Patrick's Destiny by Sherryl Woods Read Free Book Online

with a tub of margarine.
    Over the past few years of self-imposed isolation, Patrick had lost his knack for polite chitchat, but he quickly discovered that tonight it didn’t matter. Alice was a grand master. From the moment he sat downopposite her, his presence at the table seemed to loosen her tongue. Maybe it came from spending all day talking to a bunch of rowdy five-year-olds, trying desperately to hold their attention. She regaled Patrick with stories that kept him chuckling and filled the silence better than the TV he usually kept on as background noise. In his day, Ricky Foster would obviously have been labeled a teacher’s pet, because his name popped up in the conversation time and again. Alice clearly had a soft spot for the boy.
    “Then today wasn’t Ricky’s first act of rebellion?” he asked when she’d described another occasion on which the boy had gotten the better of her.
    “Heavens, no. I’m telling you that boy will be president someday.” She shrugged. “Or possibly a convicted felon. It depends on which way his talents for leadership and conning people take him.”
    “His daddy always lacked the ambition for either one,” Patrick said. “I suppose in retrospect a case could be made that Matt had attention-deficit disorder. He couldn’t sit still to save his soul. Maybe that’s Ricky’s problem, too.”
    Alice regarded him with surprise. “You know about ADHD?”
    Patrick leaned closer, then lowered his voice to a whisper. “Why? Is it a secret?”
    She blushed prettily. “No, it is not a secret. I just didn’t expect…” Obvious embarrassment turned her cheeks a deeper shade of pink as her words trailed off in midsentence.
    “Didn’t expect a fisherman to know anything about it?” he asked, trying not to be offended.
    “I’m sorry. That was stupid of me.”
    “Making assumptions about people is usually thefirst step toward getting it totally wrong,” he replied. Then, because he couldn’t resist teasing her, he added, “For instance, right now I am trying really, really hard not to assume that you’re here because you want to seduce me.”
    The color staining her cheeks turned a fiery red. “I see your point. And in case there’s any doubt, you would definitely be mistaken about my intentions.”
    Something about the hitch in her voice told him he wasn’t nearly as far off the mark as she wanted him to believe. “Is that so?” he asked, tucking a finger under her chin and forcing her gaze to meet his.
    “I came to thank you for saving Ricky,” she insisted. She swallowed hard as he traced the outline of her jaw. “And for going to see Mrs. Dowd.”
    “I’m sure you believe that,” he agreed, noting the jump in the pulse at the base of her throat when he ran his thumb lightly across her lower lip.
    “Because it’s true,” she said.
    Patrick deliberately lowered his hand and sat back, noting the sudden confusion in her eyes. He shrugged. “Sorry, then. My mistake.”
    Confusion gave way to another one of those quick flashes of anger that had stirred him earlier in the day.
    “That sort of teasing is totally inappropriate, Mr. Devaney,” she said in a tone she probably used when correcting a rambunctious five-year-old.
    Patrick imagined it had the same effect on Ricky Foster that it had on him. It made him want to test her.
    He stood up, picked up his empty soup bowl, then reached for hers. He clasped one hand on her shoulder as he leaned in close, let his breath fan against her cheek, then touched her delicate earlobe with the tip of his tongue. She jumped as if she’d been burned.
    “Mr. Devaney!”
    Patrick laughed at the breathless protest. “Sorry,” he apologized, perfectly aware that he didn’t sound particularly repentant. Probably because he wasn’t.
    She frowned at him. “No, you’re not. You’re not the least bit sorry.”
    “Maybe a little,” he insisted, then ruined it by adding, “But only because I didn’t go for a kiss. Something