Page 66 of Hot Irish Halloween

Her chin-length black coils bouncing with excitement, Jade waved at her when she finally shuffled through the exit doors after a short stint at baggage claim.

“I’m so glad you’re here,” Jade said, coming to give her a big, long squeeze. When she pulled back, her whiskey-brown eyes were twinkling but searching.

Penny took in her cousin with a sigh and smiled. “I missed you, Freckles.”

“Ugh, don’t start.” Jade unconsciously swiped her hand across the bridge of her snub nose where the dastardly tiny spots hadlaid their claim. They’d been the bane of her existence since forever.

But Penny loved those freckles as much as she loved the rest of Jade’s tall, super cute self. Wouldn’t want her to change a thing. But apparently, changes had been made. Her double cousin was a lot slimmer than the last time she’d seen her, back when Jade visited her in London.

“Where’d you go?” Penny asked, tweaking Jade’s snatched waist.

“Samba classes, baby. I have literally danced my ass off. Is this all you’ve got?” Jade pointed at her bag and her backpack.

“You know me. I travels light.” It was an old joke, but this time, she wasn’t quite feeling the humor.

Penny hadn’t packed all her belongings in her haste to leave Jack’s house. When things calmed down, she’d ask him to send them if he hadn’t tossed them in a dumpster first. If he was still alive and well enough to send them.

The guilt at that last thought was a weighted blanket on her shoulders. On her soul. She’d always thought of herself as a ride-or-die, the kind of woman who would stand by her man no matter what. But this…what Jack was going to subject himself to for some crazy sense of masculine pride? No. She wouldn’t — couldn’t watch him do that.

She explained as much to Jade when they were in the car on their way out of the airport, headed toward Jade’s studio apartment in Alphabet City on the Lower East Side. The place was tiny and cost a fortune compared to Dublin prices, which were already pretty high. But it was a refuge for Penny now, someplace to hide and lick her wounds.

Jade didn’t say much, just listened with sympathy painted on her beige-complected face. She got Penny installed on the futon and ordered them some Chinese food. They sat at her tiny bistrotable near the kitchen and ate. Penny was ravenous. She gulped down nearly half her food, barely chewing it.

“Alright,” Jade said when Penny had slowed down and was now sipping wonton broth. “Let me see if I understand. Jack is going to risk irreversible brain damage or death…because he’s jealous of Brendan?”

Penny sighed and shook her head. “You’ve got two strands of the story mixed up. He’s going to risk death because it’s some street justice thing. He has this old-fashioned sense of honor and feels like the guy crossed a line for him. But he is also jealous of Brendan and thinks I’m not over him. It was really crazy to hear him say that. Like, whose house am I living in? Whose baby am I having?”

She’d already told Jade about the pregnancy after the incident at the gym. She’d needed to be able to share some of the excitement about it with at least one person.

“I don’t know what to say,” Jade responded slowly. “I don’t know about the risking his life for honor stuff. But the Brendan thing…I mean, is he wrong? You haven’t truly moved on. You keep rebuilding the shrine everywhere you go.”

“Shrine? That’s a little over the top,” Penny retorted with a humorless grin. Her heart kicked up a notch like it always did when someone was about to say something out of pocket about Brendan. “I wouldn’t call having pictures of my husband in my house creating a shrine to him.”

In the waning afternoon sunlight, Jade’s smile was tilted and sad. “Not a shrine to him. To the life you lost. You’ve burned all your own dreams and replaced them with Brendan’s dreams. It’s just been one long sacrifice. I’m kinda glad someone else has finally said it because whenever any of us tried, your family, your friends, and people who love you…you run. Then nobody sees you for years.” As Penny absorbed that slowly, she got another knock to the chest when Jade said, softly, “I know you went totherapy when he died but…. maybe it’s time to consider going back. Something’s gotta change, Penny Pen. Or you’re going to miss out on being happy, not just with Jack, but ever.”

With a short laugh, Penny wiped her mouth and threw her napkin down in a little crumpled ball. “That was really wise coming from someone who’s been complaining about feeling stuck in her life for years and doesn’t do anything to change it. Maybeyouneed therapy.”

Jade made a face at her, pushing her dark curls out of her eyes. “Don’t lash out.” She got up to throw away the empty food cartons and store the remainders in her fridge. When she turned back to the table, she made a soft noise of alarm. Penny was crying.

“I’m sorry. I just don’t know what I’m gonna do, Jade. Not about the Brendan stuff. About Jack. If something happens to him, it’ll be because of me. I can’t — I don’t know how I’ll live with myself.”

She hid her face in her hands. Jade’s embrace and her soft cooing noises were soothing, but they weren’t enough. Penny knew who she longed to hold her, knew whose embrace she needed. It wouldn’t come. Not as long as Jack was willing to give up everything they had for his quest for vengeance and his pride.

And because of that pride, she knew he wouldn’t forgive her for leaving. She’d understood that the minute she set foot on the plane. There’d be no turning back for either of them.

“You will live. With that little creature in there,” Jade said softly, poking at her side.

Penny wasn’t really showing yet; it was still all her own round softness. But the reminder was relevant. There was no giving up when this baby would need her even more without Jack in the picture.

“In the meantime, you can stay here with me. Rest up and think things over when you’re in a better place. What do youneed right now? Like, money is no object. Okay, well, maybe it is an object. But what would make you happiest?” Jade asked.

Penny looked around at Jade’s neat but tiny place that was really meant for one. She closed her eyes, shutting out the afternoon noise filtering in through the window, and let images come to her. Smells, sensations. Warmth, comfort. The first thing that rose in her mind when the tangled, jumbled thoughts of Jack and pain and sorrow could subside... were trees. Tall and green, giving off the freshness of forest pine.

She knew where to find what she needed most right now.

“I think I need to go home.”

Days later, on a Saturday morning, Penny and Jade got into the car and took off for the trip to Owenville in the Finger Lakes, originally and still home to the Seneca people. The drive would take them over five hours, six max, if the weekend traffic heading upstate from the city was bad. It was. By the time they rolled into the sleepy township near Seneca Lake, the sun was about to go down in gorgeous pastel dreamscapes heading toward deep dark blue.

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