Patrick's Destiny Read Online Free Page A

“I might have known. There’s no need to break my door down, Patrick Devaney. My hearing’s still perfectly fine.”
    He winced at her censure. “Yes, ma’am.”
    “I imagine you’re here to tell me that it wasn’t Alice’s fault that Ricky Foster fell off your dock.”
    Patrick nodded.
    “Did you take him from his classroom to the waterfront?”
    Patrick barely resisted the desire to squirm as he had as a boy under that unflinching gaze. “No.”
    “Did you lose control of him?”
    “No.”
    “Then I don’t see how this is your fault,” she said. “You may go now.”
    Patrick started to leave, then realized what she hadn’t said. He turned back and peered at her. “You’re not firing Ms. Newberry, are you?”
    She frowned at the question. “Don’t be ridiculous. She’s a fine teacher. She just happened to make a bad decision today. Spring makes a lot of people do crazy things. We’ve addressed it. It won’t happen again.”
    Thank the Lord for that, Patrick thought. “Okay, then,” he said.
    He turned to leave, but Mrs. Dowd spoke his name sharply.
    “Yes, ma’am?” He noticed with some surprise that there was a twinkle in her eyes.
    “It was very gallant of you to roar in here in an attempt to protect Ms. Newberry. You’ve turned into a fine young man.”
    Warmth flooded through him at the undeserved compliment. “I imagine there are quite a few who’d argue that point,” he said, “but thanks for saying it, just the same.”
    “If you’re referring to your parents, I think you know better.”
    Patrick stiffened. “I don’t discuss my parents.”
    “Perhaps you should. Better yet, you should be talking to them. And to your brother.”
    “They’re in my past,” he told her, not the least bit surprised that she felt she had a right to meddle in his life but resentful of it just the same.
    “Not as long as there’s breath in any of you,” she told him, her tone surprisingly gentle. “One phone call would put an end to their heartache.” She leveled her gaze straight at him. “And to yours.”
    “My heart’s just fine, thanks all the same, and I didn’t come here to get a lecture from you,” he said. “I left grade school a long time ago.”
    “But you haven’t outgrown the need for a friendly nudge from someone older and wiser, have you?” she chided.
    It was the second time in less than an hour that someone in town had seen fit to pull rank on Patrick. It was Caleb’s push that had gotten him over here, and for what? He hadn’t done a thing to help Alice Newberry, and he’d gotten another lecture on his own life in the bargain.
    “Forgive me for saying this, Mrs. Dowd, but in this case you don’t know what you’re talking about.”
    “I know enough to recognize a miserable man when I see one standing in front of me,” she said. “You won’t be truly happy until you settle this.”
    “Maybe it can’t be settled and maybe I don’t care about being truly happy,” Patrick retorted. “Maybe all I care about is being left alone.”
    That said, he whirled around and left the school, regretting that he’d ever let Caleb talk him into coming over here in the first place. Some days a man would be smart to listen to his own counsel and no one else’s.
     
    Alice had never been so humiliated and embarrassed in her life. Of all the boneheaded things she could have done…not only had she lost control of her students and let one of them nearly drown, she had done it in front of Patrick Devaney.
    Everyone in Widow’s Cove knew that Patrick had turned into a virtual recluse. He lived on that fishing boat of his, ate his meals at Jess’s and, for all Alice knew, drank himself into oblivion there every night as well. What no one knew was why, not the details, anyway. There had been some sort of rift with his parents, that much was known. He’d left his home, about thirty miles away, and moved to Widow’s Cove. That thirty miles might as well have been thirty