely the wrong sort of guy for her, even if she hadn’t sworn off romance.
Right?
Chapter Two
Despite Maddie’s assurance that she knew the way back to town, Patrick arrived ahead of her. He got out and leaned against the Blazer as he waited. A few minutes later she drove up, one eyebrow raised in challenge.
He suppressed a smile as she slammed the door closed. “I know a few shortcuts,” he said.
Apparently, Maddie couldn’t stay annoyed, because she grinned at him. It was the most relaxed she’d seemed since he’d made the mistake of kissing her, and Patrick had time to notice the six small freckles on her nose, which were adorable.
Adorable?
He rolled his eyes and tried to think of something—anything—else.
Maddie Jackson was as cute as a baby kitten and had an appealing vulnerability beneath her colorful dress and the defiant tilt of her head. But he wasn’t in the market for appealing vulnerability, he kept his socializing to sophisticated women who didn’t have any interest beyond the here and now. Besides, his tastes ran to cool, classy brunettes, not impulsive, scatterbrained blondes.
“Are you ready to meet your double?” he asked.
Maddie gulped down a flutter of nervous excitement. She shouldn’t expect too much. Patrick was probably wrong and she didn’t look that similar to his sister-in-law.
They walked inside the Mom and Kid’s Stuff clothing store and Maddie stared at the woman behind the service counter. She swallowed again.
They really did look like each other.
“Beth, this is Maddie Jackson,” Patrick said. “Maddie, this is Beth O’Rourke.”
“Oh, it’s like seeing myself in a mirror,” the other woman gasped.
“Exactly,” he murmured.
Shockwaves rolled through Maddie’s already unsettled nerves. First she’d found her fiancé in a clinch with the punch girl, got kissed by a stranger and now…this. She felt an irrational desire to move closer to Patrick, as if he was a safe harbor in the middle of chaos.
Beth seemed to recover first, because she smiled and walked forward. “Welcome to Crockett. I understand you’re looking for your real mother and father.”
“My real mother and father are in New Mexico,” Maddie said, automatically sticking out her hand. “I’m just looking for my birth parents.”
“I see.”
They stood awkwardly until Patrick intervened. “Why don’t you start with your birthdays?” he suggested.
“July twentieth,” they said simultaneously.
Maddie swallowed and took an involuntary step toward Patrick. She didn’t know what she’d thought she would find when she left Slapshot, but it wasn’t seeing a woman with her same birth date and eyes and face.
“That’s interesting,” said a voice from behind them. “You were both born on the same day.”
“Kane!” Beth turned, her face transformed at the sight of a tall, dark-haired man with a striking resemblance to Patrick. She threw herself into his open arms.
“That’s my brother,” Patrick murmured. “You’d think they hadn’t seen each other in years, instead of hours. Of course, they’ve only been married for six weeks, so I guess we can excuse them for getting carried away.”
The wry, humorous tone of his voice was lost on Maddie, and her restlessness deepened as the couple shared a lingering kiss. She didn’t begrudge them their happiness, but it was hard seeing them at the same time her own life had fallen apart and she didn’t know how to fix it. Besides, there was something so…luminous about Beth O’Rourke when she looked at her husband.
When was the last time she’d looked at Ted like that? Certainly not the morning she’d found him with the punch girl’s D-cup bra hanging from his pocket.
Darn him, anyway. She could accept they’d both been having second thoughts. She could even accept he’d never been unfaithful before. So why did he have to make that comment about neither of them doing any comparison shopping…then make it clear what part of the feminine anatomy he was interested in comparing?
Honestly. She didn’t understand why men were so hung up about the female body. It wouldn’t matter to her if Patrick was short or tall or anything in between.
All
