at Daniel’s twin brother. Patrick had always respected that.
“Well, good for you. Maybe you are a saint, after all.”
“Not a saint,” he insisted. “I’m just trying to be an honorable man and not take advantage of the situation.”
“Oh, whatever,” she said. “From now on you’re not going to have to worry about taking advantage of the ‘situation,’ as you put it. I wouldn’t sleep with you if you were the last man on earth.”
He met her gaze. “Is that so?”
She swallowed hard but didn’t blink or look away. “Yes, that’s so.”
He nodded slowly. “Good. Then we have nothing to worry about.”
Except for the fact that right that second he wanted nothing more than to sweep her into his arms and make love to her for about forty-eight hours, nonstop.
Pride was the only thing that made Alice walk into Jess’s with Patrick by her side. It was also the only thing that had kept her from swinging her very hefty tote bag and smacking him upside the head when he got that smug expression on his face. It was going to be a long evening. She should have sacrificed the meat loaf and gone home to one of the frozen dinners she kept in the freezer for emergencies. Then again, that would have been admitting to Patrick that she couldn’t spend a few hours in his company without getting all hot and bothered.
The minute they entered the bar, Molly gave the two of them a thorough once-over, then nodded in satisfaction. “Pick a booth. I’ll bring you a couple of beers and the special in a sec,” she said as she took a tray of icy mugs of ale to a table of fishermen seated in the middle of the room. She deftly managed to set the drinks on the table, all the while avoiding a few friendly, roving hands.
Molly rarely lost her cool, Alice thought with admiration. She could keep an entire room filled with rowdy men under control with just one withering glance. Alice wondered if she ought to take lessons from her. Maybe if she perfected her own withering glance, Patrick would stop tormenting her with all this nonsense about friendship. The odds of them sharing a purely platonic friendship were somewhere between slim and none. In her experience, once chemistry had been unleashed, it was all but impossible to pretend it didn’t exist.
Still, since he’d insisted on the ground rules, she wasn’t about to suggest that she couldn’t follow them. She’d just have to train herself to pretend he was as attractive as sludge. Sooner or later, maybe she could make herself believe it.
Besides, Patrick was right about one thing: they hardly knew each other. She’d fallen for his heroics when he’d rescued Ricky, for the vulnerability she sensed in him and for the lost soul she imagined him to be. In truth, he seemed pretty darned determined not to be the least bit lost. In fact, he seemed pretty confident about himself and the decisions he’d made. Maybe if she got to know the real Patrick Devaney, she’d discover that without the imagined vulnerabilities, he didn’t appeal to her in the slightest.
She clung to the icy mug of beer Molly had brought to the table and peered at Patrick thoughtfully. “Why did you decide to become a fisherman?” she asked.
His gaze narrowed at the question, as if he suspected it were some sort of trap. “I like being on the water,” he said eventually. “It’s a challenge.”
Alice persisted. “Is it something you always wanted to do?”
He shook his head. “No. A long time ago I wanted to be a fireman, and then for a brief period I considered being an engineer on a train.”
“How old were you when you changed your mind?”
“Seven.”
A chuckle erupted before she could catch it. “What happened?”
“I caught my first big fish. I was standing on shore when it happened. My dad had to help me reel it in. It probably weighed no more than a pound, but I thought it was huge. My mom cooked it for dinner that night. It was the best fish I’ve ever had. After that, my dad started taking me out on his boat on Saturdays. He taught me everything he knew about commercial fishing.” His expression turned sad. “I always thought we’d go into business together once I grew up.”
Alice opened her mouth to tell him it wasn’t too late, then clamped it shut again. She’d promised not to go there. Besides, he was opening