Page 88 of Hot Irish Halloween

After the fight, he’d been rushed to the hospital in a medical van that Simon had prepped and ready. A second van had taken La Roque. Jack’s lung had been punctured by a fractured rib. He’d had a fast surgery to patch up his insides and was out of the hospital in under two weeks. It was nothing at all like the aftermath of the Vegas fight. His head was fine. After a few weeks of rest, along with plenty of babying from her and Dierdre, he was back on his feet.

At home, he’d told her La Roque had come into his hospital room, and they’d had a talk about their “past.” Since La Roque had gotten the fight he wanted, regardless of the outcome, it was all squashed. She, in turn, told Jack what La Roque had said to her at ringside.

“He apologized. For all the things he said about me in public and for the tumble.” Penny waited for Jack’s reaction, but he’d only lifted his eyebrows. “If you’d known he’d apologized, would you have called off the fight?”

Jack had said, “I would not.”

La Roque had been super quiet after that, which did make Penny nervous. But a week ago, he’d popped up on SportZone for an interview with Atlas Walters, looking grungy as ever but a touch more pleasant in his arrogance than abrasive. He was looking for a new trainer and new management. He was there to call out McCready, the current reigning heavyweight champ.

“Good luck to him,” Jack had said, raising his glass to the TV. “That McCready is one fucking tough ginger.”

Now she waited for Bran to start theseisiúnwith the first notes from his fiddle. He drew the bow sharp and sweet, and then slowly, the others joined in, catching the drift of his melody and harmonizing with their instruments. It was a fast tempo and Penny let go of thought to join in, finding the rhythm and diving in.

While she played, fingers dancing along the strings, she tapped her foot to keep time and let her eyes wander. She took all of it in; the patrons eating and drinking, some of them clapping. The vibrations reached her through the floor when some of them stomped their feet. The old woman in black in the back corner of the pub lifted her glass to her lips and winked at Penny over the rim.

Well played. The voice echoed in her head.

Penny looked over at Jack, wondering if he saw the old woman. She’d asked him about the woman once when they’d lain outside in the back of their truck in Owenville on a hot summer’s night and looked up at the stars like scattered fireflies. He hadn’t known who she was referring to.

She saw a therapist once a week, a no-nonsense lady whom she saw to deal with the generalized anxiety muppet that still popped up from time to time. The counselor had asked if the woman in green and black was another aspect of her imagination, the part of her that had been trying to tell her she was finally ready for love.

“Maybe,” Penny had allowed.

But she also agreed with Jack, that there were no coincidences, that they’d been drawn together, drawn to loving each other, by something ancient and stronger than them both.

Jack still didn’t seem to notice the woman. He was busy clapping to her music with Finn’s tiny hands between his own. His gaze was on her, and it beamed with pride.

After theseisiúnwas over, they walked Dierdre, Bran, and Charlie out.

“Dinner at our house on Sunday?” Dierdre asked, kissing Finn on the cheek. From his perch on Jack’s arm, Finn smiled big at her with all four of his teeth. “You precious thing. Sure I can’t keep him?”

“Get your own babe,” Jack told her, feigning a scowl.

“I had my own babe.” Dierdre reached up to pat him softly on the cheek while he turned red with embarrassment. “See youse Sunday.”

“Awww,” Penny crooned after they continued on their own down the street. “Your mommy wuvs you!”

“Stop,” Jack mumbled with a wince.

“She’s not the only one. Although I don’t love you likethat.” Penny reached up to kiss him with a soft smacking sound, and he kissed her back.

“I like how you love me. I like it a lot.” The warmth in his eyes, beautiful brownish-green in that awesome afternoon sunshine, stirred up those butterflies again.

When he said it, he picked at something on the lapel of her shirt. “What?” she asked.

“Just a piece of fluff.” He flicked it, and the fluff danced away, snatched by a breeze.

“I like how you love me, too.”

They were on the same block as the café that Penny frequented. She hadn’t been in there all that often since Finn was born. She missed that, being able to come in and have her coffee and people-watch all afternoon. But here on the other side of that window glass, it wasn’t so bad.

A woman was sitting in her old spot. Late thirties, dark-skinned, and pretty with a head full of gorgeous locs. She was sipping from her cup and staring wistfully out the window. The woman’s eyes moved and fixed on her, Jack, and Finn, still with a glimmer of longing. Realizing she’d been caught staring, she looked slightly embarrassed until Penny nodded at her with a grin. The woman nodded back with a slight raise of her cup.

Nope. It wasn’t bad at all on this side of the glass.

Later that night, after dinner, bathtime, and pleading with Finn to go to sleep, Jack stretched out on the couch beside her with a worn sigh.

“That little chiseler…why does he fight sleep? I don’t understand. When you’re tired, you sleep,” Jack complained.

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