Page 71 of Hot Irish Halloween

She loved the familiarity of walking down Main and seeing all the old faces who were happy to see her in return. Loved having lunch at Chick’s Diner and stopping to admire how pretty the shops were with fairy lights strung up under the eaves sheltering the boardwalk. The little library, the two-theater cinema, Miss Loretta’s house where she first sawed at the strings of a violin.All of it was like a precious snow globe, containing a microcosm of all the things she’d missed about home.

Hell was waking up in her old bed with just her own body heat to warm up her quilt — no heat-giving giant to cuddle into. No being kissed awake gently by that mouth. No mornings being woken up by something else, her leg hooked by his arm and his cock already gliding in as she moaned. Going back to rubbing on herself wasn’t ever going to be nearly as satisfying again compared to that.

That was just the physical longing. She envisioned him in all these places, imagined this town embracing him and holding space for him. Jack would fit in here. She imagined him looking comfortable and particularly hot, wearing a plaid shirt and driving a pickup with big tires and a cord of wood in the back that he’d cut himself. He’d come home after a day outdoors, smelling even stronger of evergreen, and they’d cook and read and hang out with their baby, chase after their toddler, and teach their teenager to be a decent human being. To be a good person, like Jack.

But it wasn’t to be. A future with him was lost and he was the one who’d shut the door on it.

She didn’t want to tell her parents what had caused her to show up here out of the blue without him. Steeling herself, she knew she had to tell them the news about the baby, at least. Relief flooded her at their joy when she told them over dinner at the close of her third week back. It was genuine, and for the first time in a while, she felt good again, at least about that.

“You should move back in with us,” Erica said at breakfast one morning. By then, Penny had been there nearly a month and still had no idea what she was doing next. “We can update your room and make that guest room a nursery. Nobody comes here to spend the night anyway.”

“I’ll have to think about it,” Penny answered hesitantly.

“You’re going to need help when that baby arrives. Might as well make it easier on all of us,” Erica said, palms raised.

“Maybe for the first few months, okay.” But even that was dubious. “Thank you for the offer. I, um, want some time to really think about what I’m doing.”

“You can’t be thinking of leaving again to go off on your own,” Russell said, coming into the sunshine-yellow kitchen. He poured himself some coffee and spooned in sugar from the bowl, bearing a picture of a blue pickup truck.

Penny tried hard not to roll her eyes at his remark. Even at her big age, being disrespectful didn’t fly in this house.

“I’ve done okay out there,” she said, smiling at him instead while he took his seat in his favorite chair. He had a long day of work ahead of him and eased into his chair with a small sigh.

Penny’s eyes ran over him, noting the minor changes in her father since the last time she’d seen him. He was thicker in the belly and that much grayer. He’d always been her rock. She remembered being a little girl and looking up to him. He was so tall and vital. It was easy for him to pick her up and prop her on his strong shoulders. Being with her dad had always felt like she was in the presence of a Black superhero. A champion for justice in the courtroom and out. A man of honor.

It struck her how much Jack truly was like him, not physically, of course, and not in his mannerisms. But that code of honor, that sense of right and wrong…yes, in that way, they were very much alike.

“Kids need stability. From now on, it’s got to be what’s best for my grandbaby. It’s not about you anymore. Mm-hm.”

He saluted her with his coffee and then took a swallow. He wiped the drop that had spilled in his gray beard with a napkin and neatened his mustache in an unconscious gesture. After a bite of his waffle, he glanced at Penny.

“You know Ma Mabel’s house hasn’t been sold yet. If you want, I can get everybody together and ask them if you could have it. Or if they’d sell their share of it, at least. I’d help with the lump sum if you needed me to.”

Ma Mabel was her late great-grandmother, who’d passed at a fabulously healthy and lucid one hundred years old two summers ago. She’d been a Gentry, who’d inherited the huge old Victorian in the District from that line before she married into the Mayfield family. Ma had willed the house to her sons equally. None of the Mayfields wanted to occupy it but they were loathe to sell it to one of the wealthy newcomers rolling into town from New York City who were slowly but surely taking over the best properties.

“Ma Mabel’s house? But that place is falling to pieces,” Penny answered slowly.

“That’s what renovations are for, Penelope,” Erica chimed in with an upraised palm. “It’s got beautiful bones. You know Sierra, who owns that design shop on Main. She’s renovating the Hart House on Wisteria right now. The exterior already looks gorgeous.”

Pushing out her bottom lip in thought, Penny considered it. “I always did love going to Ma Mabel’s house. Us cousins had the best time tearing in and out of there. Can we go over sometime this weekend and have a look around?”

“Of course,” Russell said with a wink at Erica.

After her father left for the courthouse and her mother left for her church volunteer meeting, Penny was alone with her thoughts and the downstairs TV. The latter was appealing since there was no television in her childhood bedroom, thanks to Erica’s fears she’d be somehow accessing “inappropriate shows” even without movie channels. Just for that, she decided to watch a super sexy movie right there on the couch, but when it came to the first love scene, it made her uncomfortably horny andrestless, and suddenly thinking about Jack’s mouth, his hands, and how he tasted when he —

Okay, enough of that. Back to the other uncomfortable topic. Was she really considering moving back to Owenville? After years of vowing she’d never live here again?

Everywhere she looked in this town, a shadow of Brendan stood waiting for her. All this time, she’d believed it was her very enmeshed family and their strict, proper ways that had stifled her, but now she saw it wasn’t about them at all. It was Brendan in every corner and every crevice. Restless. Plaintive. Asking her to give and give and keep giving to their memory. His legacy. Demanding that she pay for the life that had been taken from him with her own.

Could she do it? Stay here? Forget about Brendan and Jack and focus on building a brand new life for her and her baby? Maybe she could. They’d be welcomed, absorbed into the rhythm and lifeblood of this town, into the family and community already built for them.

If only there wasn’t another place calling out to her that already felt like home.

Saturday was overcast. Penny’s back twinged when she crawled out of bed after the knock on her bedroom door. Back twinged, knees creaked a bit, and the baby was pressing on her bladder. Geriatric moms for the win.

“Let’s go, Penny,” her father called cheerfully from the other side. “Got the keys, let’s go, let’s go.”

After getting showered and dressed with the speed of a turtle, Penny went downstairs to have breakfast while her father was watching TV in the living room. The sounds of grunts and thumps and screaming drifted into the kitchen. Penny finishedher oatmeal with its healthy sprinkling of almonds and dried fruit, then her decaf coffee. Blearily she contemplated the coffee, longing for the day when she could go back to her daily caffeine benders. She’d read that wouldn’t happen till after she was done breastfeeding.

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