Page 41 of Clipped Wings

Arthur stood guard just outside the elevator, nodding once. “Miss Marshall.”

“Just Emma,” I corrected, noting his demeanor had brightened since I’d last seen him at the hospital. With his black hair and gray eyes, I wouldn’t have described Connor’s first lieutenant as bubbly, but he looked slightly less constipated than usual.

Turning, I was disheartened to see Faye striding in my direction. Her heels—does she ever wear anything else?—clacked against the marble as she came to a stop in front of me.

“I hear Jack’s back,” Faye said by way of greeting, her tone malicious. She looked behind me to emphasize the fact that he wasn’t by my side, altogether ignoring Arthur’s presence. “Where is he?”

“I’m not his keeper.”

She chuckled, stepping around me toward the elevator. “That’s what I thought.”

I spun, anger rising. I wasn’t jealous anymore. Jack had made it clear that their hookups had meant nothing to him. They were a long time ago—when he had been a kid and she’d taken advantage of him. It didn’t matter if he said it was consensual. He had been a drunk teenager and she’d been an adult. End of story.

“What the hell is your problem with me?” I fumed, causing Faye to stop with her back to me. “Connor is dead, your niece is grieving with a newborn yet you’re still throwing your drunken lay with Jack in my face every chance you get.”

Arthur lifted his heavy brow, eyes widening like he wanted to praise me, but he dropped his gaze once more.

Faye turned on her heel, wearing a surprised smile. “Jack mentioned something?”

“We’ve spoken about it, yes. It was a short conversation. Apparently, you didn’t leave a lasting impression.”

Her glossy mouth popped open and fire danced in her eyes. She looked as though she planned to say more, but she snapped her lips shut and left the foyer. Emma one, Faye zero, I thought as the elevator doors closed. Hopefully that would be the end of that.

“Excuse my outburst,” I apologized to a stoic Arthur.

His expression remained neutral, but his response almost sounded like a joke. “Don’t be. That was the most satisfying part of my week.”

My grin fell when I entered the living room.

Shannon stood by the sofa, holding a sleeping Charlotte in her arms. Shannon still looked ill with grief, but she’d been getting better day by day due to the bundle of love strapped to her chest. Now, she wore an expression of shock and regret, having obviously overheard my discussion with Faye.

“I’m so sorry, Em,” she whispered, soothing the sleeping Charlotte. Her little red curls shone bright, having doubled in thickness over the past week. “I had no idea about Faye and Jack.”

“It’s not a big deal.” I shrugged, leading her to the couch so she could sit. “Jack is over it and so am I.”

Shannon handed Charlotte to the live-in nanny—a quiet but tenacious Sweeney daughter—so she could sleep in the bassinet. When the baby was settled in the corner of the room, resting under the thrum of the busy city, Shannon turned to me and held my hand.

“Jack would’ve been just a teenager.” She looked horrified and disgusted. “I don’t know what the hell Faye was thinking. And she shouldn’t be mentioning this now. She’s clearly trying to hurt you.”

I pulled Shannon in for a hug, biting back an ugly retort. Faye was Shannon’s aunt. I didn’t want something so petty driving a wedge between us. And Shannon was still recovering from labor. As I held her, her T-shirt—wet with leaky breast milk—soaked mine.

“Don’t worry, Shan. You have enough on your plate. I can handle this.”

She fell backward onto the couch cushions, exhausted. Dark circles had taken up residence under her eyes and the whites of them were red. She’d been crying.

“What does ‘mo anam cara’ mean?” I blurted, remembering I hadn’t had a chance to Google it. I hoped Shannon would know. She didn’t speak the language, but she was Irish. “Jack told me it means ‘I love you,’ but I’m not sure if I believe him.”

“It means a little more than that.” She sniffled, a morbid smile lifting her ashen cheeks. “Irish folklore states that the soul exists just outside of the body, enveloping it. Kind of like an aura. Souls encounter one another throughout a lifetime, but when two souls are matched, they commingle. Mixing. Inseparable and forever changed. Your soul has met its permanent match. It literally means a friend of the soul, but the English translation is, more or less, ‘soulmate’.”

I recalled something Jack had told me last November.

“I want to make you as dirty as me. Ruthless, with twisted morals. I want to take your dark and my light, and mix it so there’s no beginning or end to us. We’d be forever entwined, shrouded in gray.”

Jack had explained what he thought would happen when our souls mixed, but that had been months ago. We’d already changed one another irrevocably. My world was so gray, I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face. There were so many twists and turns, I no longer knew which direction would lead to a happy ending.

I was stunned by Shannon’s description but saddened by the innate sorrow in her eyes, the bottomless pit of loss. Connor must’ve called her ‘anam cara,’ and that was why she knew the translation.

“I’m so sorry, Shan,” I whispered, my voice cracking. “I shouldn’t have asked.”

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