“Patrick!”
His heart still throbbing, he whipped around, grabbed April’s arm. “You okay?”
Confusion flittered across her features before she smiled. “I’m fine,” she said softly, rubbing his upper arm with her free hand. “And so are you. Somebody dropped some dishes in the kitchen. That’s all.”
With a violent shudder, he returned to the here and now enough to feel the sweat between his shoulder blades, the oysters threatening to rebel in his stomach. Swallowing hard, he slid back into the booth. “Everybody’s looking at me—”
“Tough,” she said, sitting back down, as well, and way, way in the back of his brain, he wanted to laugh. Hell, he was shaking so bad he must look like he had the DTs. He rubbed a trembling hand over his face, then grabbed his water glass, got it to his mouth, gulped half of it down.
“Dishes,” he repeated stupidly.
“Yep. Dishes. My guess is somebody’s backside is in a major sling right now. Hey...look at me.” When he finally met that calm, steady gaze, she said, very quietly, “You wanna stay or go?”
“I...I don’t know. Go, I think. I’m sorry...”
“Hush,” she said, signaling to the waitress. “These things happen. And you put that away—”
“I am not letting you pay,” he said, grateful to see his hand had more or less stopped shaking when he dug his credit card out of his wallet. That his signature was clear enough—as clear as it ever was, anyway, he had the world’s worst handwriting—when he signed the slip a few minutes later. And he was especially thankful when they walked outside, to feel the damp, chilly breeze slap what was left of the attack to kingdom come.
“You okay to drive?” she asked when they reached his truck in the parking lot. “Or do you want me to?”
“No, I’m fine.”
“You sure?”
“Yes! Dammit, April! I’m fine, okay!” Except he wasn’t, was he? And in all likelihood, never would be. Not completely. Frustrated, furious, he wheeled on her. “Or are you afraid I’m gonna lose it if I pop a tire, or a car backfires behind us? Get us both killed?”
Again with the fearless gaze. “How often does it happen?” she asked, so gently it hurt.
Patrick propped a wrist on the truck’s roof, ignoring the Siren call of the cigarettes he’d quit two years before. “Not like it used to. When I first...got out.” Granted, it’d been months, more than a year, actually, since he’d had an episode, but he sure wasn’t “cured,” was he? “Still an issue, though.” His mouth pulled into a tight, humorless smile. “Obviously.”
“So let me ask you this—do you worry when you have Lili with you?”
Fear iced his spine. “I force myself not to think about it.”
Shivering, April stuffed her hands in the pockets of her long coat. “Then either force yourself not to think about it now, or let me drive. Your call. But make up your mind because in case you hadn’t noticed, it’s freezing out here.”
He helped her into the truck, then stamped around to his side and got in. With a surreptitious check to make sure his hands were steady before ramming the key into the ignition, he backed out.
Yeah, he’d wanted her to see this was headed nowhere. But not like this.
Damn it, not like this.
* * *
Not surprisingly, nobody said much for some time after they started back to the inn. Even though April was grateful that Patrick’s anger and embarrassment had both dissipated by the time they got in the truck, she doubted he was in the mood for idle chatter.
And she certainly didn’t think this was the time to resume their interrupted conversation about her marriage. Not that she’d intended to blurt out everything, especially since her cousins both seemed convinced the V-word tended to make men break out in hives. And/or run like hell. Something about not being able to handle the pressure.
It all seemed very silly to April. Because what was the big hairy deal? Really. For pity’s sake, she read. She knew things. You either were, or you weren’t. Big whoop. Although she did have to agree it probably wasn’t the smartest thing to bring up on a first date.
Or, in this case, probably their only date.
As it was, she’d already strongly suspected Patrick had only cowed to the pressure to ask her out in order to get everyone—including her—off his back. So, you know, the next time some family member or other brought up the subject, he could say, “Actually, we did go out, it didn’t take, so can we move on?” Oh, he’d been perfectly lovely all evening. Prior to his freak-out, that is. But perhaps a trifle too lovely for someone who’d given her a pretty good glimpse of the beast he kept chained inside him.
Now she knew why he kept the chains on. Or tried to, at least.
She stole a glance at that rock-solid jaw as he drove, the ravaged skin looking far worse in the truck’s shadowy interior. When she’d teased him that he smelled better than she did, he’d sheepishly admitted it was the moisturizer he had to use every day. That he’d found out the hard way there was no such thing as completely unscented. Poor guy. And wouldn’t he have a cow if he could read her mind right now? But he was clearly doing everything in his power to gain dominion over this, this thing constantly lurking in his thoughts, his experience, determined to gobble up all the progress he’d made.
“Sorry,” Patrick said, startling her. “Guess I’m not used to having somebody ride with me who actually expects me to talk.”
“It’s okay, I was kind of lost in thought myself.”
“About?”
“You.”
His hand flexed on the wheel. “Not sure that’s worth using up brain cells for.”
“You want me to smack you with this bag, or what? And you might want to think carefully how you answer. I don’t travel light.”
She thought he almost smiled. “And you might want to have that violent streak checked out before you do any real damage.”
April laughed. “As if. Although there was this time, when my cousins and I were kids...” She paused, grinning, reliving the incident like it’d happened yesterday, feeling the sun beat on her mostly bare back, her nostrils tingling with the tang of Banana Boat sunscreen...
“We were always smacking at each other—we still do—although just goofing around, you know? Nobody ever got hurt. But one day we were sunbathing out on the dock behind the house, and I think Blythe was all hormonal or whatever and Mel said something she took issue with. I don’t even remember how I got dragged into it, but suddenly we were all three going at each other like chickens in a barnyard, completely forgetting how close we were to the edge of the dock. Blythe was bigger than Mel and me, of course, and she swung at Mel, who stumbled into me and grabbed Blythe...and over we all went into the water. Good times.”
Finally Patrick laughed. “You gals are close, I take it?”
“We are, yeah. Like sisters more than cousins, since we’re all only children. Got up each other’s noses like sisters, too. But we were only together during the summers. And even that ended by the time we were in high school.”
“So you lost touch?”
“We did. Isn’t that strange? Or maybe not—Blythe went on to college, of course, and Mel had a baby. Quinn. You met her at dinner the other night.”
“Right. Wait—is...that why they moved away? Mel and her mother?”
“Apparently so. And given our family’s propensity for keeping secrets from each other...” She shrugged. “Still. Until the house brought us back together, I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed them.”
“I can imagine.”
They passed at least three highway markers before April worked up the nerve to ask him, “Your family...I assume they’ve been a huge help with your recovery?”
“Yeah,” he said after a moment. “Not that they don’t drive me crazy, too, more often than not, but I know I wouldn’t have made it through without them.”
“And have you, um, had other kinds of help? Therapies? Procedures...?”
Sil
ence.
“I’m sorry,” April said, “you don’t have to answer that.”
“Meds, for a while. But it seemed like cheating, somehow. Numbing things instead of dealing with them. For me, anyway. For other people they seem to work okay. Anyway, so I ditched those, did talk therapy instead. About talked my brains out, too.” He paused. “I am getting better. Like you said, my family, working—being with Lili—it all helps.”
“I’m sure it does.”
After another pause, he said, “Scaring you wasn’t part of the game plan.”
“Tonight, you mean?”
“Point to you,” he muttered, then pushed out a breath. “But back there...I couldn’t control that.”
“I understand,” she said softly, knowing better than to mention the fear in his voice. “I wasn’t, though. Scared. That time or this. Concerned, sure. But not for myself. For you.” She paused. “I don’t spook easily.”
“Really.”
“Yeah. Really.”
“This from the woman who was nervous as hell about the date.”
When her eyes cut to his profile this time, she caught the smile. Not a full-out one, perhaps, but enough to make her feel that maybe things had eased inside his head. About them. “Nervous is not the same as spooked. Lots of things make me nervous, but usually about my own abilities. If I’m gonna make the grade at something. Like if the inn will be a success. That, I worry about constantly. But very little actually frightens me.”
He chuckled. “Except my face.”
She slumped down in her seat. “That was shock. Not fright.”
Another soft laugh preceded, “Anybody ever tell you you’re nuts?”
“My mother.” April sighed out. “Every chance she gets. Especially about me and the inn. She’s not exactly on board.”
“Then she’s nuts. Sorry,” he said when April laughed. “But it’s true. Because even from what little I’ve observed, you strike me as...as somebody who knows the meaning of determination. I don’t doubt for a minute you’ll make a go of this, April. Not for one single minute.”
Bowled over by his unexpected support, April faced forward, blinking for a couple of seconds before saying, “Thanks.”
“No problem,” he said, sounding a little floored himself.
Moving on, she thought, then said, “And don’t look now, but you’re not doing a half-bad job at keeping up a conversation. And anyway, what about Lili? Don’t you guys chat when you’re together?”
He snorted. “Lili does enough talking for both of us. All I have to do is say, ‘Uh-huh,’ every so often. That’s the thing about a four-year-old, it doesn’t take much to make them happy.”
And there it was again, the melancholy he hung on to like a worn-out T-shirt, all misshapen and full of holes. Useless.
“You’re a good dad,” she said.
A moment passed. “You don’t know me well enough to say that.”
“Says the man convinced I’ll make a success of the inn.”
He shifted, as though loading up for another protest, then sighed. “I do my best. Whether that’s enough or not, I don’t know.”
“You love her. That’s enough.”
“Is it?” he said quietly, focused on the road. “Is love by itself enough?”
Oh, Lord, the man was pitiful. Pitiful. Yes, she understood there were mitigating circumstances, that some people might say he had every right to feel sorry for himself. But his family sure as heck didn’t, so neither would she.
“Guess that depends on the people involved,” she murmured.
“Exactly.” He glanced over at her, then back out the windshield. And practically growled, “Depends on the people involved.”
So much for prodding him out of his funk.
They pulled into the inn’s driveway as a piddly snow began to dot the windshield. Patrick sighed. “This was sure one lousy date, wasn’t it?”
“It was different, I’ll grant you that, but lousy—”
“For God’s sake, April!” The truck crunched to a stop; Patrick cut the ignition and slapped one arm across the old-school bench seat, his gaze drilling into hers. “Why can’t you be like every other woman? I crapped out on you before we even got the main course, or you had a chance to tell me whatever you were going to tell me—yes, I remembered—then I don’t talk to you for most of the ride home, and you act like, like...like none of it bothers you in the least!”
“Well, it doesn’t!” she shot back. “Except now that you mention it, I am starving.”
He stared at her for a moment, then looked back out the windshield, shaking his head. “That doesn’t even make sense.”
“That I’m starving?”
He sighed. “No.”
Not sure where this was going, April snagged her purse off the truck floor, hugging it to her middle. “Would you rather I be whiny and pouty?”
“Yes, dammit!”
Biting her lip, she faced him again. “And you think I’m not making sense?”
“What I actually said was, that this doesn’t make sense.”
She cocked her head, frowning. “This?”
His gaze once again met hers. And held.
Oh. This. Got it.
Except...she didn’t.
Then he reached over to palm her jaw, making her breath catch and her heart trip an instant before he kissed her. Kissed her good. Oh, so good, his tongue teasing hers in a way that made everything snap into focus and melt at the same time—
Then he backed away, hand still on jaw, eyes still boring into hers. Tortured, what-the-heck-am-I-doing? eyes. “If things had gone like I planned, this would’ve been where I dropped you off, said something about, yeah, I had a nice time, too, I’ll call you, and driven away with no intention whatsoever of calling you.”
“With or without the kiss?”
“That kiss? Without.”
O-kaay. “Noted. Except...you wouldn’t do that.”
His brow knotted. “Do what?”
“Tell me you’ll call if you’re not going to. Because that is not how you roll, Patrick Shaughnessy.”
He let go to drop his head against the headrest, emitting a short, rough laugh. “You’re going to be the death of me.”
“Not intentionally,” she said, and he laughed again. But it was such a sad laugh, tears sprang to April’s eyes.
“No, tonight did not go as planned,” he said. “In any way, shape, form or fashion. But weirdly enough in some ways it went better.” Another humorless laugh. “Or would have, if you’d been a normal woman.”
“As in, whiny and pouty.”
“As in, not somebody who’d still be sitting here after what happened. Who would’ve been out of this truck before I’d even put it in Park. But here you are...” In the dim light, she saw his eyes glisten a moment before he turned, slamming his hand against the steering wheel.
“I don’t want this, April! Don’t want...you inside my head, seeing how messy it is in there! Don’t want...”
He stopped, breathing hard, and April could practically hear him think, Don’t want my heart broken again.
She turned, fidgeting with her purse strap, considering the wisdom of taking his words to heart. Of saying, “Okay, if that’s what you really want...” and getting out of the truck, walking back to that empty old house and never pestering the man again. That would be the smart thing, all right. And heaven knew it would be the easy thing.
But that didn’t mean it would be the right thing.
Especially when she remembered what his mother had said, about his needing comfort whether he thought he did or not. And also, it was about this little voice—heck, a big, booming voice—telling her they needed each other.
She took a deep, steadying breath and said, “So does this mean you’re going to call, or not?”
Silence. Then a groan. April looked over, right as he dragged his gaze to hers. “Does that mean the evening’s over?”
Her heart did a somersault. “Don’t you have
to get back to Lili?”
The corners of his mouth curved. A teensy bit. “Not until eleven.”
“Well, then,” April said, plopping her purse back down by her feet. “I don’t know about you, but I’d kill for a hamburger. And then, if it’s all the same to you? I wouldn’t mind a few more of those kisses.” She slid her eyes to his. “If you’re amenable, of course.”
After a moment, Patrick started to laugh. A big, full-bellied laugh the likes of which she’d never heard out of his mouth before.
“Oh, I’m amenable,” he said, finally, shifting back into Drive and pulling back onto the road, and she thought, Hang on tight, honey.
And she wasn’t talking about his driving skills.
Chapter Seven
Round Two, Patrick thought twenty minutes later, after they’d loaded up on burgers and fries and shakes at some fast food joint out on the highway and were headed back to her place, the truck’s cab filled with the scent of frying oil and April’s perfume. Apparently she really was starving, stuffing fries in her mouth at an alarming rate as she bopped along to something their parents might’ve listened to in 1974.
“There are other stations, you know.”
“No, I like this,” she said, scrunching down in her seat as much as the seat belt would let her and propping her feet—in little black flat shoes that were strangely sexy—on the dashboard. The snow was too half-assed to be of any real concern, the soft flakes lazily slithering down the windshield. “Makes me feel like a little kid again—oh, I love this part!”
Waving a fry for emphasis, she belted out the refrain. Yep, nuts, all right.
She held out the bag of fries, shaking it until he took one. Not that he was particularly hungry, his stomach still knotted from both the attack and that kiss.
Oh, man...that kiss. Talk about not making any sense. And he sure as hell hadn’t seen it coming, any more than April probably had. Hadn’t been any real thought behind it, just...instinct. And a purely selfish instinct, at that, some primal need to connect, to make everything stop spinning, to feel like a normal human being again.
A Gift for All Seasons Page 10