Page 7 of Hot Irish Halloween

“Do me a favor. Slap me,” he told Charlie, who shrugged and gave him a solid whack across the cheek.

Looking down at the app, he smiled. Rosie345 was still there.

When Jack woke the next morning, he was sure once again that the conversation with Rosie345 had been a dream. There was just no way. But he checked his phone, and yeah, still there.

He kept checking the phone several times over the course of the morning as he got dressed for the meet up to make sure she wasn’t cancelling on him. All the while, he was working hard to keep his expectations in check in case he was mistaken, and Rosie345 was not who he hoped she was.

During his first arduous months of recovery after the coma, he’d had plenty of time on his hands. Time enough to split between physical therapy and making Penny his research project, courtesy of the world wide web.

Penelope Rose Mayfield was her full name. She’d been born and raised in Owenville, New York by her parents Judge Russell Mayfield and Erica Mayfield. Small town girl from a good family.

Young Penny was a musical prodigy who played a variety of stringed instruments. Attended Julliard to study classical violin. At twenty-five, she’d married her childhood sweetheart Brendan Shaughnessy, who was also her partner in music. The duo performed with two other artists in their band Thorny Rose.

Jack should have stopped caring when he realized what he’d witnessed in that American Roots video wasn’t just two performers at the top of their game. It was a husband staring at his wife with pure adoration written all over his face. It made Jack feel fucking guilty, lusting for her.

After the realization that she was married, Jack stopped researching further. He didn’t want to know about their lives together, didn’t want to see birth announcements of the children they might have had. But he’d still bought their four albums and played them on rotation maybe a thousand times, making his physical therapist so sick of “that hillbilly music” she’d begged Jack to play something else during their many sessions.

He’d downloaded her old photos — the ones without Brendan in them. The oneswithBrendan? The jealousy that rose in him whenever he looked at the blond man was too ugly, so hecropped him out, feeling like an evil, pathetic bastard every time. He kept all the photos on his phone in a buried folder.

Was this fantasy relationship easier to handle than the real thing? Possibly.

Was it weird that he jerked off to those pictures? Perhaps.

Was it obsessive?

He didn’t want to answer that.

That American Roots public access TV performance had been a few years old by the time he’d seen it from his hospital bed. She’d been much younger, much thinner, like a reed. In this new photo, her dark chestnut features were still glowing and smooth. She had the same pretty velvet brown eyes, the same straight bridge, and delicate round nose. Her lips were full and perfect. It was her body that had undergone the most change. It had thickened all over in ways that made her even sexier. An infinitely intriguing and oh so much sexier woman.

But if thiswasher, after all, on a dating app, that meant she was somehow single. And the possibilities of what that could lead to were making his head swim.

“It can’t be her. Why would she be on an app looking for a date?” he mused aloud, still unable to believe this could be real.

He resisted the immediate impulse to go online and find out if she and Brendan were divorced. If she was still married and out looking to cheat, it was against his personal code of conduct to fuck around with other men’s wives or even girlfriends. But would he make an exception to that rule for Penny Mayfield?

Yes. Fuck yes. To hell with honor or his soul if it meant even an hour sitting with her over coffee.

Jack showered, shaved, and threw on a sweater, jeans, and a pair of fresh black runners he so happened to be endorsing.

“In ya go, muppet,” he told Trixie and got her into her crate. She yapped and howled at him. “Stop. You’ll live.” But it madehim feel a little badly just the same. As he left the house and locked the door, he muttered, “Deirdre better come back soon.”

He drove to the city center, pulled up, and found a spot at the appointed place right at the appointed time. Across the street was the statue of Mollie Malone, the infamous Tart with the Cart, the likeness of an 18th-century cailín who’d sold fish during the day out of a cart and was rumored to sell other more personal wares at night. Everyone who came to Dublin visited her at least once during their stay. If Rosie345 was, in fact, not his Penny, she could be a born-and-bred Dub like him. Either way, he figured she’d know where to go.

Clusters of people were gathered around the statue, taking selfies or group photos and grinning. He scanned them as he got out of the car and locked it with his key fob. As he crossed the street, he noticed one woman standing off to the side, facing the small crowd. He saw a flash of her profile. Dark brown skin, that same big halo of hair. It had to be her.

In the photo, she’d been wearing a summery dress that was blowing in the wind. Today she wore a brown jacket that pulled tight over generous breasts and blue jeans. Those jeans,goddamnthem, showcased wide, luscious hips, long legs with thick thighs that could keep a man wrapped up warm and happy, and a round ass that literally stopped him in his tracks.

A horn blared. “What are ya doing, eejit? Get yer Jolly Green Giant arse out of the feckin’ road!” someone shouted at him, startling him out of the sudden high-heat fantasy of gripping those hips while he poured every last drop of himself inside her. Planted his seed in her. He could practically feel the warmth of her skin, taste it.

Jack hurried across and onto the sidewalk, unsure if it was to save his own arse from getting run over or to reach her faster. She’d turned at the disturbance of the horn and the cussing. Recognized him, but instead of her smile growing bigger, a smallfrown of confusion pulled down her shapely lips, painted with a dark cherry color that he immediately wanted to kiss and lick off.

Looking around, the wrinkle of confusion deepened between her eyebrows until her gaze settled on him again. Jack halted just sort of touching distance, tongue-tied, his whole body on fire.

“JCarr? What — what areyoudoing here?” she asked, and when he heard her voice, his whole world shifted.

It was definitely her. No doubt about it now. It was Penny Mayfield. The nightingale who’d lured him out of two months of darkness with her voice. The one who’d thrown him a lifeline back to the world with a song. The angel.

Hisangel.

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